2005 was a key year for Americans and it culminated in the US Open run of Andre Agassi, the last hurrah of America’s last great champion.  This event felt like a passing of the baton.  Agassi beat young James Blake in 5 sets in the quarters of the US Open and beat Robby Ginepri in the semis (also in 5 sets).  A year later, Agassi would be saying his farewell to professional tennis.

Some must have felt that Blake and Ginepri would be that next generation of Americans that would, in addition to Roddick, keep up the tradition of winning, maybe not to the level of the greatest generation of Americans (in the 1990s of which Agassi was a part), but somewhat close.  Blake played well for a few years but has seen his ranking plummet and been out of the game due to injuries.  He’s recently seen a small resurgence in 2013.

Ginepri’s fall was even more precipitous.  2005 really was his best year by far, and he’s never come close to matching it.  Indeed, his rank has dropped so much that these days, he’s playing futures.  Fans of Agassi recall that, during his darkest moments, he had to play Challengers.  To put this in perspective, many pros ranked 50 and below routinely play Challengers, the rung just beneath the ATP tour, but the Future’s are even below that.  Technically, these events are for an up-and-comers, juniors trying to get their game up, but in reality, anyone who is not good enough to play at the top rung is going to be laboring at the Futures level.

Houston is the sole American clay court tournament.  Once upon a time, when American tennis decided to move many events to clay (in the 1970s) including the US Open for two years, the US was awash in clay events.  After Wimbledon, there was a series of clay events that players like McEnroe and Connors routinely skipped, but South Americans and Jimmy Arias and Aaron Krickstein would play.  When tournament organizers finally woke up and realized that most Americans fared better on faster surfaces (in the mid 1980s), all of these events were changed to hard courts.  The Houston event was itself not originally in Houston, having moved around over the years before settling in Texas around 2000.

Because of this, it’s one of the few clay events Americans turn out for.  Indeed, James Blake was in this event, but lost to Gael Monfils who is, as usual, coming off of injury.

In the quarterfinals, top seed Nicolas Almagro beat Potito Starace, 64 64.  Rhyne Williams (pictured above), an American wildcard who played for Tennessee in college tennis, has made a deep run and beat Ramirez Hidalgo, 76 16 64, clearly his best performance in an ATP tour event ever.

John Isner played Richard Berankis.  Berankis has played solid, but Isner was able to make key breaks and hold his own serve, avoiding a tiebreak.  He won 63 36 63.  Oddly enough, Berankis does not like the clay and had not won matches on clay until this event.

Finally, Ginepri was crushed by Juan Monaco, defending champ, 61 60.  Monaco had played pretty poorly all year though he won a key match in Davis Cup by upsetting Gilles Simon.   Remember those tournaments that Nadal played in South America?  Monaco played many of those events and had gone winless.  Indeed, he had performed better in doubles where he and Rafa reached the finals of the Chile event.

The semis will pit Juan Monaco against John Isner (who played in last year’s finals) and Rhyne Williams against Nicolas Almagro.  It’s interesting that Almagro has decided to play in the US instead of Europe where there’s an event in Casablanca.