Unless you happen to live in the West Coast of the US, you are likely in the middle of an American heat wave (apologies to non-Americans reading this).  Temperatures are topping 100 (high 30s in C) in many locations.  And in the middle of this heat wave, Atlanta is running a tournament.

This is the third year that Atlanta has hosted a tournament.  It is the first leg in the US Open Series for the ATP Tour.  It replaced Indianapolis in that part of the tour.  This year, the tournament is a touch weaker than usual.  In particular, Andy Roddick is not playing, although Mardy Fish, the number one ranked American is playing.  Hamburg is the other tournament, and it’s much cooler in Hamburg with audience members wearing jackets.

But back to Atlanta.

The quarterfinals were/are played today.  In the early match, John Isner had a very comfortable win over Yen-Hsun Lu.  This was followed by Kevin Anderson of South Africa losing in two tiebreaks to Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.  The early evening match was Mardy Fish taking on Somdev Devvarman.  Fish and Devvarman played close with Fish having chances to break.  He eventually did break to take the first set, 6-4.  He ran away with the second set until 5-0.  Devvarman held after a long game.  With rain approaching, Fish rushed his service game and lost his serve.

There was a tiny delay.  Devvarman held his serve.  With Fish trying to serve out the match, Fish hit a not very good drop shot.  Devvarman rushed to get it when Lahyani (the umpire who called Isner-Mahut at Wimbledon) called “not up”.  Replays showed that Devvarman got to the ball in one bounce.  However, Fish would have likely won that point.  It wouldn’t have been an easy shot, but Devvarman hadn’t hit a good enough response.  Fish then played two good points with Devvarman netting match point.

Currently, Rajeev Ram who won Newport two years ago is playing Ryan Harrison to get the last semifinals.

In Hamburg, once a Masters 1000 tournament that was demoted in exchange for Madrid being converted from an indoors tournament to a clay event, the bigger named players were playing.

Gilles Simon and Gael Monfils are good friends who have practiced a lot.  Because of this, they know they can push the ball to each other and annoy each other this way.  The early points featured long rallies as both players were pushing.  Simon eventually took the first set, and the Monfils returned the favor in the second.  Simon, however, took the third set at love and is in the semis.

Marin Cilic looked like he might be able to beat Mikhail Youzhny.  He was up 6-4 in a tiebreak in the third set with at least one point on his own serve.  But Youzhny held his serve at 6-5, then took the next point at 6-all.  On match point, Youzhny got a lucky net cord and won the tiebreak, 8 points to 6 as Cilic, who has not played well in quite sometime, lost his chance at getting to a semifinals.

Nicolas Almagro knocked out the remaining German, Florian Mayer, in two tiebreaks.  Mayer is the highest ranked player not to have won a singles title.  He is currently ranked 20 in the world.

Finally, Verdasco needed three sets to beat Jurgen Melzer.  The semifinals in Hamburg will be Almagro vs. Verdasco (they met in the 2010 French Open) and Simon vs Youzhny.  Youzhny has a huge head-t0-head advantage over Simon.

In Atlanta, the winner of Ram-Harrison will play Mardy Fish.  Gilles Muller will take on John Isner.