The US Open Series starts next week. This series was meant to bring increased focus to the hardcourt tournaments in the US leading to the US Open. The series consists of both men and women’s events.

On the men’s side, there are the following tournaments: Indianapolis (Simon), Los Angeles (del Potro), Washington DC (del Potro), Montreal (Nadal), Cincinnati (Murray), New Haven (Cilic), US Open (Federer).

Last year, the US Open series fields were partly decimated by the Olympics. Indeed, tennis was considered so important that the Olympics, held in China, changed its start to a week earlier because of its proximity to the US Open. It worked out well because the start of the Olympics fell on August 8, 2008 or 08.08.08, which the Chinese considered auspicious (i.e., brings good luck).

Andy Roddick is one of the few players that plays the majority of the US Open series (he’s seen in this picture that he uploaded to TwitPic). In particular, he chose not to attend the Olympics, and attended Los Angeles and Washington DC. The other beneficiary of everyone being at the Olympics was Juan Martin del Potro, who won both these tournaments, beating Roddick in LA. Indeed, Roddick finished the US Open Series more desperate than before. He had been coached by his older brother John, and it wasn’t leading anywhere. He asked Davis Cup captain, Patrick McEnroe to coach him, and did respectably well at the US Open, losing to Novak Djokovic in four sets in the quarterfinals.

The US Open Series has a point system where players accumulate points based on their results. Points winners earn a bonus pool at the end of the series.

Most of the very top pros, e.g., Federer, Nadal, Murray choose to play only in the Masters 1000 level tournaments, which are Montreal and Cincinnati. Montreal, which is formally called the Rogers Cup, used to be called the Canadian Open. Due to the French and English parts of Canada often at odds with one another, the site of the tournament alternates each year. Last year, it was in Toronto. This year, in Montreal. Cincinnati, more formally called Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, used to be called the ATP Championships.

Next week is the Indy Championships. The following is a list of accepted players:

Baghdatis, Marcos CYP
Kim, Kevin USA ,
Becker, Benjamin GER
Kunitsyn, Igor RUS ,
Berrer, Michael GER
Lu, Yen-Hsun TPE,
Clement, Arnaud FRA
Mayer, Leonardo ARG,
Dabul, Brian ARG
Muller, Gilles LUX,
Daniel, Marcos BRA,
Querrey, Sam USA
Ferrero, Juan Carlos ESP,
Reynolds, Bobby USA,
Gicquel, Marc FRA ,
Roddick, Andy USA,
Gulbis, Ernests LAT ,
Sela, Dudi ISR ,
Isner, John USA,
Spadea, Vincent USA ,
Istomin, Denis UZB,
Tursunov, Dmitry RUS
Karlovic, Ivo CRO.

Robby Ginepri was given a wildcard. It does not appear like Gilles Simon will defend his title here. Andy Roddick is the only player in the top 20 in the field so far. Tursunov, ranked 23, is the second highest ranked player in this field.