Newport doesn’t attract the best players in the world.  At times, Fabrice Santoro who never got his ranking higher than about 20 and most of the time had his ranking around 40, was sometimes a top seed.  The top 8 seeds at Newport are barely contained in the top 100.  Having Sam Querrey, now number 19 in the world, in the draw as top seed is quite a bonus for Newport.

But, Newport has an unusual history.  The top seed has never won at Newport.  Much of this, it seems, is due to a lack of top talent.  Once you are out of the top 20, the players are somewhat closer to each other in skill and talent, and on any given day, a player can get upset.

Last year, Sam Querrey was third seed and Mardy Fish was top seed.  Fish withdrew because of Davis Cup.  Querrey made the finals but lost to Rajeev Ram.

This year, Querrey as top seed lost to Dustin Brown of Jamaica.  Who is this Dustin Brown, you might ask?  Is the new Nadal?  Will we be hearing more about him?  Not exactly.  Although Brown represents Jamaica, he was born in Germany.  He plays primarily in the Challengers and usually in Jamaica or Germany.  Brown is 25 years old but has been playing since 2002.  He’s 6’5″, so he’s comparable in height to Querrey.

Brown lost to Melzer in the first round of Wimbledon, but took a set off Melzer.  He made the second round at Queen’s beating Frank Dancevic, a Canadian who plays well on grass, in the first round and losing to Denis Istomin in the second round.

Brown’s serve pretty much kept Querrey off-balance winning 33 of 34 points on first serve.  Querrey lost 6-4, 6-3.

As it turns out, Rajeev Ram, who won the tournament last year, also lost to someone named Raven Klaasen of South Africa.  Score was 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (7-3).

Indeed, out of the top 8 seeds, 6 are already out, including Querrey and Ram.  Only Olivier Rochus (4th seed) and Mardy Fish (5th seed) are still in the tournament.  Fish beat Somdev Devvarman easily.

Dancevic, who Brown beat at Queen’s, beat Nicolas Mahut in the second round.  Dancevic will play Mardy Fish in the 3rd round.  Ryan Harrison faced American wildcard, Denis Kudla, in the second round and won a close 7-5, 7-6(5) match.  Indeed, both are wildcards.  Harrison will play Richard Bloomfield of the UK, a qualifier, in the quarterfinals.

Rochus plays Klaasen in another quarterfinal and Dabul plays Dustin Brown in the final quarterfinal.