Sam Querrey is tennis’s marathon man.  He’s the only player that has played the entire US Open Series.  Indeed, he’s played every week since Wimbledon ended, including a grass event at Newport.  He’s played a lot of tennis.

Querrey won Los Angeles, then played two matches in DC, losing to eventual finalist, Andy Roddick.  In Montreal, Querrey had his earliest loss in the series, losing to Petzchner.  It was a respectable loss given Petzchner’s ranking of 45.  Even so, this early loss meant he had quite a few days of rest leading up to Cincinnati where he beat Roddick before losing to Hewitt.

Right now, Querrey is in the semifinal, having beaten another top ten player, Nikolay Davydenko in the quarterfinals, his second top ten win (the other being Andy Roddick).  Historically, players playing the week before a major would sometimes strategically lose.

The reason?  Although players were fit, they were not as fit as today’s players.  They used the extra time to head to the tournament site and begin preparations without being rushed.

For a player like Andreev or Acasuso, two of the semifinalists in New Haven, planning a strategic loss may not be that important.  Winning a smaller event is more important to them because at a certain level, it’s hard to win titles.  Tim Henman, for all his skill, only won 11 ATP titles.

For a player like Verdasco, he may really want to win this tournament too, considering how few matches he’s played.  It would be nice to go into the US Open on a streak.  Prior to New Haven, he played four matches, and pretty much only Davis Cup and a clay court event prior to the hard court season.

Querrey, on the other hand, has played a lot.  He faces Jose Acasuso in one semifinals.  Verdasco plays Andreev in the other semifinal.  Although the US Open should make accomodations to these players (pushing their start til mid-week), the question is whether Querrey should try to win New Haven or not.  Given that Querrey is expected, by seeding, to make it to the third round (3 matches), it might be fine for him to try to win the tournament.  His biggest obstables would be Soderling and Davydenko.

The Williams sisters used to get injured a fair bit.  It seems their strategy, as of late, is to play only a few rounds, lose early, and spend their effort playing the Slams.  As much as Serena is clamoring for the #1 ranking, she has won only 2 tournaments this year: the Australian Open and Wimbledon.  Of course, if you’re only going to win 2, those are good choices.  These losses are seen as either strategic or even a matter of not caring.  The Williams sisters prefer to say that they aren’t so motivated to win rather than they are purposely losing to avoid injury.

Still, Querrey has a decent shot at making the quarterfinals.  It’s not easy by any means, but he hasn’t had the misfortune of having Federer or Nadal sooner than the quarterfinals.

What would you do?