For the second tournament of the summer, we had an incredibly surprising result. Robby Ginepri comes into the Indianapolis event with a 4-13 record on the year. He hadn’t been to a final since the 2005 Indianapolis tournament. And just like in 2005 Robby came into Indy with a really poor record, but that sprung him to a great rest of the summer capped off by a semis at the US Open.

In the semis Robby rolled a very tired John Isner, and in the final, for the second consecutive tournament, Sam Querrey loses in the final.

This time Sam’s normally very reliable serve did him in, with 9 double faults, as Robby easily took him out 6-2, 6-4. It has gotta sting Sam a little bit losing back to back weeks in the final where he was the favorite.

I felt really sorry for Indy as the crowds seemed to be way down this year. And it probably didn’t help that Andy Roddick pulled out with a hip flexor injury and that the tournament was scheduled against the NASCAR event at the Indy Motor Speedway.

This week, the ladies event at Stanford has the best field I have ever seen there, with both Williams sisters playing. Serena is the top seed and Venus is seeded second. It seems like every year at this time all we’re talking about on the women’s side is pull-outs, so it’s good to have a strong field at Stanford and hopefully this will continue for the rest of the US Open Series.

Kind of weird to see Maria Sharapova in the draw, but not seeded, as her ranking has taken a big fall. Hopefully this will be a big start for Maria in getting her ranking back together. The men head to LA this week, and once again a pretty light field. Things should really start to get going in Washington next week, with Roddick expected to make his return.

I’ve never been to the women’s tournament at Stanford before, but I am working there with ESPN this week and am looking forward to it.

The USA’s loss to Croatia in Davis Cup was Rajeev Ram’s gain. 

Andy Roddick’s Davis Cup withdrawal on Monday opened up a spot for a lucky loser in Newport because Mardy Fish (the tournament’s top seed) had to  be pressed into duty to take Roddick’s spot on the Davis Cup team. 

Amazingly, Ram, who had to pull out in the last round of qualifying due to a calf injury, gets into the Newport main draw and then gets a couple of days off due to rain. And then on Friday he won an astonishing four matches (2 singles, 2 doubles) highlighted by  a 7-6 in third win in the quarterfinals over Jesse “The Lil Scrapper”  Levine. 

 It seems like Ram has modeled his game exactly like Pete  Sampras, even the walk in between points is the same! Ram, ranked 180  in the world going into the event, had never came close to winning a  tour level singles tournament, and had won all of six tour matches in his career. And then he walks away on Sunday as the singles and doubles champion.

This is the kind of result that can give hope to all of  the challenger players who have been grinding away but haven’t yet  made a breakthrough. Hopefully this is the start of some big things  to come for the Indiana native who likes to serve and volley.  

Speaking of Davis Cup, bad luck to lose Andy Roddick, but it was understandable how exhausted he must have been, not to mention the  switch back to clay couldn’t have sounded too enticing. Pretty  amazing for the small nation of Croatia to be 3-0 against the USA,  they certainly have our number.

Also, the developing story of Israel making its first appearance ever in the Davis Cup semifinals is extremely incredible after their win over Russia. But their reward  for making the semis: a date in Spain in September on clay, ouch!

What a majestic day for the Williams family. For the second consecutive year an all-Williams final, but this time a different result. As Venus, who had cruised the entire tournament, was upstaged by her lil sis in a phenomenal serving display that gave Serena her first WImbledon title in six years.

Serena, now owns 11 Grand Slam titles, but somehow I must not understand the women’s rankings, because I am pretty sure it is the first time ever that a man or woman has 3 Slams on the board and is not ranked No. 1. I guess it’s because Serena has only won 2 tournaments this year, but she she picks the right ones to win — the Aussie Open and Wimbledon. And then for the second straight year the Williams sisters go out and win the doubles for their 9th major together.

At 29 and 27 it  seems like they are still in the prime of their careers, due in part to their lighter schedules, seems like they could be winning slams for at least another 5 years.

Today Fed Roddick part III.  As Andy Roddick deflated British hopes in his excellent victory over Andy Murray in 4 sets. Because Roddick has become a veteran player now, the big wins mean a lot more and because of that I think that was the second best win of his career behind the US Open final.

If Roddick is going to have any chance today he is going to need to serve at 70% or higher and drop a ton of aces like he has been doing all tournament. I like how he has been mixing up his ground game between patience and aggressiveness but in this match he needs to be more selective when coming to the net and more unpredictable with his patterns. And for Fed, there is not much to say about what he needs to do because he almost always seems to have the answers against Roddick.

Huge props to young American Jordan Cox. A qualifier in the boys juniors making it all the way to the final beating doubles partner Devin Britton in the semis in an epic 16-14 in the third battle. The coolest thing about Junior Wimbledon is they give a wild card into the main draw to the winners the following year. This is an amazing opportunity for the young American, but he will have his work cut out for him against the young russian Andrei Kuznetsov, who took out Tomic in the other semi.     

I think it would be a great gesture if Fed does indeed get slam number 15 and Pete Sampras is there to present him the trophy, so hopefully Pete made the trip across the pond. Its been an amazingly fun tournament, I think the exceptional weather had a lot to do with keeping everyone in good spirits.

What an amazing day for the William Sisters. You kind of just take it for granted that it’s inevitable when they are on opposite sides of the draw that they are gonna end up in the final.  But still they have to win 12 matches combined to make this happen.

I was expecting Serena Williams to have a straight forward easy victory over Elena Dementieva —  how wrong could I be?

 In the defining match of the women’s championships Serena wins 8-6 in the third saving a match point, and without question the best ball-striking of the tournament so far. I was shocked at how well Dementieva was playing. She pushed Serena to the limit. But as usual Serena came up with the goods.

Venus vs World No. 1 Dinara Safina had the task of following that battle on center court, and Venus played one of the best matches I’ve ever seen from her, only one unforced error in two sets and she took Safina to the woodshed. Not sure a World No. 1 has ever taken such a beating on Centre Court.

I know it is not Safina’s fault for being ranked 1, but when the Williams sisters play at the level they are capable of there is a massive gap between Safina and the Williams sisters.

 Amazingly this will be the eighth WImbledon final for Venus and she will be going for her sixth title. And this will be the fourth time the sisters have played here in the final, with Serena looking for a different outcome than the 2008 result.

The mens semis are set for tomorrow. First up 10-0 this year on grass Tommy Haas is having a major resurgence taking on the legendary Fed, who is having a bit of a resurgence of his own.  Haas is going to have to throw the kitchen sink at Fed, and if he wants to have any real shot at winning he is gonna have to mix it up and play unpredictable, throwing in a few serve and volleys, but not going to it every time.  It will be Fed in straight sets.

Now the match Andy vs. Andy semi that everyone thought might happen after Rafa pulled out of the event. Hopefully Andy Roddick, after his four-hour battle with Rusty Hewitt will still have a lot left in the tank because he is gonna need to play his absolute best if he wants to win.

Andy Murray will take a lot of confidence in his 6-2  record against Roddick. One very interesting twist potentially for tomorrow, the amazing heat wave that we have experienced for the last two weeks is supposed to change tomorrow. It is supposed to be much cooler tomorrow with a 60 percent chance of rain, which means the match could be played indoors.  Andy Murray said he wasn’t that crazy about the conditions Monday night as he said that made the courts very slow. Murray prefers faster courts because it suits his counterpunching style, and slower conditions will help Roddick out because he can still serve you off the court and it gives him a better look at return games.

I hope for TV’s sake that its an epic 5-set match.

Two things are for sure: a Williams is gonna win the women’s final and Andy is gonna win the men’s second semifinal tomorrow.