Welcome to Hollywood

I am at the Farmers Classic this week spending some much-needed quality time with tennis. This event is usually headlined by a current Top 10 player but, due to the Olympics, the draw is very lean this year. I never thought I’d see the day when Benoit Paire is top seed at a tournament but here we are. (Yes, ladies, I will be on Benoit watch all week.) 2-time Los Angeles champion Sam Querrey is the second seed with Leonardo Mayer and Nicolas Mahut rounding off the top four in LA.

Americans occupy almost a third of the draw lines yet only 3 of them have made it to the second round—two of whom played fellow Americans and Querrey had a first round bye. The tournament wildcards (yeap, all Americans), Brian Baker, Jack Sock and Steve Johnson, posted disappointing results as none of them won even a set.

The Top 4 seeds start playing today which should make things more interesting for the fans. However, I’m keeping my eye on Rajeev Ram who looked great in his defeat of BBakes (Sidenote: Did anyone else ever think his Twitter handle was a typo and he just ran with it?) last Monday.