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Sunday, July 01, 2001

A year ago, Andy Roddick was one of the many nameless and faceless teenagers with a dream playing on the Futures circuit.

Today, he is the darling at Wimbledon and called the future of American tennis. Armed with a 125 mph serve, Roddick opened the eyes of the tennis world with a stunning upset against No. 11 seed Thomas Johansson in the second round of the tournament.

The stage for Roddick's coming out party was Centre Court.

Will there be another Roddick in the field of 32 men who will be competing in the $10,000 Futures of Pittsburgh tournament this week at the Mt. Lebanon Courts? The purse will be the biggest ever in the area for men's tennis and will attract the highest caliber of men's player for a tournament.

First place in singles is worth $2,000.

"The Futures is a circuit for young, developing players," said Don Mercer, the tournament coordinator. "Look at Roddick. He's worked his way up, and now he's in the Top 100 in the world. He's a graduate from the Futures. That's where he got his start."

The qualifiers for the Futures started yesterday and will continue today and tomorrow, with eight players advancing to the main draw. The tournament will begin Tuesday and run through the week, culminating with the singles and doubles championships next Sunday.

Three local players will try to qualify 3/4 brothers Ron and Tom Mercer will compete in doubles and singles, and Jason Yue in singles. Ron is the pro at the YMCA in Robinson Township, Tom is tennis pro at Oakmont Country Club and Yue is a Mt. Lebanon native who recently graduated from Eastern Michigan.

The main draw will have pro players from 15 countries, led by Mark Nielsen, the No. 1 player in New Zealand. Nielsen, 23, is a member of New Zealand's Davis Cup team and has won three singles titles in satellite tournaments this year. Others in the field with impressive credentials are Australia's Jay Gooding, Spain's Alberto Banus-Sardo and China's Ben Qiang Zhu.

A number of premier college players will be in the qualifiers, including the University of Virginia's Huntley Montgomery and Brian Vahaly, the top-ranked NCAA Division I doubles team this year. Other top collegians are Georgia's Travis Parrott, Stanford's Scott Lipsky and Ohio State's Phil Metz.

Mercer hopes the presence of the Futures event will strengthen the field for the West Penn National Collegiate Clay Court Championships that will run simultaneously with the pro tournament.

"If the college players lose in the pro qualifier, they can enter the clay court championships. The college kids I've been trying to get for the past six years are coming," Mercer said. "It's possible that all eight men's seeds will be coming from the Futures qualifier."

The clay court championships will start Tuesday, with the men's singles and doubles finals Saturday and the women's singles final next Sunday and the doubles final Saturday.

Sarah Riske, who grew up in Peters Township and will be a junior this fall at Vanderbilt, won't defend her singles title because she is playing in a conflicting pro tournament.

"It's wide open for the women," Mercer said. "There's good balance in the field, with at least 16 players with potential to win it."

Mercer listed several players he expects to challenge: Mariko Fritz-Krocklow, who plays No. 5 singles at UCLA; Jeannette Cluskey, the top player at Richmond; Hilary Brooks of Virginia Tech, Shannon Price of West Virginia University; Jill Williams of the University of Pennsylvania; and Alice Sukner (Allderdice) of Marshall.

Although the men's field won't take shape until after the qualifiers for the Futures, there are some players entered who deserve notice: Arizona's Paul Rosen, Penn's Andy Kolker, Princeton's Brian Nachtigall, Harvard's Mark Riddell and George Turner and Cal-Berkeley's Kevin Patrick.

"I'm counting on this year's tournament drawing better than in the past because we've got better players coming in," Mercer said. "I'm hoping we have a parking problem."

Notes: Admission for both tournaments is free ... Pittsburghpridesports.com will provide daily tournament updates ... WBGN will televise the semifinals and finals of the Futures and the women's and men's finals of the clay courts next weekend on a tape delay.