By Charles Bricker
The rain started early Wednesday at the International Tennis Championships in Delray Beach, Fla., worrying officials that they might have to endure a complete washout of the afternoon matches, but a few miles away, in Sunrise, Fla., there was rejoicing at another tournament site.
“Fantastic. Do you know what my cutoff is?” tournament director Gabe Norona of the $125,000 BMW Challenger (March 15-21) asked rhetorically. “Sixty-six.”
That’s an incredibly good potential draw, better than many regular ATP tour tournaments, but, given its strategic placement between two ATP 1000 events at Indian Wells, Calif., and Key Biscayne, Fl., and the ATP’s decision to let players double-sign into both Indian Wells and Sunrise, it’s also predictable.
Indian Wells begins March 11 and the ATP is concerned that players who are knocked out early, before March 14, won’t be able to get matches until the Sony Ericsson Open begins on Key Biscayne, March 24. So it sanctioned the Sunrise Challenger a few years ago and, not surprisingly, it has annually attracted well known players.
At the top of this year’s list are No. 15 Mikhail Youzhny, No. 18 Gilles Simon, No. 27 Nicolas Almagro and, though he’s slipped to No. 54, the well-known tennis name of Richard Gasquet. And it could get better because Norona has four wild cards.
But along with his astonishingly strong sign-up comes a trap door.
While all these players, right down to No. 66 Potito Starace, are registered to play both Indian Wells and Sunrise, if they survive Indian Wells through Sunday, March 15, they won’t, of course, be at Sunrise. It makes Norona’s sign-up list a bit of a mirage.
But only a bit, because there will, inevitably, be early upsets at Indian Wells. If No. 2 Rafael Nadal, just coming back from injury, lost in the first round at Indian Wells, would he take a wild card into Sunrise in order to get some match toughness before Key Biscayne. Nothing, Norona believes, is impossible.
And of course there will be players on his list who play each other in the opening rounds, guaranteeing that the losers will be coming to Sunrise. It leaves Norona in a pins-and-needles posture in the days preceding the start of his event, but he’s used to it after six years.
The Sunrise Challenger is played at the Sunrise Tennis Center, about a 30-minute drive from the Delray Beach tournament and 45 minutes from Key Biscayne.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com