Projo Sports Blog

NEWPORT -- A week ago, Rajeev Ram was battling through the qualifying to get into the main draw of the Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.

Sunday afternoon, he will play for the singles championship.

And the man standing between him and his first career title will not be Fabrice Santoro. The popular Frenchman and two-time defending Hall of Fame champion finally lost a match at the Newport Casino.

Ram, 25, a veteran of Challenger and qualifier tournaments since turning pro in 2004 will play third-seeded Sam Querrey Sunday at 2 in the first all-American final since Taylor Dent defeated James Blake in 2002.

Ram, of Carmel, Ind., defeated Olivier Rochus of Belgium, 6-3, 6-4, in the first semifinal Saturday before a crowd of 3,490. Querrey, an agile 6-foot-6 right-hander from Thousand Oaks, Calif., with a powerful serve, ended Santoro's 12-match winning streak on the Casino grass with his 6-3, 7-6 (2) triumph in the other semifinal. Santoro was the two-time defending champion.

Ram is ranked No. 181, Querrey No. 39.

Ram is the third lucky loser to reach a final on the ATP World Tour this year and is going for his first career title.

"I had a feeling from the very beginning that this could be a good week for me. This is a great surface for me. Unfortunately for players like myself, there aren't too many events on grass," Ram said.

Ram qualified for Wimbledon and lost in the first round. He came here as the top seed in the qualifier, had a first-round bye, won a match and withdrew with a left calf injury after he learned that he would be in the main draw because of his ranking after Mardy Fish pulled out to play Davis Cup for the U.S. in Croatia. Thus, Ram became the lucky loser.

Ram defeated qualifier Alejandro Falla of Colombia in the first round, qualifier Samuel Groth of Australia in the second and American Jesse Levine in the quarterfinals.

"It shows people how small the gap really is," he said. "I'm not saying that Marty and Fabrice and these guys haven't earned their spot because they completely have. And the thing is they are able to do it week in and week out, and that's the separation between guys ranked 150 like I am and guys ranked 50 or 20 like they are. They're able to bring their best level every single week, and a credit to them because that's very tough to do. But in saying that I think the level itself that everyone can bring is quite similar. It's just a matter of who can bring it more often."

Santoro, 36 and still ranked No. 34, was no match for the younger's Querrey's big serve, and Querrey, 21, matched Santoro's quickness in digging out drop shots. Querrey made 70 percent of his first serves and smashed 18 aces in a display of old school craftiness versus new school power.

"I'll take that any day, and I was placing it well, a lot of aces," he said. He has served 67 aces in four matches.

The 6-foot-6 Querrey played an aggressive game so Santoro couldn't dictate the pace from the baseline.

"If he dictates, he's tricky. If you let him get to the net, it's tough. If I got a chance to come to the net, I'd take it, and when he was slicing it to my backhand, any time I could run around and hit a forehand, I was doing that," Querrey said.

Santoro showed the effects of having played three matches Friday, two singles and one doubles. He started slow and lost his first serve. Querrey needed only 22 minutes to take the first set.

Santoro hit his stride in the second set and saved a break point in the 14-point ninth game, but he couldn't pressure Querrey's serve. So often he launched his body and flailed at the serve after the ball had landed in the service box and flown by him on its way to the fence.

"He was serving very good," Santoro said.

Never better than in the tiebreaker, when, determined to avoid a third set, he hammered four aces in four serves.

"Anything can happen out there, so I wanted to get that over in two sets. You can't always ask for four serves, four aces, but I'll take that," Querrey said.

Querrey has one career title, Las Vegas in 2008. He reached the final in Auckland, New Zealand, in January.

So what did Rajeev Ram eat last week to play his way to the final?

Three eggs, a piece of toast and some potatoes for breakfast at the Viking Hotel, and dinner every night at the Gas Lamp Grille on Thames Street because it was the only place without an hour wait.

Ram's father, Raghav, a biologist, caught a flight from Indiana and was in the stands for the semifinals. He stayed with friends in Providence and will watch his son again Sunday.

The International Tennis Hall of Fame paid tribute Saturday to Australian Rod Laver on the 40th anniversary of his second Grand Slam in 1969. Laver, who also won the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. championships in 1962, was supposed to attend but was a last-minute scratch. He was at the Wimbledon final last weekend and this weekend is home in California.

Wick Simmons, former Hall of Fame chairman, spoke on Laver's behalf. He said Laver would have congratulated the four inductees of the Class of 2009 and recalled his first trip to Newport as a 17-year-old in 1955. The Casino courts were the first he played on in the United States.

Laver, who will turn 71 on Aug. 9, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981 and Saturday was named a Life Trustee.

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