Verdasco, Wozniacki Win New Haven Titles

A tournament that had been plagued by rain managed to finish on time, mercifully letting all the participants leave for the big show in New York on time.  Second seeds Fernando Verdasco and Caroline Wozniacki took the respective ATP and WTA titles, with neither dropping a set the whole week.

With tentacles of Hurricane Danny dumping rain on to Connecticut for most of the week, the semifinals for both the women's and men's draws were played at Yale's indoor courts, all four of which went untelevised, and were played in front of no fans. 

Along with the men's final being bumped to ESPN Classic to make way for a Little League World Series game that ended with a mercy ruling after four innings, it was a fittingly underwhelming way for this year's unimpressive US Open Series television coverage to wrap up.

Caroline Wozniacki cruised through the draw to easily defend her title without dropping a set, defeating Elena Vesnina 6-2, 6-4 in the final.

Wozniacki won a tournament the week before a slam for the second time this year, having already won Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon.  In her ten matches on the way to those two titles, Wozniacki only once faced a seed (Pennetta in the New Haven semifinals).  Wozniacki seems to put a lot more effort into winning these tournaments that most players only think of as preparation for the bigger events. 

Wozniacki has never made it to the quarterfinals of a slam, so to say that her priorities in expending energy may not be in order is a fair charge.  She's in the softest eighth of the US Open draw in my mind, so it will be interesting to see what she can do with the opportunity.

On the men's side, Fernando Verdasco beat Sam Querrey 6-4, 7-6(6) for his first career hard court title.  Verdasco has done a remarkable job of keeping the momentum he established in last year's Davis Cup final, turning in pretty consistent results throughout 2009.  He could easily make a fair bit of noise next week.

Speaking of Wozniacki peaking too early, you gotta wonder about how Sam Querrey is going to play at the US Open, playing seven tournaments in the last seven weeks.  Making the finals of four of those and playing 26 matches since Wimbledon, by far the most of anybody (on either tour).  He won the US Open Series in the process, but he might not be doubling as much prize money as he might've hoped to.

Of course, he did manage to win his semifinal earlier today after traveling to Mohegan Sun for a Taylor Swift concert last night, so Sam's endurance may be the last thing we should be worried about.