Legg Mason Day 1: Most Top Players Already Gearing up in Washington

WASHINGTON--I was very surprised how many main draw players are already here and practicing.  Since all sixteen seeds have byes, I had figured that they would mosey in late, spending as much possible time at their homes in Europe or wherever else. 

But with the notable exception of Andy Roddick (and the players remaining in the draws at Los Angeles, Umag, and Gstaad), it seems like just about everyone is in Washington already.

Top seed and recent Tomas Berdych practiced twice, the second time with Yen-Hsun Lu.  Berdych was hitting the ball as cleanly as he always does, though he didn't seem totally satisfied with his serve.



On the other side of the grounds, Radek Stepanek and David Nalbandian played a few practice games.  For all the flak he gets for being out of shape, "Fat Dave" looked to be at a fairly decent fighting weight, if lacking any muscle definition.



Earlier in the day, I saw Marin Cilic practicing as well.  He looked pretty lost out there, and just seemed to have a real hard time focusing.  His results have fallen off significantly since he broke through to reach the semifinals of this year's Australian Open, and he could really use a big showing here in Washington to get himself back on track.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time around the practice courts (much prefer the stuff that counts), but I briefly saw Michael Llodra, Dmitry Tursunov, and Viktor Troicki hitting as well.  Nothing important to report from any of those brief glimpses.