Probably the luckiest lucky loser ever, American Rajeev Ram made the most of his last minute entry into the Newport singles draw by taking home the ATP 250 title, defeating Sam Querrey 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-3. As if that wasn't enough for the 181st ranked player in the world, he also won the doubles title in a super tiebreak with partner Jordan Kerr.

Crazily enough, Ram probably should have won this match more easily than he did, as he served for the first set, playing a pretty tight game to allow Querrey to break back and force the tiebreaker he eventually won. But Ram rallied valiantly in the second, and kept momentum through the third, leaving the always-chipper Querrey, an enormous favorite to win this final, shell-shocked.

In Sam's defense, I don't think anyone could have anticipated how well Ram would play today. Ram had not faced a player inside the top 100 on his way to the final, so it would have been only natural for a top fifty player like the third-seeded Querrey to consider him a push over.

Looking back at the ATP title winners of 2009, no previous champion comes anywhere near close to the longshot winner Ram is. Ram is the first lucky loser to win an ATP title since Sergiy Stakhovsky won Zagreb in 2007.

Hopefully the US Open (and some of the lead up tournaments) will reward Ram, who will still be well outside the top 100, with some well deserved wild cards. It's going to be interesting to see how Ram follows up this dream of a week.

When the singles draw for Newport came out, few predicted Rajeev Ram to make the final. For starters, Ram wasn't even in the draw. Ram, ranked a lowly #181 in the world, only got in after Mardy Fish was summoned to Croatia to fill in for Andy Roddick.

But he has certainly made the most of the opportunity, winning four matches to make his first ATP final, which came only a couple days after his first ATP semifinal and first ATP quarterfinal.

Not bad for a player who last week couldn't even make the quarterfinals of the Winnetka, Illinois challenger.

Ram beat Olivier Rochus convincingly in the semifinal, by the score of 6-3, 6-4. Ram has only dropped one set in the tournament, to Jesse Levine in his quarterfinal. Ram has avoided facing an opponent inside the top 100 through his first four matches in the weak Newport draw, so it could be a rude awakening in the final.

Ram faces Sam Querrey in the final, who upset two-time defending champion Fabrice Santoro in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(2). Querrey's serve took away chances for Santoro to get any of his trademark magic started, and Querrey's one break was the only one of the match.

The Newport final is the first All-American final of 2009, and should be a good chance for Querrey to pick up his second career title.

Ram has to be happy with what he's already achieved, which is good because chances are slim he wins another match this week. All the same, a nice story for one of the many hundreds of players who work tirelessly on the lower circuits and don't come close to a chance like this too often in their lifetimes.

Two-time Newport defending champion and second seed Fabrice Santoro still knows how to saw the rain-soaked Newport draw in half.

Four things that happened today in the world of tennis that you may have missed:

1. Still struggling to recover from a shoulder injury that had him out for well over a year, American Taylor Dent took a nice step toward regaining his old form by securing a relatively routine 6-2, 6-1 win over Brazilian Marcos Daniel in Newport. The grass at Newport should help Dent's serve-and-volley game immensely, hopefully giving him the springboard he needs to get back into the top 200. The previous time Dent won a match in the main draw of an ATP tournament was way back in April. His opponent in that match? Marcos Daniel. When you got 'em, you got 'em.
2. The top two ranked Italians on the WTA Tour, Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone, met today in the first round of the hard court tournament in Bastad, Sweden. The #3 seed Pennetta beat recent Wimbledon quarterfinalist Schiavone 6-2, 7-5. It's an unfortunate draw for both in an otherwise soft first round. I cannot fathom why Pennetta came to Bastad this week in the first place, when there was a perfectly good obscure clay court tournament in Budapest to be played. No one loves obscure clay court tournaments the way Flavia Pennetta does.
   
3. There is something strange going on with the seeds in Budapest. Both Sara Errani (#7) and Lucie Safarova (#8) were served a bagel by their qualifier opponents. Even stranger, Alize Cornet (#2), who can only beat the traffic of late, managed to win her match over Galina Voskoboeva. I haven't seen photos, but I'm guessing Voskoboeva was playing without the use of one or more of her legs.
   
4. Small weeks for the main tours usually mean big weeks for the challenger circuits, and this week is no exception. The men haveThe women are in a $100k in Biarritz and a $75k in Zagreb, with some pretty nice fields at each (headlined by Lucie Hradecka and Rossanna De Los Rios, respectively). Cult fan favorite Zuzana Ondraskova picked up a nice 6-2, 6-0 win in Zagreb over the third-ranked Serb, Ana Jovanovic. In Serbian women's tennis, Jovanovic is only behind Jelena Jankovic (#6) and Ana Ivanovic (#11). Jovanovic is #229. That's quite the drop-off.