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.

With a 7-5, 6-3 win over Bjorn Phau, Sam Querrey advanced to the quarterfinals of New Haven, and clinched a first place finish in the 2009 US Open Series.  Ranked outside the top 20, Querrey is the first player outside of the top five to win the event on the men's side.

Querrey won the promotion (and a doubling of his US Open prize money) through quantity, more than consistant excellence.  He entered the main draw of all six US Open Series tournaments, and was the only player to do so. He won the Los Angeles title and made the finals in Indianapolis (the two smallest events on the Series), but lost in the first round in Montreal.  He also has only twice faced a top ten opponent--both times Andy Roddick, splitting their two meetings.

I asked Sam during his only press conference in Washington if winning the US Open Series was a goal of his, and he said it was.  "It'd be cool to say you were the best player that summer," he said.

Whether he was the best this summer is debatable at best, but he showed a commitment to the US Open warm-up tournaments, which is what the series is designed to reward.

I think this in the long run is a good thing for the US Open Series.  The change this year to make the non-Masters tournaments more valuable in the series prevented players like Federer or Nadal from winning the six tournament competition even though they entered only two tournaments, which is exactly what had happened the past two years.  If Querrey is successful at the US Open and winds up doubling a good amount of prize money, look for some stronger fields potentially at tournaments like Indianapolis and Los Angeles in 2010.

What do you think--is having a US Open Series champion like Querrey preferable to a Nadal or Federer winning it?