Events / Sean Calvert / 06 July 2009 /

The grass court season hasn't quite run its course and there is a great deal of value to be found at the Campbell's Hall of Fame Championships, says Sean Calvert.

Wimbledon is over for another year, but it's not quite the end of the grass court swing, as the tour heads to Newport, Rhode Island for the Campbell's Hall of Fame Championships.

If anyone is able to endure another week of lawn tennis in supposedly its purest form - and I'm not sure that I can after the tedium and depressing predictability of that final Wimbledon set between Federer and Roddick - there is a great deal of value to be had in Newport.

Of course there is always value to be had at the Hall of Fame Championships, as this event is famous for its 'Casino Curse' whereby no top seed has ever won the event in it's 33 year history.

Mardy Fish has been top seed here for the past two years and the American again takes the poisoned chalice in 2009, where he is the [3.0] market leader.

Putting the 'Casino Curse' to one side for a moment and concentrating purely on the form, Fish is clearly lay material here.

His record in the event is a poor 7-7 and he has been beaten at this event by the likes of Rohan Bophanna; Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi; Dusan Vemic and Michael Llodra (twice).

Hardly a glittering array of tennis talent in that list and although it looks like Fish has an easy draw, the aforementioned that have defeated Fish here indicates otherwise.

And the curse has afflicted better players than Fish here over the years too. Our own Andy Murray was the number one seed here in 2006 before succumbing to the mighty Justin Gimelstob in the semi-finals, so you have to respect the curse.

Fish's impending defeat gives others at much bigger prices a great chance and I like the claims of a real long shot in that top half of the draw in Canadian-born American Jesse Levine.

I was courtside for what was probably Marat Safin's final match on the Wimbledon lawns a couple of weeks ago and that was a defeat to Levine, who was impressive at SW19.

The diminutive leftie doesn't have any real weapons of note, but he has a solid all round game and he was too consistent for Safin, who as usual imploded in the end, but that's not to take anything away from Levine, who won five matches on Wimbledon's grass this year including qualifying.

He finally lost in four sets to Stanislas Wawrinka, who gave Murray such a great game one round later and anything like a repeat of those consistent displays would be good enough to go far here at the nice price of around [67.0].

Elsewhere in the top half of the draw there are several notable grass court exponents seeking to take advantage of any Fish slip up.

Amongst the most likely are Benjamin Becker [10.0], Frank Dancevic [26.0], Chris Guccione (81.0] and Robby Ginepri [26.0]. Becker would be the obvious choice as the danger man in the top half given his current fine run of form.

The German spent the spring hoovering up challenger events before graduating back to tour level where he claimed the title on grass in S'Hertogenbosch, the form of which gives the 28-year-old a very good chance here in Newport.

The bottom half of the draw contains defending champion Fabrice Santoro; former finalists Nicolas Mahut [13.0] and Vinny Spadea [51.0]; 2002 winner Taylor Dent [26.0]; and big hitters Sam Querrey [5.5] and Amer Delic [51.0].

French veterans Sebastian Grosjean [51.0] and Arnaud Clement [34.0] have also been given wild cards into the bottom half of the draw and are both former Wimbledon quarter-finalists.

Talking of French veterans, I was courtside for perhaps Santoro's last Wimbledon victory a couple of weeks ago and a fine win it was too over Nicolas Kiefer in straight sets.

'The Magician' also reached the semi-finals at Eastbourne and is still fit enough and hungry enough to claim a record third successive Newport title at the age of 36.

Santoro will play perhaps his nearest modern equivalent in terms of playing style in Flavio Cipolla in the first round and unless Dent is firing on all cylinders, The Magician has little to fear from his early round opponents.

He could meet Querrey in the semi-finals and as the pair have never met before it would be an interesting match-up, which surely would frustrate Querrey into defeat.

The world number 34 has never lost at Newport and it would be a fitting way for Santoro to end a hugely entertaining career if he could reclaim the title here, so at odds of [8.0] he is surely the choice for a wide open Hall of Fame Championships 2009.

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