Journeymen

In the strangely titled "International Tennis Championships" in Delray Beach, there are two unlikely semifinalists. It says something about the strength (or lack thereof) of the tournament when American, Sam Querrey is the 3rd seed. Ranked 62 in the world, there are a only two Americans ranked ahead of him: James Blake and Andy Roddick. It says something about the state of American tennis that there are more Argentines, Spaniards, Russians, and French players ranked in the top 60 than Americans.

Ask an avid tennis fan, and they're not likely to have heard of Sam Querrey, who grew up playing tennis in California. At 6'6" and 20 years old, Sam has a big serve, but has yet to break into the big time. Even so, he's not having to play qualifiers nearly as much.

The real unknown is his opponent, Kei Nishikori. He's 18 and from Japan. Ranked in the 200s, he had to qualify to get into the main draw. Qualifiers are the tournament before the tournament, with fewer perks and certainly fewer dollars than getting in the main draw. Nishikori has pretty good groundstrokes and seems the heir apparent to Shuzo Matzuoka, the last good Japanese male player to play the game.

Indeed, countries like Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and the rest of Southeast Asia have not produced top-ranked players. The best Asian player of recent memory was Michael Chang. He played during the most prolific time in American tennis history, when players like Sampras, Agassi, Wheaton, Courier were all top players. Unlike Spain, Argentina, and even Serbia, the top American players haven't been able to help the up-and-coming juniors.

Still, if Nishikori manages to win the tournament, he's likely to make strides to be one of those players that might be able to be competitive in the top 50, possibly higher. There are too many players for most fans to follow. They only care about those near the top like Federer or Nadal or Roddick or James Blake or Novak Djokovic.

There are still hundreds of other players that try to eke out a living, often through doubles, and labor just outside public recognition, playing top-flight tennis, but not quite at that next level. These two players, fortunately, look like their in the upward trend. However, tennis is often headlined by brightly lit stars, who make an amazing breakthrough, like Federer upsetting Sampras at Wimbledon, or Becker winning Wimbledon as his first major, or Wilander winning the French as his first tournament.

Players like Nishikori and Querrey, at age 18 and 20, may already be past their primes in terms of making a huge impact. Strange to say when you talk about such young players.

In this match, Nishikori is a quicker player than Querrey, but he also makes more errors. Querrey is steady, with a powerful serve, but lacking the mobility. Speed is a big issue for Querrey and will probably prevent him from getting too much higher. Nishikori may lack enough power to make an impact as well, but both are talented enough to be in the top 40 or so.

It will be interesting to see where both their careers head.