FARMER’S HARVESTS A WINNER – By: Craig Cignarelli

Written by: Staff on 1st August 2012

FARMER’S HARVESTS A WINNER - By: Craig Cignarelli |

The iconic Somerset landmark performed an important role in the Olympic opening ceremonies and, for the next two weeks, Glastonbury Tor plays host to two hundred-four of the world’s flags. Patriotism, however, is not limited to British hillsides.

Today, inside the UCLA tennis stadium, America’s color guard stood tall as several thousand slightly-more-jingoistic-than-normal Americans doffed caps and palmed hearts while humming the national anthem. Five minutes later, American Sam Querrey began his quest to become a three-time winner of the Farmer’s Insurance tournament. His competitor, Ricardis Berankis, was a Lithuanian national in search of his first ATP tour title.

Berankis has been here since Thursday, working his way through three qualifying rounds and then battling through four more main draw matches. With weary legs and a stocky game that makes one think his 5’9 physical stature might have a Hobbit-ish history, the twenty-two year old had nothing left. Querrey built a 6-0, 3-0 lead before Berankis got on the board. At that point, the crowd gave him a cheer and the young Vilnius-born player broke into a huge grin. Any anti-European sentiment disappeared in that moment and for the next twenty minutes, Los Angeles natives lent their support to Berankis. Although Querrey dominated the match, winning 6-0 6-2, Berankis earned a lot of fans today.

Querrey now joins Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors in the pantheon of three-time LA OPEN winners. More importantly, he now leads the Emirates Airlines US OPEN Series points race, which offers a million-dollar prize if the points-race winner can claim the US OPEN trophy.

Now that the tournament is over, UCLA’s stadium returns to its regular role of hosting 400-500 adolescent tennis campers whose athletic skills might make your average PE teacher rethink his career choice

Topics: ATP tennis news, Farmers Classic, Ricardis Bernakis, Sam Querrey, Sports, Tennis News, UCLA tennis news