Haas, Fish, Querrey and Safin Among Seeded Players
Dent, Levine and Guccione Awarded Wild Cards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2009

LOS ANGELES - There was a frantic final push for the last spots in the LA Tennis Open Presented by Farmers Insurance Group draw on Friday. When the dust settled, three Americans, an Australian and a Canadian had managed to earn the final spots.

With those spots filled, the main draw for the 2009 tournament was made poolside at the Sunset Marquis Hotel on Friday night.

In that draw, top four seeds Tommy Haas, Mardy Fish, Dmitry Tursunov and Dudi Sela all get byes into the second round. Igor Kunitsyn, Sam Querrey, Benjamin Becker and Marat Safin round out the seeds for the tournament.

Click here to see the 2009 draw.

The first piece of the puzzle for the final spots in the field came in the afternoon when Australia's Chris Guccione won the ninth annual Wild Card Shoot-Out, downing Donald Young 11-9 in the final match-tie-break of the double elimination event.

With one wild card awarded, the final two were then distributed to Americans Jesse Levine and Taylor Dent.

The final two spots in the draw were actually decided over 2,000 miles at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships.

Indy came into play due to the ATP World Tour's special exempt policy. Simply put, that rule allows a player who would normally have to play qualifying to try to get into the LA draw to get a free pass into the tournament if they are still involved in Saturday play at the previous week's event, in this case Indianapolis.

However, that rule only allows for two special exempts to be used per tournament, and entering today, there were four players in Indianapolis vying for those two spots.

Early in the day, Canada's Frank Dancevic upset top seed Tursunov, putting Dancevic in line for a special exempt entry into LA. However, Dancevic was ranked third among the four possible special exempts, so he was forced to see the rest of the day play out in Indy to know his fate in LA.

Next up, Robby Ginepri played Alex Bogomolov, Jr., and both were in contention for a special exemption. For Ginepri, a win in Indy meant a berth in the semifinals there and a spot in LA.

Ginepri won in straights, claiming one of the final two places in the LA draw.
Last match of the day pitted the last man directly into the LA draw, John Isner, and Wayne Odesnik.

If Odesnik were to win that match, he would join Ginepri in the LA field. However, a win by Isner would let Dancevic gain the spot in LA.

The Odesnik-Isner battle went down to the wire, and was finally decided when Isner broke Odesnik in the final game to take the third set 7-5. With that Dancevic was into the LA field.

The qualifying for the LA Tennis Open Presented by Farmers Insurance Group begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Sycamore Courts on UCLA's camp.

Here's a look at the qualifying draw and the Saturday order of play.

The 83rd annual LA Tennis Open Presented by Farmers Insurance Group will be held July 27 - August 2, 2009 at the LA Tennis Center on UCLA's campus in Westwood. ESPN2 will broadcast eight hours of live television coverage this year, including singles quarterfinal, semifinal and championship matches. Tennis Channel will again provide additional broadcast coverage.

The 2009 tournament will feature a special exhibition match on opening night, called the "Millennium Challenge" that will feature Safin against Pete Sampras in a rematch of the 2000 US Open that was won by the Russian. In addition, former champions Michael Chang, Jim Courier and Stefan Edberg will take part in legends matches during the week.