2003 U.S. Open
Fort Lauderdale, Florida • July 2-6, 2003

 

The Day Before

Tuesday, July 1

By Larry Hodges

#1 Seed Jens Lundqvist in Search of a Racket

The top seed in Men’s Singles at the U.S. Open is in search of a racket. At the Brazil Open this past weekend, Jens Lundqvist of Sweden reached the final (losing 4-3 to Chuan Chih-Yuan of Chinese Taipei). Immediately after the final, he temporarily left both his racket and spare racket at the table. Both were stolen. Unfortunately, he was using a custom-made Stiga racket, and only had the two. There were a total of six of the custom-made rackets made (with a special handle), but the other four were in Sweden, being used by Fredrik Hakansson and Peter Karlsson. Unable to reach them, Lundqvist flew back to Sweden in an attempt to get a new racket in time for the Open. He is expected to be back soon, racket in hand. 

Ilija Lupulesku drops out due to back injury, Johnny Huang drops out of singles due to lack of practice

A back injury has forced U.S. National Champion Ilija Lupulesku (seeded #5) to drop out of the U.S. Open. Meanwhile, the #3 seed, Johnny Huang of Canada, has been coaching for two months, and hasn’t done any training – and so decided to drop out of singles. He remains in doubles, partnered with Aleksandar Karakasevic of Yugoslavia. Karakasevic moves up to the #2 seed in singles, while Thomas Keinath of German becomes #3, and Olivier Marmurek of France becomes #4.

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