Outside of a confidence boost, little has changed for Sam Querrey on the court since his upset of top-ranked Novak Djokovic paved the way for his first quarterfinals appearance at Wimbledon.
Things are starting to get back to normal for Querrey at this week’s Citi Open, where he started as the No. 8 seed. Querrey has advanced to a Friday night quarterfinal match against Gael Monfils, ranked No. 17 in the world, after beating Alexandr Dolgopolov 7-6 (5), 6-3 Thursday.
After the Citi Open, Querrey will compete in tournaments in Canada, Mexico and Winston Salem, N.C. Then the hardcourt season culminates with the U.S. Open. Querrey, 28, will also play for the Washington Kastles in World Team Tennis the first week of August.
Noticeably absent from Querrey’s itinerary are the Summer Olympics. He represented the U.S. at the Beijing Games in 2008, but says he’s “kind of over it now.”
Besides, Querrey says, tennis doesn’t necessarily belong in the Olympics.
“I think for tennis and golf, the Olympics isn’t a top priority,” he said. “We have four other Grand Slams. I think those kind of take the lead. Those are the main focus for us.”
Top-10 players Milos Raonic and Tomas Berdych both cited the Zika virus in deciding to withdraw from the Olympics. Top-ranked American John Isner is also skipping the Olympics, choosing instead to compete at the BB&T Open in Atlanta where he is a three-time defending champion.
“For me it was a scheduling thing,” Isner said, “and not having [rankings] points [at stake] was probably the main factor for me. It wasn’t Zika for me at all.”
With Isner and Querrey passing on the Olympics, the U.S. singles contingent will include Citi Open participants Stevie Johnson, Jack Sock, Denis Kudla and Brian Baker. All four are first-time Olympians.
“For me it’s going to take a lot more than [the Zika virus] to not go to the Olympics,” said Kudla, a native of Arlington.
Baker, 31, may be the most intriguing of the bunch. The oft-injured tour veteran has undergone 11 surgeries in the last seven years. Despite being ranked outside the top 100, Baker is eligible to compete in the field-of-64 in Rio thanks to a ‘protected ranking’ which takes into consideration time lost due to injury. Baker missed the entire 2014 and 2015 ATP seasons.
“I probably have a little bit better perspective of the game just having had to deal with all of the adversity,” said Baker, adding that it would have been hard to turn down an Olympic invite.
“It’s not your tradition Olympic sport,” he said, “but it’s not often that you get to play for your country. I know some guys do for the Davis Cup, but I think the Olympics has a little bit of a different feel.”
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