SAP Open: High Seed Sam Querrey Falls to Lukas Lacko in San Jose

Lauren Lynch

Feb 9, 2011

With Sam Querrey as the highest American seed in the draw at the SAP Open in San Jose on Tuesday night, it was shocking to see him fall to World No. 113 Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 7-6 (6), 6-3, while his fellow Americans James Blake, Michael Russell, Donald Young and wild card Tim Smyczek prevailed, despite their lower rankings.

Querrey was the third seed and is ranked as the world No. 17. He won four tournaments last year on three different surfaces and got to the semifinals of the tournament last year, but lost to Andy Roddick.

He played well in the first set, scoring 10 aces, but got broken twice by Lacko in the second and ultimately could not come back.

Querrey said, "I was a little bummed after I lost the first set, then my serve kind of went away."

Lacko was very excited about his win for the first time against a top 20 saying, "I played a couple matches this year, last year, against guys like Sam—top-20, top-10 players. I played good matches, I got chances, but I never finished the match. I lost too many close matches. It’s good satisfaction to beat a guy like this."

Lacko will meet will meet with Juan Martin Del Potro in the second round who beat Teymuraz Gabashvilli in strait sets 6-3, 6-2.

The next Americans in line to get to the next round is Rajeev Ram, who plays the first seed Fernando Verdasco; Ryan Sweeting, who faces tennis' Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic; Robert Kendrick against Russia's Igor Kunitsyn; and wild card Bradley Klahn challenging second seed Gael Monfils.