Six talented Americans are entered in this year’s qualifying field, including Shelby Rogers, a French Open quarterfinalist; Varvara Lepchenko, who advanced to the round of 16 at the Rogers Cup; Christina McHale, a semifinalist at Acapulco; Alison Riske, a finalist at Nottingham and semifinalist at Stanford; Nicole Gibbs, a quarterfinalist at Monterrey and round-of-16 performer at Indian Wells; and Louisa Chirico, who advanced to the semifinals at Madrid.

Joining the Americans are rising stars Annika Beck, who advanced to the round of 16 at the Australian Open; Kristina Mladenovic, a finalist in S-Hertogenbosch; Yulia Putintseva, who took Serena Williams to three sets in the French Open quarterfinals; and Danka Kovinic, a finalist at Istanbul.

A slate of veterans are also entered, including former Wimbledon semifinalists Mirjana Lucic-Baroni (1999) and Kirsten Flipkens (2013); Kateryna Bondarenko, a round-of-16 performer at Indian Wells and Eastbourne; and Yaroslava Shvedova, a 2016 Wimbledon quarterfinalist.

Wildcards into the qualifying draw were awarded to Daniela Hantuchova and Americans Danielle Collins, Kayla Day, Lauren Davis, Ellyse Hamlin and Sofia Kenin, giving the tournament 11 Americans in the qualifying field.

Hantuchova has a career-high ranking of No. 5 and will make her 12th appearance in New Haven; Collins, a former University of Virginia standout, won the 2016 and 2014 NCAA singles title; Day is the 2016 USTA Girls’ 18s National Champion; Davis advanced to the finals at Washington D.C. and makes her third appearance at New Haven; Hamlin, a Fairfield native and All-ACC selection at Duke University; and Kenin, who won the 2016 USTA Pro Circuit US Open Wild Card Challenge and was the 2015 USTA Girls’ 18s National Champion.


Rogers & Mladenovic are now in the main draw.

Daniela is in the 3rd match on the grandstand court, with play beginning shortly after 10:00 AM, Eastern Daylight Time. (Geez, it feels good to type that!) Her opponent is Flipkens.

It seemed like Daniela wore down as the match went on as she was in control of the first set and didn't face a BP while she had 7 of her own ( although she only converted one) while in the third set she didn't have a BP against Flipkens while she faced 4. Daniela had Flipkens at 0-40 when Flipkens served for the second set at 5-3 but Flipkens won the next 5 points to win the set and it seemed that after that Daniela had nothing left for the third set. That was the decisive moment of the match. Daniela would still have had to hold to bring it to 5-5 but she'd have had a good chance to win in straight sets but it seemed like she had nothing left after that as Flipkens won the third pretty easily and Daniela made no impact on return. The third game of the third was the most competitive as it went to deuce on Daniela's serve and was the only game that went to deuce but she got broken and that put Flipkens up a double break.

Daniela played very well in the first set against someone who's had recent wins against Muguruza and Venus Williams but she had nothing left in the third. This match gives me mixed emotions. I didn't expect Daniela to win so I'm not upset that she lost but after she won the first set I had hope so there's the disappointment of not winning from a set up. Over the past year Daniela's generally been competitive in the first set but the longer the match goes on the less she has and that was the case again. Daniela can still be competitive against decent players and if she'd gotten it to 4-5 in the second then who knows what could have happened. I also wonder what she could have done if she'd won the first set more easily as she had 2 BPs in the fifth game and 4 in the seventh but didn't break and if she'd won the first more easily then she'd have had more left in the second and could have won in straight sets. Daniela was only 2/11 on BPs and that really hurt her.

I feel that this year, most of the draws weren't in her favor. Or is it just me?

I feel the same, but with Daniela's current ranking, I don't think we could have hoped for anything much better as far as her draws are concerned. The only positive is that Dani seems to be playing for the pleasure of playing rather than for achievements these days, so hopefully her disappointment isn't as big as it would have been in the past and won't last long.

I wondered why the scores weren't changing for 10 minutes in the 3rd set.
After seeing the pictures of Daniela pumping iron, I got excited when she had 2 aces early on and was 12-14 winning points on first serve in. But that went pfft.
It always hurts when our gal loses. At this stage, though, with Dani playing so sparingly, it has become a treat just to follow a match of hers and cheer her on.