Consensus in Charlottesville: Go Cubs, Australian Open Wild Card Who?
Steve Fogleman, Tennis Atlantic

CHARLOTTESVILLE, NOVEMBER 1–Just 6 days from the 2016 Presidential Election, it’s hard to find consensus in America these days. But at the Charlottesville Men’s Pro Tennis Challenger at the Boar’s Head Resort in Virginia, there are two things on which all of the players agree: they hope for the Chicago Cubs to win their first World Series in 108 years and they really, really don’t care about the USTA Australian Open Wild Card…yet.

Of the dozen or more players I asked, everyone hoped for a Cubs win but saw a tough Indians tribe more likely to prevail. The most anti-Cubs response I could get was from Brian Baker, who said “I’m a Cardinals fan. I’m not a Cubs fan, but I can rally behind people who get behind them because it’s been so long since they won.”

More unanimity for the current lack of interest in even thinking about the Australian Open Wild Card granted by the USTA for the best results here in Charlottesville and then in Knoxville and Champaign. I also asked Baker if he ever thought about the WC.

“Not a ton,” he said.  “I mean, if you go deeper in some tournaments, then you probably start thinking about it more but I think in the first tournament, you’re just here to do your best.”

Tennys Sandgren told me that “there are tons of good reasons to win matches at this point. When you come down to one or two matches to earn it, yeah. At this point, it’s so early in the race. Champaign, if you’re in the race and in the hunt, it’s in the back of your mind. You know you have to had good weeks to possibly get it so you’re just trying to have those good weeks.”

Reilly Opelka put it blunty. “Not really, I don’t really care about it to be honest.”

See if these guys admit to caring about it in a few weeks when they’re a couple of matches away from the first round of the Australian Open.