TENNIS: Great Week of American Tennis Leads to Singles Ttitles for Andy Roddick, Serena Williams and Sam Querrey

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., March 10, 2008 -- The USTA today announced that Americans had strong showings at events around the world last week. Andy Roddick, Serena Williams and Sam Querrey all won titles at the tour level, while young Americans Madison Brengle, Asia Muhammed, Coco Vandeweghe and Tim Smyczek had excellent results on the USTA Pro Circuit. Andy Roddick, 26, defeated world No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinal and world No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the semifinal en route to capturing his second title in three weeks at the ATP event in Dubai. Roddick, who was not broken the entire tournament, defeated two players ranked inside the Top 5 at the same event for the first time in his career. Serena Williams, 26, captured her first title of the season at the WTA Tour event in Bangalore, India. She saved a match point in the semifinal against her sister, Venus, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(4) -- their first meeting since the 2005 US Open -- and defeated No. 12 Patty Schnyder, 7-5, 6-3, in the final. Sam Querrey, 20, won his first career ATP title Sunday at the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, coming from behind to defeat Kevin Anderson, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The unseeded American upset No. 20 Guillermo Canas in the semifinal and No. 48 Nicolas Kiefer in the second round. He entered the Top 50 (at No. 48) in the world rankings for the first time today after becoming the first American other than Roddick or James Blake to win an ATP singles title in nearly two years. Three teenage American wild card recipients at the $50,000 USTA Pro Circuit event held in conjunction with the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas posted wins over a Top 100 player: - Madison Brengle, 17, defeated former Top 40 player Sesil Karatantcheva in the first round, 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-2, and defeated the No. 2 seed and world No. 66 Yvonne Meusburger, 6-3, 6-3, in the quarterfinals en route to her first-ever challenger-level singles semifinal. - Asia Muhammed, 16, reached her first-ever challenger-level singles final. She upset No. 89 Tatjana Malek, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, in the quarterfinals and raised her ranking from No. 620 to No. 428. - Coco Vandeweghe, 16, defeated the top seed and No. 53 Aravane Rezai in the first round, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, and went on to advance to her first-ever challenger-level singles quarterfinal. Another young American, Tim Smyczek, 20, reached the final of the USTA Pro Circuit $15,000 Futures in McAllen, Texas, last week. # # # The USTA is the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the U.S. and the leader in promoting and developing the growth of tennis at every level -- from local communities to the highest level of the professional game. It owns and operates the US Open, the highest attended annual sporting event in the world, and launched the Olympus US Open Series linking 10 summer tournaments to the US Open. In addition, it owns the 94 Pro Circuit events throughout the U.S., and selects the teams for the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympic and Paralympic Games. A not-for-profit organization with 725,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds in growing the game. For more information on the USTA, log on to usta.com. For more information contact: Tim Curry, Director, Public Relations, USTA (914) 696-7077; Curry@usta.com