Lacoste has partnered with Yahoo! Sports to provide exclusive content on the 2010 U.S. Open. 

Roger Federer‘s miraculous between-the-legs shot on Monday night has a "don’t try this at home" quality that can’t be overstated. Successfully pulling off the tweener without self-inflicting minor injury is something best left to the professionals.

However, if you have a little daredevil in you, Andy Roddick is happy to show you how to attempt the tennis trick shot. Tip No. 1: Have your kids first. 

Luckily for Federer, he and his wife Mirka already have twins.

Patrick Mouratoglou is a world-renowned tennis coach who has worked with Marcos Baghdatis and Aravane Rezai. His French tennis academy is considered one of the top in the world. He’ll provide commentary for Busted Racquet during the 2010 U.S. Open. 

The U.S. Open remains the only Grand Slam that Rafael Nadal hasn’t added to his already illustrious resume. Some would have thought that if one major was going to be out of his reach, it would have been Wimbledon, first because of the overwhelming domination of Roger Federer on grass, then because, at first glance, the surface doesn’t really seem to suit his game.

But then in 2008, in the manner of a champion, he was able to master his game on grass, technically and tactically. He won when nobody believed he could, perhaps because he made it his ultimate goal to prevail in London.

The U.S. Open is now the only Grand Slam to elude Nadal, so let’s get into the reasons why we have to consider his Open career a failure … for now:

The schedule gives him a tough time

The first half-year is usually a very busy period for the Spaniard. I’m not saying it’s not the same for all the other players, but I’m just noticing that Rafa plays and wins way more than most of the others at this period. From April to the end of June, he’s getting into an unbelievable winning streak and that means more matches. Judge for yourself: This year, he’s been the winner consecutively in Monte Carlo, Roma, Madrid, Roland Garros and then Wimbledon. At the start of July, it’s natural that the Mallorcan’s tank is simply emptied.

An understandable letdown

It’s always tough for any player to build new motivation after having achieved his main goals. But it’s what is happening to Rafa. Roland-Garros is his tournament. Wimbledon, his second target of the year. When he wins both back-to-back, he’s caught in a letdown, even if he’s not fully aware of it. His will and his desire being his best weapons, his efficiency is obviously hampered.

Rafa needs to play a lot to feel his game

After his demanding first part of the year, he takes a well-deserved break to get fresh again and to train for the rest of the season. It means two weeks of training, and then getting the confidence back by playing a lot. Contrary to others, the Spaniard feels the strong necessity of getting many matches under his belt. Those matches make him confident enough, which is the key for him, as he’s kind of an anxious player. Plus, it leads him to find his timing and to feel the ball perfectly again. Because of this, Rafa remains more in the "hard workers and tough fighters" category rather than "the gift-is-my-main-tool" category. The Spaniard has never relied on talent only, he knows better.

The U.S. Open comes very fast after his end of training, so Rafa severely lacks rhythm. In comparison, he always got at least three titles in his hands before heading to the French Open. Before Melbourne, he’s not able to play a lot but he arrives after five to six weeks of intense physical training where he has found his routine back. All players are in the same situation, of course, so the global quality of play is usually not at the same level during the U.S. Open. In New York, the issue for Rafa is that some players are arriving in great shape and with confidence after the summer whereas he’s still searching for his A-game.

The speed of the game is playing against him

You also have to take into account the U.S. Open playing conditions as one of the things that is hurting Nadal’s success here. Among the four Grand Slams, the U.S. Open is the fastest one. The combined factor of cement and light balls speed the game up and provide a very low bounce of the balls. The Spaniard loves to dictate the game and loves to get time enough to prepare his ground strokes. That’s the way he can play his best game. When he’s confronted with opponents who take the ball early and aggressively on the first few shots and work his forehand, Nadal often ends by playing the ball too short. Then he’s in danger.

One day, he will succeed in New York

Despite all of those reasons that lead to explain why the U.S. Open is the last Grand Slam that the Spaniard hasn’t won, I’m pretty sure he will end up getting a grip on it. First of all, he’s such a big competitor and has always achieved what he wanted by hard work and will power. The lack of rhythym shouldn’t be a problem as Nadal keeps winning matches in the tournament. He’ll find it. It’s a best-of-five-sets tournament and I’m convinced that, even without displaying his best game, he’ll find his way to victory aided by his amazing physical abilities and his absolute desire of winning. Round after round, he’ll get stronger and even if he can’t get through Roger Federer this year, he will succeed in one of the forthcoming years.

If there’s one thing I learned from "The Devil Wears Prada," it’s that getting ahead in your career is never as important as family. I also learned that you always listen to Miranda Priestly’s Anna Wintour’s fashion advice.

"Her opinion is the only opinion," says Stanley Tucci to a naive Anne Hathaway.

Despite being good friends with the infamous Vogue editor, Roger Federer doesn’t seem to heed those words of wisdom.

During Federer’s match on Monday night, Wintour was interviewed on ESPN and divulged that her favorite player fails to listen to her fashion tips. The 16-time Grand Slam winner often shows his wardrobe selections to Wintour, the last time being in Miami while they were at a dark restaurant. "I think I gave my opinion and he completely ignored it," Wintour said. "But anyway, he looks great."

Of course he doesn’t listen, or else this never would have happened. Federer’s current U.S. Open kit looks good, though, and could certainly have received the nod from Wintour.

The Vogue editor also spoke about how pleased she is that female players like Venus and Serena Williams, and Maria Sharapaova have embraced fashion and aren’t afraid of it. "They’ve broken the rules," she said.

When she plays tennis, as she does most mornings, Wintour wears Prada Sport. 

The general consensus is that Venus Williams‘ new U.S. Open dress was more appropriate for the nightclub rather than the tennis club, but even that seems to be too kind to the dress because, really, what club could Venus wear that dress to besides a meeting of the Cher fan club? 

The elder Williams sister kept with the corset theme that garnered her clothing line so much attention at the French Open, but went for a more sleek, New York feel with the black, satin-type garment accented by faux leather fringe. It doesn’t work. Venus said her "evening dress" was "so much fun to wear," but she looked uncomfortable throughout her straight-sets victory. It looked like she shredded a garbage bag. 

But I’m no Michael Kors, so I put it to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQFyk1S4NZM&feature=youtube_gdata

by Pete Bodo

Well, day one is in the books, folks. And day two will begin with some talk about books. First, though, note that this is a Crisis Center post, which means it will be the place for you to discuss all the U.S. Open action of day two. Going forward, you’ll have a Crisis Center (CC) post every morning (or midday), and that will the place for y’all to chat about the action. I’ll come back with a red meat post later every day, and ask you to keep the off-topic chatter to a minimum there.

I got a note from Hyperion, the publisher of Hardcourt Confidential: Tales from Twenty Years in the Pro Tennis Trenches, the recently released book I helped Patrick McEnroe write. We’re experiencing a nice bump in sales now that the U.S. is focused on tennis. Those of you who are interested can get the book via Amazon or Captain McEnroe’s Facebook page, which I urge you to visit in any event. Pat and I are both happy with the way the book turned out and believe it adds to the historical record of the game in Pat’s time. Our title tries to make clear that this isn’t a Pat McEnroe autobiography, but a collection of his experiences and observations through a career that touches many of the bases in tennis.

James Blake plays his first-round match against Kristof Vliegen on Louis Armstrong today (third match on), and the way Blake has been playing this year makes it impossible to predict the outcome. He’s here as a wild card—presently, Blake is ranked No. 108, just missing the cutoff for direct entry. I’d hate to see Blake slip out of the U.S. Open without making one more run, or playing one more compelling match.

Blake is one of the main characters in Hardcourt Confidential, and Pat writes about him with candor that may surprise many of you. James was not an easy player to manage. He was often reticent and always self-protective, skeptical of any advice that came from anyone other than his entourage, in which the key member for most years was his long-time coach, Brian Barker. McEnroe, among others, feels that one reason for Barker’s longevity was that he knew enough to tell Blake only what he wanted to hear. Mostly, the message boiled down to this: Play aggressive, high-risk tennis. Hit it flat and hard. Load up on the service return in order to take charge. Resist any urge or temptation to modulate or broaden your margin for error.

Blake believed that was the only way he could compete at the highest level; McEnroe and others often felt he ought to have been more aware of percentage play and various tactical and strategic options. McEnroe gives many examples of how hard it was to move Blake off his articles of faith, often to the detriment of his game.

Unfortunately, Blake’s game of choice doesn’t have a very long shelf life. It’s live-fast/die-young tennis, and Blake is now 30 years old. It’s hard to imagine him at this stage incorporating many changes in, or addition to, his game. But you also have to wonder, wouldn’t a commitment to a makeover of some kind provide the kind of challenge and motivation that might help pull Blake out of the doldrums?

I mean, if people who have been married a long time and finally divorce can go on to find the mirage of youth and happiness again in a new spouse, why can’t a tennis player? Thirty is old in tennis, no doubt about it. But Martina Navratilova, among others, showed us that with sufficient incentive, self-belief and discipline, it isn’t a drop-dead cutoff for achievment.

Andrew Friedman collaborated with Blake on his own autobiography, Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life. I’ve asked Andrew, who’s here this week and writing for TENNIS.com, to write a post for you on Blake, and to get the skinny on those remarks Blake made after Wimbledon, which made it sound an awful lot like he was contemplating retirement. I believe Andrew is sitting down with James after the Vliegen match. So look for a post on Blake later tonight or tomorrow.

While Patrick was often frustrated by Blake’s guarded ways and streak of inflexibility, he also appreciated the way Blake was always available to play Davis Cup, and gives him credit for stepping up to emerge as a Davis Cup hero when the U.S. defeated Russia to win the competition. In retrospect, it may have been the finest moment of Blake’s career. I believe McEnroe helped orchestrate that, and handled Blake with just the right mix of understanding, forbearance, tact and challenge, although it’s a claim Patrick would never be arrogant enough to make.

Use this your Crisis Center post for today and enjoy the sights and sounds of the U.S. Open.

– Pete

by Pete Bodo

When we last left Robert Kendrick, under leaden skies almost a full week ago, he was beating up on some poor schmo named Middelkoop on Court 10 at the National Tennis Center before a scattering of tennis diehards and dead-enders, just setting forth on a perilous three-stage journey intended to land him in journeyman heaven, the main draw of the U.S. Open.

Yesterday, that journey having been completed with admirable efficiency and speed (Kendrick didn’t lose a set in his successful qualifying run), he was out on Court 11, under a dazzling blue sky and a burning sun, exchanging punches at racket’s length with the mercurial French star and the No. 17 seed, Gael Monfils. The permanent grandstand on the west side of the court was packed for the duration of the three-hour and 20 minute match, and both players had partisans on hand. Every cry of “Allez Gaa-ayle” was answered with a robust, “Go, Kendo!” or “Go, shadow!”—Kendrick somehow having acquired the nickname White Shadow thanks to a coach with a sense of humor.

You may remember that I wanted to write a post on Kendrick last week, before the rains came, because he’s an archetypal tennis journeyman. By broad athletic standards, he’s been enormously successful. He’s been in the elite ATP tour Top 100 (he made the big leap in 2008, and is knocking on the door again), he’s earned over $1.2 million in career prize money, he was an All-American collegiate player (he also led his high school team to a state title and had an 80-1 prep record, which may be more charming than impressive, but still. . .), and he not only won his first career Grand Slam-event match at Wimbledon in 2006, he also went on at that tournament to scare the bejesus out of Rafael Nadal, firing 32 aces as he won the first two sets and stretched the third to a tiebreaker.

On the other hand . . . Well, let’s be blunt about this: Kendrick is 30 years old, an age at which the commute between the Challenger and tour level-events gets tiring, and sometimes even depressing. He seems to be spinning his wheels. The ATP website has no summary of his 2009 record, as if the organization had decided it isn’t worth the bother—just look at 2007 or 2006 and switch around some dates and stuff. Thirty is an age in tennis at which people who may have more exacting standards of success for a tennis pro than for themselves are likely to wonder: Why does he keep banging his head against the wall?

I guess that depends on whether or not you see Kendrick’s job as a noggin-meets-concrete kind of enterprise, which strikes me as falling far short of a realistic or appropriate comparison.

It proved not to be a good day for exploring this delicate subject with Kendrick, because he blew a significant opportunity to advance. He led Monfils in the fifth set by 2-1 and 40-love on serve, and the cries of “Run it, baby!!” and “Keep coming after him!” had to be ringing in his ears.

Alas, it didn’t end well for Kendo. Monfils won the next two points, and Kendrick then double-faulted to deuce. An inside-out forehand error gave Monfils the advantage, but an errant lob wasted it. But a forehand error by Kendrick gave Monfils another break-back-point, and he capitalized on it with a forehand winner to level the set at 2-2. Three hours in, we were back to Square One. It’s a feeling Kendrick knows well, in the big picture.

But it wasn’t like we’d wasted those 180 minutes. Monfils and Kendrick both have great presence, and the contrast between them was arresting. Kendrick skews to the conservative; he was wearing tennis whites and an everyman trucker cap. He’s a good-looking kid, in a clean-cut way, and he really likes to dial in that forehand, especially inside-out. He moves easily but slowly, with a ramrod-straight back, and he projects Zen-like tranquilty, except, of course, when he totally loses it and screams a string of expletives into a towel held against his mouth—which he did at least once today.

Monfils is well known and much loved as a ham. He looked like a comic-book superhero today; his sleeveless, tight-fitting white tummy coffin emphasized his guns, and his baggy but preppy patterned shorts highlighted his stick legs, each one girded by an elastic strap just below the knee, as if you could screw off the lower legs to make him the size of Olivier Rochus.

Appearances don’t make much of a difference when it comes to execution, but Monfils’ style of play is no less flamboyant than his look and his frequent dramatic outbursts. Therefore, he’s capable of making his life much more complicated than it need be. For one thing, he’s always looking to hit that bunny-hop backhand, even when there’s no real reason to get on that back foot and jump. I like that two-handed flipper backhand he sometimes uses, with the top of his racket starting almost at shoetop level. it can be effective, but it’s also a bit lazy, or perhaps the right word is flimsy.

That’s the trouble with Monfils’ game, and also the thing that can make him so dangerous. He likes to make it up as he goes along, relying on something like feel combined with mood of the moment. Where a guy like Kendrick is always trying to get in touch with the discipline that informs each swing of the racket in a player like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal (or Robin Soderling and Andy Roddick, for that matter), and sometimes has trouble managing the job, Monfils seems to rebel against that basic mandate to execute your strokes with discipline and clear purpose.

Monfils is like a guy playing chicken with the ball; let’s see how far out of position I can be, or get, before I have to take a swat. For all of his assets, and they are formidable, he never leaves you feeling that he knows what he’s going to do next. As a result, his shots typically look more improvised, challenging, and hurried than the flow of play demands. And the longer the point lasts, the more likely it is that Monfils’ shot will wind up looking more like a barn door flapping on its hinges than a Federerian, rapier-like thrust.

But this same streak of the bombastic also makes Monfils inventive, explosive and unpredictable, capable of riding his emotions to extraordinary highs as well as base lows. The gravitational pull of the latter was in greater evidence yesterday, which explains how Kendrick, who made just 43 percent of his first serves, found himself in position to win the match.

I watched all this unfold from a seat one of the aluminum benches in the bleachers, surrounded by sunburned, tennis-starved fans. When Monfils popped an authoritative volley winner early in the match, a beefy college-aged kid on the bench in front of me cried out, “That’s filthy, baby, Filthy!”

He turned to the nicely dressed middle-aged lady alongside and sheepishly said, “You’ve got to get this crowd going. It’s too serious here.”

“You’re probably achieving that,” she said—a mite tersely, I thought.

Both Kendrick and Monfils have a flair for the drop shot; at times, it appeared that they were playing a game of one-upmanship with that delicate offering, which is tailor-made for passive-aggressives. Because of his elastic arms, loose wrist, and those long legs that gobble ground quickly, Monfils usually got the best of those exchanges. The men used all the real estate between the lines well and showed no fear of changing the pace. There was nothing one-dimensional about this one, and it had the appropriate swings of momentum. Natural talent and personal history are the only real explanations for how Gumby (Monfils) could fare so well against Dirty Harry (Kendrick).

Kendrick won the first set over a sleepy Monfils, but Monfils broke early in the second. When Kendrick broke back for 3-all, he was right back in it, but Monfils broke him again for 5-3 and served it out. Monfils rolled through the third set, and you have to give Kendrick credit for the way he hung in during the fourth and kept his head in the tiebreaker. He led that, 6-3, only to have Monfils win the next two points, both on his own serve. But Kendrick finished him off with a flourish, smacking one of his numerous inside-out forehand winners to send the match into a fifth set.

On the changeover after Monfils held the first game of the fifth set, Kendrick forsook the shade of his chair while Monfils melted into his, in a funk. Kendrick stood defiantly facing the blazing sun. He took a few measured swallows of his sports drink, squinting. He toweled off his arms. It was the moment every qualifier dreams of, and he went right out and broke Monfils.

With Kendrick leading 2-1 and serving, it looked as if Gumby were done. His customary swagger had degenerated into stagger. He pissed and moaned. He stalled. He tried playing a few points with a busted racket and that didn’t work out too well, so he unsheathed a new one. Monfils was a picture of misery as Kendrick raced out to that 40-love lead. But that’s when you really have to keep your eye on a guy like Monfils, and Kendrick let down his guard, surrendering the big lead and the break. As he said afterward: “He was losing his mind a little bit and then he hit a couple of shots off the line to get back in that game. Then I had a bad service game at the end (at 4-5). That’s all it was.”

Kendrick had come so far since last Tuesday, when he played his first qualifying match (a day which the footloose Monfils had partly spent playing basketball on Greenwich Village’s storied public courts). And if that third round of qualifying is, as Patrick McEnroe claims, the toughest match in tennis, then blowing the chance to record a big upset in a first-round match after having survived that third match must leave you with an equally hollow feeling, despite the lower grade of pressure. “I think I raise my level against these guys,” Kendrick said. “I’m not pissed at myself, I just wish I’d served a little better. Usually, I have to serve well against the top guys, but today I didn’t, and I still was right in it. I guess that’s the bonus. I just didn’t keep on him in the end.”

That’s a tale often told by the qualifier, the journeyman. And like his brethren, Kendrick will keep coming back for more, unconcerned that he’s 30. He’s not defending very many points this fall, so the returning to the Top 100 is a realistic goal—and that means direct entry into the Australian Open.

It gets even hotter in Melbourne than New York, but that shouldn’t be a problem for Kendrick. Say what you will about him. He got burned today, and on plenty of yesterdays. But at least he stands facing the sun.

There’s dissension in the ranks of Robert Kendrick’s rooting section.

“Come on, Robert, be scrappy!” one of them yells, to the dismay of the woman down the bench from him, who may or may not be his sister.

“Uh . . . scrappy?”

Whatever the merits of the word, it seems to help. Kendrick, the athletic, dangerous, flawed veteran qualifier from California, breaks serve soon after.

“That’s it, Kendo,” another member of his crew yells, “just play the game, just relax and play the game. That’s all you have to do!”

Kendrick flashes a gleaming American smile in his direction. His top teeth blend together into one long white line. He wishes tennis were that easy.

Kendrick and his opponent, Gael Monfils, have made Court 11, one of the larger side courts on the Open grounds, feel like center court for the day. Ashe, as usual for a first-week day session, is blowout central. Outside of the luxury suites, it’s a ghost town. The smart fans have spotted their chance to see a player of Monfils’ considerable entertainment skills up close, and they’ve taken it. Every seat is filled on Court 11 at the start of the match, and as it progresses through three hours and five sets, the people keep coming. By the end, they’re sitting in the aisles and standing on benches. It’s a day-spanning match, beginning in broiling heat around noon and lasting all the way until the sun begins its descent and the light begins to go golden on the trees around the court. For those three hours, not a whole lot changes. People mill, players run, sneakers squeak, and planes circle their way around the grounds and toward La Guardia. The sight of them floating just off in the distance still gives me a slight sense of relief. I’ll never forget how ugly and jarringly disruptive those jets were when they ripped right over the courts—1700 of them a day in the 1980s. Their scarred undersides looked like the bellies of titanic rusted dolphins.

When I saw that Monfils was going to be on 11, I kind of imagined him being too big for the court. Not physically, but athletically. Somehow I could see him leaping for a backhand out wide and bounding right over the stands. And while that never quite happens today, it doesn’t take long for Monfils, who’s wearing a somehow-appropriate skintight sleeveless shirt and long check shorts, to get his freaky show on the road. On the first point I see, he hurls himself into the air for an overhead, as if he’s doing a long jump. When the crowd lets out a long collective oooh, he hams it up a little more, hitting a cute forehand volley behind Kendrick. It’s an unnecessary shot, but it works anyway. More than that, it shows the possibilities that exist in tennis if you’re willing to let your flair get in the way of your chances of winning. Nobody explores those possibilities more fully—and foolishly—than Monfils.

But he’s not the only performer out here today. In his own way, Kendrick is one as well. A relentless self-berater and frustrated mumbler, he brings to the surface the inner turmoil that most tennis players feel. Kendrick isn’t a natural showman; after one bad miss, he waits too long before finally deciding to flip his racquet to the backstop. The timing of the whole thing is off, it looks tacked on and unnecessary, and he loses the chance for catharsis that a really good racquet throw can provide. But this awkwardness only makes Kendrick seem more genuine. He dramatizes the typcial conflict that goes on inside our heads: How, exactly, should I react to a bad miss?; and, more important, how do I keep control of myself? You can see the fight for control in every aspect of Kendrick’s body language.

They split the first two sets, but when Monfils wins the third it appears that he’s going to leave his lower-ranked opponent behind. Kendrick has always had the physical gifts, but there’s a busyness to his game that makes it inefficient. There’s something extra, something not quite perfectly streamlined, both in his strokes and in the way he gets around the court. Monfils simply looks like he has more time to set up and hit the ball. But while Kendrick doubles faults on a couple of crucial occasions, I feel like the set is decided not by his failure, but by one extraordinary shot from Monfils, one that the American, as well as 99.9 percent of all players, will never hit in his career. On the first point at 2-2 in the third, Kendrick serves, comes in behind it, and snaps a very good volley crosscourt. Monfils, by some miracle, moves forward (his long legs gobble up ground effortlessly), cuts the ball off with his backhand, and flips it back crosscourt. Kendrick, stunned, nets the volley and is eventually broken. That in a nutshell, is the difference between a qualifier and a Top 20 player. The qualifier has a complete game; he does everything you can ask of a player. But what defines the Top 20 guy, and what separates him from the journeyman, is his ability to do what no one can ask, to do the unbelievable.

As we know, Monfils loves the unbelievable way too much. He relies on it. Up 2-0 in the fourth-set tiebreaker, a victory and a shower in his sights, he chooses to hit a jumping backhand. He misses it, Kendrick get his teeth into the tiebreaker, and goes on to play his best tennis of the day to close out the set. The match has reached a crescendo; the fans are on their feet.

The only trouble is, neither player has much left for the fifth. Monfils stops running after balls and is broken for 1-2. After double faulting to end that game, Monfils walks to the sideline in a daze, and Kendrick looks destined to pull the upset when he goes up 40-15 for a 3-1 lead. But getting a glimpse of the finish line can do funny things to a player. Kendrick, with a double-fault and a netted forehand, proceeds to give back his serve. Oddly, even as he loses the lead, he stops berating himself. It doesn’t help; he needs the inner conflict. In the final game, he nervously short-arms his backhand for the first time all day and loses the set and the match 6-4.

As for Monfils, he saves one more miracle for the final set. Time after time, he hits drop shots from behind the baseline—exactly where you aren’t supposed to try it—and then stands still to admire his (admittedly beautiful) shot, rather than running forward. Noticing this, Kendrick drops him back. No matter: Whatever spot Monfils starts running from, he can always catch up to a drop shot. He essentially shrinks a tennis court to the size of a squash court. What can you, or I, or Robert Kendrick do against the unbelievable.

After the final point, Monfils blows out his lips in relief, while Kendrick looks down at the court, his fingers pinched over his nose. He’s lost the marathon after three hours, and he doesn’t know how to react. Afterward, Monfils says he played poorly, and that he fought himself all day. But, French showman that he is, he also says that over the last few games, he looked around at the crowd, and the grounds, and maybe even the planes overhead, and he couldn’t help but enjoy the moment, win or lose.

“OK, it’s a game,” he thought, “it’s a great game.”

Joy, flair, confusion, the awkwardly real and the unbelievable, all came to the side courts today. The U.S. Open is on.

NEW YORK (AP)—Two-time major champion Svetlana Kuznetsova reached the second round at the U.S. Open by getting past 39-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 Tuesday.

The 11th-seeded Kuznetsova hit 11 aces, helping make up for five double-faults and a total of 35 unforced errors. She won the 2004 U.S. Open and was the runner-up in 2007. She also won the 2009 French Open.

Date Krumm, who turns 40 on Sept. 28, was trying to become the third-oldest woman to win a U.S. Open match in the Open era, which began in 1968.

She hadn’t entered the U.S. Open since 1996, the year she originally retired, before her husband recently persuaded her to return to the tour. Date Krumm upset former No. 1 Dinara Safina at the French Open in May.

NEW YORK (AP)—Roger Federer delivered another spectacular, between-the-legs shot at the U.S. Open on Monday night.

The five-time champion at Flushing Meadows hit 18 aces in his 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 first round victory over 96th-ranked Brian Dabul of Argentina, part of Federer’s remarkable 46-4 advantage in winners.

“There’s nothing you can do when he has those days,” Dabul said. “He’s perfect.”

No shot was more spectacular than the one Federer came up with while leading 5-3 in the second set.
 
He was at the net when Dabul sailed a lob high overhead. Federer turned and sprinted toward the baseline. A few steps from the wall behind the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium, and with his back to the net, Federer smacked the ball through his legs.

The shot cleared the net and landed in a corner for a winner beside Dabul, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.

“Only he can do that,” Dabul would say later.

At the far end of the court, Federer celebrated the trick shot by raising his arms overhead and lifting his right index finger to signal No. 1. It was nearly identical to a back-to-the-court, through-the-legs passing winner Federer hit against Novak Djokovic in the 2009 U.S. Open semifinals.

“Again, huh?” a wide-smiling Federer said in an on-court interview after the match. “I thought, ‘I think I can do this again.”’

And it most definitely was real, no debate about that—unlike the trick shot that has drawn more than 6 million views since being posted online on video sharing site YouTube two weeks ago. In that clip, shot in Zurich shortly after Wimbledon, Federer is seen serving a ball and swatting a metal bottle off a man’s head—twice in a row.

Federer has been coy about the authenticity of the video, and some have been skeptical, such as two-time major finalist Andy Murray, who said this weekend: “There’s not a chance it’s real.”

Monday’s result made Federer unbeaten from 16 U.S. Open night matches, and he declared afterward, “I feel very much at home here.”

That perfect mark under the lights has helped Federer reach six consecutive U.S. Open finals; the only loss in that stretch was to Juan Martin del Potro a year ago.

“I’d like to go there again this year,” Federer said. “The path is long and rough.”

His streak of 23 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals ended with a quarterfinal loss to Robin Soderling at the French Open, and Federer lost again at that stage at Wimbledon.

But Monday’s victory clinched a berth in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals at London in November, which is for the top eight men.

If there was anything for Federer to lament about his performance against Dabul, it was this statistic: The 16-time major champion converted only five of 19 break points.

Federer had an explanation for that, though.

He recently began working with Pete Sampras’ former coach, Paul Annacone, and Federer jokingly said: “Break-point conversion wasn’t very good, so that’s (Annacone’s) mistake.”