Thanks to fortuitous U.S. Open scheduling, Roger Federer and Caroline Wozniacki were able to attend Tuesday night’s Vogue Show at Lincoln Center. And, along with Serena Williams (whose schedule is wide open), the tennis stars looked the part, making the leap from the court to the runway with ease.

Wozniacki has a little January Jones going here, no?

Elegance, thy name is Serena. The last few times we’ve seen Serena dressed up, the clothing was like a mix of Eartha Kitt and Pebbles from "The Flinstones." At Fashion’s Night Out she looked stunning, but in a good way.

Can you imagine Rafael Nadal at one of these things hobknobbing with Gossip Girls? Neither can I.

Game Point is Busted Racquet’s roundup of facts, figures and links from around the web.

When Roger Federer and Robin Soderling last played in a Grand Slam, the 16-time Grand Slam champion had his unprecedented streak of 23-straight major semifinals snapped by the up-and-coming Swede. On Wednesday night, the two men meet again in Arthur Ashe Stadium for a berth in the U.S. Open semis. Here are five things to watch:

Love — The numbers don’t fall in Soderling’s favor. Before that French Open match, he was 0-12 against Federer and 0-6 on hard courts. Federer is also 15-0 lifetime in night matches played in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

15 — One of those six wins for Federer came at the same point in last year’s tournament. In the 2009 quarters, the Swiss star defeated Soderling 6-0, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (6). Federer would go on to the finals before losing to Juan Martin del Potro, the first loss he had suffered at the U.S. Open since 2003.

30 — Not surprisingly, the oddsmakers are siding with Federer in Wednesday evening’s match. Soderling is a 7/2 favorite to win, compared to Federer who is getting 2/7 from various British websites. The game line is Federer -5.5.

40 — New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist hopes to be in attendance rooting on his fellow Swede Soderling. 

Game — Soderling has played giant killer at the French to both Nadal and Federer. Don’t expect it again at the U.S. Open. Busted Racquet predicts a four-set victory for Fed.

A few weeks ago there were unconfirmed reports that Rafael Nadal‘s $525,000 watch had been stolen during the Rogers Cup tournament in Toronto, but there was never any official confirmation from Nadal that the timepiece had indeed been taken. During a visit to the ESPN announcing booth on Wednesday, the world No. 1 indirectly admitted that his custom-built Richard Mille watch was stolen.

Chris Fowler asked Nadal whether he was taking care of his new watch and Nadal, as is his fashion, bashfully responded that he’s going to keep it on his wrist this time. This summer, he explained, he didn’t wear the watch on the court and the decision proved to be unlucky. "No winner," he said, referring to his winless American hard-court season.

Nadal began wearing the half-million dollar watch at the French Open. Reports say it was taken during a night match in Toronto, but are unspecific about which one. Police say other players are not suspected.

It would be hard to sell Nadal’s timepiece without drawing attention to the theft. Only 50 of the RM 027 Tourbillons were made.

I’ve always been enthralled by the power of trends in the tennis world. Players tend to follow them, but media and tennis professionals tend to make them absolute truths. It takes something special to break away.

I signed a representation deal with Caroline Wozniacki when she was 10 years old. I’ve been negotiating contracts for her since she was 13 or 14. At the time, the Williams sisters were at the height of their domination of the tennis world. They had sent Martina Hingis to retirement and everybody was agreeing that power was the wave of the future. If you didn’t have it, you weren’t getting to No. 1 in the world. And then a little woman called Justine Henin became the top player in the world by showing totally different abilities: speed, diversity of shot-selection and taking the ball early. But even then, there wasn’t much interest in the young teenager named Caroline.

"She’s too limited and lacks power," they said. "She’ll be top 50 because she’s a fighter, but nothing more." I heard this constantly. Those whispers persisted even when she became the No. 2 junior is the world (at this point I wasn’t representing her anymore). However, today, she’s No. 2 in the world and going to enter these quarterfinals at the U.S. Open as the main favorite for the title.

As Richard Williams has always told me: Players with self-confidence will always be the best ones. Because a match can turn on a few details and points and players can be victims of pressure and feelings in those moments, they need to be a rock. So the more confident ones, the serene ones, are always the ones who’ll make the good decisions when it matters. Caroline is among this group of winners. She’s calm, determined and confident. When Victoria Azarenka, Vera Zvonareva, Elena Dementieva and company haven’t found that mental zone yet, Caroline is more than ready.

She’s also the definition of a fighter. She keeps on fighting on every point, in every situation and she displays the amazing abilities of a counterpuncher. It’s stunning to watch how she moves. She’s reading the game perfectly so she’s able to be early on the ball and that’s why it’s so hard to get her out of the way. She feels the game pretty well so she can anticipate. It’s like she’s attracting the ball like a magnet. She’s always making the opponent hit one more ball again and again, so this player tends to take more and more risks and then misses.

Unlike many of the players, Caroline is playing with her brain. She has studied the shots of her opponents and she sets a different game plan depending of whom she’s confronted with. She knows how to use her abilities to put others under pressure, she knows how to slow the game to then be able to give more pace and, most importantly, she always takes her opponent’s moves into consideration. She plays against you.

Last year I was the first to state that she won’t win a Grand Slam right now, because she wasn’t showing the weapons needed to get through. But lately she has brought a more aggressive side to her game. She’s not using that all the time, but it’s definitely there. Caroline has tremendously improved her serve as far as putting more first serves in and giving it more spin. Her forehand, which was her weak side, is way steadier and she now can attack with it. Overall, she’s a more complete player today, moving better and hitting stronger than before. She looks more confident.

Caroline Wozniacki seems ready to win her first Grand Slam. She’s got a unique chance with Serena Williams being out. A career is often decided by being able to capitalize on breaks. Wozniacki can start to do that now and put her name in the tennis history. We’ll know on Saturday what she has made of this opportunity.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander will be contributing to Busted Racquet during the 2010 U.S. Open

The cream is rising to the top

This is the tournament where the best players go through because it’s a neutral surface and you can play any way you want. You can play from the baseline, come to the net, hit flat shots, you can hit topspin, it’s all effective on this surface. What it all boils down to is that everybody has had a month on hard courts and they’re all happy to be playing there. Not everybody is happy to be playing on clay or grass. Almost everyone considers this their favorite surface with the possible exception of Rafael Nadal. It’s the footing and they move so well on it.

Andy Murray needs to get mentally tough

Andy Murray was probably the only big surprise thus far. Everybody kind of thought that this was the one he should be able to win. He played great this summer but ran into somebody who played better on that specific day. Murray didn’t show the attitude necessary to win a Grand Slam, which is something he’s struggled with. There’s a lot of question marks about his potential to ever win a Grand Slam.

Anytime a player is not getting rid of bad mental habits like getting upset when you’re ahead but not playing well or keeping a positive attitude in lesser matches then the coach-player relationship is not that effective. That’s what his coaches have been telling him to do. That has to change. His poor attitude brings other people into the match because they know they can always know that he will get down on himself. It even happened against Wawrinka when he was up a set and tied 3-3.

I have no idea whether anyone can get him to the mental state of Federer and Nadal. He may not have it in him. We don’t know though because the mental part of his game has overshadowed the talent thus far.  It starts with attitude and that’s the easiest fix of all. It’s disappointing because he’s fun to watch and has Federer and Nadal’s number on the ATP tour, but I don’t know whether he can compete with them in Slams.

On playing late matches at the Open

It was a late session on Tuesday night, but not as late as the one I was involved in back in 1993. That one ended at 2:26 a.m. and it’s still the latest match in U.S. Open history. Me and Mikael Pernfors were on after Gabriela Sabatini who was up 6-1, 5-0. We were ready to go out. But then Sabatini fell apart and the match turned into three sets and three hours and 15 minutes. That was rough. It’s not that big a deal to wait unless you’re getting ready to go out and the match unexpectedly ends up going 90 minutes longer.

The bigger issue is playing a four-hour match and getting back to the hotel, getting a decent night of sleep and being fresh for the next day. When you get to bed at 5 a.m., there’s the problem.

The U.S. Open is the hardest Slam to win

This is the hardest Grand Slam to win because you never run into people who don’t know how to play on hard court. At the French Open you can face someone who’s clueless on clay. Same thing on the grass at Wimbledon. But here in New York, everyone is good on hard. 

Caroline Wozniacki is validating her No. 1 seed

The women’s side is shaping up to be very exciting. We were all nervous without Serena Williams and Justine Henin, but Caroline Wozniacki has proven that she belongs here. There’s no telling how good she will become. Maybe she’s not good enough right now, but every day she lives she improves. She’s like a sponge, soaking up experience.

It’s better for women’s players to get some court time in the first week

Wozniacki lost three games in her first three matches. Obviously that’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a great thing either. I think for the women it’s better to not dominate too much early in the tournament. Because they’re only playing two sets, if they dominate, they can’t get enough repetition if they’re not on the court much. On their days off they need to practice then and you can’t duplicate a match atmosphere in practice. With the guys, a day off is literally a day off because they’re playing three sets on match days. Women who aren’t on the court much in the first few rounds have to get in their reps.

Tuesday at the U.S. Open had it all — five-set thrillers, American hopefuls, amazing comebacks big stars, see-saw matches and a night session that lasted into the wee hours of the next day. Busted Racquet recaps the exciting day from the USTA National Tennis Center, starting with the first major singles match of the day:

1:23 p.m. – Stanislas Wawrinka vs. Sam Querrey begins at Arthur Ashe Stadium

5:51 p.m. – After breaking Querrey in the penultimate game of the fifth set, Wawrinka holds serve to cap a 7-6 (9), 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory. It is the match of the day.

6:10 p.m. — The final match of the afternoon session — Venus Williams vs. Francesca Schiavone — begins on Ashe. 

6:20 p.m. — Ten minutes after it began, the first game of Williams-Schiavone ends with Venus holding serve.

6:24 p.m. — Over in Louis Armstrong Stadium, a matchup of Spaniards gets underway as Fernando Verdasco and David Ferrer start their battle to see who’ll advance to the quarterfinals.

7:14 p.m. – Williams wins the first set in a tiebreaker, holding on after blowing a 4-1 lead.

8:04 p.m. – Schiavone hits a shot long and Venus wins their match in straights, 7-6 (5), 6-4. 

8:47 p.m. — Kim Clijsters vs. Sam Stosur starts on Ashe. The break between the two women’s matches was so lenghty because the stadium had to be cleared in between the afternoon and evening sessions. That they were able to do so in only 43 minutes is remarkable.

10:08 p.m. — Stosur takes the second set.

10:41 p.m. — Clijsters wins a set that started out break-break-break-break-break-break. The defending champion held serve for the first time at 4-3 and went on to win 6-4. She’ll face Venus Williams in the semifinals.

10:47 p.m. — Meanwhile, there’s still a match going on at Armstrong. After four hours and 23 minutes, Fernando Verdasco caps a stunning comeback from two sets down and 4-1 in the final-set tiebreak to take out his Davis Cup teammate. His winner on match point was one of the best you’ll ever see.

10:51 p.m. — Pam Shriver begins pre-match interviews with Rafael Nadal and Feliciano Lopez.

10:55 p.m. — Pam Shriver ends pre-match interviews. Look, I get that ESPN has a deal to interview the players before the match. And I get that the network and the USTA still want to interview players before a match even though it’s starting two hours later than expected. But is there really a need to ask each player more than three questions? "How do you feel?" "You ready after that long wait?" "What’s your strategy." Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. Sometimes Pam Shriver interviews feel like Senate confirmation hearings.

11:07 p.m. — Rafael Nadal vs. Feliciano Lopez begins.

1:15 a.m. – In an anti-climatic end to a riveting day of tennis, Nadal wins easily against Lopez. Like everyone else at the Open, Lopez couldn’t break Nadal’s serve even though he was up 40-0 at one point in the first. Nadal does a post-match interview and ESPN cameras cut to a worker cleaning the stadium. After all, the next match begins in less than ten hours.

The match-point winner hit by Fernando Verdasco in Tuesday night’s fourth-round match against David Ferrer would have been great in any circumstance. But that it came after 243 minutes of play and after Verdasco was down two sets and 4-1 in the fifth-set tiebreaker — well, that makes it all the more unbelievable:

There were two "no way!" moments on the point. First, it’s amazing Verdasco even got to the Ferrer drop shot. As the replay shows, he stumbled a bit before the shot so he had to recover, get to speed and run all the way across the court to the net. Keep in mind, this came after four hours of intense tennis and three previous matches in the past week. Even watching the clip it’s hard to see how he got there so quickly.

Then the shot itself. It goes around the net and falls in on the only spot it could drop in to be a winner. If Verdasco hits that shot 100 more times, he may not have done it as nicely.

This slipped by us last week (and judging by the upload date on the YouTube clip, everyone else too), but it’s good enough to revisit today.

In his second-round match, Romanian Victor Hanescu pulled off a wonderfully sneaky shot for a winner off a Michael Llodra lob. 

A simple overhead slam probably works 99 percent of the time right there, but where’s the panache in that?  

Hanescu went on to lose the match in straight sets.

Racquet clap to @jon_wertheim

The biggest matches at the U.S. Open are yet to come, but the lineup of celebrities attending the Grand Slam in New York has already hit the big-time.

A few of the biggest names in music, sports and film have been spotted at the Open, some to promote a charity (Usher), others because they’re friends with the players (Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani are old friends of Roger Federer‘s and frequently sit in Fed’s player’s box at Grand Slam events) and some to provide family support (Serena Williams and Brooklyn Decker). One thing is certain though: They all had better seats than you and me.

There have yet to be sightings of frequent U.S. Open attendees like Wood Allen, Jay-Z Jerry Seinfeld and Jack Nicholson, but oftentimes the big stars don’t come around until late in the second week. You can bet if Federer and Rafa play in the final, the crowd at Ashe will put anything seen at a Lakers game to shame. 

Sadly, though he’s currently residing just five miles away from the USTA National Tennis Center, noted tennis fan Lil Wayne won’t be able to make it to this year’s event.

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 best in the world. He’ll provide commentary for Busted Racquet during the 2010 U.S. Open.  

Now that we’re in the second week of the U.S. Open, it’s time to look at a few of the biggest questions that have emerged so far:

Where does Andy Murray go from here?

The world No. 4 needs to start thinking about getting a coach. He’s showing way more perseverance than others without coaches, but he really needs to find someone to guide him now. This loss against Stanislas Wawrinka is a huge disappointment. His body let him down. The Scotsman has seen his whole game style implode from Toronto to New York. There was too much defensive play, no inspiration and a lot of searching for easy answers instead of setting up a real game plan. Murray showed all his limits. He’s a great player but lacks the refinement right now to get a first Grand Slam win.

Is Federer’s back giving him trouble again?

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are on a crash-course for the final. They’re playing convincing tennis at the moment, as none of them has dropped a single set until now. The Spaniard is playing really aggressive tennis. He’s searching for flat shots, which has helped so far but could be a liability against effective counter-punches. Concerning Federer, you have to say that I’m worried lately. His wins over Mathieu and Jurgen Melzer left me with a bitter taste. I thought I’ve noticed some signs of pain in his back. He seems to be lacking some initiative and has been very static in his footwork, not getting down enough on his legs. It looks a lot different than his style in Toronto and Cincinnati.

What happens to Marcos Baghdatis and David Nalbandian?

Both players came back from injuries this summer with gusto, but how long can they keep it up? You can’t get back to a Grand Slam final just because you’ve found motivation for three months. Getting into the last four of such an event requires a real project, a long-term involvement in training and focus. It’s a long building process and that’s why those tournaments are different: You can’t just arrive and get it in a snap. Winning at a Slam is a totally different thing to achieve and these two aren’t at that level at the moment.

Who wins on the men’s side?

When you give a look to the top of the draw it’s hard to see Nadal being challenged. He has Feliciano Lopez on Tuesday night and then David Ferrer or Fernando Verdasco. Wawrinka or Querrey likely follows that. Unless there’s a huge surprise, he’ll be a finalist this year and, in my opinion, he’ll also be the favorite to win it. Federer is facing a much tougher draw. He’ll have first to get rid of Robin Söderling, which he should be able to do, but then he could face Novak Djokovic. That would be a really difficult task. Physical conditioning is going to be the key because trying to overcome Djokovic and Nadal back-to-back requires Fed to be in the best of shape. We’ll know more about this after his match against Söderling.

Is Wozniacki the favorite?

There haven’t been many surprises in the womens’ draw either. Caroline Wozniacki and Kim Clijsters confirm how strong they are this year. Much like the men’s top two seeds, they’ve not dropped a single set. We could get a rematch of last year’s final. The Dane played flawlessly in her match against Maria Sharapova, committing very few unforced errors, reading the Russian’s game easily and confirming once again how much she has improved her serve. Compared to last year, she now knows how to take advantage of each short ball and she uses her serve much more effectively. She should get over Dominika Cibulkova and Vera Zvonareva to climb to the final. Clijsters has a more difficult task. She’ll have to battle against Sam Stosur, who won that epic fight against Elena Dementieva. But the Australian may arrive very tired after such a thriller. If she wins that one, the Belgian would likely face Venus Williams. But the American hasn’t been fully convincing in the first week. She has been struggling with ups and downs in all her matches, so she’ll be the clear underdog against Kim. As a result, I’ll be very surprised if this year we don’t see a replay of the 2009 final.