The U.S. Open is a memory machine: Every court, every corner turned, calls one up. But they tumble in with no context attached; I can’t identify the year when they happened. As I’ve said before, my two weeks here blend into my two weeks here last year, which had already blended into the two weeks from the year before that. Tennis pushes everything else to the side: politics, books, movies, Mad Men, the Phillies, even money. The lowliest press member can eat pulled pork and Indian food for two weeks without forking over a dime.

My trip from my office in Manhattan to my desk under Arthur Ashe Stadium alone was enough to bring the following moments vividly back to life:

—The excitement I felt, on an early family trip to New York for the Open, when I saw a McDonald’s in midtown. It had two floors. It was was something on the order of the Taj Mahal in my 10-year-old mind.

—Arriving too early for our first Open and waiting for an hour outside the front gates, an aggravation made worthwhile by the sight of a very small Chris Evert passing through the crowd nearby, protected by what looked like a phalanx of bodyguards, though I seem to remember that they allowed her to carry her dozen wooden Wilson racquets herself. I don’t think I’d ever seen a celebrity in civilian clothes before. Seeing Chris in a T-shirt, sunglasses and jeans, rather than her customary Ellesse was shocking and weird. She looked like a movie star: cocky.

—A couple years later, passing by a court where Jimmy Connors was practicing and feeling the energy coming even before I knew who it was. Connors was electric even in practice, bobbing, weaving, his hair flying side to side with every move. Like a boxer, he had all kinds of people on the court with him, bodyguards, coaches, buddies, assorted hangers-on. It’s been said that Jimbo was a master as making his own fight the audience’s fight, too. He did that in practice, hammering everything with gusto. And then, all of a sudden, he was done. He sat down, talking all the time, drained a bottle of Coke in one long gulp, and left.

—Coming around toward the player’s lounge today, I saw the usual mass of kids jammed together waiting for autographs. I remembered this same scene from 10 years ago. Roger Federer, owner of no Grand Slam titles, ambled onto the grounds, alone, carrying nothing, his hands in his pockets. When the kids started to scream, he flashed that little bemused smile of his and waded in to start signing. When he was done, he put his hands back in his pockets and ambled away, not seeming to be going anywhere in particular, unnoticed.

—I can never pass Court 13 without thinking of two particular matches that I watched there. One was a senior doubles job featuring Ilie Nastase. Hat backwards, hair white, hobbling—not running, not walking, hobbling—through points, he could still carve up a drop shot as magical as any current pro’s. The aging process is especially tragic and frustrating for tennis players. The skills largely remain; there’s just no way to use them.

The second match featured a young Jelena Jankovic. Late in the third set, the chair umpire overruled a call against her. Jankovic bent forward in agony, held out her hand toward the umpire, and said, in that furry, pleading voice we all know, “Why do you change that one? There have been thousands and thousands of terrible calls in this match, and you change that one.”

—Another side court was the sight of the coldest match I ever watched: five sets between Tomas Berdych and Dmitry Tursunov, something like three years ago. Every ball was poleaxed; the sound of the racquets was frightening. Neither of these two blond Europeans showed the slightest hint of emotion, or even interest—not once. After three hours, the final was ball was smashed, they walked expressionlessly to the net, shook hands without a smile or a nod, and walked off.

—The lower bowl of Ashe Stadium makes me think of staying late, or what we thought was late at the time—like past midnight—to watch Todd Martin come back to beat Greg Rusedski. A friend and I sat in the front row and chanted for Martin as he came back from two sets down. Why? Who knows—mostly because I wanted to see Rusedski blow it, to be honest. Afterward, after four or five Heinekens, I have a dim memory of high-fiving a few guys as I walked out of the men’s room. The buzz lasted through the long, wee-hour subway ride into Manhattan and back to Brooklyn.

***

What will I remember from 2010? It’s tough to tell. It just took me a second to remember whether I went to the qualifiers this time, or whether that was last year. By the second week of the Open, when the cold wind makes its appearance, the first humid, breezeless days can seem to come from a previous lifetime. Like I said, Open memories bubble up at random; there are too many of them to keep straight or even attach much importance to—after a while, it’s just one damn thing after another, one post after another, one emotionally exhausting five-set marathon after another, one perfect shot after another.

I’ll start with something I hope I don’t remember: Stan Wawrinka’s player’s box—please let me block it out. Ditto for Donald Young’s unhappy first-round loss.

Here’s a tiny fraction of what I hope does stay in my mind:

—The pretty fierceness of a Pennetta/Dulko doubles match on the Grandstand.

—Fernando Verdasco’s fall to the court after his match-ending, side-winding forehand against Ferrer.

—The annoyance and restraint on Sam Querrey’s face when he was pummeled with questions about the state of U.S. tennis.

—Ditto for Andy Murray’s face when he was pummeled with questions about whether he’ll ever win a Slam. Murray was pale and exhausted and morose after his loss, and it only got worse in the press room. He finally snapped when he was asked, “Does this accelerate the need to get a coach?” Murray shook his head in disgust—you really see the players do that—and said something like, “After the last match that I won, I was asked whether I ever needed to get a coach. Now I need to get a coach right away?”

—Djokovic’s dad’s shirt. Djokovic’s shirt. Djokovic’s hat. Djokovic’s post-match interviews. All of it: gold.

—Francesca Schiavone snarling and snapping and hopping her way to a defeat at the hands of Venus Williams.

—Roger Federer in the tunnel before his quarterfinal, looking quietly pleased to get another crack at Robin Soderling.

—The last two sets of Nadal-Istomin, and the happy disbelief in Istomin’s box at the way he was playing.

—The victory salute of Mikhail Youzhny, whimsical warrior.

—Caroline Wozniacki letting out a scream of relief when she reached match point against Maria Sharapova. She knew then finally, that it was going to happen.

—The awesome and heartening sight of thousands of people waiting at the gates, eyes raised to the TV screen above, to enter Ashe Stadium for the night session. Tennis is an exotic circus; the international cast of players rolls into your town, and after a week or so it disappears for another year. For fans of the sport in New York, all of 2010 is packed into these two weeks. It’s an overdose of perfectly struck shots. It’s too bad you can’t fully appreciate them all.

For most of us, like I’ve said, it’s a lot to remember. But that’s not true for everyone. One day last week I got to the site in the late afternoon. On the way in the gate, I passed two guys walking quickly in the other direction, toward the subway. They were quintessential New Yorkers, short guys in white sneakers and black T-shirts, moving fast and talking fast, with high-pitched Sopranos-esque accents.

“So whadja see?” one guy asked the other.

“Ahhh, nothin’ much.”

by Pete Bodo

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer both know how to say the right things. We’re not in the final yet. Check. My next opponent, (pull a name out of the hat, insert here): ___ , is a great player. I’m going to have to play my best tennis to win. Right-o. But don’t you get a teensy-weensy feeling here at this U.S. Open that Federer and Nadal have been performing for each other, not just the crowds on Arthur Ashe stadium, and using their successive opponents as surrogates for each other in a game that seems amusingly like good old-fashioned oneupmanship?

They’re like two kids lobbing mud pies over a high fence at each other.

Take the past two nights. Just over 24 hours ago, Roger Federer, looking sleek and svelt as a naval officer, beat the tar out of Robin Soderling, a rival to both he and Nadal, with a bravura performance under some of the worst conditions ever to mar a Grand Slam quarterfinal.

Tonight, under slightly improved circumstances, Nadal laid the lash to a Spanish countryman who’s been nipping at his heels for some time now, Fernando Verdasco. Although Nadal’s performance was less fluid and inspired, it advanced this notion that each man is being pulled along on invisible strings by some force of fate, ticking off the items on some unwritten to-do list as a condition for meeting each other.

Remember how Federer brought the house down earlier in the tournament with a between-the-legs retrieve winner? Who’s the man, Rafa? Tonight, Nadal overran a hot potato half-volley, but touched it back over the net with the very tip of his racket head, his momentum then carrying him through a 360-degree spin that landed him facing the net again, just in time to see Verdasco drill a passing shot into the webbing. How you like me now, Roger?

Recall how Federer had the stones to feather that daring drop shot into the teeth of a gale-force breeze to record a key service break in his match last night? Tonight, Nadal pulled off a similar shot, and if it was slightly less sublime, he took a chance on it from far riskier territory near his own baseline.

But let’s remember that these men employ profoundly different if comparably effective styles, and it’s been reflected in their matches. Nothing about their quarterfinal wins could be described as similar except for the most important thing: the scoreline. Perish the thought that either of these guys would be dubbed a copy-cat. Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of their rivalry has been the contrast between them—an apposition that runs deep.

Thus, this week we have the crisp, maritime Federer juxtaposed with a man who appears to have been dressed to impersonate a locomotive. That’s the signal sent by Nadal’s iron-black and steel-gray kit. Could it be that the garment designers at Nike have finally developed an accurate grasp of the character of these men? You could easily mistake that fluorescent yellow (trademark) Swoosh on Nadal’s carbon-colored headband for the bright yellow headlamp of a powerful diesel locomotive bearing down on you from the maw of a mountain tunnel. That’s a pretty accurate representation of what it must be like to see Nadal across the net, and Verdasco appeared to experience it that way. 

That’s how it is with Federer and Nadal. One comes by sea, the other by land, and nobody lives to tell the tale.

True to this simile, Nadal took some time to really get rolling tonight, but once he got his load moving, there was no stopping the train. Federer fans may delight in the way Federer took command of his match with Soderling so smoothly and convincingly, but Nadal partisans had to be pleased with the way their man overcame a shaky start and ultimately flattened Verdasco. If nothing else, Nadal certainly exhibited more apprehension than Federer about the how the still-gusting winds might affect the match, but let’s also remember that there’s a conspicuous streak of caution in Nadal. He’s wary, and while no less combative than Federer, he’s less self-assured. Tonight, he needed more time to find the comfort zone than he does under better ambient conditions.

Nadal had some anxious moments in the first set: down a break early, he adopted to the dangerous—and distinctly un-Nadalesque—game plan of merely keeping to ball in play, presumably torn between a mistrust of the tricky wind and a crafty impulse to see if his opponent had any better ideas than his own. The next time he looked up, Verdasco was serving with a break at 4-3, and that’s just when the locomotive finally achieved the speed where the string of cars adds to rather than takes away from the momentum. Nadal broke back, and he broke Verdasco again to win the set, 7-5. 

The rest of the journey was taken on a long, smooth, downhill grade.

By the second set, Verdasco appeared leg weary, an understandable dilemma for a man who had, in his previous round, come back from two sets down, and 1-4 down in the fifth-set tiebreaker, to beat David Ferrer. But it takes two to make a rout, and the measured, inexorable way Nadal’s game continued on a rising trajectory wiped out the memory of that tentative start. Nadal did a few things exceptionally well tonight. He covered the court brilliantly, made the transition from defense to offense with alacrity, and he served very judiciously, if not overpoweringly. Nadal won 16 of his 21 net approaches, a statistic more noteworthy for the sheer number of times he attacked than for the high success rate. And he kept Verdasco’s winning percentage on points received at a paltry  21 percent, while Nadal won 84 per cent of the points when he converted his first serve.

By the end, it looked as if Nadal was good to go for another three sets, because momentum can reach a point where it takes more effort to stop it than to let it expire naturally. You half-expected Nadal to discharge a long hiss and a cloud of steam, accompanied by the squeal of steel wheels, when the men shook hands at the net.

But I’m glad Nadal had the good sense to shake hands and walk off. Nothing wrong with saving a little bit of that magic for Feder—whoops, Mikhail Youzhny. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid talking about that projected Federer vs. Nadal final. And now only two men—Youzhny and Federer’s semifinal opponent, Novak Djokovic—are in a position to put the kibosh on the seemingly inevitable dream final.

If there are no upsets at a tennis tournament, there’s no story, right? The top two seeds advancing solemnly and efficiently toward the final is too predictable to be noteworthy. Not so with this U.S. Open so far: What’s set the tournament apart on the men’s side has been the otherworldly quality of both of those top seeds, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. They’ve been handing the beatdown baton back and forth to each other every evening in Ashe Stadium. Last night it was Nadal’s turn. He took the stick and ran all over the court, as well as a helpless and poorly coiffed Fernando Verdasco, with it. Nadal played with a sense of purpose rare even for him.

The other news is that the Open is the only Slam where Federer and Nadal have never played. New York wants a piece of this generation’s great rivalry before it’s too late, and we’re never going to have a better shot at it. We’ve seen Ali and Frazier. We’ve seen Borg and McEnroe. Even Godzilla traveled to Manhattan for a showdown with King Kong. Are we finally going to get Nadal and Federer?

Nadal vs. Mikhail Youzhny
The head to head is 7-4 in Nadal’s favor, though the last time they played on a hard court, in Chennai a couple of years ago, Youzhny won love and 1. While Nadal was coming off an epic match with Carlos Moya the day before, there’s no question that Youzhny has troubled him at times in the past. He even eliminated Nadal in the quarters at Flushing Meadows four years ago and was up two sets on him at Wimbledon the following year, before Nadal completely turned the tables. Since then, Nadal has mostly had the upper hand.

Last night Nadal said that Youzhny’s shots are difficult because they’re so flat, and that they work well on this court, where the ball picks up speed more than it does on some of the other hard courts on tour. Youzhny is also adept at taking his backhand down the line, which is a huge help against Nadal’s lefty serve and forehand.

If you go by Nadal’s form so far, none of that will matter. He’s been playing too well, with too much self-assurance, aggression, speed, and determination, for Youzhny to take even a set. Plus, Youzhny is coming off a a very draining five-setter against Wawrinka. Nadal wasn’t serving quite as hard last night, but he’s only been broken once in the tournament. Most impressive to me has been his ability to hit offensive shots, mostly forehands, from positions, like well back in his backhand corner, that would normally be defensive, for him or anyone else. Nadal has been less patient than ever with the grind of the rally. According to him, that approach will continue. To combat Youzhny’s flat strokes, he says he can’t cede much territory to him. That should be music to the ears of Nadal fans, because that’s always been his attitude at Wimbledon.

One caveat, because there always must be a caveat. Recent form is a good predictor of future form—except when it isn’t. I watched Nadal play two of the very best matches I’ve ever seen—one against Youzhny—in Rome three years ago, and then come out utterly flat against Davydenko in the semis. The shots that penetrated were now floating. Offense had given way to defense, dictating to defending. It can happen, even tomorrow. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Winner: Nadal

***

Federer vs. Novak Djokovic
On paper, this should be the trickier semi, but I don’t see it. Djokovic has lost to Federer the last three years at the Open, and in 2009 he caved mentally. Federer’s between the legs winner near the end just confirmed Djokovic’s thinking at the moment—the guy is too good.

That shouldn’t necessarily be true. Djokovic came back to beat Federer on his home court in Basel later in the year. And the Serb has been winning almost as efficiently here as Nadal and Federer. But he also hasn’t faced the world’s most tenacious competition. In the fourth round he got Mardy Fish, who conveniently forgot he was a New Player. In the quarters, he got Gael Monfils, who conveniently forgot that he was a tennis player at all.

Federer, on the other hand, has been his old regal self, making No. 5 seed Robin Soderling look like the flat-footed Sod of yore—like, 2008. Federer has at times appeared to be moving more quickly than ever. Or maybe he’s just moving more aggressively. Like Nadal, defense has been offense for him, there’s been little sign of the erratic, shank-ridden stretches that have cost him this season, and his consistency with his serve in the wind has been astounding—judging by his comments after his quarter, Federer thinks the wind works in his favor, because of his uncomplicated service motion. You might even say that the wind has actually helped him, the same way it’s helped Nadal. Both guys mentioned that playing in it requires you to be especially vigilant with footwork, with making tiny adjustment steps as the swerves toward you. It’s made them both a little sharper. Too sharp for anyone else.

Rog and Rafa haven’t lost a set. I’m guessing they won’t lose one on Saturday, either. This should be it. These guys deserve each other.

Winner: Federer

“I think the right height for tennis runs from Federer to Nadal,” Pam Shriver said last night. She was at courtside, watching one of those men, Roger Federer, warm up against his taller opponent, Robin Soderling. In the booth, John and Patrick McEnroe, who had been discussing how the “right” height for the sport had risen in recent years, were confused for a second, but finally got it. Federer and Nadal are both listed at 6-foot-1 (though each of them looks a little taller in person). The physical similarities don’t end there: Nadal is 188 pounds, Federer 187; in his prime, Pete Sampras was also listed as 6-foot-1, 188 pounds. As Shriver was saying, let’s not get ahead of ourselves—or above ourselves. Whatever inroads the game’s giants have made, 6-foot-1 has won 20 of the last 22 Grand Slams.

As this Grand Slam progresses, it’s looking more and more like it’s going to be 21 of 23. Night sessions at the Open have been alternating symphonies of whoop-ass, conducted—one with the left arm, the other with the right, both in black evening tennis wear—by those 6-foot-1 maestros, Federer and Nadal. They’ve made the men’s event their own personal forum for score settling. Two nights ago, Nadal knocked off Feliciano Lopez, who had beaten him in Queens in June, in straight sets; last night it was Federer’s turn to right the wrong that Soderling had done to him at the French Open. If anything, he outdid Nadal by running and hitting circles around the No. 5 seed, also in straight sets. There’s been wind at the Open, but it’s been no match for the second winds that Federer and Nadal have found these last two weeks.

Early in the match, Soderling was forced to come forward for a short ball. He bent to hit it, floated a weak slice crosscourt, and was passed. While Soderling would never be described as smooth—I heard him referred to as “Clodderling” a few times earlier in his career—it was still a remarkably awkward maneuver for a pro. I thought that Federer had to have noticed, and that he would find a way to draw the big man forward again. He did. He broke serve later with an utterly ungettable drop shot, and eventually threw in a few of his trusty short crosscourt backhand slices.

But those ploys were hardly necessary. Last night felt like the culmination of Federer’s post-Wimbledon surge. With and without Paul Annacone, the focus in Toronto, Cincy, and here has been on offense, not just in his strokes, but in his movement. Federer looked as fast and sharp and comfortable as he ever has last night—his serve, his drops, his lobs, even his hesitation flick volleys were working. His defense was offensive—Soderling must have been offended, anyway. When he moved Federer right with his haymaker crosscourt forehand, the Swiss was there to cut off the angle and create a sharper one back crosscourt. By the third set, it felt like Federer had stood the taller man down; the tables had turned from the French Open and he was the one at the baseline dictating from the center of the court, the place where a slugfest like this is going to be won. Soderling, by contrast, looked stiffer than ever. Stiff on his serve, which wasn’t working for him; stiff moving forward; and stiff reaching back for lobs. At times he looked the way he had once looked: too tall.

As far as 2010 goes, Soderling the invader from the barbaric future has been vanquished. Nadal stood in and outhit him at Wimbledon, and Federer outclassed him at the Open. Is it time to pencil in a Federer-Nadal final? I don’t think I’ve ever seen both of these guys looking this determined and fresh at this late point in the season. Nadal, wielding an entirely new weapon, has yet to be broken. He also seems to have solved his issues with burnout on hard courts. Looking back at his performances in Toronto and Cincy, there’s a sense that he was saving a little of himself. After his Wimbledon win two years ago, he came back flying and fist-pumping his way to a title in Toronto. This year he went down in the semis with little fanfare and talked about how his hard-court game was a work in progress, the serve wasn’t ready, the backhand was just coming along. Both of them have come along nicely in New York.

Verdasco, Youzhny, Wawrinka, Djokovic: As I write this, they’re all still in the tournament. They all have a theoretical chance to reach the final. And there will be wind playing havoc with ball tosses and possibly results. But Federer didn’t even seem to notice the wind last night, and Nadal’s basic accuracy with his serve and forehand will help him. Rog and Rafa appear to be heading for a serious collision on Sunday; they may only be 188 pounds each, but it’s a collision that could match anything you’ll see in the NFL that day. Federer showed last night that the future of the big man is not now. The future is just like the past. It’s 6-foot-1. 

Mornin’. This operating on three, four hours sleep a night isn’t as bad as some of you might think. The trick is to get a coffee IV hook-up (I prefer Kenyan), although dragging that danged aluminum tower and all those tubes around sure is cumbersome and noisy.

My gut feeling is that I did indeed witness something extraordinary last night, simply because I woke up thinking about the Federer-Soderling match. And that doesn’t happen to me very often. Even great tennis matches, if you’ve seen enough of them, tend to run together, and get moved from the in portal to the out chute in a couple of hours. That’s as it should be. Nothing in tennis is permanent, and if more people remembered that there would be less weeping and gnashing of teeth. The history of the moment in tennis is, on the whole, far more compelling than the history of the game in general.

I was a little surprised by the number of people who chose to single out (in the comments) that line about Rafa calibrating the size of the runner-up check. I don’t wish to patronize you, but sheesh – do you really want everything spelled and expressed in away that even the most literal-minded can’t possibly misconstrue? That line about Nadal was a throwaway; I didn’t write it to provoke, but to emphasize, and can see writing the same thing, with the names of the two stars switched around, in Paris, or Melbourne, or London next year. This was Federer’s turn; appreciate him.

Additionally: I’ve never seen anyone master difficult conditions as effectively as Federer did last night. Some of this is subjective, but I noted only three or four occassions when Federer was made to pay a  visible price (emphasis on the qualifier) by the conditions. Someone snidely asked if Federer also walked on water last night, and I must admit he did not. But only because it wasn’t raining.

But wind and chill aside, I was struck by Federer’s general anticipation. For a bit, I just watched him, ignoring Soderling across the net. And the extent to which Federer read the coming shot from Robin was striking. He was like a baseball player stealing the signals from a coach or the catcher on the other team. That had nothing to do with the wind, and also underscores an advantage Federer has here (as if this guy needs any more than he already benefits from, most of the time) – the speed and low bounce of the court. But lest we forget, Nadal took pains in an interview with ESPN yesterday to declare, with emphasis, that Wimbledon is still “faster.”

Just in case those of you who have invested too much in that long-lasting and heavily emphasized narrative about the slowing of the grass at Wimbledon.

As the NFL opens its season tonight with the Minnesota Vikings going up against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, let me reach (with apologies to readers on foreign shores) for a football analogy. Imagine that a team with an exceptionally gifted, quick, finess runner has to play a major rival and defensive powerhouse on a field that’s been turned into a swamp by a deluge. And this cut-and-dart runner ends up running for 215 yards. That’s what Federer did last night.

But today is, as ever, a new day. I’ll be back with y’all later, enjoy the tennis.

- Pete

by Pete Bodo

NEW YORK—All day here at the National Tennis Center the talk centered on the wind, and how the conditions were not only affecting the quality of the tennis but how players were, or ought to be, adjusting. How, depending on whether they liked to hit flat or with spin, employed a high or relatively low service toss, hit backhands with one or two hands, or were fans of the Rolling Stone or Beatles, they would or wouldn’t have an advantage or liability.

This evening, Roger Federer made a mockery out of all that Deep Tennis punditry in the course of his 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 win over Robin Soderling, the man who’s made a pretty good living recently dashing universally-held hopes for Grand Slam finals featuring Federer vs. Rafael Nadal. This quarterfinal match had shaped up over the past few days as something like that storied clash at the same stage between Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi in 2001. For the first time this week, the session was a sellout. The collective imagination of the cognoscenti was aflame. It was a night match in New York.

The difficult conditions—an unusual combination of heat, humidity, and winds gusting up to 30 MPH—gradually came to replace the tale-of-the-tape as the main topic of conversation as the day wore on. By the time the sun set, the temperature was plummeting (it would hit 60 degrees by match time), but the wind howled undiminished. When was the last time you heard people trying to work out the wind chill factor on an early September evening?

But if the wind swept away the developing occasion, it also set the stage for one of the most remarkable performances by this most remarkable of players, Roger Federer. When the historians of the future come across Federer’s 2010 U.S. Open quarterfinal result, they’re likely shrug, if their eyes even stop at this particular scoreline. After all, Soderling has never been No. 1, nor claimed a Grand Slam title. And Federer, in the grand scheme of things, was merely doing due diligence on his way to another major semifinal. 

But if you know where Soderling stood today as an equal opportunity menace to the twin icons of the contemporary game, and a factor in Grand Slam events, and if you saw how the meteorological conditions in play turned ordinarily sensible human beings into so many Nostrodamuses, foretelling the horrible demise of pretty much anyone who had to play today, you have to bow to Federer and say whatever it is that takes “too good” to the next level of praise.

Federer made those elaborate ruminations on the impact wind velocity might have on the rotational integrity of a sliced backhand sound a little bit like one of those late night conversations you get when one college sophomore asks another, “Dude, ever wonder how different life would be if, like, the dinosaurs never went extinct?” Didn’t I hear Brad Gilbert assert, just this afternoon, that if the wind keeps blowing like stink, it would be a huge—huge!—advantage for Rafael Nadal, who would be able to calibrate the degree of spin in his ground strokes to meet whatever challenge the wind presented on either end of the court? I’ve got news for you; if Nadal makes it to the final, the conditions remain what they were today (which they won’t), and Federer plays like he did today, the only thing Nadal will be calibrating is the size of the runner-up’s check.

And that’s by no means a criticism of Nadal. It’s a tribute to Federer, who played as if it were 80 degrees and sunny, with the flags hanging limp. He dominated the match with his serve in a demonstration that rivaled his mastery of Andy Roddick in the epic Wimbledon final of 2009—and on a day when ugly tennis seemed pre-ordained.

Against Soderling, Federer hit 18 aces, and 43 of his serves (48 percent) went unreturned (Soderling’s stats in that department? A pair of aces and 22 unreturnables). He hit 36 winners, 20 more than Soderling. Federer also put 75 percent of his returns in play, compared to 52 percent for Soderling. The Swiss star, bedecked in a navy blue ensign’s suit with white piping, sailed out of Soderling’s view quickly. Much was made during the day of the difficulties of playing with the wind behind you at one end of the court, and in your face at the other. But in truth, Federer had the wind at his back, all the way.

If you can watch Federer with a mind stripped of all the associations and assumptions you’ve formed about serving a tennis ball, you might be inclined to think he doesn’t toss the ball at all. He gently places it at just the perfect place for getting the most velocity and action out of his leisurely motion. Technically speaking, his toss is not a millimeter higher than it needs to be, which is certainly an asset in the wind. But so is the attitude he brought to match. “I practiced my serve my entire career,” he told Pam Shriver, immediately after the match. “If I don’t know how to serve, I’ve got a problem. You can wake me at two or four in the morning and I can go out and hit my serve.”

But, that wind?

“I guess I got a good service motion, and one thing I can do is adjust my motion to hit different kinds of serves from the same toss, so when the wind catches the ball a little I can handle it.”

He also said, “By now, I see playing in the wind as a challenge—an opportunity to play differently. It’s not easy, you know. . . It’s cold, it feels like the wind’s blowing through your ears. I used to dislike it so much that I’ve been able to turn it around, and now I actually enjoy it.”

There’s a little bit of masochist in every great champion.

Well, the Grand Slam grind is getting to me; I can only imagine how Roger and Rafa and Robin, Venus and Kim and Caroline are feeling right about now. Tonight, the biggest obstacle to a Federer vs. Nadal final (no disrespect intended to the other fellas) will present itself on Arthur Ashe stadium. Name: Robin Soderling. Aim: Play the spoiler, which has become his job description, and will remain so until such time as he morphs from giant-slayer into giant. His intended victim: Come on, you know I don’t have to write it out. 

The hype has been building for this one, among the cognescenti if not the general public and media. This morning, we took our boy Luke to school for his first day of third grade. Luke is in the same class again as a second-grade pal, Hugh, the stepson of Peter Lattman, a business reporter who lately jumped from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times. Peter is a former collegiate tennis player. When I asked Hugh if his dad had been watching the tennis, he nodded “yes” and added that Peter won’t be playing in the US Open final because he put his back out. . .

A moment later, Peter came over and, pulling me aside, flashed the pair of tickets he had scored for courtside box seats tonight on Arthur Ashe. I felt almost obliged to warn him that the penalty for dealing in mind-altering substances on a schoolyard are draconian. Instead, I just asked if he was bummed out about having to decline to play in the US Open final because of his bad back.

Enjoy the tennis today, I’ll be poking around out there this afternoon, eagerly awaiting the late night main event.

– Pete

by Pete Bodo

Never send a man to do a job best left to a woman. In fact, if you’re an American tennis official, don’t send three men, just dial 1-800-Williams, and ask for Serena, or the lady dressed in the sparkly hot pink sausage casing. You know, Serena’s older sister and rival in the WTA fashionista wars, Venus.

To think that just a few days ago, certain of my/our countrymen were doing backflips, what with Long John Isner, Sam “he’s 6-6, but plays a lot smaller—in a good way!” Querrey, and Mardy Fish (have you heard, Fish lost 30 pounds recently. . .) looking like they might all earn a berth in the fourth-round, the buzz was as audible as the clattering of the cicadas in Flushing Meadow Park. It turns out that most everyone was talking about the wrong American.

It’s been a rough few days for the red, white and blue. Isner, still nursing a tender ankle, was a portrait in reluctance, wandering around the baseline like a guy severly bummed out by the fact that you have to run in tennis, and return as well as deliver serves—the latter task being infinitely more to his liking. Fish discovered that doing something—like capering around the backcourt, daring your opponent to get the ball by you—just because you can is not always a wise choice. And Querrey, the loser of of a bitter battle with the wind as well as Stan Wawrinka today, demonstrated that if you don’t stick your volleys and make the most use of your best weapons to make something happen, you can find yourself encouraging lunatic fantasies about an all-Swiss U.S. Open men’s final of 2010.

All three American men—two of which are featured in American Express’ Next Contenders campaign—were, to a greater or lesser extent, undone by what has to be called a strangely un-American passivity. I’m not engaging in facile pop sociology here, either. Can anyone deny that the signal characteristic of the American game, going back forever, has been a generally profitable embrace of aggression? That mentality has been demonstrated most obviously and convincingly by the historical emphasis placed on service power and proficiency, as well as a willingness to play serve-and-volley tennis. Even our baseliners, with the exception of Michael Chang, usually looked to take the game to their opponents. Wasn’t it Jim Courier who showed that you can cut a tiring and sometimes risky step out of the serve-approach shot-killing volley combination by simply smoking a winner from a few feet inside the baseline off the return?

It’s ironic: the three American men who fell by the wayside are among the most dangerous servers on the tour. But this time around, none of them applied their big weapon to the larger cause of taking the game to their opponents. I hadn’t even thought about it this way, being as susceptible to group-think as anyone, until Venus went out there tonight and went right at tricky Francesca Schiavone with the same mentality as a 275-pound fullback charging the hole on either side of a nose tackle on 3rd and goal from the two-yard line. Venus was nothing less than dominant and unrelentingly aggressive throughout the two-set match, and if I hadn’t been busy eating hot buffalo chicken wings during her press conference I would have made a point to ask about that.

The only other player who so convincingly reads the riot act to opponents is Venus’ sister, Serena. It appears to be a family trait, so their offspring will probably be in deep doo-doo from about toddler age onward. This stern, authoritative streak isn’t about scores, either. Hail, you can slaughter a poor stiff in a clinical, friendly way, in the manner of Roger Federer, or in an almost apologetic way, like Rafa Nadal (Sorry I am so good, but also I am humble, no?). The Williams sisters prefer to be more to the point: I’m Venus Williams and you’re not. Nobody ever said life is fair.

I confess that I made some miscalculations in my earlier thoughts on how this match might play out. I thought that Schiavone’s diversity of shot, willingness to attack, and versatility would really trouble Venus, who’s been error-prone in recent times. Today, though, Venus was paying attention. And while she suffered a lapse here and there (most notably when she hit two double faults and a ghastly backhand error in a game that enabled Schiavone to recover from a break to 4-4 in the first set), she recovered quickly enough each time.

The court speed helped Venus. It enabled her to dictate the pace and kept Schiavone from employing all her resources. When Schiavone was able to extend a point and change the pace of the rallies, Venus had trouble. It was especially evident when Schiavone used her slice to tease errors of over-exuberance out of Venus’s forehand. But due to the relatively low bounce, Schiavone’s topspin was not nearly as effective as it is on a slower, high-bounce surface. It’s the same problem that makes Nadal’s life difficult on this surface; neither player can make the ball leap quite high enough. Schiavone’s problem was compounded by Venus’ height; even a good topspin backhand usually ended up inside Venus’s stike zone.

By contrast, the fast court made Venus’ serve especially effective, and she wisely played a very long court—she hit with good depth and her fairly flat groundstrokes penetrated and went through the court, taking time away from Schiavone. Venus did a terrific job using the properties of the surface to her advantage. But most of all, she played purpose-driven tennis. She knew what she wanted to do, stuck to the simple blueprint, and paid no never mind to all this business about Schiavone mixing it up—mixing her up.

The two most important points of the match were the last two of the first-set tiebreaker, both errors by Schiavone, who had clawed her way back from a 0-4 deficit only to lose it, 7-5. The first of those was a backhand error off the first ball Venus hit following Schiavone’s return of serve; the second was a more costly forehand error Schiavone committed off Venus’ service return.”She play a little better in that moment,” Schiavone said of Venus’s performance in the critical points of the tiebreaker. “I couldn’t catch my opportunity. Then I played a very high level and I came back. When we were five-all, I missed two balls. She didn’t win the point. I just missed two balls. That’s tennis.”

But delving too deeply into tactics, strategy, or even the key winners or errors in a match like this kind of misses the point. Venus’ performance tonight was a triumph of attitude. There were times during the night when the only thing that that was missing, the only thing that made it different from the days of yore, those early days of Williams dominion, were the rattling braids and the colorful beads dislodged from her hair, rolling on the court.

Venus is a wiser if not a better player these days, so she deferred when she was asked what it might mean for her to get back to a U.S. Open final for the first time since 2002. “Well, I want to be in the final,” she said. “Because then obviously it’s just one more step. But I’m focused on the semis and I don’t get too excited unless the tournament is over.”

Whatever happens from now on, she fired a shot tonight that ought to echo long after the the tournament is over. She reminded us that while you can no longer define anything like an American game, or style, there remains a vestige of the American attitude: A tennis match is there to be won; you can try to negotiate it way from an opponent, trick him out of it, steal, it or earn it out of sheer persistence. Or you can do it the Williams way, just reach out and take the danged thing.

My advice is to schedule a conference call; make sure Mardy, John and Sam are on it. Andy too, come to think of it. . .

The question, whatever the venue, whatever the day, is always the same: “What’s wrong with American tennis?” No, that’s not true, it’s not exactly the same, as I found out this morning when I was a guest on a sports radio program in Florida. This time the host asked, “What happened to American tennis?”

It’s still going pretty strong on the women’s side, at least for the moment. But it’s a valid question on the men’s, where Sam Querrey’s fourth-round exit today means there will be no American male in the U.S. Open quarters for the second consecutive year, and, putting the four Grand Slams together, this country’s ATP players just completed their weakest collective season of the Open era.

The relative and likely temporary decline of U.S. men’s tennis is the furthest thing from news, and we’ve heard all kinds of theories about what must be done to combat it, from corralling every kid with a 100-m.p.h. serve into a giant tennis farm to making them all play on little courts with nerf balls. The answer remains elusive, probably because it doesn’t exist. Take the case of Sam Querrey, the last American man left. The easygoing Californian and current No. 22 in the world defies all the stereotypes of the prodigy. He went to high school, ate dinner at home, and wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen until late in his teens. I can remember seeing him play at the Orange Bowl four or five years ago. The card-carrying members of the junior elite were stunned to watch him winning matches. Of the dozens of players who entered that event, the only guy ranked ahead of Querrey now is Marin Cilic. The point is, next great hopes, even multiple next great hopes, can come from nowhere. 1987 was a season of comparable weakness for American men. Two years later, Michael Chang won the French Open. Pete Sampras won the U.S. Open in 1990. Jim Courier won the French Open in 1991. Andre Agassi won Wimbledon in 1992.

For today, though, the U.S. had Querrey and Querrey alone. He spent five sets and more than four hours in Ashe Stadium battling the gusts and playing enervating, cat and mouse, error-strewn tennis against Stanislas Wawrinka. It was a match of long lulls and monotonous holds; with the air swirling, each player had to shorten their strokes and play cautiously, but it was still tough for them to keep the ball inside the baseline. Wawrinka, who said before the match that he wanted to be more aggressive because Querrey doesn’t like to play “on the defense,” spent long periods patiently floating his slice backhand deep into his opponent’s backhand side. Querrey, robbed of pace, was hesitant to let the ball rip.

It all made for choppy tennis. Each set unfolded in a similar way: After all of the monotonous holds, a mad scramble ensued. The first set ended with an 11-9 tiebreaker. On set point in the second, Wawrinka watched as a forehand of his hit the tape, popped forward, and was still pushed back onto his side of the court by the wind. He lost the set 7-5. The third set, which also ended 7-5, turned on a couple of botched volleys by Querrey. At the end of the fourth, Querrey capitalized on a sudden drop in play from Wawrinka to break. The Swiss returned the favor in the fifth, when Querrey couldn’t find a first serve.

After four hours of back and forth, very little daylight developed between the two; each gave and took in equal measures, and looked equally brilliant in spots and utterly vulnerable in others. Wawrinka’s new coach, Peter Lundgren—they started working together two months ago—said right off the bat that he wanted to make Wawrinka play more aggressively. This is what every coach says, of course, but they were pretty much the first words out of Lundgren’s mouth when they hooked up. Wawrinka did belt the ball with abandon against Andy Murray in the last round. In this one, hampered by the wind, he went to the slice with his backhand. But while he used that primarily as a change of pace for the first four sets, he was able to transform it into a match-deciding offensive play in the fifth. Up 3-2, he began to slide that slice down the line and follow it to net. It was a play he used the rest of the way, and which paid dividends in the final game. On his first match point, Wawrinka came forward, but ended up missing an overhead. On his second, he hit a superb approach and finished the point with his second volley. Lundgren, bellowing irritatingly throughout, must have been happy. It took five sets, but Wawrinka found his aggressive solution.

Afterward, Querrey was, predictably, barraged with questions about the absence of American men in the quarters, the general decline of American tennis, and the disgraceful incompetence his U.S. cronies—that last part was not explicitly stated, but the tone was there. Querrey could only muster one answer, the only answer possible: “We’re trying our best.” As I said, these things come in cycles, but looking at Querrey’s loss next to Mardy Fish’s (to Djokovic), John Isner’s (to Youzhny) and Andy Roddick’s (to Tipsarevic), you can see that the U.S. lives a tier below the Europeans these days—only one of those defeats came to someone in the Top 10.

Americans serve bigger but don’t move as well as the Euros. Their two-handed backhands largely limit their games to the backcourt. They rally and blast, rather than construct, from the baseline. Isner has had a great year, but Youzhny was the superior player in all facets the other night. Ditto for Fish—great year, but he was outclassed by Djokovic. Querrey and Wawrinka were dead even for four sets, but Wawrinka’s one-hand backhand gave him the flexibility to mix in a new look after four hours.

In the past, U.S. men have excelled most of all at arrogance, the Connors-McEnroe-Agassi-Roddick brand of arrogance that looks ugly but wins matches. Roddick still has it, and a touch of that toughness survives in Isner. Querrey? When he wins, I like to say that his calmness helps him. When he loses, I usually write that he’s too calm, that he needs to show more fire at the crucial moments. The guy can’t win with me. This time, while Wawrinka made adjustments at the end, Querrey stuck with he what had and got tight in the final game. After all that time, I couldn’t believe he would let it end that easily. Sam lost in the fourth round at Wimbledon and the fourth round here, his two strongest results at the majors. Would a little more arrogance have helped? Maybe, or maybe that just isn’t him; maybe that isn’t American tennis at the moment. Like Querrey said, all he and his countryman can do is try their best. Too bad that’s never going to be good enough for us.

Good mornin’. Keeping this one brief, as I’ve got to scramble around to get my boy Luke prepared for school (it starts tomorrow) and get our new nanny/babysitter up to speed before I head out. I’ll be writing about the women today – probably Venus.  Another Labor Day has come and gone, although I can’t ever think about what used to be the end of the summer festivities without the events of 9/11/01 intruding on my thoughts. I hope you all enjoy the tennis today – I’ll be back a little later.

PS – Love this image of Caro; joy is a pleasant thing to behold in all this sometimes grim business.

– Pete