NEW YORK (AP)—If Roger Federer is going to reach a seventh consecutive U.S. Open final, he might need to get past the man who ended his Grand Slam semifinal streak.

Five-time U.S. Open champion Federer was given a possible quarterfinal against two-time French Open runner-up Robin Soderling when the draw for this year’s U.S. Open was made Thursday.

The No. 5-seeded Soderling upset Federer in the quarterfinals in Paris this year, stopping Federer’s record run of reaching at least the semifinals at 23 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments.
 
The other men’s matchups in the quarterfinals could be No. 1-seeded Rafael Nadal against No. 8 Fernando Verdasco, two-time major finalist Andy Murray against Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych, and No. 3 Novak Djokovic against No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko or No. 9 Andy Roddick.

The top-seeded woman, 2009 runner-up Caroline Wozniacki, could face 2006 champion Maria Sharapova in the fourth round and 2004 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals.

Other possible women’s quarterfinals set up Thursday are defending champion Kim Clijsters against French Open runner-up Sam Stosur, 2000-01 U.S. Open winner Venus Williams against French Open champion Francesca Schiavone, and 2008 U.S. Open finalist Jelena Jankovic against Wimbledon runner-up Vera Zvonareva.

Murray, hoping to become the first British man since 1936 to win a Grand Slam title, could meet No. 20-seeded Sam Querrey of the United States in the fourth round. Another American, Wimbledon marathon man John Isner, is seeded 18th and also is in that quarter of the draw.

In the semifinals, Murray was drawn to meet Nadal, who lost in the last four in New York each of the past two years and is trying to complete a career Grand Slam by winning the U.S. Open for the first time.

Federer was drawn to meet Djokovic or Roddick in the semifinals. Aside from his potential rematch with Soderling, Federer could face another familiar opponent in the third round: 2001 U.S. Open and 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt. Federer beat Hewitt in the 2004 U.S. Open final, part of a 15-match, head-to-head winning streak for Federer—which ended when Hewitt beat him in the final of a grass-court tournament at Halle, Germany, in June.

Federer lost in the 2009 U.S. Open final to Juan Martin del Potro, who—like No. 1-ranked Serena Williams—previously withdrew from this year’s tournament, having not recovered fully from surgery.

Williams’ older sister, Venus, who is seeded No. 3, could face an intriguing matchup in the third round against No. 32-seeded Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria. Pironkova has won two of her previous three matches against Venus Williams, including a straight-sets upset in the Wimbledon quarterfinals on June 29.

That was the last match Williams played on tour; she sprained her left kneecap in early August, forcing her to withdraw from hard-court tournaments in Cincinnati and Montreal.

The U.S. Open begins Monday, and Williams will have gone more than two months without a match by the time she meets her first-round opponent, Roberta Vinci of Italy, who is 1-7 for her career at Flushing Meadows.

by Pete Bodo

NEW YORK—Well, it’s another rainy day in Flushing Meadows, but I sucked it up and made it here. So did our TENNIS magazine intern, Brad Kallet, who had to catch the proverbial trains, planes and automobiles to get here from his home home in New Jersey—all in the pouring rain, with little hope of seeing a single tennis ball hit in anger. Gotta hand it to the kid, he sure is persistent. And we actually found him a piece to write, which will appear either here or on the home page later. He’s going to check out the umpires and ballboys, all of whom are captives on site all day (unlike fans and players) and work something up on them.

One perk of tenure as a tennis journalist is that it earns you an exemption from having to write rainy-day ballboy or umpire pieces. That also leaves me high and dry, figuratively speaking, because another unspoken axiom of the trade is that you only get one rainy day story out of a particularly bad spell of weather, unless of course the tournament is in full swing and you can hunt down some coaches or players, or analyze the draw. This tournament is not only not in full swing, the draw won’t be made until Thursday, and the qualifying has barely started.

I had hoped to get together with Robert Kendrick today, but he stayed in the city. It won’t be a total write-off of a day for me, though, because I have a call booked later this afternoon with Larry Ellison, the hugely successful Internet entrepreneur and new owner of the Indian Wells tournament. I’ll have to return to the city to get that one done.

But let’s take a quick look at some recent news, just to keep our spirits up.

—Yesterday, James Blake was involved in the shortest match played on the tour so far this year—a 35-minute, 6-0, 6-1 affair. The good news for Blake is that he was on the winning end for a change. I just went to the ATP website and am delighted—and amazed—to see that play apparently is in progress in New Haven, despite the horrible weather here in New York. 

Today, Blake is meeting Alexandr Dolgopolov, about whom I’ve been hearing good things. We’ll keep our eyes on him in the coming days. I hope the quick-time win has boosted Blake’s confidence.

—Elena Dementieva presently is fighting cheek to jowl with Kateryna Bondarenko, 3-all in the third. Which begs the question, just how fit and match-ready will Dementieva be for the U.S. Open, where she’s often played so well in the past?

It’s funny, but when I think of Dementieva, the thing that comes to mind is all those tournaments, a dozen or so, where she played like a house on fire and looked like a can’t miss winner or finalist. . . yet always missed. Choking, injuries, inexplicably bad days (for someone who had been playing so well, and had learned the value of seizing opportunity) are the personal history she’s written at the majors.

Frankly, I’m shocked she hasn’t won one, and I’m rapidly losing the once airtight conviction that she would bag a major one day. For her sake, I’m glad she won that Olympic Games gold medal. Given the typical Russian’s reverence for Olympic athletes and events, I imagine that Dementieva sticks that gold medal under the sheets when she goes to sleep, to keep her warm and optimistic.

—Is Marcos Baghdatis resurgent (again) for real? It’s an interesting, open question, because Baghdatis has been showing signs of the one quality that regular Grand Slam contenders demonstrate. He’s been playing consistently. The headline at the ATP website blares, “Baghdatis Continues March to US Open,” which is a nice bit of hyperbolic writing, if nothing else.

Baggy has put up three wins over Top 10 players in the past month, and improved his record on the summer hard-court circuit to 10-4. Often, a talented free spirit like Baghdatis will play well for a tournament or two, then fade. But Baghdatis, who beat Tomas Berdych and Rafael Nadal en route to a semifinal loss to champion Roger Federer at the Western and Southern Financial Group Masters, continues to play like he means it. He’s the top seed at the Pilot Pen Classic in New Haven this week, and while the conditions there have been tough, he’s declared his intentions: “It’s been a good summer for me, but I came to play here and I came to win the tournament,” he said, after knocking out Igor Andreev yesterday.

Oddly, this resurrection coincides with that of another player who has a game and form chart similar to that of Baghdatis: David Nalbandian. Both of them could be impact players at the Open. Just for the hail of it, I took a look at their head-to-head record, and it confirms the parallels. Baghdatis holds a narrow 3-2 edge, and won the last three matches running, until Nalbandian put up his second win over Baggy a few weeks ago at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic (Washington D.C.). Three of their five meetings have occurred at majors (2-1 for Baghdatis), and the Cypriot beat the Argentinian in the most critical meeting of them all—the Australian Open semifinals, 2006, thereby earning the privilege of getting spanked in the final by Roger Federer.

But mark your calendars, everyone. A U.S. Open meeting of these two talented shotmakers looms as must-see tennis.

—I don’t know who’s going to be in a tougher position, mentally and emotionally, when the U.S. Open gets underway: Melanie Oudin or Caroline Wozniacki. After Serena Williams, they were the top WTA newsmakers at the American championships last year—Oudin for that courageous, mesmerizing run to the quarters; Wozniacki for reaching the final. Oudin bowled over three high-quality Russians during her spree at Flushing Meadows: Dementieva, Maria Sharapova, and Nadia Petrova, before she was halted by Wozniacki.

This year, Oudin has won exactly one match at a major (a win over Anna Lena Gronefeld at Wimbledon), and I was somewhat surprised to see that she’s ranked no. 44—I expected it to be lower. Wozniacki is 10-3 in the majors (she reached at least the round of 16 at each Grand Slam event), but as a defending finalist, a lot will be expected of her—and her losses at the majors have been alarming, one-sided blowouts (Petra Kvitova bombarded her, 6-2, 6-0 in their fourth-round match at Wimbledon).

BTW, Oudin, Wozniacki, John Isner and Sam Querrey are part of a promotional package conceived by U.S. Open sponsor American Express. They’ve created a cheerfully optimistic space for the quartet, billing them as “Next Contenders.” Amex is planning to seed this dedicated website with exclusive material about and by those four players all the way until the end of the U.S. Open. So if you’re a fan one any of them, check it out.  And while we still don’t know Isner’s U.S. Open status (ankle), I have some exclusive material about John that I also plan to post in the coming days.

Wozniacki’s big win in Montreal the other day is sure to help her confidence, but I still think both she and Oudin have their work cut out for them if they hope to match their results of last year.

As an accompaniment to an excellent article about how power has transformed women’s tennis, The New York Times Magazine posted hypnotic video clips of top players hitting in slow motion.

Set to hypnotic, Sigur Rós-like music, the seven short videos show Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters, Jelena Jankovic, Victoria Azarenka, Vera Zvonareva, Sam Stosur and Elena Dementieva taking single shots from various different angles. It’s a great piece of filmmaking and well worth your time.

Since we can’t embed the clips, we’ve pulled a screenshot from each video:

Each of the women was dressed in a frilly skirt, presumably for the same reason that most explosions in 3-D movies send debris toward the screen: it looks cool and shows off the technology. In Jelena Jankovic’s case, it had the added benefit of making her look like Cher circa 1969.

On the other hand, Serena went with the Cher in 1988 look. It’s cool to watch the focus of the eyes of each of the players as they’re getting ready to hit the ball. Serena, in particular, stares it down and keeps her eye on it until the moment of contact.

Somebody’s been eating her Vegemite. It’s no secret that Sam Stosur is ripped, but this video gives you a pretty good idea of just how ripped she is.

Of all the women, Kim makes it look the most effortless.

The dark background makes Zvonareva’s piercing blue eyes pop. And the good news is that she makes it through the 30 second clip without crying.

Vika’s video starts off with a close-up of her feet. Any time you see a professional’s footwork you get an appreciation for how much they’re moving and how much stress their lower bodies take during a match.

My favorite of the bunch. Dementieva looks like a member of the Moscow Ballet as she almost completes a full pirouette while lunging for the backhand.

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

Love — The U.S. Open seeds were announced this week and since they conform to ATP and WTA rankings, there’s no real surprises. Rafael Nadal is the No. 1 seed on the men’s side and Caroline Wozniacki, by virtue of Serena Williams‘ withdrawal, is tops on the women’s. Defending champion Kim Clijsters is seeded second. As Matt Cronin pointed out on Twitter, the last 10 women’s seeds are all from Eastern Europe.

15 — ESPN2 will air the exclusive announcement of the men’s and women’s draws on Thursday at noon ET and we’ll have coverage here at Busted Racquet immediately after.

30 — Just like in my dreams, the Jonas Brothers will be performing this weekend at the 15th annual Arthur Ashe Kid’s Day. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Kim Clijsters, the Bryan Brothers and others will be taking part in skills competitions and exhibitions during the day.

40 — In a media conference call on Tuesday, Venus Williams declared herself ready for the Open and spoke about the dress she’ll debut next week. "It’s very New York," she said. "Just like my dress at the French Open was very French. It’s a little bit louder, a little bit more in your face, it’s — however you want to put it — a little more sexy."

Game — Saved the best for last: Steve Tignor of Tennis Magazine is writing a book about tennis in the late ’70s and early ’80s and Tuesday shared some of the best U.S. Open stories he’s come across while researching the book. Go read it, if only for the tales about Ilie Nastase.

NEW YORK (AP)—Caroline Wozniacki has been seeded No. 1 at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, getting the top spot at the U.S. Open because Serena Williams pulled out injured.

Wozniacki is ranked No. 2 behind Williams by the WTA. She was the runner-up at Flushing Meadows last year and is the first woman since 2003 to be seeded No. 1 at the U.S. Open without having won a major.

Defending champion Kim Clijsters is No. 2 in the seedings released Tuesday by the U.S. Tennis Association. She is followed by 2000-01 winner Venus Williams and 2008 runner-up Jelena Jankovic.

The seedings adhere strictly to the rankings.

Rafael Nadal is the No. 1-seeded man, with Roger Federer at No. 2.

The U.S. Open begins Monday.

by Pete Bodo

NEW YORK—Say what you will about Patrick McEnroe, the USTA, Arlen Kantarian, Billie Jean King, Mardy Fish, or Serena Williams. I find it impressive and gratifying, personally as well as professionally, to approach Arthur Ashe Stadium from almost any direction and see those highway signs of various size and shape directing traffic toward the National Tennis Center. They’re the same kinds of signs that guide sports fans toward Citi Field (home of the New York Mets), or tourists and other travelers to JFK or LaGuardia airports. This makes me feel that tennis, or at least the U.S. Open, has gravitas as both an attraction and institution.

The National Tennis Center. That has heft. Like the Mayo Clinic, the George Washington Bridge, or Cape Canaveral.

Then I tried to find parking in order to secure my credentials, including my parking pass. Those of you who tried to get into certain labor unions, only to be told that you need X amount of experience, which of course you can’t get unless you’re in the union, will know what I mean.

But why focus on the negative? It worked out just fine.

Walking to the NTC from the Hall of Science employee’s lot (don’t tell a soul), I saw my first tennis player beyond the cyclone fence and hedges: Nikolay Davydenko. That’s not a bad start to the 2010 U.S. Open, right? I couldn’t identify his practice partner, though. And a moment later, I heard the deep bass voice of an umpire, amplified by a microphone, intone: “Two minutes, gentlemen. . .”

Qualifying was about to get underway.

Soon I had my credential all sorted out and hung around my neck like a cowbell. I walked through the gate and got shot in the chest by security. Being a U.S. Open gatekeeper isn’t all that bad a job if you have a sick sense of humor or a good measure of latent aggression. You stand there all day with a bar-code reader that looks like a stun gun, and every time some credential-toting schmo tries to go through the gate you point that sucker right at his or her sternum and pull the trigger. Zap! You may go.. . Burial at six.

The big change in our cube farm (the media center) is that the endless banks of televisions are gone (there’s always been one at every work station, perched on a shelf at eye level). Instead, There’s a Lenovo ThinkPad tablet computer on surface of my work area, with a slick swivel screen and plastic stylus that enables you to maneuver between channels. It’s also useful as a tablet to jot down notes. That will come in handy for tracking the action on any court once the tournament proper begins.

But I’m not sure I needed a second computer competing with my laptop for precious space on the small work surface, never mind the distraction of the tablet’s flashing screen right behind this one. Thankfully, I can turn it off, or just flip the screen around. I guess it will be okay.

Some of you may recall that on finals day last year, my Timbuk2 messenger bag was lost or stolen. It was a horrible day for me, not least because I had two check books, a big check (it’s all relative), some contracts and my tape recorder in the bag. Well, Jeanmarie Daly of the USTA informed me that my bag was found when the staff was cleaning out the lockers a few days ago, although not in the space I had last year. I was shocked to find all my personal possessions untouched. My tape recorder even has a little juice left in it, which means you will get that Marsel Ilhan interview I never did post last year. . .

Things have been so-so for Ilhan since his breakout performance here last summer. Ilhan, an Uzbek who immigrated to Turkey, reached the second round here in 2009 (he lost to Long John Isner, after winning three qualifying matches and one in the main draw). He was complimented on his good play by Roger Federer, who was not at all shy about walking up to Ilhan in the locker room to introduce himself. The gall of some people. . . 

Ilhan made his big jump in 2007 and has been pleasantly consistent since then, grinding it out in Challengers, qualifying, and occasional main-tour events. He also qualified and made the second round at Wimbledon a few months ago. Ilhan’s ambition is to finish within the Top 100 for 10 consecutive years (or win 16 majors, whichever comes first, I’m tempted to add), and you gotta love a fella who thinks long-term.

Ilhan is currently No. 108, five places off his career high (which he hit in July), so he’s got a shot. . .that first year is the toughest, Ilhan, godspeed!

The affable Uzbek is the top seed in the men’s qualifying. Some other persons of interest, for those of you who go for the sleuth work of the qualifying connoisseur (I had to flip back and forth from the dictionary 11 times to get the spelling right, so don’t give me a hard time today), are Nicolas Mahut, Simone Bolelli, Rajeev Ram, Karol Beck and Bernard Tomic.

It doesn’t seem quite right that Ilhan has to face Tomic in the first round. Why not Daniele Giorgini (you know how those Italian men are—soft as the chicas are hard). But then it also doesn’t seem quite fair that Ilhan has to play qualifying, not with a ranking of 108 for a tournament with 128 places in the draw.

But that’s what you get when you start fooling with ideas like the wild card and qualifying—which soak up a combined 24 slots, or roughly a fifth of the entire draw.

The cutoff for main draw entry at a major is usually 104—add the 16 qualifiers and eight wild cards and you’re in business. But here’s where it gets a little tricky. Say you’re Marsel Ilhan, ranked No. 108, and all 104 players eligible for direct entry are in the draw. You’re four places out, which means that if four players who had entered decide it would be foolish to play (usually for reasons related to injury), or need to withdraw for some other reason, you’re straight in.

However, once the qualifying begins, any slot suddenly vacated before main-draw play begins can only be filled from the qualifying draw. Hence the “lucky loser,” who fails to qualify but gets a main-draw place because of a withdrawal. So you can bet that highly-ranked qualifiers, like Ilhan, have spent the past few days hoping that Ivan Ljubicic decides he can’t wait another minute to get that hair transplant, or Marcos Baghdatis cuts his right shoulder while shaving.

Ilhan had no such luck. As of 11:06, it became law that if he were going to appear as a main-draw player, he’d have to do it the hard way—via qualifying. I was all geared up for watching his battle with Tomic, but when I left the cube farm I realized it was raining, and play had been suspended. And with the forecast calling for more rain for the rest of the day and tomorrow, it looks as if Ilhan’s life is getting more complicated by the moment. Having to get through qualifying in time to start main draw play on Monday means that the qualifiers will have to play a lot of tennis in very few days. It must be tough for Ilhan, after that good run in 2009, to have to deal with all this.

Here’s an idea: Why not fill the withdrawals in the main draw with the next highest-ranked player? Sure, it means that a guy could lose in qualifying and still get into the main draw, but that’s what happens with a lucky loser anyway. Why not throw a bone to the guy who’s put up the best results over the past 12 months, instead of a guy ranked 176 or below, who happened to get a good draw in qualifying and couldn’t even capitalize on that? I guess it could get tricky if a guy who qualified got bumped at the last minute by a higher-ranked player, but you could just slide the deadline for filling vacancies based on ranking up to when qualifying ends, instead of when it begins.

Anyway, I realized I’m not going to see a lot of tennis today, although they’re working feverishly to dry the courts as I write this. So I took a stroll to the player’s lounge, where nubile Slavic girls in skin-tight short-shorts were playing foosball (now there’s a truly dopey game), stringy-haired Spanish kids were Tweeting like they get paid for it, and players from all over the world were traveling with entourages, like packs of hungry young wolves.

It was so crowded that septuagenarian (that was just 8 times, I’m getting better) coaches had to adopt rather undignified poses, sitting on the floor with their backs to the blue-painted cinder block wall, because 18-year olds gabbing on cell phones were draped all over the couches. It was as good a place as any to watch as parade of leggy young pony-tailed young things prance by, clutching an iPod in one hand and a plastic bottle of Evian with a bright red cap in the other. I think they’re running a contest today: Which little turnip has the biggest and most fully stuffed racket bag strapped to her back?

I bumped into Antonio van Grinchen, who shepherded Victoria Azarenka to the best days of her still developing career, and also worked briefly with Vera Zvonareva. He’s helping out the Chinese federation, and that painful pinched nerve in his neck has been healed without surgery, through acupuncture. Which suggests some relation between those two facts.

But before I had no time to ask, I spotted Jay Berger, whom I was going to visit with, until Alex Corretja came my way. . .

The NTC was open for business, alright, although not many balls had yet been hit.

In no particular order, here are five things I believe in more than Serena Williams‘ current intentions to play the Toray Pan Pacific Open next month in Tokyo:

1. Santa Claus

2. The realness of the Roger Federer video

3. Albert Haynesworth’s excuse

4. Harvey Dent

5. Geocentrism

The news that Serena will make her return to tennis at the Japanese event was treated as hardened fact around the sports world today (including here, where a link to the AP story was on our sports front most of the day) even though the announcement is far from it. Just because Serena is on a list of players for the event doesn’t mean that she’s going to play. This is only a confirmation that Serena has yet to withdraw.

You’ll notice that this didn’t come from Serena or her people, it came from the tournament, which issued a standard press release today announcing various particulars about the event. Thus, the news isn’t "Serena coming back" but rather "Serena hasn’t yet ruled out coming back." Unless a player is 100 percent out (like Justine Henin) there’s no reason to to withdraw early from a tournament on the off-chance that they’ll recover in time. There will be plenty of time to withdraw later if necessary. The same thing happened last month when Juan Martin del Potro was on the first list of US Open entrants.

Serena may very well play in Tokyo. She’s going to need to play somewhere overseas if she wants a tune-up before the season-ending championships in Qatar and the Pan Pacific Open is a good a place as any. But she’s hurt, she’s rusty and she’s Serena. I’ll believe it when I see it, and not a moment sooner.

Serena Williams is scheduled to make her return to tour in Tokyo during the last week of September, the tournament has announced. Williams has not played since Wimbledon after suffering a cut to her foot that required surgery.

NEW YORK (AP)—Seeking to complete the career Grand Slam, Rafael Nadal will be the top-seeded man when the U.S. Open starts next week, while Roger Federer will come to Flushing Meadows seeded second.

Nadal, who won the French Open and Wimbledon this year, is seeded first at the U.S. Open for the second time in three years. He has never made it past the semifinals.

The women’s seedings have been delayed one day because of a rainout of Sunday’s final at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. On Monday, world No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki defeated Vera Zvonareva to win that tournament. It appears Wozniacki, who lost to Kim Clijsters in last year’s final, will get the top seed at the U.S. Open because Serena Williams, the world’s top-ranked player, has withdrawn while recovering from surgery to repair cuts on her right foot.

Also missing from New York will be defending men’s champion Juan Martin del Potro, who remains sidelined with a lingering wrist injury. Del Potro defeated Federer in last year’s final, ending his string of five straight U.S. Open titles. Federer, who won the Australian Open this year, is seeking his 17th Grand Slam tournament title.

Del Potro, meanwhile, is only the third U.S. Open men’s champion in the 42-year Open era who won’t be on hand to defend his title.

Seeded third for the men is Novak Djokovic, followed by Andy Murray at No. 4. Robin Soderling, Nikolay Davydenko, Tomas Berdych and Fernando Verdasco round out the top eight.

At No. 9, Andy Roddick is the highest seeded American man. With a trip to the semifinals in Cincinnati last weekend, Roddick jumped back into the world’s top 10. Earlier this month, Roddick fell to No. 12 and it marked the first time since the rankings began in 1973 that no American man was in the top 10.

The draws for the tournament come out Thursday.

MONTREAL (AP)—Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark won the rain-delayed Rogers Cup on Monday, beating Vera Zvonareva 6-3, 6-2.

Wozniacki is ranked second in the world and, with No. 1 Serena Williams out with an injury, likely will be the top seed when the U.S. Open starts Aug. 31. The 20-year-old is seeking her first Grand Slam title.

“I never think about that – I just try to win every match,” she said. “We’ll have to see what happens. Right now, I want to enjoy winning this tournament. It gives me a lot of confidence to win a tournament like this – it’s a huge tournament.”
 
The Rogers Cup final was held a day late after a weekend of relentless rain.

Zvonareva, a Wimbledon finalist, was clearly off her game. The eighth-seeded Russian at times let out shrieks after misfiring on routine shots. Wozniacki’s groundstrokes, meanwhile, were hitting the lines with their usual sharpness.

She picked up her third title of the year, after wins at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and at her home tournament in Copenhagen.

“I did what I had to do,” said Wozniacki, a first-time Rogers Cup champion.

Leading 5-3 in the first set, Wozniacki fell behind 0-40. But she responded with five straight points to close the set.

After breaking serve for a 5-2 lead in the second, Wozniacki wrapped it up with four straight points on her serve, gave a little fist pump and walked up to shake hands with her opponent.

Wozniacki took the $350,000 winner’s prize while Zvonareva got $175,000.

The semifinals were played in the morning. Wozniacki beat Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-3, and Zvonareva advanced when her opponent, 10th-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, retired with a blister on her left foot. Zvonareva led 7-6, 1-0.

Trainers worked on Azarenka’s foot for several minutes. She got up and tried to walk, but immediately sat back down.

She said the injury was not severe enough to keep her out of the U.S. Open.

“I don’t see how I got a blister after sitting on my (rear end) for two days,” said Azarenka, who was in tears as she spoke to reporters after the match. “I tried to deal with it, but I couldn’t continue.”

Wozniacki and the 11th-seeded Kuznetsova completed a semifinal that began Saturday and was stopped due to rain with Wozniacki leading 2-0, 0-15.

Zvonareva played her semifinal on the National Bank Court, a smaller venue adjacent to Centre Court, contributing to her problems in the final.

“It was a different court, different conditions,” she said. “It was difficult to keep my concentration. I was preparing to play Victoria for two days and they have absolutely different styles. In the final, I was still playing shots I would use in the semifinals. My head was not in the final.”