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.

Would it have been so hard to give Nicolas Mahut a wild card into the US Open?

Dude played an 11-hour match, captivated the tennis world (and the sports world) for three days this summer and all he has to show for it is a small trophy and a lousy draw in Open qualifying? I know, I know, you can’t "earn" a wild card. It’s an arbitrary thing awarded to either big names down on their luck or local players who wouldn’t make the tournament otherwise. Mahut is neither. But, come on! Look at that scoreboard! The USTA couldn’t throw the Frenchman a bone?

The allotted wild cards all went to American players — James Blake, Donald Young, Ryan Sweeting and 18s national champion Jack Sock — and I have no problem with this. It’s our national tournament and our players should get special treatment. (France and Australia each get one wild card for their own players. Come to think of it, what’s up with that, France? You choose the No. 207 player in the world over Mahut?) But Mahut would get some attention and draw a crowd to the outer courts and isn’t that the point of the wild card? Just think, if Isner doesn’t play because of his ankle injury, neither of Wimbledon’s marathon men will play in New York.  

And with fifth-set tiebreaks in effect at the Open, organizers wouldn’t even have to worry about Mahut hogging a court for three days like he did in London.

NEW YORK (AP)—Venus Williams acknowledges that a sprained left kneecap that’s sidelined her during the summer hard-court circuit means her U.S. Open preparation “wasn’t ideal.”

Williams also declares herself “ready for the Open,” which she won in 2000 and 2001.

During a conference call Tuesday to promote an interactive tennis clinic sponsored by Polo Ralph Lauren that she’s hosting Thursday, Williams says she’s “had a tough summer, with some bad luck with my leg.”

She hurt her knee shortly before the WTA tournament in Cincinnati that began Aug. 9, and also withdrew from the tournament in Montreal last week.

It means Williams will head to the U.S. Open next week without having played on tour since her quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon on June 29. Williams is seeded No. 3 at the Open.

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.

by Pete Bodo

Howdy. The rain this morning kept me from going out to the National Tennis Center to begin reporting from there, but I’m back in the swing of things and will be out at Flushing Meadows starting tomorrow, come hell or high water. The latter isn’t coming—it’s already arrived and apparently settled in for a few days. But I don’t care. It’s like Gary Lee sings in his classic, The Rodeo Song.

Well, it’s 40-below and I dont give a —- , got a heater in my truck and I’m off to the rodeo . . .

Okay, we’ll make it an air-conditioner in my wife’s car, but don’t sweat the details.

Anyway, we’ll have full-on U.S. Open coverage starting now, and let’s kick it off with the newly energized Roger Federer. Yesterday, he won Cincinnati for the fourth time, tying Mats Wilander’s record. He’s also the first man to win Cincinnati (the Western and Southern Financial Group Masters) in back-to-back years since Andre Agassi did it in 1995 and 1996. Want more? This was Federer’s 63rd tour-level title, which puts him into a tie for fifth with Bjorn Borg on the all-time Open era list.

Actually, that stat is as much of an encomium for Borg as it is for Federer. Borg played in Grand Slam events for nine years (if you’re big enough to toss out that single, first-round loss he suffered at the U.S. Open in 1972, when he was all of 16 years old). Federer is in his 11th year on the majors highway, and yes, I am throwing out those two first-round losses he suffered in his debut year playing the majors, 1999. Borg certainly packed a lot of winning into his unique, live fast/die young career.

I posted some thoughts on Federer over at ESPN earlier today, and am already getting an earful from the the FDL (Federer Defense League) types. So all is well in the world.

In that post I touched on what I imagine has been Paul Annacone’s role in Federer’s instant, just-add-water resurgence, and it would be foolhardy to call Federer’s recent form anything but that. Yeah, yeah, he’s been more ragged than in the past, still prone to let opportunities slip that even two or three years ago he might have converted into scoreboard gold. Matches that he could once be relied upon to win 6-3, 6-4 often now go 5-7, 6-7, 6-3. Like many of the rest of us, he’s having to work harder to earn the same amount he once easily sucked up. You know what? That’s life for a tennis player in his late 20s. Deal with it, because that’s what he’s doing it, and with an infant propped on each hip no less.

I had to laugh when I read this quote from Roger: “I’ve been playing well the past couple weeks, and today was just another proof that I’m playing really well.”

Does anyone else think that this near-tautology is telling? It’s as if Federer himself needed proof that he’s playing well—as if thinking and feeling that he’s playing well were not quite enough. Federer is no dummy. He knows better than anyone else that a guy in his position can’t just play well, come what may. He needs to quantify his level with hard data of the kind that crystallized when he beat Mardy Fish 6-7 (5), 7-6 (1), 6-4. And if you were one of those longing for the scoreline to read more like 7-5, 7-6, forget it. Those days are gone for good.

But let’s get back to the coaching issue. Federer is an odd duck when it comes to his training. Like many other great players, he goes light on attributing his success (or failure) to a mentor. For one thing, a player of his quality knows that the L or W is always on his racket; neither Lennart Bergalin nor Larry Stefanki nor Brad Gilbert ever had to swing the stick whole looking down the barrel of break point. For another, the kind of help he seeks or needs now is highly-targeted. This is not a guy looking for “life lessons” or leaning on a father figure.

In some ways, though, Federer is even more of a mentoraphobe than were many of the other Open era greats. His very approach to dealing with coaches, from hiring them to waxing profound (or not, in his case) on their impact and value is decidedly cool. Federer interviews, hires and fires coaches the way a CEO handles consultants. He wants very specific things from them. He keeps most of his coaches at arm’s length, which is an appropriate distance for a man who has a highly developed sense of himself, his talents, and what he wants out of career as well as life. Nor does Federer complain if a coach (Tony Roche comes to mind) doesn’t feel obliged to abandon home, family and life for his player’s greater glory. Cyclist Lance Armstrong’s autobiography was called, It’s Not the Bike. Federer’s could well be, It’s Not the Coach.

I confess that I haven’t found much discussion of exactly what Annacone did for Federer in their recent workouts, so what follows is highly speculative.  But I wouldn’t underestimate the role Annacone played in helping Federer take inventory of his game. I know Annacone and his MO well enough to feel entitled to connecting some dots.

It makes a great deal of sense for Federer to have turned to Annacone after Wimbledon, given that Annacone is an American with a solid understanding of hard-court fundamentals (not that Federer lacks an adequate grasp of those) and that he coached Federer’s buddy, five-time U.S. Open titlist Pete Sampras. Federer would certainly have gotten plenty of food for thought by merely asking Annacone how he managed Sampras, and what he chose to prioritize in his hard court game.

A forensic analysis of Federer’s post-Wimbledon game, as well as his own analysis of his successful strategy and tactics, suggests that he’s turned over a new leaf. The best way to describe it may be that he’s less content than before to let other guys bring the game to him. He wants to take it to them. And it’s hard to imagine that this 180-degree change of attitude occurred without Annacone putting in his two cents.

Aggressive, all-court tennis with an emphasis on the attack is in Annacone’s DNA. He made a living as a relentless, chip-and-charge attacker. Federer has said that he’s not about to become one of that breed, but to me that tells me that some discussion has taken place—not of chipping-and-charging as a style, but a useful tool, perhaps even a yardstick by which to measure a player’s appetite for aggressive returning. If you don’t consider chip-and-charge a potential tactic, you may not have a sufficiently aggressive mindset.

The two players with whom Annacone worked most profitably (Sampras and Tim Henman) both had high attack capabilities. I know for a fact that Annacone spent a lot of time urging Sampras to use his weapons, to reach out to take a match, rather than relying on his general talent to outplay his opponents under whatever rules of engagement they chose. Annacone liked to remind Sampras his skill set is fundamentally different from that of Andre Agassi, even though Sampras actually enjoyed matching baseline wits with his rival—a penchant that sometimes made Annacone’s life, if not Sampras’, more difficult.

You remember what Federer said after he waxed Marcos Baghdatis in Cincinnati: “After Wimbledon I had six weeks to work on a few things. On the hard courts it’s nice to play forwards and not always be defensive and let the other guy dictate. I’m happy that the hard work is paying off right away.”

So what “hard work” is he talking about? Surely it isn’t aerobic training, nor is it hours spent doing cross-court and down-the-line drills under a hot sun. What he appears to have worked on, judging from his last two tournaments, is taking charge. Imposing himself. Getting into the grill of his opponent to declare, I’m Roger Federer—and you’re not. No more of this take a swing and get the ball back into play; the rest will take care of itself. Not with guys like Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych, David Nalbandian, and others bringing the game to you.

It’s difficult to imagine that Annacone wasn’t party to that process, and there’s nothing wrong with The Mighty Fed keeping all that on the down low. A guy who’s made a point of saying he was “collecting information” on his rivals knows the value of intelligence and the wisdom of doing more collecting than broadcasting.

Skeptics among you will surely say that Federer played only three matches enroute to the Cincy title. Or that the hard courts of the U.S. Open Series play right into his strengths; some resurgence was to be expected. After all, the last title TMF won, seven long months ago, was Down Under, on a hard court. It may be stretching it to claim that, coach or no coach, Federer has undergone a makeover.

I don’t know the truth about that, but I do think he’s needed to re-invent himself, and a final and title in back-to-back Masters events is a hail of a good way to start. To my mind, he’s the odds-on favorite at the U.S. Open. I don’t think you can expect him to be money in the bank, the way he once was. You can re-invent yourself, alright, but you can’t get back the legs or neurological reaction of a 22-year old.

There are some battles even Roger Federer can’t win, with or without a coach.

P.S. — try to stay on topic, at least until this evening. I’ll see y’all here tomorrow morning.

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.