Sometimes the finals is best looked through the lens of those who don't make it. On paper, Federer and Murray can commiserate together, though both in their own way. On the one hand, Roger Federer has won 16 Slams and still feels he's so close to getting back to where he's used to being. This
At first, it seemed like Murray would expose all of Isner's weaknesses. Isner has built a strategy on what he does well. Serve. Usually, if a player can return the Isner serve, it's a weak return. Isner has learned to hit a big forehand to either end the point or get him to net. But,
Now that we're getting to the final 4, let's see how everyone is doing so far. Roger Federer Federer beat Giraldo and Sela in the first two rounds. These are matches Fed rarely loses especially to someone like Sela who lacks the firepower that Federer has. Fed bullied Sela like an 18 yr old would
With a respite from the rain that caused Wednesday to be washed out and the morning to be wet, the fourth round matches were all put on courts at the same time to get the fourth round complete. Unfortunately, at Louis Armstrong, Roddick noticed a bulge in the court with water coming up. This was
With the washout of play on Tuesday, the game plan was this: play all the fourth round on Wednesday, first thing, then play the men's quarterfinals late in the day. The rain stopped enough around noonish that 3 of the 4 men's matches were started. On slate were Roddick vs. Ferrer, Muller vs. Nadal, and
2008 was a good year for three players: Andy Murray, who broke into the top four, Gilles Simon, who broke into the top ten, and Juan Martin del Potro, who did the same. Indeed, all of them started their breakthrough in the summer. Murray had a quarterfinal encounter with Nadal which he lost, then beat
John McEnroe looked at Donald Young and found a lot to like. He had been a number 1 junior. He's a lefty like Mac. He's a junior like Mac. And, he's African American. The women have the Williams sisters. The men, well, they had James Blake, but he peaked for a few years and is
It can be a little deceptive to use a player's form heading into the US Open as a prediction of how the US Open will turn out. Let's take a look at last year's US Open and how various players did leading up to that point. Recall Roger Federer reached the finals of Toronto and
It may have been prophetic. Novak Djokovic was playing a match against Tomas Berdych. Berdych has secured a break in the middle of the first set on the heels of an amazing point. Although Berdych held to lead 5-3, it would be the last game he would win. Four games later, Novak Djokovic claimed the
And then there was four. At the beginning of the tournament, there was some hope that the top four seeds might make it to the semifinals. Such occurrences are rare enough.  There were question marks hanging over the heads of 3 of the top 4 players who lost early in Montreal. With the loss of
