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 a 14 yr old in a comparable tennis match.

The third round pushed Federer.  Although Marin Cilic wasn’t playing like he did in early 2009, he has been striking the ball better recently and this was the first real test Federer had.  Basically, it boiled down to Federer being able to play the big points more aggressively than Cilic and winning a few key points here and there.  Federer has learned, due to his high-risk style of play, that winning often means getting a few points here and there and being mentally tough.  If Fed was so good as to make all his risky shots (or a high percentage), then he would worry about his mental toughness far less.

The fourth round was a beatdown of Monaco.  Fed did all the things he wanted to do well.  He served so well that Monaco was barely getting any returns back at all.  And when they did get into rallies, Fed was punishing the ball hard and Monaco struggled to keep in rallies.  By playing with such pace, Monaco was left scrambling and was upset how poorly he played.  However, Soderling once remarked that Federer’s style of play is meant to make you look bad by robbing you of time.  Fed showcased his short hook forehand.  This is a shot that Nadal has had for years.  You take a ball that’s up the middle or even left of middle, then hit it inside-in short of the baseline.  Nadal uses this angle forehand to open up the court.  Fed was using this to great effect.

Due to the rain delays, Tsonga seemed a bit disoriented when the two met on Thursday night.  In this quarterfinal match, Tsonga’s first percentage was around 50% and this lead Fed to have chances in many of Tsonga’s serves.  Even when Tsonga had chances to break, Fed was able to save serve.  Federer’s performance was not nearly as good as it was against Monaco.  There were times when Tsonga got back into the point.  For example, in one point, Fed worked his way to net, Tsonga hit a lob, and the two ensued in a long rally that Tsonga finally won.  These are the kinds of rallies Fed would like to win because players like Nadal and Djokovic often force Fed to play an extra shot or two or three.

Still, Fed is serving well and striking the ball well, much better than he was hitting in the weeks leading up the US Open.  Fed himself admitted he was not happy with his play back in Montreal.

I think he’s playing well enough to beat Djokovic, but obviously, Djokovic is playing at another level.

Novak Djokovic

Much like last year’s run to the US Open final, Djokovic has had the benefit of short matches, perhaps even more so this year than last.

In the first round, Djokovic played a food-poisoned Conor Niland who won only one game in two sets before retiring.  In the second round, Carlos Berlocq could barely win games until the third set when he broke Djokovic twice for his only 2 games (meaning Berlocq never held serve in the match).

In the third round, Djokovic had his first challenge in Davydenko.  Davydenko’s game is still on the rocks, as he struggles to get the form that had him in the top ten.  This meant while Davydenko won a few tense rallies, Djokovic just needed to keep in the rallies and win a few of them to hold off Davydenko.  Djokovic didn’t play particularly well, but his solid play was more than enough to beat Davydenko.  These days, Djokovic is winning lots of matches playing less than stellar because his average level is so good.  I’d say he was playing better on clay and back in Indian Wells and Miami than he is now.

In the fourth round, Djokovic played the tricky Alexandr Dolgopolov.  Djokovic was thrown off by his game for a set.  The slice made Djokovic a bit gun-shy.  Each time he went for his big shots, Djokovic hit it long or wide.  However, once Djokovic won that marathon first set tiebreak, he seemed to relax more and started to hit his shots more.  Dolgopolov missed more often as well, and by the time Djokovic won the second set, he was back to good form and winning handily.

In the quarterfinals, Djokovic played fellow Serb, Janko Tipsarevic.  Tipsarevic did really well to play aggressive and keep even with Djokovic.  Alas, Tipsarevic got hurt, and the match was pretty much over then.  Again, not a strong Djokovic performance, but he knows how to come back.  Each time Tipsarevic got ahead by a break, Djokovic was able to come back.

It’s pretty impressive that Djokovic has only had trouble in 3 sets (one against Dolgopolov and two against Tipsarevic) without looking like he’s sharp.  But he’s always playing better than his opponents, so that has to say something about his form.  Despite lopsided wins so far (except the two sets with Tipsarevic), I think Federer has a decent chance to push Djokovic.  Federer has elevated his play, but he’ll need to watch for how many errors he makes.

John Isner

Isner was not playing good ball until just after Wimbledon.  He decided to take a wildcard into Newport, won the event, reached the finals of Atlanta with chances to beat Mardy Fish.  He reached the semis of Washington, DC, but did poorly at Montreal and Cincy before winning Winston-Salem.  I thought, with his form, he’d play good at the US Open, especially with a decent draw.

Isner does several things well.  He serves well.  He hits his groundies big.  This helps hide his mobility issues.  And Isner fights.  He plays big man tennis very well.

Isner had a tight match against Baghdatis in the first round, a tough match for both players.  Isner won it in typical fashion.  He pushed it to tiebreaks and won tiebreaks.  He had an easy time with Ginepri, then had a tough first set against Bogomolov, before winning 2 close sets.  It probably helped for Isner to play Americans because he now feels he’s the number 3 American behind Roddick and Fish (well, he is actually, but he believes it).

Isner caught a bit of a break playing Gilles Simon instead of Juan Martin del Potro.  del Potro is not back to his hard hitting style circa 2009 where he was truly scary.  The bad news for Delpo was that he beat Simon earlier in the year at Wimbledon and has been able to beat players playing steady ball mixed in with a few hard shots.  Delpo thought he could outlast Simon from the baseline.  He didn’t play aggressive enough often enough.

Isner did what he’s done so far.  Play for tiebreaks and win tiebreaks.  To do this, he hit big off serve and big off the ground.  Even with Simon breaking Isner several times, Isner was able to break Simon back since Simon lacks the kind of power to really hurt Isner.

Isner is playing pretty well, but can he beat Murray?  Murray does well against the big players.  He has a very good record against del Potro, and that was back when del Potro was playing well.  Isner’s serve is better than del Potro, but Murray has as good a return against big guys as anyone.

Andy Murray

The last few years, Murray has lost early at the US Open.  He really wanted to do much better this year, and it almost didn’t happen.

Murray had an easy win over Somdev Devvarman in the opening round.  Murray is a bad match for Devvarman who is quick and gets lots of balls back but lacks much in the way of weapons.  The second round was a different story.  Robin Haase won his first tournament a month ago in Kitzbuhel and then reached the semis of Winston-Salem where, by all rights, he should have won his semi match with Benneteau.  He was up breaks, had 2 match points in the tiebreak.  Haase basically choked there.  Even so, he came to the US Open with confidence.

Murray played his worst match against Haase.  He dropped the first two sets.  Good news for Murray.  He stormed back taking the next 2 sets dropping only 2 games.  The bad news was Murray got up 4-0 double break, and allowed Haase to come back to 4-all, before Murray broke once again, and served out the fifth set.  Had he won 6-1 or 6-2, Murray could have justifiably said that he started slow.  But, a win is a win, and Murray doesn’t care how he wins.

Murray then beat Feliciano Lopez like a drum in the third round.  After thoroughly dominating Lopez in the first set, Lopez seemed to lose interest.  Lopez tried to play bigger in the second set, going for second serves, but it lead to double faults.

Murray then played Young.  Since Young’s strategy was to play big and go for big shots, Murray’s strategy was to let Young self destruct.  Murray wanted to get to lots of balls and make Young play as many as possible.  Where Federer plays aggressive no matter what, Murray feels it’s not worth making his own errors just to play tough tennis.  Young obliged by hitting approaches out, double-faulting at key moments, and Murray cruised to the quarterfinals.

In a way, Murray is likely to do the same against Isner.   He wants to have Isner play lots of returns and then break by being steadier than Isner.  Isner was growing tired after Simon made him play the longest of the matches played on Thursday.  Isner was able to keep points short and come to net, but he did get tired.  Murray is likely to make Isner move to tire him out.

Murray has only played one really solid match and that was his win against Lopez where he looked great.  Although he had a fairly easy win over Young, Murray didn’t play that well.  Murray practiced his serve after that match because he felt he should have won his serve more easily.

Andy Roddick

Roddick was seeded below ten for the first time in years.  As the 21st seed, Roddick got a sweet draw and it was made sweeter when potential opponent, Nicolas Almagro, lost in the first round.  Roddick opened up with Michael Russell who played well enough to win a set.  Then, Roddick schooled Jack Sock who made too many errors and lacked enough of a solid game plan to bother Roddick.  Roddick made short work of Julien Benneteau who was playing maybe his tenth match in two weeks (he played maybe 7 matches in Winston-Salem mostly because he had to qualify).  Benneteau struggled and Roddick took control.

The tough match for Roddick was David Ferrer.  Roddick had two things going for him.  Ferrer had only played twice since Wimbledon.  He played once right after Wimbledon, and then got injured and didn’t play again until Cincy.  Thus, Ferrer was probably less than optimum.  Second, the weather delayed the match and then affected the match since there was a problem with Louis Armstrong that caused the match to be delayed an hour and a half.  Ferrer was already down a break in the brief play on Wednesday and lost the first set.  He looked out of sorts in the second set and lost that too.

But Ferrer came back strong in the third set and won it, and he looked like he might take the fourth set when he broke early.  However, Roddick, who seemed a bit hurt, played big tennis and broke twice.  Roddick seemed genuinely surprised he beat Ferrer.  Unless his injury is a slight tweak, Roddick may be in trouble against Nadal.  If he’s fine, then I think he has some chances to beat Nadal.

Rafael Nadal

Nadal had a tough time against Andrey Golubev who played big in their first round match.  But like any other low-ranked player who plays big, Golubev also made errors and this let Nadal keep even.  Nadal was in trouble in the third set, but broke back twice to win it.

Nadal got a break with Mahut who had to retire in the second round.  David Nalbandian also was up a break against Nadal in the first set, but couldn’t play solid enough to win the first set.  At that point, Nadal played solid as Nalbandian couldn’t maintain his aggressive play.  Nalbandian kept the third set close, but still lost it.  This match resembled the Golubev match in many ways.

In the fourth round, Muller got an early break when Nadal was unhappy being brought out on court with little notice and the courts being a bit wet.  When the match resumed on Thursday, Muller was able to keep even, but eventually lost easily in the tiebreak.  Muller was then steamrolled in sets 2 and 3.  This was Nadal’s best match, by far, but Nadal has yet to play a very good match, mostly because his average level is still much higher than most player’s pretty good level.  None of Nadal’s opponents have pulled an Ivan Dodig and played insanely well.

Nadal might be vulnerable, but this would mean Roddick would have to serve insanely well and Nadal would have to be a little off in his game.  It’s actually been many, many years since Roddick has met Nadal in a Slam.  One reason is that Roddick tends to end up in Federer’s half of the draw a lot and the other is that Roddick has a hard time getting to the quarterfinals.  Roddick has reached the quarters a lot in the US Open, but not in a few years.

Conclusion

Of the top four players, I’d say Federer is playing the best.   But that just means he’s playing well for Federer.  That’s usually a big deal.  The question is what happens if a player can force Federer into long rallies.  Fed has to be able to win those too, and that’s where he’s vulnerable.  Djokovic and Nadal have played well enough to win without playing great tennis.  Djokovic, in particular, looked more solid before Wimbledon than since.  Even so, both players average level is so good that only the best players can bother either one.  Murray has looked up and down.  He has only had one great match and that was against Lopez.  Murray is doing what he has to to win, but it’s tough to judge his form (or any of the top four) until we see how they play against opponents that can pressure them.