US Open

We learned a lot this year!

We learned that men's tennis has entered a new golden age, and that women's tennis is in disrepair. (Though that didn't stop the women's final from being surprisingly riveting, and the men's final from being something of a bore.)

We noticed that American men like Andy Roddick and James Blake are in the twilight of their careers, but that strong new Americans are emerging -- with more compelling fan support.

We ate (lots of) hot dogs and more exotic fare, and we marveled at the number of pizzas and hamburgers that everyone else consumed.

We walked the grounds and found hoodies, smokers,  read more »

Well, that was fast.

The Roger Federer of old returned this evening and dispatched Andy Murray in a quick and breezy 1 hour, 51 minutes, in three sets, at 6-2, 7-5, 6-2

It was evident early on that Federer wasn't going to let Murray touch him tonight. He blitzed when he needed to, and showed that elegant game that he displayed to devastating effect against Novak Djokovic in the semis.

With Federer's triumphant return, men's tennis leaves this U.S. Open in its best shape in two decades. The parity is incredible: Djokovic grabbed a championship, Nadal found a way to win on clay and grass, Federer won, and newcomer Andy Murray has nudged his way awfully close to the first-tier of top tennis players in the world.

We've entered a new golden age, and Federer just capped off an incredibly stirring 2008 season for the game.

Andy Murray just came off the practice courts and is about two hours from the biggest match of his life.

If he plays anything like the way he played yesterday, Roger Federer might have a real test.

But then again, these matches often come down to big-situation experience (please see: Serena v. Jankovic last night, or Djokovic v. Federer, 2007 U.S. Open final). Prior to this tournament, the 21-year-old Murray had never done better than the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam; Federer has won 12, and has been in the finals in 12 of the last 13 Grand Slams.

Reporters in the press center will be writing B-copy for two story lines: Can Federer shut up all his critics and win his first Grand Slam of the year, his 13th of his career, and his fifth consecutive Open? And can Murray put his stamp on the game and nudge his way into the game's elite group of Federer-Nadal-Djokovic with a major upset?

Murray owns the head-to-head against Federer (he's 2-1), but Federer hasn't lost here since 2003.

In the tennis world, we have grown used to assuming that when good players lose, especially in "upsets," the loser must be suffering from injuries. And the truth of injury declarations has been a factor towards the end of this tournament, as when Novak Djokovic publicly defended himself against Andy Roddick's maybe-joking doubt about Djokovic's medical issues.

In a graceful press conference after his semifinal loss against Andy Murray, though, Rafael Nadal told the truth: Murray just played better.

"Injuries? What injuries?" he said in response to a question which seemed to assume that Nadal must have been dealing with a handicap. "No, no. Not one during all the season."

So, if it wasn't Nadal's injuries, what could possibly have led to this unforeseen victory?!?! "He play better than me and he beat me."

Simple.

New York can make you, and it can ruin you. Fast.

Case in point: Novak Djokovic.

Last year, in his two weeks at the Open, Djokovic transformed himself, on our stage, before our very eyes, from a gifted-but-little-known Serbian up-and-comer into a full-fledged star. Yes, it had much to do with his daring, nerveless play, but it was more than that.

Robert De Niro and wife Grace Hightower sat in the Djokovic player's box during his Open final against Roger Federer; they treated him to dinner at Nobu during the tournament and at Wakiya after he lost the final. Maria Sharapova cheered him on every step of the way, and rumors started running high that they began dating at the Open.  read more »

The grounds, at about 11:30 this morning. Not a soul in sight here, other than a few scattered security people.

In six hours, there will be more than 23,000 fans here.

Experience prevailed tonight.

Serena Williams defeated Jelena Jankovic in an often nervous but ultimately riveting match 6-4, 7-5.

It lasted over 2 hours, including a 1 hour, 17 minute second set that brought everything to the table: dramatic rallies, set points saved, a match point saved, key errors and stirring winners.

For Serena, it was a coronation of a long road traveled back to the top spot (literally--she's now the no. 1 player in the world). With the top players in women's tennis knocked away with an injury (Sharapova), early retirement (Henin) and a bad loss (Ivanovic), the sport is rewarding the player who hung around the longest, even if it wasn't exactly playing the best tennis we've seen from the game, or the best tennis we've seen from her.  read more »

In less than an hour, Anita Baker will be on that red carpet singing "America the Beautiful," and shortly thereafter, it'll be time for Serena and Jelena.

It is, also, bigger than a Saturday night match or a Sunday evening match--the traditional time for the women's and men's finals, respectively--and the biggest primetime slot ever dedicated for tennis: 9 p.m., CBS, Sunday night (the only other primetime Sunday night match was that ridiculous "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition in 1973).

The downside is that the women's final will have plenty of competition tonight: NBC has the first Sunday night football game of the 2008 NFL season; ABC has a primetime benefit concert that's featuring Janet Jackson and Jessica Simpson; MTV has the Video Music Awards; HBO has the season premiere of Entourage.  read more »

The top tier of men's tennis has gotten so deep and so good in the last year and now it'll have to welcome a new member: Andy Murray.

Murray just defeated the 5-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal in four sets, winning the fourth set on the biggest stage in tennis with a 6-4 victory. He broke Nadal twice, and owned the entire game on his racquet. In the match, he had 65 winners, and 54 errors, compared to the 32 and 40 for Nadal.

Unfortunately, we will not have a Nadal and Federer final for a third consecutive Grand Slam. The good news is Murray is worthy of the men's finals--this is clearly his breakthrough tournament and he absolutely exhausted Nadal today.  read more »

About 26 hours after the match was delayed yesterday, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have resumed play at a packed-house at Arthur Ashe Stadium, a far cry from their match at a half-filled Louis Armstrong yesterday.

And Nadal, who was up a break in third set yesterday, has taken the set, 6-4.

Reflection on early play: Nadal held all three of his service games, but Murray, particularly in the last game, played really nice defense. The conventional wisdom going into today's match was that Nadal, a 5-time Grand Slam Champion and a veteran for matches like this one, would come out today playing with soaring confidence and Murray, a neophyte to this stage, would play tight. Not so. Murray had a break chance on Nadal's serve, and just missed getting the game evened at 5-5.

We're going to have a good final two (one?) sets.

Play for the rest of the day has been canceled.

This means the Rafael Nadal-Andy Murray semifinal--which Murray currently leads 6-2, 7-6, 2-3--will resume tomorrow at 4pm, with coverage on CBS. Women's tennis will have its biggest stage ever, with a primetime 9pm final tomorrow night on CBS. The winner of the Nadal-Murray match will play Roger Federer in the men's final on Monday at 5pm.

Roger Federer has found his game. He's playing confidently, elegantly and has reestablished himself as the player to beat in this tournament. With the rain holding off for just long enough, Federer outlasted Novak Djokovic in four sets, taking the last set 6-2.

Djokovic, who started to find his own game in the second set, uncharacteristically unraveled toward the end of the match; he started rushing his points, stopped chasing balls and had the look of a guy who couldn't wait to get out of New York. His post-match presser is going to be interesting.

At the end of the match, Mary Jo Fernandez asked 4-time U.S. Open champ Roger Federer who he'd rather see in the finals: Rafa or Andy Murray. He didn't dodge the question.

"I'll say Rafa," he said.

Please bring it on.  

Well, this is going to be an interesting day!

Today, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic square off at 11am (promptly!) at Ashe. Nadal and Murray follow, though the USTA allows the possibiltiy that they may play on Armstrong.

We thought we retired that court four days ago, but with the possibility of squeezing the men's finals and the women's finals on the same day is too tempting for the USTA. And they may play both men's semis at the same time.

This is something the USTA has never faced over the last four decades, and here comes a ridiculously insane day of tennis.

Will they get it through?

Boo, Hanna!

The USTA just released two contingency plans if it rains tomorrow.

Scenario I:  If both the men's semifinals and the women's final are rained out:

Men's Semifinals, 1pm and 4pm on Sunday, ESPN2 and CBS

Women's Final, 9pm on Sunday, CBS

Men's Final, 5pm on Monday, CBS

Scenario II: If men's semfinals are completed on Saturday, and women's final is rained out:

Singles Final (TBD women or men), 4pm on Sunday, CBS

Singles Final (TBD women or men), 9pm on Sunday, CBS 

Everyone is saying that this is Serena's tournament to lose, but is that fair?

Serena has lost to both Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic this year. She lost to Safina at the Qatar Telecom German Open, a match which ended in a third-set tiebreaker. And she lost to Jankovic at the Australian Open in straight sets (though Serena has also recently beaten her, at the Sony Ericsson Open).

Safina and Serena are underway now at Ashe, and Safina is up a break. So there.

The occasionally gloomy Jelena Jankovic is headed to her first Grand Slam final after defeating Elena Dementieva 6-4, 6-4, in a sloppy, nervous match. In total, there were 8 breaks of serve and 66 unforced errors.

Jelena Jankovic calmly strolled to the locker room after the match--generally a moment heavy in emotions--like it was an easy third-round win. Dinara Safina, who is about to play Serena Williams for the other spot in the finals, was in the hallway and tried to stop Jankovic and congratulate her, but Jelena was too spaced out to notice. Then, just as she was entering the women's locker room door, Jankovic screamed to no one in particular: "Get me one of those protein drinks!"

Someone mumbled something back.

"No, I'll be out soon!" she replied.

The lady knows what she wants.

For all the dismal boredom of this year's women's draw, the talk of crazy upsets among the females, and the theory that Serena has this one locked up, the women's semifinals look...surprisingly legit.

3 of the top 5 seeds will play in semifinal matches on the women's side, the same as the men's side. And these are four players at the top of their game: they've only dropped 3 sets between them so far this tournament, a remarkable statistic over a total of 20 matches. Serena is no sure thing, though her power will be effective against Dinara Safina. And Dementieva vs. sunshine-tastic Jankovic is an excellent matchup.

So while the women may seem to lack drama and rivalry, they don't lack for good players or good tennis at the end of this Open.

For the last few days everyone in Flushing has been whispering about Tropical Storm Hanna. Right now, weather.com is calling for an 80 percent chance of rain tomorrow, and that there could be up to 1 inch of rain--more than enough to ensure no tennis.

Super Saturday is a huge day at the Open: both men's semifinal matches and the women's final are played. That's about eight hours worth of coverage alone. If it all has to be played on Sunday there are several problems. CBS only has a 4pm to 7pm slot available for tennis; 1 to 4pm is used for football, so coverage may inevitably have to be farmed back out to USA.  read more »

Andy Roddick said that his comments about Novak Djokovic's various injuries were all a big joke.

"Listen, I joke all the time. I don't think anybody in their right mind takes me serious. I think it's very clear when I give a serious answer and when I don't give a serious answer."

Well, maybe not.

"I don't know if, you know -- he took it as seriously," he said. "I figure if you're going to joke and imitate other people and do the whole deal, then you should take it."

Both Roddick and Djokovic said they wouldn't discuss anything they said to each other in the locker room after the match.  read more »

I caught up with Novak Djokovic's agent Benito Pérez-Barbadillo after last night's PR disaster, and he said a center court interview was definitely the wrong place for Novak to vent his anger.

"He’s young, and he’s learning," said Mr. Pérez-Barbadillo "He learns from defeats, and he learns from wins and he learns from life. He’s 21 years old and he had a shit day yesterday. You have a bad day yesterday and when a friend of yours, or someone you think is a friend of yours, says something and it’s taken from the press and all over the world and you feel hurt--he chose the wrong audience to say where he said and he learned from that.  read more »

The Serbian sweetheart of 2007 has lost his New York support.

That bad blood between Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick that we discussed? It bubbled all over center court last night. After Djokovic's hard-earned four set victory over Andy Roddick last night, he shot back in a post-match on-court interview at Roddick for implying that he was faking his injuries.

"Well obviously, you know, Andy was saying I have 16 injuries after last match, so obviously I don't, right?," said Djokovic in the interview. 

The boos began, but Novak, amazingly, did not stop there.

"Like it or not, it's like that," he said.  read more »

Roger Federer just finished wiping out Gilles Muller in straight sets. The victory means that Federer has now reached an ungodly 18 consecutive semifinals in Grand Slams.

"Yup, I'm playing great," he said on the court after his win.

And boy, is he ever: 42 winners, 19 unforced errors today. That's a little something extra for Novak and Andy to think about when they play in two-in-a-half hours; the winner of that match gets Federer.

A lot is being made today of Venus' "uncharacteristic" play last night: she made 45 unforced errors, and blew 10 set point opportunites. But really, this is the Venus Williams we've seen over the last couple years at the Open.

Last year, when she played Jelena Jankovic in the quarters, she commited 56 unforced errors, and then hit another 35 in her semifinal loss to Justine Henin. Afterward, everyone was wondering if something was seriously wrong with Venus; her mother, Oracene Williams, made the now-ridiculous seeming claim that her daughter would be checked into the Mayo clinic afterwards.

I caught up with Carlos Fleming, Venus' agent, before the Open began on the rooftop of the Empire Hotel and he told me she was just exhausted last year--nothing more.  read more »

We know Vogue editor Anna Wintour is a very big fan of Roger Federer, and we know she always shows up to his night matches, and his weekend matches. But apparently she doesn't want to miss his quarterfinals match, either--even if it is at 3 p.m. on the Thursday after Labor Day.

The Women's Tennis Association is clearly troubled by the injuries and disaffection that have plagued the tour in the last few years, and yesterday they announced a plan to do something about it.

In a "roadmap," the WTA announced that the amount of required tournaments will be scaled back from 12 to 10 (in addition to the four Grand Slams), and if players decide to skip out any of them, they risk suspension. The season will be shorter, the court surface transitions (hard court to clay to grass to hard court) will be smoothed out to reduce jarring changes from one tournament to another.

This is clearly an attempt to prevent everything that went so wrong for women's tennis in this U.  read more »

Serena's been talking all year now about how much she wants to up her ranking, and how much she wants to be feared (and respected) again.

She's moving closer toward that goal. Even though her sister blew 10 set points last night, Serena showed a focused intesnity that we haven't seen since the days she dominated the tour. Before the tournament began, we wondered if she even had any good tennis left in her. Her determination has been back for the better part of the year, but she just wasn't winning, and it was hard to tell why. In the past if she wanted to win, like at the 2007 Australian Open, she won.  read more »

For the last few days, I've noticed smokers everywhere: outside the media center, inside Arthur Ashe, outside the food courts, even courtside. If there is a policy about smoking, it's not being applied. Which is just fine by the smokers.

"I was smoking up against the railing [in Ashe] earlier, and some guy, the beer vendor, said to me, 'You're not supposed to do that,' but he said that everyone does anyway,'" said Kurt Anderson, a 31-year-old manager at P.J. Clarke's, who smokes American Spirits blue.

"You can get a light anywhere too," he added.

And it's true!

"I'm kind of surprised about it," said a New York Post reporter who didn't want to be identified as a smoker.  read more »

It's hard enough when English isn't your first language, but it's even worse at 3 in the morning. With that, here is, unquestionably, the best exchange in Interview Room 1 during the 2008 U.S. Open conducted after Rafael Nadal's victory tonight:

Q. It must be a good story to tell your children that you played a match over two days. It started on Wednesday and ended Thursday.

RAFAEL NADAL: OK.

In the first set, it looked like it might happen. Everything that Mardy Fish said before the match--his "absolute" confidence--suddenly made sense.

Until it didn't. Nadal made extremely quick work of Fish after dropping the first set. It was just an overwhelming blitz of slicker, faster stronger tennis from the No. 1 player in the world.

By time the match ended, at a little after 2 a.m., the crowd was mostly gone from Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the few unlucky souls left had to battle overeager livery cab drivers who wanted to charge $55+ for a ride anywhere in Brooklyn, and far more for Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Nadal's next test, Andy Murray, should be much tougher, but Nadal has been on this stage before and he's this close to making it to his third consecutive Grand Slam final.

Venus Williams was the popular pick for tonight's match, but 45 unforced errors later, Serena Williams is heading to her first semifinal at the Open since 2002 with a dramatic, hard-knocked 7-6, 7-6 win.

Moments after Serena won, she was greeted at the entryway of the women's locker room by Venus' companion Hank Kuehne who told her congratulations. She barely seemed to notice, and offered a half-hearted, "Yeah, oh, thank you." She was too busy smiling, a far different picture after her quarterfinal loss last year against Justine Henin when she entered the locker room sobbing. 

"Definitely can't believe I won," she offered to no one in particular, her voice full of glee, as she made her way into the locker room.

We tried it three times last year and it went well, so here goes for the first time in 2008: a live blog! Follow along by clicking "READ MORE" and please hit me up on aim at johnkoblin if you'd like to chat.

8:31: There are about 20,000 people filing in all at once, so we're not entirely filled up yet.

8:33: Early question: awkward tennis from the Williams sisters (as we usually see) or fun tennis (as with their Wimbledon final two months ago)?

8:35: It is cold here! Both players are wearing jackets in warm-ups (Serena in a Nike jacket, Venus in an Eleven jacket, the brand she started) and I'm in short sleeves and kind of shivering!

8:47: Early break for Venus in the third game; she's up 2-1 in the first set.  read more »

I just caught up with the retired American Todd Martin to talk about the Mardy Fish-Rafael Nadal match later tonight.

Martin has been in Fish's shoes a million times: playing someone who is clearly very much better than him, needing to figure out a way to grind his way to a victory.

When I asked him about it, Martin said the match-up favors Fish more than one might think.

Observer: What are your thoughts on Nadal-Fish?

Martin: It seems fairly clear that this court is the quickest of the four Grand Slams, which is only good for Mardy's sake primarily because the point can start well off his serve.  read more »

I wanted to pick Serena Williams tonight, if for no other good reason than to buck conventional wisdom by going against the Wimbledon champ, Venus Williams. But a friend of mine who served as our unofficial resident Serena/Venus expert last year has convinced me otherwise. 

Goldburn: this is the best i've seen venus play at the beginning of a grand slam in a long time. even the last three wimbledons she won, she started out slow. she's moving great and her forehands are staying in. serena is playing well but not A+ like when she beat sharapova at the australian. i think its truly a toss up.

 read more »

I just caught up with Bud Collins and asked for his pick tonight in the Williams sisters quarterfinal.

"I picked Venus to win the [Open], so I guess I have to stick with her," he said. "It's very interesting. When [Venus] came along, Richard Williams said Serena was going to be better. And she did get better results, but I always felt Venus would be the better player because of the reach and her speed. And now she's starting to come to the net, which is nice. I'll stick with her. The winner of the tournament comes out of that match."

Tonight, we'll have a rematch of the Wimbledon final, but in the quarterfinals. Serena versus Venus. Serena desperately wants to get back to the semis here--she hasn't done it since 2002. Venus is red-hot after the Wimbledon final, but wants to win her first non-grass Grand Slam since 2001.

I'll be running around the tennis center today looking for expert opinions on the match, which may serve as the women's de facto final.

Mardy Fish has the biggest match of his career later tonight against Rafael Nadal. When asked about it on Monday in a press conference, he said Rafa might be afraid of him.

"Absolutely, absolutely," he said in a briefer when asked if he was confident. "I feel like a guy with my style of play is someone that [Nadal] doesn't want to see."

The way Fish plays--lightning quick, serve-and-volley tennis--is what he feels is his greatest weapon.

"You got to be able to finish points quickly. [Nadal] is going to last longer than anybody.He wants to keep points as long as possible and run the guys down, kind of body blow after body blow.  read more »

The one thing that has surprised me over the last few days here is the utter lack of buzz over another potential Federer-Nadal final. No one is talking about it. I guess it's for two reasons: (1) Federer has been struggling, as he did yesterday and (2) Nadal has never gotten past the quarters here, and he is still stuck with that old reputation that he's not much of a hard court player.

But he doesn't like that rap. Nor does he like the idea that the Olympics (where he won a gold two weeks ago) is what got him kick started on hard courts.

"I was playing good in hard court before the Olympics, no?," he said at a press briefing on Monday. "I won in Toronto, semifinals in Cincinnati and semifinal in Indian Wells and Australia, and Miami final, no? So the results was very good, no?"

O.K., yes.

Yesterday, the city named the entryway outside the tennis campus in Flushing, "The David Dinkins Circle." The entryway is that unremarkable circular promenade that's beyond the 7 train stop in Flushing, a bit beyond the boardwalk, that leads you either to the Open, or the Flushing Meadows Park.

Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg, David Paterson, Betsy Gotbaum and Ed Koch were on hand to honor David Dinkins.

"There was a time, not too long ago, when New York was in very real danger of losing this event," said Mr. Dinkins. "The USTA was looking for a committment from our city to ensure that this jewel of a tournament would have a place to call home for years to come.  read more »

Remember when Serena, Venus, Hingis, Capriati, Seles, etc ushered out the boring era of women's tennis led by Arantxa Sánchez Vicario? Well, that revolution is long over, and this U.S. Open has been the final stake to the heart to the women's game.

Today, in the Observer we aruge that the thing that made women's tennis so great--the personalities, the rivalries--is precisely the formula that has brought men's tennis at this Open into another golden age.

“Men’s tennis is at the point where no matter what happens, it’s interesting,” said Jon Wertheim, the writer for Sports Illustrated. “‘Federer gets his mojo back and wins a Slam and shuts up his critics!’ ‘Federer loses and the wheels have really come off!’ ‘Nadal wins and it’s the best year since Rod Laver!’ ‘Djokovic wins and he wins two slams in one year!’

“Men’s tennis is at a point where—and this is where women’s tennis used to be—anything that happens provides a juicy plot,” he said.  read more »

Sometimes God tests us, forcing us to confront unthinkable pain in order to know better the scope and power of His will.

This is one of those times. Sybille Bammer has lost in the quarterfinals of this year's Open to Jelena Jankovic, 6-1, 6-4. It's O.K., breathe. It's hard for me, too. The "statistics" indicate that Bammer's near-ridiculous number of unforced errors (40, to Jankovic's 14) sealed her fate, but it doesn't make the result any less unfathomable.

Andy Roddick, the 2003 Open champion and perpetual Great White Hope of U.S. men's tennis, dominated his fourth-round match against Fernando Gonzalez, taking just about an hour and a half to win, 6-2, 6-4, 6-1.

Roddick played excellently and consistently, committing only 7 unforced errors and and winning 93 percent of first-serve points, but Gonzalez didn't help himself with 33 errors.

Lest we think that this commanding performance means that Roddick is surely headed for a tournament victory, though, let's remember the names of his likely opponents in the next 3 rounds: Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal. Yowza.

It took him 3 hours, 33 minutes, but Roger Federer found a way to finally finish off the men's 23rd seed Igor Andreev at 6-3 in the fifth set. Roger received a prolonged standing ovation from the New York crowd that couldn't stand to see him leave.

For a guy who looks like agonized on the court when he's struggling, he sure doesn't let on afterwards.

"You always wish three sets, but honestly those five sets are pretty fun too," he said in an on-court interview afterwards.

"I'm really happy with the way he played, but God, the guy's a good player so I'm really, really happy," he continued.  read more »

Unbelievable. Like Novak Djokovic earlier today, Roger Federer has been pushed to a fifth set, but this match is even tighter.

We're in the stands, and we'll be reporting live with updates.

Federer has won 30 consecutive matches at the U.S. Open. The last time he lost was in 2003.

UPDATE: Federer is up 3-0 in the fifth set now. When he broke Andreev's serve in the second game, it's probably the loudest I've heard this stadium. Ever.

UPDATE II: It's 5-2 Federer. Andreev had four break points on Federer's serve in the seventh game at 4-2, but capitalized on none of them. On the last break point, Andreev hit a soft lob directly behind Federer, and as Roger scampered back to it and saw that it fell about a millimeter outside of the baseline he screamed, probably out of sheer relief,"IT'S OUT!"

Novak Djokovic got his first test of the tournament this afternoon, and now it's Roger Federer's turn. Federer and Igor Andreev have nabbed a set each (at 7-6) and Federer is up a break in the third. At this point, we'll start the women's match at about 8:30, Roddick's match at 10:30, and we'll all be going home well after 1 a.m.

It took three hours and 45 minutes, but an exhausted Novak Djokovic advances to the quarterfinals with a five-set win over Tommy Robredo. It seemed like everything was ailing him: his stomach, his hip, even his ankle. It looks like that stomach ailment that we told you about before the tournament took its toll in this match. 

"If I started joking about all the things that bothered me now, we could talk until tomorrow," he said in an on-court, post-match interview. "Whoever I play [in the quarters] will be physically fitter than me, that's for sure."

It will be the winner of the Andy Roddick-Fernando Gonzalez match.  

The one problem with a two-week-long tournament, from a home-spectator standpoint, is that you have to endure the same commercials over and over again. But this one, starring the Williams sisters and the Manning brothers, isn't bad. Acting!

The USTA sent out a press release last night proclaiming that the U.S. Open broke its first week record with 423,420 people pouring through the gates. They're expecting to set the all-time record with more than 720,000 fans coming for two weeks this year. Last year's mark was 715,000.

There is one perplexing thing in the headline of the release: "US OPEN SETS FIRST WEEK ATTENDANCE RECORDS AS BIGGER AND YOUNGER CROWDS FILL STADIUM TO 100% CAPACITY" (Bold added for emphasis)

If true, that would be a particularly attractive draw to certain deep-pocketed advertisers, especially for next year's Open, but there's no explanation in the release about the methods used to determine that this Open is any younger than previous ones. I emailed a USTA spokesman looking for an answer, but I haven't heard back yet. Watch this space!

On Saturday we said goodbye to the outside courts, and now we say farewell to Louis Armstrong. The draws are small enough that both sid