US Open Week 1 Thoughts

Here are a few random thoughts on the first week of the US Open.

I remain surprised at the display of nerves from the top women's players when they are in winning situations. After winning eight games in a row and going up 2-0 in the third set in her third round match, I was shocked to hear Maria Sharapova say that she didn't like it was her day on the court.

While Andy Roddick may be playing well, his days in the top 3 are over. Novak Djokovic proved that in Montreal with a straight sets win and Roger Federer will hammer that point home in the quarterfinals this week.

Speaking of the Mighty Fed, I thought he looked good in his all black outfit in his first night session match of the tournament.

The odds of Donald Young making it to the top of the game are not high in my opinion. He's too erratic both physically and mentally, and he's almost beyond the age when most top players make their move. While Roger Federer is a notable exception to the rule of breaking through young, if you look at the top players over the last 30 years, the vast majority of them made their breakthrough inside the age of 20.

With ailing knees and talk of defaulting before the tournament, the draw is falling quite nicely for Rafael Nadal to get to the semifinals. That's good news for the tournament as Rafa has become a marquee product for tennis, even in the provincial USA. A Nadal - Federer final for the third consecutive Grand Slam would be a huge television ratings boost.

Call me unpatriotic if you wish, but I'm not rooting for any of the remaining American players to win the men's or women's tournaments.

Serena Williams is going to have to take her game up a notch if she is going to beat Justine Henin. Serena has won her opening matches in straight sets, but hasn't looked great doing it, and number 1 seed Henin is as athletic a player as there is on the ladies side. If Serena falls to Henin, it will be the third consecutive major in which she has lost to the Belgian in the quarterfinal round.

It's sad to see Ana Ivanovic out of the tournament.

Kudos to Agnieszka Radwanska for giving Maria Sharapova a little extra to think about on her second serve delivery in their Women's Third Round match. The 18 year-old Pole consistently moved inside the baseline and gave Sharapova several different looks on the Russian's shaky second serve. The result was 12 double faults for Maria and a huge boost to Radwanska's chances.

American John Isner comes across as a good guy, but not particularly good with the Challenge system. A couple of his challenges were so farcical that even he had to laugh. Look for his serve to carry him into the top 30, but he'll have to improve his movement and his ground game to climb further up the rankings.

While 2006 was a great comeback year for Martina Hingis, she's been anonymous in 2007. A hip injury forced her out of Roland Garros and that may have affected some of her prior results, but she's dropped down to number 17 in the WTA Rankings and hasn't made it beyond the Round of 16 in an event since early March. A Third Round loss to 18 year-old Victoria Azarenka of Belarus may have signaled the beginning of the end for the Swiss Miss.

It's remarkable how much Jo-Wilfried Tsonga looks like a young Muhammad Ali.

Another player whose ranking is dropping continuously is Ivan Ljubicic. Maybe he shouldn't have switched racquets from Babolat to Head? Disclaimer: I'm on Babolat's National Team program so I'm just giving the big Croat a hard time about switching. However, changing racquets after reaching a career high ranking is an odd thing to do. Juan Carlos Ferrero did the same when he switched from Prince to Head. He's back with his old Prince racquet now.

I'm usually fairly good at knowing who all of the players are, but I have to admit that I'm not familiar with Ernests Gulbis of Latvia. After he dismantled Tommy Robredo, perhaps we need to take a closer look at this guy.

Roger Federer looks in brilliant form through his first 3 matches and it will be shocking if he doesn't win his fourth consecutive US Open. The only players with a chance to stop that from happening are Djokovic and Nadal, although Rafa's knees may prevent him from mounting a real challenge if he gets that far because of having to play the semis and the finals on back-to-back days.