US Open tennis headed for a 2nd big week!

  In the world of pro sports, the fourth and final tennis Grand Slam Major appears headed towards a great week concluding the US Open on Sunday.

Serena Williams, pictured above could end up playing her sister, Venus in the Women's semi-final round. Both Williams' sisters, however have tough opponents coming up within the next two days for this showdown between the two of them could take place.

Tonight, Serena will be playing the top seeded Justine Henin in what could be an epic battle on Ashe Court, the 22,000 seat showcase court at the US Open. In their last battle, in the quarter final round at Wimbledon two months ago, Serena was battling leg and wrist problems and went down to defeat against the Belgian Henin. Following that loss, Serena essentially took the rest of July and August off to heal her injuries, with the wrist being the biggest problem to overcome. Serena looked sluggish the first two rounds until Sunday. Facing the Wimbledon finalist, the French girl Marion Bartoli, Serena showed that she is rounding into form by dusting the plucky Bartoli in two relatively easy sets. It will be interesting to see just how well Serena is at this point in the tournament. It is expected that Henin will provide a much stiffer competition against Serena as opposed to what Ms. Bartoli was able to deliver over the weekend.

For her part, Venus has looked dominating in her march through the Open up until this point. Also playing on Sunday, the elder Williams sister completely dominated the highly regarded and #3 seeded Ana Ivanovic, wiping the young, pretty Serbian off of the court. Like Maria Sharapova, the defending champion who lost in an upset Saturday to a previously unknown 18 year old from Poland Agnieszka Radwanska, Ms. Ivanovic also has professional modeling aspirations like the tall Russian. Ana, and Maria now both have a few unexpected days free in the NYC area to do some magazine photo ops now that their time has ended at the US Open. Perhaps both young ladies should devote more time honing and improving certain aspects of their games as opposed to time spent in front of a mirror applying make up, fixing their hair, studying how good they look in mini-skirts and fancy high-heeled pumps just before the cameras start clicking away.

Sharapova in particular had her flaws exposed again by the young Ms. Radwanska, especially with Maria's inability in the third set to hold her own serve. As I mentioned in a previous post to this blog, the best thing that Maria could do to improve her game would be to fire her father as her coach. Ms. Sharapova in Grand Slam events this year has been exposed as lacking in strategy in her shotmaking and groundstrokes, needs improvement in her footwork on the court, and as stated above needs work on her serves, (which always seem to break down at crucial points in these big matches).

Except for the Williams sisters and Justin Henin, the women's game in tennis seems to be dominated by young European players all of whom have a ton of ability. One can list their names - Jelena Jankovic, (Venus' next round opponent) Anna Chatzvadzke, Daniela Hantuchova, Sharaha Peer, (who is from Israel), Nicole Vaidisova, Nadia Petrova, and two mentioned above Marion Bartoli and Ana Ivanovic. All are promising young players who have good tennis games. None of them have a Grand Slam Major on their resumes, however. That is because none of these young ladies know, within all of their experiences, what it is like to win on the biggest of stages. Indeed last year at the US Open, Jankovic had Justine Henin on the ropes in the semi-finals. But, putting it in as clear terms as possible, she choked badly when the opportunity to put Henin away presented itself to Jelena several times late in their match. Vaidisova has also lost on several occasions at both the French and Wimbledon tournaments this year, being unable to close out the deal. Nicole lost to Sharaha Peer the other night in an epic match. The opportunity to finish off Peer was there for Vaidisova, but she was unable to defeat her opponent. Hantuchova, who many "lady lookers" feel is prettier than Sharapova, went away very quickly in the 2nd round. Ana Ivanovic has the most powerful groundstrokes of any in this group. But, the 19 year old Serbian has looked all of her still young age this year in big moments in all of the Grand Slam Majors. And as I mentioned, Venus spanked Ms. Ivanovic unceremoniously Sunday at the US Open. I had expected that perhaps Ana would have at least put up somewhat of a fight against Venus, and maybe make it a three set match. It never happened with Ivanovic quickly trudging off towards the locker room while Venus celebrated. One can guess that Ana was too embarrassed with her performance to share her thoughts with Mary Jo Fernandez from CBS, who has been conducting court side interviews with many of the tennis contestants when the network was airing the broadcasts.

Marion Bartoli while appearing to have the sweetest disposition and personality of any of these players, (and who admitted during Wimbledon that she has a major crush on the former James Bond character- Pierce Brosnan) is severely limited by her awkward serving motion, which comes in like a lollipop most of the time, and unusual two-handed grips on both her forehand and backhand strokes. Back in the late 80's and early 90's Monica Seles was famous for having two handed grips on all of her strokes. Before her tragic stabbing at the hands of a deranged lunatic during the changeover at a tennis event in Germany, Seles had come to be the most dominant player on the women's circuit. She even had begun to have the upper hand in matches against her #1 nemesis, Steffi Graf. In comparing the French women to the great Monica, Ms. Bartoli is no Seles in her prime. Not even in the same ballpark! The two-handed motion helps Marion as far as placement in her ball striking during matches. But she often is overpowered by certain players as she is unable to handle the pace of their shots in return. While it was an absolute stunner when Marion defeated Justine Henin in the semis at Wimbledon, I have the feeling it was more of an aberration rather than what we can expect to become the norm in her career. In the Wimbledon final, Ms. Bartoli's weaknesses were fully exposed. Venus proceeded to give Marion a whipping in two relatively uneventful, and swift sets to capture the crown. The sight of poor Marion bawling her eyes out in her chair on center court immediately after the match ended really tugged at my heart anyway. But then again, Venus had been there before and the whole experience of being in a final was quite new to Marion Bartoli. Plus, she simply did not have the game to handle Venus' pace on her strokes; considered along with Serena's to be the most powerful in the women's game.

In a way, it's kind of a shame that Justine Henin has to play Serena in the quarters, then if both Williams sisters were to win, they would play each other in the semis. To be honest, out of those three names, I believe that the US Open winner will be one of that trio. I would simply have no faith that the remaining European player, (or Peer from Israel) has what it takes to emerge victorious in the final.

As far as the Men, I will make this short and sweet. I echo what John McEnroe stated last night on the USA coverage regarding someone defeating Roger Federer here at the US Open. Yes, it is true that Roger's last two opponents managed to both win the first set. But, of these young players played out of their minds serving with unbelievable pace which initially overpowered Federer. But, just as usual, Roger figured out what these players were doing, then, to borrow a phrase that describes Federer, he "flicked on the switch". Very quickly it was game, set, and match. McEnroe eloquently stated that to defeat Federer now, with the way he is playing at such a high level, it is going to take an almost inhumane effort. To win one set against Roger requires an opponent to play at a level near the stratosphere. It is highly unlikely that any player could then maintain this level of play and win a second set, then a third set to defeat Federer. The quarter final match up has Andy Roddick next taking on Roger. Roddick during his career has a 1-13 record against Roger. Roddick can talk all he wants, (as he did yesterday) that he wants to play Federer again. But, the memory probably exists in Andy's mind about the last time that the two met on court. In the Australian Open back in January, Federer absolutely cleaned his clock in three swift sets. What do you think would be going through Roddick's mind if he loses the first set against Federer? Probably something along the lines like " Oh, here we go again. I'm hitting my serves as hard as I can against Roger, yet to no effect. I think I'm going to lose yet again to him"! Unless it is a major upset with the way Federer's game is so highly tuned for this event, it will take a monumental effort for anyone to defeat him in a five set match. Maybe Pete Sampras in his absolute prime would give Roger a run for his money right now.

I welcome any comments to this post!