Tennisdom

So it looks like Serena and Rafa both continued their quest for tennis world domination while I was away in Thailand, eh? And that we had zero-people-saw-them-coming semifinalists but still No. 1 vs. 2 finals on both sides?

I'll have a lot to say about the US Open results in full and a lot (a lot) to catch up on what I missed tomorrow, but for now, I need sleep. Sleeeeep.

Your defending men's US Open champion, ladies and gentlemen.

For some reason, I thought that the US Open draw ceremony would take place on Friday when I would already be on a plane to Thailand. It turns out that it actually happened today, which means that I could have waited until today to do some actual draw analysis for both the women and men. :/

Ah well, I probably wouldn't have had enough time to do a comprehensive analysis for both sides anyway, given that I have to wake up tomorrow at around 5 in the morning. And now that I've seen the draw, I can at least do a more in-depth analysis for the men. So I'm scrapping my initial plans to focus on the ATP players in the No. 4-7 range in one post and the top 3 in a second post, and doing just one post for general draw analysis here:

1) It turns out that Rafael Nadal nabbing the No. 2 spot just before the US Open was a great boon for him and the exact opposite for Andy Murray, as he gets a draw half that's considerably easier than the other one. Draws can unexpectedly fall apart and favorites can lose to unknowns, as we saw at this year's Wimbledon, and Nadal does have Isner/Monfils, Federer, and Janowicz/Gulbis as potential opponents. But anyone who claims that Nadal is not the clear US Open favorite, especially on the heels of his Canada-Cincinnati double, will have to do a lot of convincing.

2) That said, I don't think that this tournament will be a gimme for Nadal. Nadal has tended to struggle in the early rounds of Slams this season, even after tearing through all the Masters draws beforehand, and there's been a recent trend of the initially easier draw half turning out to be the tougher one by tournament's end. But if Nadal makes it to the second week, I don't really see anyone being able to stop his immense momentum unless one of Djokovic/Murray/del Potro manages to complete most of his matches in 3 sets and hence doesn't get too worn out before the final.

3) I genuinely have no idea who's going to emerge from the top half of the draw. Neither Djokovic or Murray were in stellar form in Canada or Cincinnati, but they have both been pretty good at saving their best tennis for the majors this season. Del Potro, as I pointed out before, has developed a trend of going deep in tournaments he was expected to lose early in and losing early in tournaments he was expected to go deep in. (That, and I do not want to jinx any of these players with my predictions.) I do think that all 3 of them should make it to the QFs, barring a major mishap, and that the QF and SF days for that half of the draw are going to be verrrry interesting regardless of who's actually playing on them.

4) The Ferrer-Gasquet quarter is, depending on who you ask, laughably weak or potentially the most fascinating quarter of the draw. I'm siding with the latter opinion as that quarter contains Janowicz and Gulbis, the two most dangerous floaters who have a great opportunity to make the semis here if the voices in their heads stay quiet for long enough. And I'm not willing to count out the top two seeds doing something worth of actual notice too, as Ferrer (in spite of his terrible form lately) has always played his best at the majors and Gasquet might have finally gotten a path to his first Slam QF in six (!) years that not even he can screw up.

5) For a long time, the men's draws at Grand Slams felt relatively routine and balanced with each quarter guaranteed to be anchored by a member of the Big Four and a member of the Medium Four. Lately, however, Federer's ranking drop and Ferrer and Gasquet's improved seedings have thrown off this balance and increased the probability of someone outside of the Big Four breaking through. We got the first new Slam semifinalist in 3 years at the last Slam and I actually think that if Nadal doesn't win this Slam, we'll have a surprise finalist on the men's side.

And now for the Big 3's US Open prospects, in ascending ranking order:

Maria Sharapova: I had originally written here about how it must have been a pretty frustrating year for Sharapova so far because she had two golden opportunities to win a Slam without her nemesis Serena in the way and couldn't take advantage. I also wrote about how she felt like a distant third in the US Open favorites category behind Azarenka and Serena but how a fierce competitor like her should never be counted out at a major no matter how scratchy her form looks beforehand.

Now, though, the official news is that Sharapova is out of the US Open because of injuries. This is hardly the first injury setback she has suffered and I have no doubt that she'll be back and more determined than ever, but it sadly ties back into my first initial statement about this year being a frustrating one for her and how bad luck is to blame for it more than anything else. All I can say here is that I wish Maria good luck with her recovery and hope that I'll see her back on court before long.

Victoria Azarenka: After her narrow victory over Serena in the Cincinnati final, she's definitely the player most capable of upsetting Serena. It should be noted, though, that Serena was clearly far from her best in that match (a fully rested Serena would almost certainly not have missed that sitter forehand while two points away from victory) and also that Azarenka's form was patchy at best throughout the tournament overall. For these reasons, I still wouldn't place Azarenka ahead of Serena as the top contender.

At the same time, I believe that it really is true that Azarenka is the second most likely player to hoist the US Open trophy. She still won't be able to beat Serena if the latter is playing at her very best, but she's the player who's the most poised to take advantage of a lapse in concentration or form from Serena, and she will come in with confidence from her recent win that Serena isn't as invincible as she might have seemed just after Roland Garros. Provided that no further injury mishaps occur (/anti-jinx), I would be very surprised if Azarenka doesn't defend her finalist points from last year at the very least regardless of the draw she gets.

Serena Williams: Ah, Serena. This Tennis.com article sums up the enigma and never-ending complexes that are Serena Williams better than I ever could, especially on how she tends to be more on edge at the US Open than at any other tournament because of the intense pressure she places on herself to do well at her home Slam. The US Open was a place of personal and competitive triumph for Serena last year, but it has also served as the place of some moments she'd rather forget like what transpired there in 2009 and 2011. It, in that sense, is much like Serena herself.

What do I think of Serena's prospects? I think that her aura has faded a bit after her early Wimbledon loss and recent loss to Azarenka and that the possibility of someone other than her winning a major title is easier to imagine now at this US Open than it was at any other point this year. I also think that she is still the de facto favorite for the US Open and that it will take a special combination of injuries, on-fire opponents, and/or errors on her part to take her down.

Above all, however, I think that Serena will be human. I think that she won't blaze effortlessly to the title without dropping a single set and that there will be moments when she feels the pressure hanging around her neck like a yoke and tightens up. Serena, so far, has had a pretty darn great year -- and it will still be a great year for her even if she doesn't win the US Open -- but it has also been a very human one at the same time. She has had long stretches in this season where she looks for all the world invincible, but she has also had memorable moments where she's reminded us that she's still capable of getting injured, beaten, letting opponents get into her head, and generally being a human being who gets nervous and upset. I suspect that we'll see a microcosm of all of this during her US Open run, and that she will have at least one tough battle after cruising through the first three or four rounds.

For both the women and men, I'm going to make two posts: the first one will be about the US Open contenders outside the top 3 ranked players, and the second one will focus exclusively on the top 3 players.

For the women, though, I'm having a somewhat tough time settling on which players are most likely to contend for the US Open title if the top 3 of Serena, Azarenka, and Sharapova falter. (And just before I finished writing this up, I learn that Sharapova has pulled out of the US Open...) Part of this is because I don't follow the WTA quite as closely as I do with the ATP and hence don't have as clear an idea of which dark horses are the darkest.

Another part of this is because the players ranked outside of the WTA's Big 3 are typically either consistent performers who nonetheless lack the firepower that would make winning majors much easier or streaky headcases who can catch fire for two weeks just as easily as they can lose to qualifiers in the first round, which makes elevating any of them above the rest as an "obvious top contender" difficult. (I mean, even if you had been told beforehand that someone outside of the Big 3 would win Wimbledon, would you really have been able to predict that Marion Bartoli would turn out to be the top contender?)

With all of that said, though, here's my attempt at picking out some WTA names outside of the Big 3 (well, Big 2 now that Sharapova has withdrawn) who have the potential to make a splash at the US Open:

Sabine Lisicki: She's here mainly because she was a finalist at the last Grand Slam. I don't expect her to win the whole thing, given that she has yet to make it to the QFs of the US Open and that one deep run at a Slam does not automatically cure a player of their streakiness. But if she gets the right kind of draw and is in that mode where most of her shots land inside the lines, she could make life difficult for one or two higher-ranked players in her path.

Sloane Stephens: I hesitated at putting her here because she doesn't seem to handle the pressure of playing on home soil very well. But she did show signs of improvement in Cincinnati and she has a record of playing her best tennis at the Slams. If she gets a US Open draw similar to the kind of draw she's gotten at the last three Slams, she could very well make a run to the QFs.

Samantha Stosur: She's here not just because she won the 2011 US Open, but also because she backed that up with a decent QF showing at the next US Open and won this year's Carlsbad title over the same opponent (Azarenka) who just barely beat her in that 2012 US Open QF. A lot will depend on her draw and current form. But if I had to pick a non-top 10 player most capable of making a deep run, it'd probably be her.

Agnieszka Radwanska: The common word on her is that she's an admirably wily competitor who nonetheless gets hit off the court too often to be considered a true contender for Slam titles unless the 3 players in front of her all fall early. And even though the latter did happen at this Wimbledon, she still got outhit by Lisicki in the semis. Still...she's the World No. 4 for a reason, and stranger things have certainly happened this year than the 4th 3rd seed winning the US Open.

I just finished taking the GRE, which means that I can finally begin watching live tennis again and catch up with the replays of what happened during the Cincinnati Masters!

...for four more days, that is. Because I'll actually be flying out of this country this Friday to have a family vacation at Thailand for three weeks. So it's very likely that I won't be able to update this Tumblr after this Thursday until I come back on September 11. (My mom will be bringing our iPad over there, but she doubts that we can get Wi-Fi in our relatives' house, so it'll likely be used for Candy Crush Saga purposes instead.)

This also means that I'll be missing the entirety of the US Open, unless we can miraculously get an Internet connection over there. Which is a bit of a bummer, as I really enjoyed being able to blog a lot during a very eventful Wimbledon, but I trust that my dashboard will have plenty of cool and funny GIFsets and photos for me to catch up on and reblog when I come back. ;)