US OPEN 2010: Women's Semifinals Preview

Here are my predictions for the women's semifinals at the 2010 US Open. I previously predicted 4 of 4 women's quarterfnals correctly.

Caroline Wozniacki DEN (1) vs. Vera Zvonareva RUS (7). Interestingly, these two have a tied career head-to-head (2 and 2, 1 on 1 on hard courts), with Wozniacki winning the last time these two played in the final of the Rogers Cup 6-3 6-2 in Montreal during the Dane's great run through the US Open Series this summer. They have both been in one major final (Wozniacki US Open 2009, Zvonareva Wimbledon 2010) with Zvonareva being in 3 major semifinals to Wozniacki's 2. Can Zvonareva play real big babe tennis more consistently than Maria Sharapova was able to? I say yes. There's a reason why Zvonareva is ranked #8 in the world.. Then again Wozniacki is ranked #2 in the world and is the top seed here, thanks to the absence of World #1 Serena Williams. Even though I was convinced by her performance against Sharapova that Wozniacki is "for real" I still have a feeling that Vera will not go away quietly. Regardless, I think the eventual titleholder of this year's event will not come from this semifinal. PREDICTION: Zvonareva in 3 sets.    

Venus Williams USA (3) vs.  Kim Clijsters BEL (2). Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters have played each other twelve times and their career head-to-head is tied at 6-all. However, on hard courts Clijsters leads 4-3 with Clijsters winning every hard court match the two have contested since 2005. Additionally, Clijsters has won 19 matches in a row at the US Open dating back to 2005 (she did not play the event in the years 2006 through 2008). Venus has not really been tested (despite 2010 French Open champ Francesca Schiavone's best efforts), and has somehow managed to make it to the semifinals of the US Open (for the first time since 2007, when Justine Henin took out both Serena and Venus to win the title over Svetlana Kuznetsova) without losing a set. That will almost certainly change on Friday, especially since Venus' mobility is clearly sub-optimal. These two played one of the most bizarrely lopsided matches of all time (6-0, 0-6, 6-4) won by Clijsters on the way to the title. It is very likely Clijsters will become the first player in 9 years (since her opponent did it in 2001) to defend her US Open title. PREDICTION: Clijsters in 3 sets. 

US OPEN 2010: Men's and Women's Draws Preview

The 2010 US Open starts on Monday, so the men's and women's draws have been released. Savannah at Craig Hickman's Tennis Blog posted them and an online discussion is beginning.

The Men
The top seed is Rafael Nadal, who is trying to complete his career slam after winning Wimbledon and Roland Garros this year. A 14-match Grand Slam winning streak is nothing to sneeze at. However, Nadal has never even played a final in New York, although he has steadily improved his results every year he has played the event. In 2009, Juan Martin del Potro, the eventual champion, demolished him 6-2 6-2 6-2 in the semifinals. Looking at his draw, I doubt Rafa will get that far this year but he has a clear path to the quarterfinals. David Nalbandian is in his quarter, but the resurgent Argentine would have to get past Fernando Verdasco in the 3rd round. It's possible either Verdasco or Nalbandian could take Nadal out relatively early. If not, he would be facing whoever emerges from the bottom of the top half of the draw in the semifinal: Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, Sam Querrey or John Isner. I don't see Rafa getting out of that match-up alive. Since the defending champion is injured, World #2 Roger Federer has a good chance to reach his 8th consecutive US Open final. I do think that in a Federer-Nadal 2010 US Open final, Nadal would be favored because of his head-to-head lead against the Swiss player and his previous demonstration in Melbourne that he can beat Federer in hard court finals as well as clay. Federer's path to the final is slightly more dangerous than Nadal's, but I think he has a greater likelihood of making it. His only obstacles are Robin Soderling in the quarterfinal and either Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic or Nikolay Davydenko. I don't see Federer losing a US Open semifinal to any of these players, but he could lose in the quarterfinal to Soderling. Nadal has a small probability of losing in the quarterfinal but a much greater probability of losing in the semifinal. My prediction: Murray v Federer final.

The Women
The first response is to say that with World #1 Serena Williams out of the draw with injury do we really care what happens this year? Well World #2 and #1 seed Caroline Wozniacki would beg to differ. Although she made the final last year as a teenager and she won the 2010 US Open Series I seriously doubt her ability to repeat her achievement from 2009. Looking at her draw, Wozniacki has a potential 3rd round encounter with Lucie Safarova and a 4th round match with Maria Sharapova and a quarterfinal match with either Svetlana Kuznetsova or Li Na. The bottom half of the top part of the draw should feature a Jelena Jankovic-Vera Zvonareva quarterfinal. In the top of the bottom half of the draw if Venus Williams is any kind of shape, she should have a stroll to the semifinals (notwithstanding a 3rd round re-match with Tsvetlana Pironkova who took her out at Wimbledon). In the bottom of the bottom half of the draw defending champion Kim Clijsters will need to get through Marion Bartoli and Elena Dementieva. My prediction: Clijsters v Sharapova final.


Of course I reserve the right to revise these predictions when I see how people are actually playing during the tournament!

Federer Defends Cincy Title Over Fish

Roger Federer won his first non-major final of the year after losing 3 finals in a row (on 3 different surfaces: Madrid to Rafael Nadal, Halle to Lleyton Hewitt and Toronto to Andy Murray) in Cincinnati on Sunday over American Mardy Fish. The title was his 53rd overall, tying Bjorn Borg on the all-time list at 5th. It was Federer's 17th ATP Masters series title, tying Andre Agassi but still one behind Nadal's 18.

Federer has now won the Cincinnati title in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010. Next year it will become a combined male-female 8-day event (immediately following simultaneous men's and women's tournaments in Toronto and Montreal).

The match with Fish was a close, high-quality 3-set affair featuring 2 tiebreaks, one break of serve and only 6 breakpoints between the two players. The final score was 6-7(5) 7-6(1) 6-4. In the first set, Federer had 4 breakpoints and failed to convert any of them due to brilliant serving by Fish. Federer faced one breakpoint in the second set but was able to get through to a tiebreak. In the first set tiebreaker Federer held a 5-4 lead, but Fish played a brilliant point to even the breaker at 5-all and Federer played a loose point to be down 6-5. Fish won the first set on a service winner. In the second set tiebreaker Federer was much sharper, jumping to a quick 4-1 lead and never looked in danger of losing that breaker. The only break in the match came in the 9th game of the third set where, for once, after facing a break point Fish was unable to make a first serve and eventually lost the breakpoint and the game, and eventually the match when Federer served it out pretty easily on his second match point.

US OPEN SERIES: Federer v Fish in Cincy Final

Roger Federer defeated Marcis Baghdatis 6-3 6-4 in the semifinals, one day after the resurgent Cypriot had taken out World #1 Rafael Nadal in a tight 6-4 4-6 6-4 match.

In Sunday's final Federer will face Mardy Fish, who defeated Andy Roddick in a rain-delayed match 4-6 7-6(3) 6-1 after Roddick led 6-4 5-2 before a crucial rain delay.

This will be Federer's second consecutive final in as many weeks. He lost last week to Andy Murray. Fish has only beaten Federer once before (in six tries), but it was the last time they played, in the semifinals of Indian Wells in 2008, and in straight sets.

US OPEN 2010: Serena Williams Withdraws

Serena Williams announced that she will not be playing at the 2010 US Open, due to an injured right foot. Her sister Venus Williams, who has not played since Wimbledon due to a knee injury is still entered. Defending champion US Open Kim Clijsters has played one tournament (and won it) and is yet to lose on the US Open Series.

Clijsters Defeats Sharapova In Cincinnati

Kim Clijsters survived a rain-delayed, see-saw match to win the Cincinnati Open title over Maria Sharapova 2-6 7-6(4) 6-2. It was Clijsters third title of the year (after Brisbane and Miami) and 38th overall.

Murray Defends Canadian Title Over Federer

Andy Murray got revenge for his 2010 Australian Open final loss to Roger Federer by defeating the 16-time major champion 7-5 7-5 at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, Canada. The Scotsman improved to 7-5 head-to-head over Federer and maintained his right to be in the conversation of potential winners of major titles, especially those played on hard courts.

Murray won his first title of the year, by defending his title at this tournament from last year, the first person since Andre Agassi in 1995 to achieve that feat, and did so by defeating Rafael Nadal and Federer in the same tournament.

Federer v Murray and Clijsters v Sharapova in Finals

Roger Federer defeated Novak Djokovic 6-1 3-6 7-5 to regain his World #2 ranking and defending champion Andy Murray defeated World #1 Rafael Nadal to retain his World #4 ranking in today's semifinals at the Toronto Masters.

Federer followed up his clutch win over Tomas Berdych (despite being down 2-5 in the deciding set!) to improve to 10-5 against the Serbian. The Swiss player was up 6-1 2-0 and was two points away from a second break when after holding Djokovic smiled and relaxed and reduced his error count considerably while Federer continued to struggle on break points and ended up losing the set. In the third set, Federer took a commanding 4-1 lead and had multiple opportunities for a 5-2 lead. Instead, he got broken and the next game was a titantic 15-minute struggle (9 deuces!) which Djokovic won to even the match at 4-all in the 3rd. Federer fell behind 15-40 on his very next service game but served three consecutive huge first serves to get himself out of trouble and nosed ahead 5-4. The match looked like it was going to a deciding set tie-break with Djokovic up 40-15 on his serve at 5-6 but Federer fought back to deuce and won the match on his first match point after another backhand and forehand error by the former World #2.

The first semifinal between Murray and Nadal was relatively uneventful, with ineffectual serving from the World #1 which eventually led to a deciding break in the first set. In the second set, Murray had an early break which he relinquished to even the match and then surprisingly Nadal lost the 9th game of the match on his serve through some excellent returns from Murray, who then coolly served out the set to win the match.

Tomorrow's final should be a reprise of this year's Australian Open men's final which was won by Federer. Murray, however leads their head-to-head 6-5 but Federer has won their three match-ups in finals (2008 US Open final, 2010 Australian Open final and the Thailand Open).

I expect a barn-burner tomorrow with Federer pulling it out in 3-sets.

On the women's side Kim Clijsters will face Maria Sharapova. Sharapova has won the last 3 times they have played, but Clijsters leads their head-to-head 4-3. I like the defending 2009 US Open champion versus the 3-time major champ.

Federer v Djokovic, Nadal v Murray Semifinals in Toronto

Today there's a dream line up of semifinals at the Rogers Cup in Toronto; World #1 Rafael Nadal plays World #4 Andy Murray and Roger Federer plays World #2 Novak Djokovic.

Federer came back from down 2-5 in the third set to even the match and defeat Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych 6-3 5-7 7-6(5) on his very first match point, despite being 2 points away multiple times from his third consecutive loss to the hard-hitting Czech for the year. Murray has to reach the final in order to maintain his #4 ranking over Robin Soderling, who was taken out earlier by a resurgent David Nalbandian.

Sam Querrey Repeats As Champion in LA

ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

American Sam Querrey became the first person since Andre Agassi in 2001 to defend his title in Los Angeles by defeating the top seed, World #4 Andy Murray 5-7 7-6(2) 6-3 on Sunday.

MadProfessah had been invited to visit the tournament earlier in the week for a USTA Diversity event and saw Querey and James Blake lose a desultory doubles match to the excessively handsome (and eventual semifinalist) Feliciano Lopez and Jarko Tipsarevic.