Looks like David Ferrer will win the afternoon quarter against Juan Ignacio Chela (he’s up a set and it’s 5-2 in the second), but this place is empty. You can walk right up to the food court and order nachos. You could successfully get the video screen from the AmEx booth without a wait. The T-shirts, tennis dresses and hyper-technic shoes are all yours for the asking.

Tonight however, when Novak Djokovic tries to advance against Carlos Moya, expect more of a buzz.

After two nights of thrilling tennis, everyone can take a deep breath today. Even USA, which just finished the Roddick-Federer replay, is now showing a replay of Venus-Jankovic instead of live tennis.

Since I honestly don’t have much to say about David Ferrer and
Juan Ignacio Chela — except that I hope USA gets around to showing the match — I also will look back to last night, and an unique performance from Jelena Jankovic.

I can’t remember ever seeing a player who smiled so much, who was so quick to applaud her opponent, who performed dangerous acts seemingly just to please the crowd (I’m thinking of the two splits), and who talked to the spectators — including an amused Jerry Seinfeld — during the most intense match of the women’s tournament.

Oh yeah — in marked contrast to, well, anyone who lost a match, Jankovic stayed on court afterwards to do an on-court interview and praise her opponent. She continued to joke and laugh during her press conference. Here’s what she had to say about it:

“I love when they have a lot of supporters. They were asking, What am I talking to the crowd? They go like, Jelena, we love your smile. I’m like, But, yeah, it doesn’t help me return her serve (laughter). It’s always funny. It’s quite entertaining.

I think you have to have fun sometimes on the court. I don’t think you have to always be so serious like some of the players are. You have to enjoy it. So this is what I’m doing, having a lot of fun on the court.”

Andy Roddick after Serena Williams, that’s back-to-back nights of surly athletes in the press room. Roddick actually glared at a few reporters who asked him questions that rubbed him the wrong way.

Then there was the piece of cake. Michael Barkann of USA Network asked Federer about his training method and then made a joke by saying piece of cake, eh? Federer then repeated the phrase.

Roddick heard that phrase and thought it was referring to the match, which seemed to contribute to his mood.

“I’m just saying contrarty to what was said, I hope it wasn’t a piece of cake,” Roddick said. “It certainly didn’t feel that way from my end.”

Not to the top seed either.

Federer confirmed that he was referring to his training, and then said of Barkann, “I guess he thought he was funny.”

So please, no more pastry-laced controversy.

But I go back to what I said about Serena. I’d be more worried if Roddick weren’t angry. He played really well, and still lost in straight sets. Hard to find perspective in 20 minutes.

How weird is it to hear Andre Agassi commenting on the Federer-Roddick match? It seems like just yesterday he was here in the draw, not sitting above the court with John McEnroe in the USA Network broadcast booth.

He’s OK. Hard to judge so early, but it’s a heck of a lot better than turning on the TV on Monday night and seeing some man with a very large neck and flaring nostrils talking about how he was going to hurt a similarly puffy man. Apparently, the Ultimate Fite Night or whatever it’s called draws more viewers, so Federer’s fourth-rounder got pushed to another net.

Anyway, when Agassi was shown on the big screen in Ashe he got a standing O, which is how it should be.

If you are not out here for the Venus Williams Jelena Jankovic match, turn it on right now. Jankovic has her on the run and just won the first set 6-4 in 48 minutes. But this one isn’t even close to over.

Although it’s dangerous to make predictions, Venus has been playing better as this goes along and doesn’t look like she’s ready to give up much in the second. The Serbian has won the last three matchups and could easily turn the top half semifinal into the No-Williams semi.

UPDATE: Venus won, as you can see from the above pic.

The two men’s quarters tomorrow in Ashe:

Juan Ignacio Chela vs. No. 15 David Ferrer, starting not before 12:30 p.m.

Carlos Moya vs. Novak Djokovic, first match of the night session.
Jana Novotna vs. Martina Navratilova to follow.

Serena Williams was hard to deal with last night in a press conference she said she only attended in order to avoid a WTA fine if she skipped it. That doesn’t ring true considering the fine would be about $10,000, which is about one-tenth of what she earned at this tournament alone, not to mention an estimated $10 million in endorsements a year.

But the rest of what she said was refreshingly honest.

I’m going to act like I’m not a reporter for a minute, and think of what it must’ve felt like to fall apart in the second set against a maddeningly consistent Justine Henin. You might be pissed at yourself, at her, at the waiter who didn’t put enough ice in your diet coke at lunch, at your slightly crazy-intense father for drilling you on a pavement court for six hours at a time before you turned 10… whatever.

Then you are under a spotlight. Know-it-all reporters who haven’t perspired in the last six months (unless you count the cold sweat when they realized all the chips were gone from the free buffet in the media center) are asking you about your fitness.

Enter mean Serena. Her last defense was gone and she said just what she thought. Maybe it wasn’t nice or polite, but it was real and raw and it wasn’t the canned “give her a lot of credit” crap we get from other players on the tours. It wasn’t a warm and fuzzy lovefest like when Andre Agassi retired last year, but that’s where Serena is in her career.

I’d be more worried if she didn’t care.

If Jane can quote song lyrics, so can I. There will be two Russians coming out of the bottom half of the women’s draw — just not the one everyone expected.

Maria Sharapova is gone, but her countrywomen stepped up to take her place. No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova and No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze both won their quarterfinal matches this afternoon and will face each other in Friday’s semifinal. This is Chakvetadze’s first Grand Slam quarterfinal win, while Kuznetsova won here in ‘04 and was the French Open runner-up in ‘06.

Chakvetadze still hasn’t dropped a set, while Kuznetsova needed just 67 minutes today. One other interesting fact: Kuznetsova was the only one of the four women’s quarterfinalists today with more winners then unforced errors, so that should give you an idea of how these matches went.

The U.S. Open remains a mystery for Rafael Nadal, who lost in four sets very early this morning to fellow countryman David Ferrer, 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 6-2. One thing is abundantly clear: The tournament will miss him. The weekend, my friends, is finished.

This match ended so late that it didn’t make any editions of The Journal News, and we can get something in up until about 2 a.m. I find it just incredible that these guys can play a sport at a high level until that hour, but they did tonight and Ferrer was simply fantastic.

I filed a quick story for “LoHud.com”:http://www.lohud.com about the match. I saw most of it outside in Ashe with Harold and we couldn’t believe how good Ferrer was. At 25, maybe he can still be a top-10 player. He sure looked good enough.

Nadal was not himself, no doubt. But he hit enough incredible shots and is so good that he would’ve beaten most men tonight.

He called for a trainer to take care of a finger issue and didn’t go after certain balls, which makes you think his knee was suspect. Still, he wouldn’t talk about it afterward…another reason I consider him one of the most stand-up players in tennis.

Serena he is not.

(This is cleaned up a bit): “I speak a lot about my physical (condition) all week,” Nadal said. “so I prefer not to speak about my body right now because if I say something about my body someone will think it’s an excuse. So I don’t want to (give) any excuses. He played very good and he beat me. Maybe another day we can speak about the injuries.”

The number of Americans can very easily go from two to zero Wednesday night, with Andy Roddick facing Roger Federer and Venus Williams taking on Jelena Jankovic.

It’s hard to believe it’s still only the quarterfinals. Both of these could easily be finals — in fact, the men’s match is a rematch of last year’s final — though Justine Henin has to be the favorite now after that dominant second set. In any case, I think that the night session is the top ticket of the tournament so far.

By the way, the Nadal match was my first late night at the Open (I covered the day session, but really, what better thing is there to do on a Wednesday night?). That meant one of my favorite sights — at midnight, everyone in the upper deck is invited down to the lower level, adding even more to the festive atmosphere.

I also picked the right night to stick around — the latest end time so far has been the Blake-Koubek match at 1, but this one is going at least until 1:30. These are two of the most fit guys on tour, and neither one will go quietly.