OK, OK, OK…so we can give the guy a pass tonight.

Not only did Novak Djokovic start to play much better in beating Carlos Moya, he also became everyone’s new favorite tennis player by doing tremendous impressions at the behest of USA in front of 20,000 or so strangers. Good for him.

And if you don’t know [...]

I’m not here to throw water on the whole tournament. If anything, I’d love to do anything but. I WANT to believe Novak Djokovic (right) has a chance to beat Roger Federer on Sunday afternoon. I WANT to be curious enough to forget it’s the opening week of the NFL season.

Want to…but can’t.

I’ve been outside [...]

I just returned from a very entertaining press conference with Spaniard David Ferrer (above), who beat Juan Ignacio Chela in straight sets today at Arthur Ashe Stadium in another impressive U.S. Open performance. Ferrer, the clay-court specialist, is now in the first Grand Slam semifinal of his career, and will face the winner of tonight’s [...]

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 [...]

Wow. Wow. Wow.

What a bizarre press conference just now by Serena Williams, who was bounced by Justine Henin in straight sets 7-6 (3), 6-1.

Normally I don’t encourage readers to read other papers or watch other networks, but you have to check out just how detached Serena was tonight. I urge you: watch SportsCenter.

To best sum [...]

Boy, that was the longest day session ever considering there were only a few matches today. For us, it makes the job much more difficult, but I doubt you care much about that.

This is a huge match tonight. Justine Henin has a great opportunity here to put a stamp on her career. You say, oh, [...]

Poor Feliciano Lopez. The guy looked like a top-10 player for two sets tonight, basically doing what he wanted on serve to the great Roger Federer. Lopez actually won 15 of 16 points on his first serve in winning the first set.

They were on serve in the second, with Federer up 5-4, when Lopez got [...]

ASHE —
Day:
Ernests Gulbis vs. No. 17 Carlos Moya (not before 12:30 p.m.)
No. 23 Juan Monaco vs. No. 3 Novak Djokovic
Night:
No. 1 Justine Henin vs. No. 8 Serena Williams (after 7 p.m.)
No. 15 David Ferrer vs. No. 2 Rafael Nadal

ARMSTRONG —
Stanislas Wawrinka vs. No. 20 Juan Ignacio Chela, 11 a.m.

ALSO…We know Wednesday’s night schedule on Ashe [...]

This is probably the worst night session to get tickets to the U.S. Open. Because it’s Labor Day and everyone’s off, the best matches are all played during the daytime. It’s fairly standard.

What it’s left us with is No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze dusting off Tamira Paszek 6-1 in the first set in 28 minutes. Paszek [...]

“Poka” is an informal way of saying goodbye in Russian.

I was inspired to look it up this afternoon by Yuri Sharapov, who, as we saw on CBS today, packed up his belongings and blew off the final game of his daughter’s three-set loss in the U.S. Open.

We’ve come to expect nothing less from Yuri, who [...]