After the US Open concluded, the men’s game was criticized as boring because of Roger Federer’s dominance over the rest of the field. On the other side of the fence, the women are going through exactly the opposite problem: no one has really emerged this year to dominate the women’s game. Does this make for more exciting tennis? Not necessarily. I wish it did but, in fact, we could level a number of criticisms at the women’s game. Several things occurred at the Open which bring the subject up again: namely, whither women’s tennis?

Really, I want to like women’s tennis, but the women sometimes make it very hard for us to get behind them. Consider some of the problems that bother several of the big stars on the women’s tour. They deal with the serve, or lack thereof (Dementieva), the nerve, or lack thereof (Hingis), and the size factor (Serena Williams).

The fact that these players have been slow to address their respective issues makes me wonder when they are going to get their acts together and really try to develop as players, rather than just hang out in the bottom half of the Top Ten.

So much has been said about Dementieva’s gruesome serve, as I like to call it, because of the huge disparity between the rest of her game (powerful and consistent off both wings) and her serving problems. At the Open she probably reached her nadir with that serve, losing to rising Serbian player Jelena Jankovic without winning even one service game. Talk about taking it hard on the chin.

Why should we care? Who gives a can of Penns if Elena Dementieva wants to try and get by on the rest of her game without a decent serve? Why should some of us, myself included, take this serve as nearly a personal affront to our highly tuned tennis sensibilities?

The reason I get so annoyed is that it’s a bad reflection on the state of women’s tennis. For Elena to have the serve she does, and still rise to the top five of women’s tennis is not anything to crow home about. For some people, women’s tennis is still one of the best jokes going in women’s sports. Look at the early draws of any major tourney, the bagel jobs, the 1, 2 and 3 scores come in droves. When you add Elena and that sidearm delivery of hers, the smiles get even broader.

The women, in a nutshell, seem able to get by with less in their games. They are able to get to the top tier because the top tier gives them plenty of room to hang out there with skill levels that may, or may not be, top flight. You would never see this happening with the men.

Elena Dementieva’s serving troubles are being mirrored lately by Martina Hingis’ problems. Martina recently ran into reality too. It was not pretty. She thought she could continue her dominance over the lesser ranked women and make a few more inroads against the power hitters. At least that seemed her game plan coming back at the start of the year. Then Virginie Razzano pushed her out of the Open in strong fashion and showed that any number of girls ranked lower than Hingis could beat her on any given day.

We all praised the return of Hingis at the start of the year as a welcome return to the game of someone who really knew how to play it. Mentally Hingis has great court sense and good strategy, as our dear leader would say. I used to root against her when she was on top, so call me a Flipflopper but I fell for Martina, and like everyone else, we fell hard as we got behind her comeback.

But now the comeback has gotten bogged down. The rather thorough defeat she suffered in New York seems to have put the fear of God into Hingis; now she’s gone out and reverted to playing the girly tennis equivalent of triple A ball. Tier IV events they’re called. Let’s just hope this is a temporary loss of nerve, that Hingis took this on as a way of building up her confidence.

Several weeks ago she played in a really really small tournament in India. She whipped through the field. Not a hard task given the field consisted of only one woman who could bother her, Sania Mirza, and Hingis flew past her 1 and 0 in the semis, then crushed Poutchkova in the final, 0 and 4. Pooch who? you may be asking. That’s Olga to you, ranked 85th in the world. But then last week in Korea, another small tour stop, Hingis went out early to Mirza.

So, where are you going little girl, I want to ask Hingis. What are your goals? Just to hang out in the top ten, or do you really want to make a run again for the very top? And can you make a run to the top when your confidence seems shaken to the point that you’re now playing triple A ball, in India of all places?

The fact that Hingis could leap forward in the rankings as easily as she did would be unheard of in the men’s game. Again, I am cringing, this is not a good state of affairs. For Hingis to lose to “one of the lessers” and for Dementieva to get clocked good by a newcomer are strong wake-up calls. Let’s hope they are heeded. The women’s game will be the better when they can address their respective issues.

For Elena, she needs to correct her serve. Whatever it takes, whoever you need to hire, she should do it. No more waffling. She is a disciplined, technically sound and well-trained player who knows what it is to have a work ethic. There is no reason she cannot master this important part of the game. The woman is 5’11” for heaven’s sake. Now try and act like it.

For Hingis, it is a matter of working harder to improve specific parts of her game. Yes, the serve, for sure in her case too. And her ground strokes are not as strong as they could be, and really need to be, if she is serious about making herself competitive again. I mention Hingis in the same breath as someone like Justine Henin-Hardenne. They both face the same problem: how do “little girls” (defined as anything under 5’7″) win on the tour these days? Justine is even smaller than Hingis, but Justine got fired up and trained like a banshee and added that extra pop on her serve, and more pace on her groundies.

Why can’t Hingis do the same? I think she needs to or this comeback is going to smell increasingly like some PR stunt, like the woman never really intended to make a serious dent in the women’s field.

For Serena Williams, none of the above mentioned problems will ever be a factor in her world. She suffers from no illusions that women players should always look ladylike on a court. She can belt the ball with intense ferocity on her serve and she’s got the big groundies. But she’s got a big can too, and that’s her cross to bear.

If she can take the weight off and keep it off, hopefully with a lot more tournament play, she should be the one woman player who will get back to the top. But her knee is going to continue to act up unless Serena can keep the excess weight off. I was surprised she moved as well as she did at the Open, considering her new-found heft. But she won’t be moving well for long on that knee unless she gets rid of the weight.

There will always be a space for a player like Serena. As for Dementieva and Hingis, that remains to be seen. They are good B players who somehow managed to get into the top ten. For a while. Let’s see if a new year can bring some new changes in their games. Both of them have a lot of potential that we haven’t fully yet seen on a court.

The first tennis match I ever saw was a Davis Cup match in Los Angeles in the early 60s. Or maybe it was the late 50s. Time certainly flies by in the tennis scheme of things. We were playing the Aussies, as usual, with McKinley and Ralston and that red-headed guy with the massive wrist, Rod Laver. I remember the charged up atmosphere and thinking, “Gee, this tennis watching could be fun.” Much has happened since Davis Cup back then. The excitement level dropped off considerably over the years as the rest of the tennis world caught up to us. Now it’s the Americans who aren’t into Davis Cup like they used to be.

Perhaps this may account for Davis Cup Captain Patrick McEnroe’s rather dour-sounding comment after the USA lost the deciding fourth match on Sunday: “It was a classic Davis Cup match, and I’m only sorry so many people back home won’t appreciate just what it takes for both guys to play at that level for nearly five hours.” This may have been aimed at the OLN Network which covered the match but with a time delay. Anyone on the internet would have known the outcome ahead of time.

But if you could manage your way around the TV schedule, then you got a great match. It was certainly the longest fifth set in World Group play since ’85, running to 17-15 for a combined total of 4 hours and 48 minutes. Unfortunately, it was a match you hate to see anyone lose, especially an American.

Andy Roddick hauled himself out of the doldrums of being two sets down and nearly came back to pull it out in five sets. But not quite. Although Roddick played well as the match went on, he could not cash in on the big moments in the match, which kept slipping away from him. Like his golden opportunity in the fifth set after Roddick had just broken Tursunov and got ready to serve the match out. Only he didn’t. Tursunov crushed another great cross court forehand winner for the early lead, then pounded a good return off of a big Roddick serve for 15-30. Then Roddick netted an easy forehand for 15-40. He saved one break point then pulled a forehand wide and Tursunov was given new life.

You felt for Tursunov, though, who played his way to a two-set lead only to see it start to go. He’s a guy who supposedly can’t play on clay, a guy who got dropped into the action when the coach decided at the last moment to play a big server as opposed to the modest-serving Mikhail Youzhny. Tursunov has been my pick for Most Improved Guy this year. We have been singing his potential since the final at Los Angeles in the summer where he lost a close match to Tommy Haas.

The only stick on the Russian was that he sometimes implodes at key moments, or gets impatient. Today he kept his brain under control. The Russian took it to Roddick both on his serve and with an incredible display of forehand power. Big crushing cross court shots for outright winners, little angled cross court shots, inside out forehands. Also the ample use of drop shots, half of which connected. We like to think Andy Roddick is the Power Meister but today Tursunov just outhit the American. He went for his shots and he went for them big.

Then there was a little brouhaha after the match ended with Tursunov shoving away some team member as he tried to shake Roddick’s hand at the net. Igor Andreev landed a kiss on Tursunov’s cheek that ended up going to the lips instead and that had us all worked up there. For a minute you would swear this was the hottest kiss since Tosca planted one on Scarpia. “Great Kisser” reads the logo on Tursunov’s T-shirt on the ATP website. Now we know he means business.

Meanwhile in the stands we have the ever amiable Boris Yeltsin, watching with the serene appreciation and contentment that can only come when you are no longer President. Did he get kissed too? We are uncertain. The beautiful Russian women were out in force too, as my partner likes to observe. Hopefully some of them are free and swimming in the pool of available sex partners and they don’t all belong to Safin.

Another interested spectator watched from the stands. He looks vaguely familiar too…but would anyone there have recognized Yevgeny Kafelnikov? He’s hiding under about twenty extra pounds I would guess; the hair is much darker, and he’s wearing a suit. Sigh. So much for the tall, willowy blond I used to like looking at. Another good man gone the way of all flesh we suppose. It’s a wonder they could tear him away from the poker tables, where the man reportedly spends a lot of time these days.

For Roddick, this loss, 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 17-15, has to be a tough one. Even though he came back, you could feel the battle for him was always uphill. Perhaps it was just the clay surface that also caught the Americans at a disadvantage, but it seemed Roddick could not find that extra gear he had discovered under Connors’ guidance at the Open. His slice serve worked well when he got it out wide in the deuce court, but he barely used it. Ditto the backhand up the line shot.

For Tursunov, though, there was only one gear on Sunday, but that was enough. Big and bigger. He went for everything, especially on the forehand. Again and again Roddick tempted fate by going into the forehand; Tursunov responded by slapping yet another vicious cross court winner past him.

Said Roddick later, “To be honest, he played a lot more consistently than I thought he might. I don’t know if I could tell you what made the difference.”

At least Roddick was able to come back from two sets down; that is the great news. The not so great news is that the “old Andy” problems started creeping back in. Like the fact that mentally he still lets down at the crucial moments. When the other guy is stepping it up, Roddick seems to back away from the moment. He let Tursunov get in control of the points, and if Roddick expected a wiltdown of sorts, he was not going to get it on this day.

Another note on the coverage re OLN: for some reason the director would start with the usual shot of the tennis court, seen from behind and above, but then he would cut in for a close-up of a player as he hit a shot. The effect was jarring, you kept wanting to go back to the larger shot because the close-up was too swift to reveal much of anything. Maybe this is one director who really NEEDS to be shooting music videos, instead of tennis matches.

You can read about the final between Tursunov and Tommy Haas in Los Angeles here.

Well folks, we finally made it across the finish line at the US Open yesterday. Now that sinking feeling is starting to settle in, somewhere between absolute burn-out and fearful anticipation of tennis withdrawal syndrome. I’m glad it’s all over, in other words, even as I fear I may start to crave the next decent-sized event.

A number of players got to go home with a fair bit of swag. Roger Federer took home all the marbles again, but Andy Roddick is back on the map. After a slow start in the men’s final on Sunday, Roddick picked his game up in the second set and actually won it, 6-4. It was the only set of four he could manage, but the signs look good for Roddick. He is getting the idea of how to play Roger. Now if he could only play that aggressively for a couple more sets, he’d be in business. Roger won it by a score of 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.

One thing that especially bothered me about Roddick’s game on Sunday: he was coming forward a lot, which is good, but some of the volleys looked weak. He seemed a step late getting there, so when he did volley he was coming up on the ball, rather than through it. So the ball sat up and Roger knocked off numerous winners, with Roddick hung out to dry. Best if he could get in a step quicker so he’s getting a good take on the ball before it drops below the net. Andy, think “stick.”

James Blake made a dent in Roger’s game too, at least he got a set off the Number One. For Blake it was a good tournament, after a summer full of walkabouts and strange letdowns. Now he’s on track again too, and we have a battle ongoing now for the number one American player. Blake and Roddick. Good for business. Big Boy Tennis, another rivalry to go with Roger and Rafa, although Rafa has to be careful to show up next time he gets an invite. Which he will, rest assured.

It adds another layer of complexity to the men’s game when the number one player gets on the losing end a lot to the number two, but then number two has a lot of trouble with other guys. Guys out of the top ten. Like Mathieu, Kendrick, Ferrero, and now Youzhny. How crazy is this? I think somewhere right after the French I said something like Federer would probably proceed anyway to wreck havoc throughout the hard court summer on his way to the Open victory. And then we would be back to the usual conversation: namely, when is someone really going to take it to Federer on a semi-regular basis? Other than Nadal. But then if Nadal is not going to feed the rivalry by losing in earlier rounds to …well, basically nobodies, then what’s a girl to do?

Blake hit two forehands in his match with Federer that have to be two of the largest missiles seen around for a while. Gonzalez delivers his usually only one at a time. Blake hit a huge forehand and then another that was even bigger. Roger just seems to swallow them up. The sound of the crack off the racquets was just amazing.

McEnroe in the booth said something that I have been thinking about all evening and into today, savoring the thought, the tribute he meant to pay to Roger…when he said something like “It’s nice when Roger can show us something human like that, then we appreciate him all the more when he played so brilliantly towards the end.”

Sharapova finally delivered, after more than two years since her first slam win at Wimbledon. She was shaky initially against Henin-Hardenne in the women’s final, but then she got a groove going on her serve and she served big. Justine got outpowered throughout the match, and at times looked very impatient. She felt the pressure to perform against the onslaught of Sharapova, but never got her game on track. Sharapova added nice touch at the net and showed a good court sense of where to be and what to be doing. She is that rare woman who seems to be trying for a hard angle on nearly every other shot, I admire her going for the lines attitude. Mentally, she kept herself together.

Forget the stats on this match, the only ones that really counted were probably these: Sharapova, 6’3″, Henin-Hardenne, almost 5’6″. Big girls do have more fun.

Other folks made out like bandits here at the Open too.

The Russians landed three guys in the late rounds, Safin having a good run up until the round of 16, when he lost a tight 5-setter to Tommy Haas. But Davydenko proved once again he is one of the longest marathoners in tennis, surviving two sets down in the quarters to Tommy Haas but inching his way back into the match. He lost in three straight to Federer in the semi-finals, but for him the Open was a great tournament.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Nikolay is probably on the other side of the world already, gearing up to play in China this coming week. Someone should tell the Ukrainian he can take some time off now and then. Really guy, it’s OK. We don’t think you’ll miss anything. Is he obsessive-compulsive or what?

Mikhail Youzhny is another Russian with a strong, free-wheeling game. Nice back hand on this guy, a powerful one-hander that he does a lot with. Aren’t nearly all one-handers rather nice to look at? We think so. At this event his shot stood up to Nadal’s two-hander, and basically helped upset the biggest seed in the event.

Another odd guy who arrived big time at the big event was Germany’s (by way of Baylor) Benjamin Becker, who now should go out and try to beat another big name player. Just so he won’t have to reveal he’s the guy who beat Agassi in his very last match. Ugh. A reputation you probably want to escape from as quickly as possible.

The women. Well, the women. Mauresmo took us on another Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, winning a lovely match against Serena Williams in the round of 16. But against Sharapova in the semi-final she played hide and seek: “Hello, here I am in the first set, NOT; oh look, I won a set! But wait, here’s my bagel vendor again, oh dear.” How else do we interpret the weird score of 6-0, 4-6, 6-0.

Mauresmo has a tall order to try and live this one down. She always sounds so distant in her interviews after she loses matches. As if the debacle had happened to someone else in the room. Let’s hope this strange loss resonates a bit inside her, it can’t just wash over her like water off the proverbial duck. Sometimes it seems that way with Amelie.

I am not a Sharapova fan. But she plays with such a level of aggression and power. Now she’s adding touch. Her serve is great. She goes for everything. She deserved to win. You go girl, now here’s your banana! You wolf that down while I gag on your Daddy Worship. Time to step out, darling, and get yourself a real coach. Or at least another male figure other than dad. I can see the thing with Andy, I think, you guys are more like Apollo and Artemis, brother and sister twins, undergoing similar re-birthing processes now in your games. It’s a supportive thing probably, more than a love thing. You “get” each other a bit.

Surviving two weeks of a Grand Slam is always a challenge, but always interesting. You see so much drama, good bad and indifferent sometimes. Rarely indifferent, thank God.

It’s like reading a great novel, where all the threads get pulled together by the end, transforming us the participants too. Does exhaustion count towards transformation? I hope so. I am wigged out. Now I am off to the woods, to derive comfort from marmots and the like. The good thing is they aren’t a neon yellow color. At least I think.

And because this is the last slam of the year, it is interesting to see who comes out ahead, and if they maintain that level of play into the new year.

The women’s round of 16 concluded last night at the US Open, with a win by Number One seed Amelie Mauresmo over the unseeded Serena Williams. We’ve left the early blow-out matches behind, now the women are getting down to the good stuff.

For Serena Williams, we can say she at least got her finger back into the pie with this tournament. She didn’t deserve to win this match though. She advanced farther than I would have thought she could go, given her spotty play this year and her lack of conditioning and match play. Whether she advanced because some of the old powerful Serena remains, or whether she advanced because the women are typically weaker in the early stages of tournaments than the men, it is difficult to say. Probably both ends were working here. But it is good to see Serena back. Losing this match should be the good swift kick in that rather oversized derriere that could do her good.

Her mind at least is still into competing, even if her body can’t quite keep up yet. On a number of points during her match with Amelie Mauresmo, the physical effort of running balls down cost Serena dearly. Even a week at Nick Bollettieri’s place in Florida before the Open could not fill in the gaps quickly enough in Serena’s conditioning. I found myself saying, “If she were lighter she would get there more easily,” or “She wouldn’t be breathing so hard” if she were in better shape. As it was, Serena seemed to move pretty well, but it cost her aerobically.

Serena appeared to be playing at about three-quarter speed throughout. She wasn’t crushing the ball like the Serena of old. This is not meant as a criticism. You would expect her to just try and keep the ball in play and see what opens up and not be in such a rush to pull the trigger. Was she hoping she was still facing the old Amelie? The player who would implode under the weight of expectations upon her? After all, Serena practically owns Amelie. Their record is 9-1 before the match last night. If Serena’s game and conditioning could not give her confidence, that record was a friendly reminder that hey, maybe she could eek the win out after all, conditioning be damned.

But on this night, Amelie kept it together perfectly. Conditioning did matter. Amelie covered the court well, came in to net at the right times and kept herself focused mentally when it mattered. The contrast was striking: Amelie is as trim and tanned and fit as we have ever seen her; Serena looks chunky. Do you suppose Serena stared over the net and thought to herself, “I want to look like my old self again?” She could. She is not that far away from it, because anything Serena puts her mind to, she can do. Maybe playing Amelie – and winning the second set in a 6-0 blowout – should inspire Serena. Maybe next time she’ll put in a full month at Nick’s place.

On the other hand Jelena Jankovic of Serbia has been racing through her draw with nothing but inspiration. She polished off two unknown players in the early rounds, then took serious aim at the seeds, climbing over Vaidisova(#9) in three sets, Kuznetsova(#7) in three sets, and today she took care of Elena Dementieva(#5) in a shockingly fast (one hour and two minutes) straight setter, 6-2, 6-1. She is the first woman to reach the quarterfinals here.

For Dementieva, the curse of that wretched serve continues. She was broken in every one of her service games. Ouch. Usually though Dementieva can still win matches. But today she faced a youngster who was not going to let that serve go unpunished. Jankovic played too well off the ground. Her opponent could have served brilliantly and it probably would not have mattered anyway. Elena was off and Jelena was on. It was one of those days where one player is “in the zone” and you’re not.

Jankovic hits a beautiful two-handed backhand up the line. It is practically her signature shot, and Dementieva saw lots of it today, from the first game, which Jankovic won with that backhand up the line. They traded breaks early, and that was the end of that. Jankovic whipped through her service games until the end of the first set, when she gave one of her many breaks back. It took her several tries before she closed the first set out, 6-2, on her serve, requiring three set points before Jankovic closed the deal.

The second set brought more of the same for Dementieva, whose only response to the depth, pacing and consistency of Jankovic’s shots was to try and outhit her. But it was the Serb who was going for more angles, coming into net when she saw her opportunity, and just outsteadying the normally very steady Russian. Her backhand went away today.

Only at the end of each set did Dementieva seem to really mount an effort and get a handle on all those unforced errors, taking her opponent to several deuces before the ducks fell into place. Serving for the match up 5-1, Jelena Jankovic on her fourth match point finally coaxed a forehand error from Dementieva and she is into her first Grand Slam semi-final. Davenport or Henin-Hardenne would be her opponent. She has an 0-3 record against Davenport, and an 0-1 against Justine. The scores, though, were close.

For Elena Dementieva, the curse of being one of the best female players to never win a Slam also continues. She should be flown to a desert island with a million tennis balls and one court. She stays there and work on her serve until she’s ready. Only then do we let her off that island.

There’s one Latin fellow at this year’s US Open who we would probably like to see go out as soon as possible, if not sooner please. I am speaking of our good man Ernesto, the tail end of a hurricane that crawled its way up the eastern seabord yesterday and has now settled in with a vengeance over New York City. If I see another re-run of the Baghdatis-Agassi match I will slash my wrists. Not that it was a shabby match. But enough already. Uh-oh, now the guys in the booth are going back to a mid 90s final between Agassi and Sampras. Serious tennis withdrawal is setting in. What to do while we all twiddle our collective thumbs and wait for the rain to pass?

Well, let’s check in with events over the last couple of days. There are still a few things we can be rubbing our eyes over.

+ Three Swiss guys are still alive in the draw. Yes, you heard correctly. Not Swedes. Not Spaniards, but Swiss. Leave it to that guy Federer to come along and fire them all up. All ten of them, that is, in the entire country probably, and now a third of them playing tennis. The chances of that happening must be really miniscule. Stanislas Wawrinka has become a player this year, showing up in draws throughout the season and slowly making a name for himself. Marco Chiudinelli is not exactly a household name yet, but he’s headed into the third round too after beating Feliciano Lopez, the man who took out Ljubicic on opening day.

+ Speaking of that guy, Federer, he pulled off a nifty between the legs shot on Friday in his match with Tim Henman. Poor Henman. Murray is breathing down his neck, he had to battle it out with another over 30 guy, Rusedski, and now he suffers the indignity of a shot like this coming at him. This shot is one of the rare ones you’ll see done when the guy is actually facing the court. Not running with his back to it. Roger just made a graceful little forehand flick between the legs and the ball looped right back to Henman. Naturally he was surprised, but managed to get it back. Roger then pushed an easy volley past him up the line. It must be hard to feel insulted though, when Roger is standing there grinning from ear to ear afterwards, like a wayward child with his hand in the cookie jar. Show-off.

+ But the lady Swiss player, Martina Hingis, got a rather rude wake-up call the other day, and it’s about time. Spring has come, and sprung, the glow is off. Now Hingis has to do some constructive consulting with her coterie. Thank you, Virginie Razzano, a tall Frenchwoman who came out the other night with no fear at all and beat Hingis in two sets.

Now we have to ask Hingis, darling, why are you here? Are you really prepared to train hard? Rumor has it you abhor the gym. Is that why your body looked a little, dare we say, slightly pudgy against Razzano the other night? Granted, Razzano is lean enough that any woman probably looks pudgy alongside her. But still. Hingis will never be a Justine Henin-Hardenne when it comes to training. Justine is an animal. Hingis will barely rise to pussycat level by comparison.

Yet Hingis should be emulating Henin-Hardenne. They are nearly the same size, Hingis maybe an inch or two taller and a few pounds heavier. JHH put the lie to the notion that little girls can’t play and win on tour. She even pumped herself up quite a bit and added a lot more power to her serve and forehand before she realized she did not really need all that extra muscle and weight. So she backed off and has now slimmed back down to where she was before. But her strokes still have their new-found power.

Why can’t Hingis approach this? Or at least address the issue of her lackluster serving game. I think she can. She needs to take this seriously now. Wipe that charming smile off your face and get real. Get out your boning knife. If Justine can do it, Hingis can do it. She has to ask herself though, do I want just to be in the top five to ten in the world? Or the top five?

+ The USA Network crowd actually had Safin and Nalbandian lined up for our viewing pleasure. Quel unusual! When did it happen that our networks showed matches of non-Americans? Playing in prime time at the Open on a Friday night? Guess they caught on that European players are where the sport is heading, Mr. Agassi notwithstanding. They are dealing with it. What a shame the weather kept this potential wild and crazy match-up from occurring in primetime. I was all ready for some real nuttiness from these two guys.

+ You’ve heard of the “It” girl, well now we have the “Ich” girls from Serbia – Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic – both from Belgrade. The thing I like best about them is, apart from their solid and fearless baseline games, is neither one is blonde. How did that happen? Relief is just a bottle (of hair color) away.

Ivanovic will take on Serena Williams next, weather permitting, and I would not be surprised to see an upset here. Not much of an upset, as Serena does not look like she will be much of a force here this year. Too much weight still and she is not looking sharp enough to beat the big girls. And Jankovic gave notice she is ready for a big leap forward too, after taking out Number 9 seed Nicole Vaidisova yesterday. Scarcely any of that match found its way onto the airways.

Jankovic raced out to a 5-2 lead in the first set, only to see it melt away when Vaidisova fought back and took the set, 7-5. Jankovic buried her face in the towel for a moment, then came back with a vengeance, winning the match with 2 and 4 scores in the second and third sets. Both women are fun and exciting to watch, and one or both of them could be around for the semis, who knows.

+ Much as I love the chutzpah of New Yorkers and their in-your-face style, it started to grate the other night. What does it say about your fans when they boo a guy – Marcos Baghdatis – who has to be one of the biggest crowd favorites anywhere? Very very declasse, as the people of Paris would say. Hell, even the Italians don’t heckle guys who miss their first serves. Baghdatis took it all in stride. What else can he do? Well, an appropriate “bird” to the crowd would have been nice. But only at the match’s end. Otherwise they wouldn’t leave you alone.

Geez, the food at those kiosks must be really overpriced this year.

To read more about Jelena Jankovic go here