Day Two at the US Open is nearly as full of puddles and wetness as Day One yesterday, so all the boys and girls are going to be lined up like planes on the runway, waiting to get going with their matches. Today, Tuesday, none of the scheduled matches were completed. Argh. Bone-picking time. Let’s sift through the detritus of half-baked matches, nearly baked matches, and see what we can come up with.

One big shocker occurred yesterday on the men’s side, with the ouster of Number 3 Ivan Ljubicic, at the hands of the Beautiful One, Feliciano Lopez, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. Having bet my last time on Ivan this Fantasy season, I was disappointed to see the Croat go out. He has made me some nice phony money this year. But “Fi-lo” has a game as beautiful to look at as he is, with that sinewy, curling lefty service motion and more comfortability at the net than nearly anyone from Spain has a right to be. My co-writer made noises about how Ljubicic was not all that certain a bet on hard courts; I should have heeded her advice. One man down, seven to go. You would have thought the powers that be at USA Network could have slipped us a bit of coverage on this match during all the rain delays. But no. We got to see the handshake at the net and that was it. The Number Three player in the world and he still gets little, if any, respect.

My other picks for the Open are Federer, Tursunov, Haas, Murray, Roddick, Robredo and Nadal. None of them have played yet. Federer was not scheduled until Wednesday anyway. Now he will probably get backed up into Thursday. As mellow a guy as Roger Federer is, waiting around for four days to start your first match must be a real pain in the butt. He may have to go shopping for more shirts. Or take up poker, if he hasn’t yet.

Wimbledon had a lot of really hot weather this year. The Open will probably get the rain we should have seen more of in London. Go figure. Global warming does not exist, as we all know.

Andre Agassi does exist, and he proved it again last night in stunning fashion, against a player – Andrei Pavel – who apparently did not hear the word that he was supposed to be cannon fodder for Andre on this night. Earlier I had made the comment to one of our Fantasy players that Pavel could be the sort of trouble that Andre Agassi would not like to face in the early rounds of a tournament. I saw him play a few years ago, and he looked very solid. Very workmanlike. Then he dropped off the radar a bit, but he re-emerged last night and gave Andre nearly more than he had bargained for. In spite of the fact Andre kind of owns him a bit, given his 5-1 record over the Romanian.

Pavel was as steady as a rock, not just in the first set, but through the third set, which also ran to a tiebreaker. Three straight tiebreaks concluded the first three sets. Only in the fourth did Pavel finally go away, allowing Andre to close the match out at 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-2.

If you had to pick a backhand to teach to a new player, you could hold up Pavel as a really good example. His backhand is an especially fine weapon. Not a big backswing, not a long follow-through, but just a short, compact stroke with a fair amount of pace. Pavel probably unloaded on at least six backhand winners up the line throughout the match. “Well, we know Pavel can hit the backhand,” says McEnroe in the booth, as yet another deft shot made its way up the line for a winner.

Pavel handled the forehand well too, and he served with relentless precision. Most surprising on this night was that the guy just would not go away. Andre fans kept waiting, but it did not happen, at least not through the first three sets. Andre was breathing rather heavily and he seemed to want the pace of the match to proceed very quickly, signs that are never good to see with Agassi on court.

Doesn’t he want to savor the moment here, I wondered. I felt worried for Agassi. Pavel was out-steadying the master.

The third set tiebreaker proved to be the crucial point in the match. Pavel got down quickly 0-2, then got one point back when Andre drilled a forehand long. Pavel pulled out a nifty drop shot, one of many he used effectively in the match, then hit a quick lob over Andre’s head when he came into net. Andre couldn’t handle the lob, and it was 2 all now in the tiebreak. Pavel then netted an easy forehand, then knocked a backhand long, and Agassi tormented him with a chip backhand that Pavel could not handle. 5-2 Andre in the lead.

Andre would tempt fate with the Backhand God at several points in the match, but Pavel was more than ready in this tiebreak. On a second serve, Andre went to Pavel’s backhand, and was rewarded by seeing a chipped cross-court shot flit by him for a winner, 5-3. But Pavel then overhit his next shot and now was down with three set points against him. Pavel tried to tighten things up, knocking another wonderful back hand shot up the line that Andre hit wide. One Set Point saved for Pavel. Then Pavel hit out another great drop shot, this time off the forehand from the baseline. It just clears the net, and although Andre is there he nets the shot. Set Point #2 erased for Pavel. Andre tempts fate yet again on a second serve, and Pavel says “I’m ready” with a great backhand cross-court winner. As McEnroe observed nervously, Pavel was practically running into the shot in his eagerness to cream it. He did. 6-6 in the tiebreak now.

Is the match going to turn on these few points here, or what?

Andre wisely decides he should pick on Pavel’s forehand instead, since this is the stroke that seems to be breaking down as fatigue sets in. On a second serve to the forehand, Pavel overhits his shot, 7-6. Pavel sets up to serve, but Andre clinches a second round birth with a great inside-out forehand cross-court winner. The set is his in yet another tiebreak. A broken spirit now, Pavel goes rather meekly, 6-2 in the fourth.

Whew. Now Agassi gets Marcos Baghdatis in the next round, and I don’t think he can escape going down to the Cypriot. In a way, I would rather see Agassi lose to someone like Baghdatis, rather than someone like Pavel. Marcos plays a lot like Andre, he should be the one to beat the guy and carry on the tradition of spectacular ground-stroking tennis. With his buoyant personality too, he is a direct descendant of Andre Agassi. Of course we’d all love to see Agassi move as far as he can here, but this is said with my heart rather than my head.

A few other people won some matches too yesterday, including Roddick, Robredo and Baghdatis. Three former women champions, Kuznetsova, Henin-Hardenne, and Davenport also made their way into the winner’s circle. Happily, their bodies and recent injuries seem manageable right now.

Serena Williams has not taken court yet, we caught glimpses of her fleetingly in practice sessions. She looks a bit slimmed down since playing last month in California, but still. Girl, I think you need to lose more weight, you have that bubble butt and it won’t be going away. But wouldn’t your knee enjoy life so much more if you took off about ten pounds for starters?

Just a thought from a scrawny little thing who could do with those ten pounds. Pass it on over, baby.

Hopefully the weather will break today (Sunday) up in Montreal, so the women’s final between Martina Hingis and Ana Ivanovic can finally get under way. If not, we will have to pick apart some more the past week’s craziness from Cincinnati, where the men’s field underwent a good butchering before two manly men could finally emerge.

We had the rather unlikely pairing in the final of Juan Carlos Ferrero, resurrected from an early death these past two years or so, and Andy Roddick, resurrected from a winless season so far this year and a game that seemed headed south until about two weeks ago.

Did we wish it had been Roger and Rafa in the final instead? But of course, dahlings. However Roddick and Ferrero worked just fine. It’s one of those finals where we can say we are just happy to see these two guys there, rather than whether it was brilliantly played or not. It was brilliant only on one side. Roddick just never let Ferrero get his teeth into anything. It has been that way their last several meetings.

So at least the wealth was spread around in Sunday’s final. That helps the game. And I mean that both ways, wealth in opening up the game and in actual dollars. Ferrero pocketed $200k for his second place effort. Roddick got $400,000.

Roddick made a serious case for the Class Act Award of the week, with his comment post-victory about how deserving Juan Carlos was to get himself back into the game. People gave up on Ferrero getting his game back on track as they pretty much have with Roddick this year. So Roddick let it be known how ugly that can make a guy feel. That little moment of gracious empathy with Ferrero resonated to the happy applause of the crowd.

Ferrero made a serious case for being there. He climbed over a pretty impressive stack of bodies this week, including Number 5 seed James Blake in the second round, and Number 7 seed Tommy Robredo in the semi-finals. And the shocker of course was his upset of Number 2 Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals. I liked especially the fact that he showed you don’t have to be a Superman to beat Rafael Nadal. But you do have to do a number of things really well, like serve with steady consistency, step in when you get chances and go for shots, and know when the big points arrive and be ready. It also helps if you catch Nadal when he is having a less than stellar day. Somehow Nadal seemed muted by the heat, he looked like he was suffering out there. Ferrero sweated too, but he seemed by far the heartier player.

It became pretty much apparent also this past week that Rafael Nadal will not, and is not, making an instant success on the hard courts this season. The man from Majorca has struggled harder than we might have thought on these surfaces. Partly it may be due to the heat, which was oppressive along with that heavy midwestern humidity. Do they get such heat on Majorca? Nadal spent a month there after the final of Wimbledon. Roger took the same amount of time off, and retreated to the blast furnace that must be Dubai in early August. The time away seems to have hurt Roger less than it did Rafa.

Well, up until Federer ran into Andy Murray, who made his new coach look like Socrates with his win over the world’s number one. When Roger Federer plays a flat match, which was pretty much how we could characterize this one, sometimes he radiates a feeling of disinterest. He must have stopped off at the Waffle House, as my co-writer said the other day in her piece. Along with Rafael Nadal, because they were both as flat as pancakes this week.

In his post-match interview Roger made comments about how difficult he found the schedule, with back to back Masters events in Canada and Cincinnati. Roger has to expect he is going to be around for all the rounds each of the two weeks. So he is correct, it is probably a lot of tennis. But then isn’t that partly why you took that month off in Dubai? To recuperate from a rather strenuous spring and also in preparation for these two weeks? Besides, you have to be here, it is a Masters event. Unless you want to pull a Sharapova and withdraw for a measly reason and get slapped a hefty $150k fine.

The schedule though favors the players coming to Cincinnati; it is the big event starting two weeks before the Open, giving you at the end of it one week rest before the Open. If you played the Toronto tournament before the Cincinnati week, and not Cincy, then you are left with two weeks off before the Open. That sounds like two weeks too long. Unless you want to play in the smaller event in New Haven this coming week, which most of the big names will not. This is a scheduling glitch that should be addressed, but probably won’t.

The men’s draw in Cincinnati was pretty much ravaged by mid-week, revealing yet again how so much of men’s tennis these days, in early stages of draws, is just given over to absolute carnage. Anyone can nearly beat anyone, and they do.

If only we could say the same of women’s tennis. Which for various reasons only seems to get good and bloody around the quarterfinals. What devastated the women’s field this week were all the pull-outs before the tournament even began, and the high-ranked retirements that occurred as the draw advanced.

Kim Clijsters re-injured her already battered left wrist. At times like this I am glad to have a one-handed backhand instead of a two hander. In watching the replay of the fall on court that injured her, it was clear that she put the arm out first to absorb her fall. But that jammed the wrist. Could we speculate whether she should have tried to roll onto her shoulder instead, and spare the wrist? Easy to second guess now, the natural impulse is probably to do what she did, which is the one thing that would probably be the worst thing for that wrist.

I don’t know how you guys would fall on court, but if I had a chronic wrist like Kim’s I would take great pains to guard against re-injuring it. Now she’s out again for two months because of this, and you have to ask, how badly does she want to stay in the game?

Well, the rain stopped in Montreal long enough for Ana Ivanovic to deliver the coup de grace to Dinara Safina, 6-1, 6-4, after their match carried over from a rain delay on Saturday. But her final with Martina Hingis was delayed, so ESPN planned to tape it and show it “at a later time.” Whatever that means. Probably 2 a.m. Monday night or some awful time like that. I like Ivanovic’s game. She might be able to take it to Hingis with that powerful game of hers.

In the required reading department, you should check out the brilliant essay in the August 20th NYTimes piece by David Foster Wallace, “Federer As Religious Experience.” I can’t get the link because the date has passed, but it is well worth the read.

Yes, our man has finally achieved apotheosis. Who would have thunk it? My God.

So this is the week in which Fantasy Tennis players can sign up to win megabucks in the ATP Tour Sweepstakes from Cincinnati. Just pick all the winners through the final this week and you earn a cool million. Flies have flown into my ointment though, and my chance is probably already gone, thanks to Nikolay Davydenko. He had the unmitigated gall to drop his opening match yesterday to Juan Ignacio Chela. My co-writer was correct when she advised everyone to think twice about betting on the Russian against Chela. So off to the Gulag with him, I say.

The interesting news from the men’s field in Toronto last week was that Roger Federer won a nice-looking final and it wasn’t against Rafael Nadal. Three challengers came forward to ruffle the feathers of the Fed in consecutive matches that all went three sets. Tursunov, Malisse and Gonzalez had a go at the man on top. Gonzalez’ raging forehand especially got under Federer’s skin; it is not very often that we see a look of fear and nerves cross Roger’s face like it did during this match. He is human, he does sweat on occasion.

In the final things got even tighter when Federer ran into Frenchman Richard Gasquet. He really made a dent, at least in a brilliant first set of play. Roger asserted himself finally to win the match in three, but after this week it looks very good to see guys trying to make life a little interesting for Roger Federer, and for us. Credit to Gasquet, whose game certainly mirrors a lot of Federer’s. He will nail the Fed at some point, as he did last year in Monte Carlo.

Women’s tennis began the week with everyone interested in whether Sharapova’s game could stay steady after her first win over Kim Clijsters in the Carlsbad final the week before, and whether Serena Williams could even stay around in the draw after a lengthy lay-off due to her chronic knee problem.

But we ended up talking about the combative skill on display in the final between Elena Dementieva and Jelena Jankovic of Serbia, who put on a great show for a good-sized crowd in Carson, California at the JPMorgan Chase Open. Every so often the women play a final that’s right up there with the men, that deserves equal pay. I think we got that on Sunday. A little surprising it wasn’t between Sharapova and Williams, but in the end I like to think no one really missed them. We had enough of a feast as it was, in this 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 battle that Dementieva finally won.

What a breath of fresh air Jankovic appears to be! I love her attitude on court, especially on change-overs. Instead of hunkering down in her chair in a pose of morbid contemplation, Jelena is looking around at the crowd with a bemused expression. She notices what is going on, she reacts to it, she smiles at the camera as it tries to catch kissing spectators in the act. If this is her way of dealing with nerves, it’s a good one, but the girl seems to be without nerves.

She is an interesting looking girl, with a long wide face and planes that seem lifted from a woman in a painting by Modigliani. Fairly tall, fairly thin, moves well and seems to understand positioning on court. Her mom is a plumpish bottle blonde who travels with her on tour. Jelena doesn’t seem to resemble her at all. Her family life sounds consistent and normal.

Jelena reads books too, and attends college courses when she can, because a tennis career is “way too short,” as she puts it, and she’d like to line up a few skills for down the road after tennis. She is, as she puts it humorously, one of the few women players who has seen the inside of a classroom of higher learning.

This past Sunday’s event will register as a defining moment in her young career, and she is clearly ready for more.

“I really enjoy my time on court,” says Jelena. That is the first thing out of her mouth, and obviously it ranks high on her motivation list. “I can do a lot of damage at the Open. I showed I can beat all these players. I believe in myself. I have big potential.”

She whacked Serena Williams around for two sets in the semi-finals, showed she could handle her power and gave no sign of nerves that could have turned a two-setter into three. At one point Jelena knocked a ball across the net toward the ball boy, but it nailed Serena accidentally. They had a brief discussion over that at match’s end, but even that got cleared up. Jankovic appears to be a class act who can handle herself well.

She was ranked 28th in the world going into the final, now she moves up to 21st.

Out of curiosity, I went to her stats and noticed that she’s had a rocky start to the first part of this year. She won her first match of the year, an opening rounder at the Australian Open against the very fit American veteran, Jill Craybas. But then she proceeded to drop ten matches in a row before she got on track at the Italian Open, where she lost in three sets to Venus Williams in the fourth round. Venus Williams again came along to form a high point of Jankovic’s year, this time in the third round at Wimbledon, where Jankovic beat her in three sets.

Why such a poor start to her year? Apparently an odd virus hit her, sounding akin to what Justine Henin-Hardenne went through. It sapped Jelena Jankovic’s strength to the point where she was thinking about giving up the game altogether at the end of last year. Being sick is never fun, and being able to have fun is what Jankovic really likes to have.

Jankovic’s shots were strong and deep off both wings, she seems to have no problem going for them. Or for her serves. If her game had a weakness Sunday, it was in her failure to move forward enough. She attempted a few forays early in the match, but ended up dumping shots into the net. That scared her off coming in again, until well into the third set, when the necessity of being down 5-0 forced her in. When she got there, she showed she could win a few points.

At the start of the third, Jelena pulls out a nifty drop shot winner, then blows a kiss to the appreciative crowd.

Her game is basically a strong baseline game, but because of her powerful shots she should be playing more at net. She is going to force a lot of weak replies from opponents, that is the time she should be moving forward, to pick off those wounded ducks in mid-air. If she needs to play more doubles to learn net skills, she should play doubles then.

This is a girl who has discovered the thrill of being aggressive, and that is probably the best way to play someone like Elena Dementieva. What about Dementieva’s game on Sunday? And what about that…that…serve, shall we call it? Well, that serve. She’s trying. Actually it was one of Dementieva’s better serving days. She kept the double faults to a minimum, although toward the end of the match she reverted under pressure to that sidearm delivery. For a few moments there I thought we were witnessing the reincarnation of Dodgers’ pitcher Don Drysdale.

To Dementieva’s credit though, her obnoxious-looking serve has forced her to nail down tight the rest of her game. She is unbelievably steady now from anywhere else on court, except in the server’s stance. She knows she probably got a bit lucky on Sunday, and her experience helped her out. She ran out to a 5-0 lead only to see it melt a bit in the face of Jankovic’s persistent play.

Of Jankovic’s game Dementieva says, “She is very unpredictable.”

Indeed. And a lot of fun to watch. Good things do happen in women’s tennis sometimes, and this week it was Jelena Jankovic who happened.

The hard court season revs up big time this week in Toronto, with what some fans are calling the return of Big Boy tennis. The “boys” in question of course being Federer and Nadal, both appearing in the draw this week in Canada. Neither guy has played since Wimbledon. Although we’ve enjoyed some enlightened men’s matches in their absence, it’s good to have the premier pairing in men’s tennis back in action and hopefully headed into yet another classic final.

I don’t know about you guys, but I managed to make a passable meal in the meantime of Haas vs. Tursunov in the L.A. final, and of course Arnaud Clement over Andy Murray Sunday in Washington. A Mutt and Jeff occasion if ever there was one. Even Philippoussis over Gimelstob in Newport’s final was rather entertaining. But let’s get back into Valhalla, and bring on the gods, baby.

Sigh. The bad news is I can’t pick either Nadal or Federer in this week’s Fantasy Tennis team. I’ve used Nadal four times already. He was just so much fun to bet on that I really didn’t notice the clock all that much. I get one more fling with Rafa, and it’s got to be the Open. I get two picks still with Roger, so you can bet I am hoarding him like he’s the last brick lying in Fort Knox. He goes right into the slot at Cincinnati next week and then the Open. Then I guess we put him out to stud. Or something.

Even if I could pick the pair this week, I would be hesitant. A month long lay-off without match play seems a good stretch. I would not want to presume that both guys will come flying out of the gate. I would hate to ever have to not pick them, but if I have to do that, this might be the best week. If they do great, great. But I am not expecting genius to flow really until next week’s event in Cincinnati, which both guys will be attending also.

Roddick was going to be a pick of mine this week, until I heard during the Legg-Mason event that his back was still problematic and he had pulled out of Toronto. I inserted James Blake in his place, then realized he needs to be saved for one last pick at the Open. So I went with Robby Ginepri.

Necessity makes it easy for you in the picks. More sighs. So I have chosen Ginepri, Berdych, Stepanek and Nalbandian on one side of the draw, Gonzalez, Baghdatis, Haas and Hewitt on the other.

Everyone is here who matters in the men’s game, except Mario Ancic out with injury, then Roddick’s withdrawal. So we can expect a tournament with great matches from the get-go. Safin faces Robredo in the opening round. I would have given Safin a shot here, but unfortunately I saw his semi-final match on Saturday against Arnaud Clement. It is not an edifying spectacle when a much bigger guy loses to, well, basically a midget. Not a pretty match, and it was painful to see Safin, yet again, doing battle with his Lower Self almost, rather than the man across the net. So the nod to Robredo here. (Note: It turned out to be a fairly close three setter, until Robredo came on strong in the third for the win).

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Other interesting first-rounders include Malisse vs. Davydenko, Ljubicic vs. Almagro, Moya vs. Gaudio and Murray vs. Ferrer.

Could Malisse get by Davydenko, who won the Sopot final last week but had quite a struggle doing it? Yes, he can, provided the “good” Malisse shows up. For some reason, the opaqueness of Davydenko keeps me from putting him on my Guys I Can Trust list. (Note: The good Malisse indeed showed up today, Tuesday, and ousted Davydenko in straight sets).

Almagro is a clay court guy, but like Gonzo I think he has higher ambitions for his game. He most certainly would like to make a statement in his opener against Ljubicic, whom I expect to be a bit rusty. This could be interesting. (Note: Almagro made it interesting only in the first set, losing in a close 5-7, but then tanking the second 1-6).

Moya and Gaudio can both play on the hard surface, and I am inclined to give the nod here to Carlos. Provided his big first serve can work well and he can dictate from that. (Gaudio was practically a no-show).

Murray and Ferrer face each other in their opener. Ferrer has proven to be one of the most consistent guys out there, while Murray proved to be something of a head case Sunday in the final against Clement. But the kid has Brad Gilbert, so let’s toss a coin on this one. (Close in the first set, but Murray handled him in two). This is a good win for the Scot in what I thought was a really tough opener for him. Ferrer is another man from clay country who wants to make his mark on other surfaces. He’ll be back.

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Fantasy players should take note that with the withdrawal of Roddick the draw has changed a bit in that corner. Ginepri would have had to face Nalbandian in his opener; now he faces the American qualifier Kevin Kim. I would think Ginepri likes that change. (Nalbandian went out yesterday in the first big shocker of the event, due to illness).

Now as of late Tuesday afternoon, Ginepri could not take advantage of the change in his portion of the draw against Kim, who beat him in three sets. One of my other picks, Radek Stepanek, had to retire with a back injury. And last night Marcos Baghdatis squeaked out the first set against France’s Julien Benneteau, but lost the following two sets rather handily. The ESPN2 coverage was scheduled for only about twenty minutes of that match, not even to the tiebreak. But it seemed to me both guys were alternately struggling, then making good shots and good efforts. It could almost have gone either way. But Marcos lost, so half of my team is dead and gone already.

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Rafael Nadal took on Nicolas Massu in the Tuesday morning match. Did anyone tell these guys this was a hard court event? Because they came out and played as if they were still on clay, which both would probably prefer anyway. Big loopy shots, lots of side to side and corner to corner. It was frankly a little annoying to watch, because we are done with clay. Let’s pick it up, guys. The first set alone was a good hour long.

Massu needed to attack Nadal and serve well, and he could do that only sporadically. Nadal had to wade through the rustiness that comes from a month away, but he had enough chances to do that in the long opening games of the first set when he finally got himself on track. Then the unforced errors went away and the winners came on board. Ginepri and Kim started their match at the same time and wrapped up their three-setter by the time Nadal and Massu were early into their second set. That’s why it felt like a clay court match.

As I sit here and watch the amazing body of Rafael Nadal flying through space once again, I can’t help thinking how true it is, that he is remarkably well developed for his age. Whereas someone like Andy Murray is so different physically. He could use some of that mass of Nadal’s. We could argue that because he doesn’t have that, he has evolved an entirely different style, more toward Federer-like than not, but without the swiftness and that kind of laser like power in some of the Fed’s shots. I have a feeling Brad is really going to try and rectify that as soon as possible.

If ever a body called out for some weight training, it is Murray’s. He’s like something out of a Bill Gregory film, one of those quaint Ichabod Crane-like characters. A walking clothesline almost. Gilbert would probably like to turn him into Terminator 2.

Tommy Haas, one of my picks, held sway yet again over Max Mirnyi. Eight of nine meetings he’s won so far. Now he gets to face Dmitry Tursunov in the next round, a reprise of their interesting final in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. I would expect Tursunov to make some adjustments this time, this could nearly be a toss-up. But Haas has the experience and he is feeding off the confidence that comes from winning matches on hard courts. Lately he has been a good boy about not imploding on court.

Another pick of mine, Fernando Gonzalez, needed three sets to outdo Sweden’s Robin Soderling. He faces, and should beat, Juan Carlos Ferrero next.

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Well, this is later Tuesday, and Roger Federer played his first match tonight against France’s Paul-Henri Mathieu. Lucky Mathieu. The Frenchman lost in straight sets, but you could see him working the experience, the way he did when he pressed Nadal at the French this year. Clearly his game has benefited and he should continue to improve. That’s what he can take away from this.

Roger was not perfect, but very capable. The first serve was off somewhat in the first part of the match, but then he seemed to gather strength as they moved along. Most of the guys out there would love to play this for an opener.

Am I just noticing this now or do some of Federer’s shots have a lot more junk on them? Particularly that second serve, with the big kick on it, yet he places the toss directly overhead, rather than slightly back, as you would for a kick serve. So, it is very well concealed, and the thing comes at you as if it were a fastball, then suddenly it’s kicking up and to the side. Clearly it gave the Frenchman trouble tonight.

Happy Birthday, Roger. Number 25. We won’t give you a cow, we’ll give you a cake.

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