US Open

Federer over Murray in the final was a straight-up ass-whippin', a sacrifice left at the altar of Roger Federer's bruised ego. He was ready to win in Wimbledon and Nadal came along and played the match of his life--perhaps the finest match ever in the history of the sport. So New York became the spot of his resurrection. Nadal's knees and ankles just don't hold up on the mean New York asphalt (Sydney too I presume) and he was ripe for an upset. I think he'll compete again in all 4 majors next year. Off hand, I like him at Wimbledon and the US, as per usual. Perhaps he's over the hill but beyond Nadal who is out there that will vanquish him from the top of the heap? He just dusted off Djokovic and Murray and its hard to imagine Roddick, Blake, Davydenko challenging him. He may be slipping but he's still got a ways to go to 3rd place.

Murray besting Nadal was the match of the tourney. Murray expertly used his length and amazing (Mickelson in his prime trickery) return shots to wear down Nadal. Murray was able to track down every ball and Nadal just couldn't. As my friend Toddger pointed out: Nadal never looks tired, he always looks fresh and pumped up. But by the 4th set against Murray he was bending over, huffing and puffing like Al Bundy. I've been waiting for Murray to step up for a while now (he was my dark horse at Australia 2008, lost in the quarters I think). Interesting to see whether his game will continue to grow.

I was a little bummed by Jankovic 's poor showing against Serena. I like Venus but Serena gets on my nerves and I wanted to see someone make her play some gritty tennis. And when Jankovic went up a break early on, I thought we might have a match. But that faded pretty quick and the rout was on. She got thumped like a Buckeye.

The other match that sucked me in was Djokovic beating Andy Roddick. Roddick can only play when his life absolutely depends on it so he digs himself a hole and then can never quite figure out how to get back in the match. He had it, man, he was serving for the 4th set and in the 5th it’s a wide open game again. But he blew it, no other way to say it, he had it in his hand and it skipped away like a little bunny. Roddick needs to be like the guy in the R-rated movie one of these days. He always had more desire than Agassi but he just never had the street smarts to survive. Too bad, he was looking pretty strong until he looked over and saw Djokovic waiting on the other side.