Ahira's Hangar

Woo hoo, the US Open starts this week!

Just caught some of the opening ceremony at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Never saw that before. Was nice to see Earth Wind & Fire performing.

Hope this will be a great two weeks of tennis! (Obviously hoping for another Nadal-Federer showdown in the men's final.)

A great opening night match: James Blake defeated Donald Young in 5 sets! Good quality tennis, too.

I never did get to see that epic match.

Didn't both of those guys get Olympic golds? Nadal men's individual and Federer men's doubles?

I wouldn't mind seeing a Williams sisters match in the finals or smifinals, either.

Well, I got my Williams sisters match up in the quarter finals. Another great close match, worthy of a major tournament finals.

After that epic between the Williams sisters, the remaining women's matches might feel just a tad anti-climactic for many viewers. Who could've predicted that the following Nadal/Fish match would start after midnight? I stayed up for it. The guys finished at around 2:20 AM New York time. Crazy! But evening/late night tennis is one of the things I love about the US Open.

Unluckily for me, I won't get to see tonight's quarterfinal between Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic (which looks to be awesome) because our sports channel (TSN) is airing NBC's NFL Football game instead of picking up USA Network's coverage of the US Open. That's redundant and unfair, since we already get NBC.

Edit -- TSN went back to the US Open after the football ended. Saw the final two sets of the match. It was intense stuff. Good win for Djokovic: I have to hand it to him for managing to keep his focus and prevail against both Roddick and a hostile New York crowd. Seems to be some bad blood between Roddick and Djokovic. Roddick didn't stick around to be interviewed, but Djokovic got booed by the crowd during his when he publicly brought up comments made earlier by Roddick who had apparently claimed that Djokovic was "faking" on court injuries as a way of playing mind games. Djokovic basically said "I know the New York crowd doesn't like me and that's fine" - because in the end, he's the one in the semifinals, not the other guy. Besides, it looked to me like Djokovic won fair and square: his game was on, while Roddick simply made too many errors.

Heh heh...New York tennis.

Awaiting the result of Murray verses Nadal in the mens semi-final I believe it was delayed by rain Im shouting for Murray but my partner is Spanish and and she is a keen Nadal supporter.Come on Murray

Well, Murray prevailed against Nadal. Brilliant tennis displayed by Murray -- he simply outplayed the world's #1 player in this match. If he maintains this level of brilliance in tomorrow's final, then he could very well be hoisting the US Open trophy at the end. I still wouldn't bet against Federer, but it won't be easy for him unless Murray has nothing left after the battle with Nadal. I see the final going to four, possibly five sets. But again, it depends on Murray.

The women's championship match came alive in the 2nd set; too bad that the match was only 2 sets. Jankovic had chances to take the 2nd set from Williams and force a 3rd, but she just made too many errors. That and Jankovic simply had too weak a serve to really challenge Serena Williams. This is why I miss someone like Sharapova, who has a much better serve and who isn't afraid of the Williams sisters.

It was kind of an anti-climactic men's final on Monday. As I feared, Andy Murray had little left in the tank to do battle with Roger Federer. Either that or Murray just could not find any answer to Federer's game: Federer was basically doing to Murray what Murray had done to Nadal. At one point in the 3rd set, Murray was in danger of being bagelled, with Federer up 5-0! Fortunately, Murray avoided that embarrassment. Still, it was a straight set win by Federer - and it was his 5th straight US Open win. He has now tied Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras for most US Open victories by a male player (in the open era).

The commentators at some point were speculating that the court surface (harder and faster than the norm, even for majors) help Federer's game and harm Nadal's?

Yeah, apparently this time around the US Open courts were even faster than the grass at Wimbledon. I just find it an odd notion that the speed of a hard court surface could change.