It’s a yearly ritual: You walk into the U.S. Open smelling like Coppertone and walk out with the hood of your raincoat pulled around your face. The tournament’s two weeks always serve as a transition from summer to fall, from the country to the city, but this year the change has been particularly abrupt. I even fished my “reading sweater”—I'm sure you have one, too—out from under a pile of clothes while I was looking at the paper this morning.
It's really only made for reading in a rocking chair, but maybe I'll pack it for the Open this weekend, because it’s blustery and misty here. Foul weather is inevitable, of course, but when quarterfinals and semifinals at majors are delayed, held over, or moved to other courts, it really does bring a sense of anti-climax to the tournament. When you see a match between Rafael Nadal and Fernando Gonzalez, or the Nadal-Murray semifinal from 2008, played in windy conditions and in front of only a few people, you don’t feel like you’re watching a Grand Slam anymore; you feel like anything could happen, that the course of tennis history has run off its rails. It must be tough for the players to remind themselves of what’s at stake when that sense of occasion has been lost. It must be equally tough for them to walk out the following day and, as Nadal and Gonzo will today, know that the very first point they’ll play will be part of an all-important, momentum-swinging second-set tiebreaker. I can remember a friend on my high school team having to stop for rain when he was two points away from winning the local district championships (I'd lost to his opponent in the semis). We spent the next day practicing how he would play those two points; he was serving, so he spent half an hour just hitting kicks in the ad court to me and coming in behind them. It worked like a charm. We drove for an hour to get to the match, and it was over in less than a minute.
Anyway, that’s where we are at Flushing Meadows. Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters are scheduled to go on in Ashe at 1:00, followed by a resumption of Nadal and Gonzo in the middle of that second-set tiebreaker, followed by Yanina Wickmayer vs. Caroline Wozniacki in the other women's semi. There isn’t much time to spare, but here’s a quick preview of the women’s matches. Usually, it’s high drama out there on the second Friday of the Open—remember Seles-Capriati, Henin-Capriati, Dementieva-Capriati? The atmosphere won’t be the same today—I guess we need Jennifer to come back for that—but the first match could be a very good one.
Serena Williams vs. Kim Clijsters
No one I know of, or could conceive of, is betting against Serena right now; the only note of skepticism I’ve heard in the press room this week is that she rarely goes all the way through a major, even the ones she wins handily in the end, without a significant hiccup along the way. At Wimbledon, Williams was one point from defeat in this round against Elena Dementieva. Clijsters is the equal of Dementieva as a player, and she’s played with a more determined aggression through this event than I remember seeing from her a few years ago. She’s only beaten Serena once in eight tries, though they haven’t played each other in six years. The trouble with that, if you’re Kim, is that Serena hasn’t exactly lost a step over that period. At this Open, she’s looked as sharp as she ever has.
Clijsters also had a losing record going into her match last weekend with Serena’s sister, Venus, and she came through that. But Serena has a much more reliable serve and is better equipped to stand toe to toe with Kim from the baseline, rather than rely on her retrieving skills the way Venus does. In other words, she plays a better version of the same game. Kim’s best hope may be that Venus has lost to the eventual champion at the Open six times in her career. Kim’s worst hope is that last year's eventual champion is the woman she'll be facing today.
Winner: Williams
Yanina Wickmayer vs. Caroline Wozniacki
I have to admit that I’m not the best source for your Yanina Wickmayer analysis. I’ve only seen enough of her to know that the Belgian teen hits a clean ball, seems like an intelligent person, and is discovering how to win matches as we speak. That’s something she’s going to have to do again very quickly, because she was 0-3 against Wozniacki in the juniors.
This tournament has been the breakout we’ve been waiting for from the steadily ascending Woz; for that she can thank Melanie Oudin, who removed three big hitters—Dementieva, Sharapova, and Petrova—from her section of the draw. That was a gift, but it pales in comparison to the one that Wickmayer was given by Petra Kvitova, who eliminated the first seed, Dinara Safina. Wickmayer has somehow managed to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open while defeating one seed, No. 16 Virginie Razzano, in the first round. Wozniacki endured the pressure of her match against Oudin and kept her head straight in front of a full house; there’s no reason to think she’ll have a meltdown today. Her strokes should be too safe for that. She also seems to be learning how to win matches as we speak, and she's a little ahead of Wickmayer in that department.
Now against Williams in the final . . .
Like I said, no one is betting against Serena right now.
Winner: Wozniacki
Champion: Serena Williams