The Heat Is On: Open begins, but weekend worth remembering

Ben Stiller stars in a promo clip for the U.S. Open that name-drops past and present legends and has him scrapping with a few kids. His typical, subtle hilarity just oozes through the screen and into your eyes:|

It's already heating up in Flushing, with Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova's unceremonious dismissal, Ryan Harrison's ouster, Maria Sharapova playing survivor against a game Heather Watson, and, oddly, a trio of Japanese players retiring with various ailments.

Even so, a few images from the weekend are well worth remembering as this Open marches on.

+ Serena Williams, forsaking "the Dougie," took part in a new dance trend, "the Cat Daddy," at her Niketown event in Manhattan. See the video of her smooth moves in part 5 of the clips here. Might this be her champion's routine in but two short weeks?

+ Caroline Wozniacki and official boyfriend Rory McIlroy, a would-be U.S. Open winner and a true golf champ in the same-named tournament, played exhibitionists before the Yale football team after she won her New Haven Open semifinal. The momentum from clinching the final there, after a disastrous hard-court season to date, will either spur her on to good fortune in Queens or have many observers shaking their heads at a loss over her penchant for playing the week before a Slam.

+ Andy Roddick, on the heels of a loss to John Isner in the inaugural Winston-Salem Open final, tweeted a decidedly WTF? photo of his tall-tree countryman. The photo was mercilessly retweeted by Mardy Fish, but Isner has yet to respond, at least via Twitter. Roddick is out of the Top 20 rankings and seedings both for the first time since 2002, and so we'll see which of them has the last laugh over this fortnight.

+ Dominika Cibulkova didn't win the Xperia Hotshots contest (that title went to Sabine Lisicki over the weekend, as did the Texas Tennis Open title victory against Aravane Rezai), but she did recently throw out a mean opening pitch at the San Diego Padres baseball game:

Judging by the fact that Domi had never held a baseball before, she performed admirably in letting fly a perfect strike. Now if that bull's-eye form holds up in New York, expect a quarterfinal or even later upset from her.

Buckle up, tennis nation. It's time for takeoff. And, beautifully, fist pumping.

—Jonathan Scott (@jonscott9)