"US Open 2007 Recap"

This was without a doubt one of the better Grand Slam events of the past five (or even longer) years. Congratulations to Roger Federer for winning his fourth straight U,S. Open and to Justine Henin for winning her second overall. I know everyone is shocked to see Justine Henin’s name appearing again in this column. For the better part of the last two years her she has been referred to as the “Belgian Quitter” for retiring in the final of last year’s Australian Open. For becoming the first woman to defeat both Serena and Venus Williams on the way to winning a Slam event the lifetime ban has been lifted. It was a added bonus for her to expose Serena Williams as the classless whining sore loser that I have so often pointed her out to be in this column. What a 180 degree difference between the way Serena handled her defeat to Henin and the way Jelena Jankovic handled hers the following night to Venus Williams.

It was even a successful open for the Heroes (or in this case, hero) of the Huddled Masses as Max Mirnyi upset seeded Marcos Baghdatis in the first round and then went on to win the mixed doubles event. Unfortunately Ivan Ljubicic continued his downer year by losing in the third round and the Bryan brothers were upset by the eventual Men’s Doubles winners Simon Aspellin and Julian Knowles.

If there was ever a major tournament other than the French that Federer was not his usual dominating best then this was it. Rising star John Isner took a set off him in the third round. Feliciano Lopez took the opening set in the fourth round before Federer put on a clinic on how to hit passing shots. His quartefinal matchup with Andy Roddick was highly anticipated. Roddick played as well as he has played in the past two years and was still beaten in straight sets. He was off in his semifinal match against Davydenko and should have been down two sets in the final against Novak Djokovic. But of course he is Roger Federer and Federer knows how to win even if he is not playing his best tennis.

For the record I thought that Venus Williams was on form to win her second Slam event of the year. Henin played extremely well to defeat her in the semis and Kuznetsova was no match for her in the final. It raises an interesting question as to the rankings of both Williams sisters. They are obviously better than their respective eighth and twelfth seedings but since they do not play as many tournaments as other players their rankings suffer. Should they be seeded according to past history and ability and have other players who have earned higher rankings be dropped in the seedings? Or should they stay seeded where they are ranked regardless of how good they are?