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Volume XXVII

Right after Melanie Oudin went out and scored her second straight upset of the summer with a second-round ouster of #4 Elena Dementieva at the U.S. Open, I wrote a little piece about how the women’s side is one big mound of upsets while the men seem to be immune to the pressure. Fellow ISC writer Joe Cantiello also took a break from his various baseball crusades to chime in on the subject. And then the 17-year-old American went out and continued her hot streak throughout two more rounds, finding her way to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Truly an up-and-coming star on the WTA circuit, Oudin is playing at Flushing Meadows with an injury to her left thigh. She’s already ended up 17-4 in three-set matches in her first full pro season. She's gone 6-2 this season at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Oudin has, so far this summer, beaten the following ranked opponents: #4 Elena Dementieva, #5 Jelena Jankovic, #13 Nadia Petrova, #29 Sybille Bammer, #31 Maria Sharapova and #36 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. She’s the real deal, and is still developing into her game. There is no doubt that Oudin provides a third American contender to challenge the Williams sisters and the field for years to come.

But her U.S. Open dreams are now faded until 2010. Oudin ended up falling last night against another teenager, #9 Caroline Wozniacki, in her first night match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Looking shaky in her surroundings, Oudin never seemed to get comfortable in the match and ultimately slipped 6-2 6-2. Wozniacki, who is now on a ten-match win streak after ousting Oudin, came to Flushing Meadows after winning the warm-up in New Haven . Already this year the 19-year-old Dane has won tournaments on all three surfaces -- the hard courts of New Haven , the pre-Wimbledon grass precursor at Eastbourne , and the Roland Garros warm-up at Ponte Vedra. Benefiting from a draw that has seen Oudin oust several favorites as well as 19-year-old Petra Kvitova ousting top seed Dinara Safina, Wozniacki now definitely goes into her first Grand Slam semifinal as the heavy favorite -- the last seeded player standing, she’ll be going against (what else?) yet another unseeded teenager in Yanina Wickmayer of Belarus. The women’s field is deeper with quality competition than it has been in years... virtually anybody could win from tournament to tournament and between surfaces.

On the other side, Serena Williams was able to survive the minefield of the women’s draw to arrive in prime position at the semifinals. Aiming to defend her crown as the queen of Queens , Serena shockingly does not have her sister standing in her path to the final. Rather, it is resurgent 2005 winner Kim Clijsters who will square off tonight against Serena for the right to play the role of the grizzled veteran against whichever fresh-faced young lady emerges from the other semifinal. Clijsters, the 26-year-old Belgian who came out of retirement in August after two years away for health reasons, is on a tear in this tournament after reaching the quarterfinals in Cincinnati and the third round in Toronto in her two comeback warm-ups prior to the U.S. Open. The rejuvenated former champion is playing with renewed fire. She knocked off Venus in the fourth round 6-0 0-6 6-4 en route to this point in her return, and a slot in the finals would complete her fairy-tale run. Serena will have to watch out -- given the instability of the women’s field right now, there’s no guarantee that she will survive this contest.

For a while there, it appeared that the men’s draw would end up an exclusive enclave of the sport’s top names. But the favorites on the men’s side finally got a taste of the agony of defeat when 6’9”, 24-year-old John Isner took out Andy Roddick in the matchup of Americans in the third round. After taking the first two sets 7-6(3) 6-3, Roddick got control of the match to knot it back up after winning the third and fourth sets 6-3 7-5. Surviving through the fifth set tiebreak, Isner pulled off the first of the big men’s upsets with a 7-6(5) win in the final set. He opened the floodgates thereafter, with 6’6” Croat Marin Cilic knocking off last year’s runner-up Andy Murray in the fourth round... not just knocking off the Scotsman, but absolutely routing him in straight sets, 7-5 6-2 6-2. Isner toppled to Fernando Verdasco in the fourth round, but still made a name for himself with the breakthrough victory against his domestic benchmark. Among the rest of the men, just about all the favorites aside from Roddick and Murray are still alive. Unlike the women, every one of the final eight in the men’s draw was seeded at the start of the tournament.

The first half of the men’s semifinal draw was decided today as Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer booked their matchup with tight four-set victories. Djokovic, coming into the tournament as the fourth seed, was pushed by #10 Fernando Verdasco of Spain to his breaking point. The two went to a first-set tiebreak, with Djokovic persevering 7-2 in the thirteenth game to go up. But Verdasco came right back in the second set, converting three of eight break points and aggressively attacking the net to run away 6-1 and tie the match up at a set apiece just 34 minutes after dropping the first-set tiebreak. Djokovic battled his way back in the third set, stealing two breaks to Verdasco’s one to take the 2-1 set lead with a 7-5 finish. Once victory was in sight, Djokovic didn’t let go, breaking the Spaniard twice more to complete the 7-6(2) 1-6 7-5 6-2 win.

The second quarterfinal tilt of Wednesday would determine who faced Djokovic. Roger Federer came into the tournament with a 21-tournament streak of reaching the semifinals at Grand Slams. His opponent, Robin Soderling, was the revelation of the spring when he knocked off Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros to end his bid for a fifth-straight French Open crown. With his momentum from the monumental upset carrying him all the way to the finals, he took his tenth career loss to Roger Federer as the bomber from Basel took advantage of Nadal’s absence to finally capture his long-sought first French Open title to complete the career Grand Slam. Soderling and Federer met again at Wimbledon , and again the result was predictable. For the third straight Grand Slam, the two paired up once again.

The match started predictably enough, Federer taking just 25 minutes to put up the bagel on Soderling. The second set, too, went according to plan. The two traded punches through the first five games, holding serve, before Federer broke to make it 4-2. After that, the result was academic, each trading serves until the world’s top player took a two-set lead. But Swedish tennis players are not known for giving up, and Soderling is no different. Many people will say that the underdog found another gear here, and in large part that is true. As my wife and I watched the match, though, she posited quite the theory. It appeared that Federer, bored with his easy rout in progress again against Soderling, changed up his game to play his opponent’s style. Once he tempered down his trademark heavy slices and topspin, trading booming baseline barbs back and forth, the man with nothing to lose started to get into his comfort zone. And for the first time this summer, Soderling finally took a set from the Swiss superstar. Both players served phenomenally in the third set, holding serve throughout to reach a tiebreak. Federer quickly jumped out to take the first four points. But Soderling fought back, pulling ahead 6-5 on his serve and taking one from Federer in the change to serve for the 8-6 game win and the set. The fourth set held much of the same, the crowd engrossed in Arthur Ashe Stadium as the twelve-seed challenged the man looking for a sixteenth Grand Slam title and nearly fought his way all the way back. The two went to another tiebreak in the fourth, the score reversed as Soderling wearied and sprayed groundstrokes outside the lines to hand Federer the 6-0 6-3 6(6)-7 7-6(6) win and the date with Djokovic...

Another legend is in danger of clenching a place in perhaps the biggest single-sport tournament in the world. The World Cup, first contested in 1930, saw Argentina lose in the final to its South American rival Uruguay . The Argentine squad, though, would prove more resilient in the long term. While the 1930 champions would see their feat repeated a generation later in 1950, the Uruguay national team faded from the limelight soon thereafter. The squad has qualified for the World Cup only once in the past two decades. In contrast, Argentina has consistently remained a power at or near the top of the international game. Winners of two World Cups in 1978 and 1986, the Argentine national team came into qualifying this year after a quarterfinal run in Germany three years ago hoping to build on their success.

After a loss on the road to Paraguay , Argentina drops to fifth in the CONMEBOL World Cup qualifying standings a point behind Ecuador . Archrival Uruguay and Peru are also right on Argentina ’s heels a further point back in sixth and seventh. With just two games remaining, it appears that Argentina might be in danger of missing the World Cup for the first time since 1970. Paraguay, by contrast, claimed their fourth straight World Cup bid that started when the 1998 squad led by goalkeeper Jose Luis Chilavert that advanced to the second round before falling in extra time 1-0 to host nation and eventual champion France. A 27th-minute strike by Paraguayan striker Nelson Haedo was all that the home side needed to nab the three points and place their more-heralded opponents in jeopardy of watching from home as the world’s best head to South Africa next year.

Other teams booking their passage through around the world today include England , who got two goals apiece from Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard to dump Croatia 5-1 and reach their fourth straight World Cup. 2008 European champion Spain , who was dumped in the semifinals of this summer’s FIFA Confederations Cup by a surprising American squad, claimed a painless 3-0 win over Estonia to reach their ninth straight World Cup. They join the Netherlands among the European teams that have already claimed a lucrative place in the final 32. In North American, the United States and Mexico each notched 1-0 victories to take over the top two spots atop the CONCACAF standings. And in African qualifying, only Ghana has already knotted up a spot. Everywhere else hope still reigns for some teams as they posture for a spot at the big party. Argentina , it seems, must prove like everyone else that they are still good-looking enough to get into the nightclub...

And yes, you might have tuned out right after Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong shared their awkward podium moment in Paris for one last parting shot as teammates (in name only), but cycling’s party lives on as well. We’ve still got the world championships in Mendrisio , Switzerland coming up at the end of September before the completion of the fall one-day classics builds up to the season-ending Giro di Lombardia. But even though the Tour is over and a bunch of crapshoot single-day events are on the horizon, that doesn’t mean that the grand-tour fun has ended yet. The Vuelta a España, cycling’s final grand tour of the 2009 season, reached its halfway point yesterday and is as exciting as ever.

Today the peloton enjoys a rest day today before heading into a mountainous weekend through southern Spain . Americans have something to celebrate, as Garmin-Slipstream’s young sprinter Tyler Farrar -- who finished seventh this July in the race for the green points jersey at the Tour de France after several top-five finishes -- earned his first grand-tour stage victory after nine previous attempts between the Giro and the Tour ended with a second-place result. After fighting his way back to the lead group, having been dropped over the second-category Alto Campo de San Juan just thirty-five kilometers from the finish in Caravaca de la Cruz, Farrar opened up his sprint in the final kilometer. Pipping Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil), Farrar can now call himself a grand-tour stage winner -- and hopefully Americans can begin to diversify their understanding of the sport beyond The Race That Lance Dominated to truly appreciate the excitement cycling has to offer.

For Alejandro Valverde -- the beleaguered Caisse d’Epargne leader who has long been shackled with the weighty expectation of a nation still searching for their next Bahamontes, their next Indurain -- a loftier goal is right there in reach should he maintain his composure. But just seven seconds up on Australian rider Cadel Evans, Valverde has a tall task as he tries to fulfill the promise with which he entered the professional ranks and live up the potential he has routinely demonstrated in bursts but never consistently put together for a breakthrough. These next three mountain stages will separate the men from the boys. The Caisse d’Epargne team is experienced enough to lead Valverde to victory. The Spaniard enjoys much better support for a grand tour than does his nearest challenger, who has finished twice in the Tour de France but, like Raymond Poulidor before him, has never been able to convert podium finishes into crowns.

Valverde, who first made his presence known to American fans when he beat Armstrong to the summit finish at Courchevel in the 2005 Tour de France, has been disappointing in recent years. His name has been tied by, of all people, Italian authorities to the Operacion Puerto doping ring that brought down the 2006 Tour after it was revealed that systematic doping of five dozen or so cyclists and a total of two-hundred athletes was occurring out of the Madrid offices of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes. That implication forced him to miss the 2009 Tour for Caisse d’Epargne. So now, just like the returned Alexander Vinokourov of Astana did in 2006, Valverde is focusing his attention on the bastard stepchild of the grand tours as his way of blowing off the steam of unrealized dreams.

That’s the last thing we’d want, after all. It is one thing if a dream is broken. At least, in that instance, we have enjoyed the run of someone like Melanie Oudin or John Isner in the process. We know in that case that the athlete gave it their all and simply came up short on a given day. But it is always a shame to see a sublime talent wasted, something Argentina might force us to experience as they drag themselves through the final few matches of qualifying -- especially when even the world’s biggest stage in a particular sport fails to properly motivate and draw out that talent. It’s something with which all humans can relate. All the talent in the world can take you only so far without the motivation to turn it into something worthwhile. We are forced to struggle with this eternal dilemma every day of our lives -- would you rather be an Oudin or an Argentina ?

Submitted 9/10/09

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