US Open: Week 1 Summary

One week into the year's final Grand Slam event, let's do a quick round up of what we have seen so far.

The Home Team

Serena Williams and sister Venus both won a Grand Slam this year, but other than that, it hasn't been an exceptionally great year for American tennis. Now that the tours are back on American soil, the US men and women start putting up better results again. We've seen plenty of Sam Querrey and John Isner during the US Open Series, not to mention the revival of James Blake and the decent performances of Andy Roddick. In New York, credit goes out to Donald Young, John Isner again, but also Ahsha Rolle, for upsetting Tatiana Golovin is a commendable achievement for the 22-year-old from Miami.

The heavyweights, Roddick, Blake and the Williamses, are all still around and in good shape to do some further damage.

The Upset

Maria Sharapova is out of a Grand Slam event before the fourth round for the first time since 2004, when she lost in three sets to Mary Pierce, also in the third round of the US Open.

The defending champion in New York fell 6-2 in the third set to Agnieszka Radwanska, the 18-year-old world No.32 from Poland. Sharapova led 2-0 in the final set, before she dropped the next six games. That's another shocking loss in 2007 at a Slam for Maria, after being crushed by both Williamses this year in Australia and London, and going down hard to Ana Ivanovic at Roland Garros.

The Young Ones

Agnes Szavay, Victoria Azarenka and the before-mentioned Radwanska. These young Eastern Europeans have totally opened up the bottom half of the draw, taking down Michaella Krajicek and Nadia Petrova (Szavay), Martina Hingis (Azarenka), and of course Maria Sharapova (Radwanska).

Oh, and 16-year-old Tamira Paszek from Austria upset good old Patty Schnyder in that bottom half as well. The days of predictable women's events have long gone.

The Injury

Rafael Nadal will never fall in love with hard courts. Not as long as they keep getting him injured or he sees himself playing five feet behind the baseline all the time. Rafa is having knee problems, but so far he is still enjoying a pretty comfortable draw. On the other end, Federer is looking in great shape.

The Classic

There's only one word to describe the Djokovic - Stepanek second round match: Wow. The tennis wasn't always that great, but these guys both show a lot of character and certainly know how to get a crowd involved in a match. Their contrasting styles made for a highly entertaining encounter to watch. It was too bad the tiebreak was a little bit of an anticlimax the way it played out.

The Breakthrough

Even though I don't rate the Blake - Santoro encounter as high as the Djoker's win over Stepanek, this was pretty darn good to watch as well. Is there anyone on this planet who would debate Santoro's nickname, The Magician?

For Blake, his win over the veteran Frenchman was a career milestone. Entering the match on a 0-9 five set record, the American finally managed to dig out a win in a fifth set.

The Downfall

What is going on with Fernando Gonzalez? The Chilean has been awful for the past months and has never lived up to the form he displayed at the Australian Open in January. Gonzo dropped out in the first round in a five-set loss to Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili. With a lot of points to defend for the rest of the year, Gonzalez will have a tough job maintaining his Top 10 position.

The Letdown

Not in Roger Federer's half of the draw for a change, Lleyton Hewitt looked a serious threat to make a run deep into the second week at the Open. His two biggest rivals in the bottom half, Djokovic and Nadal, were either getting drained or suffering from an injury. Just when his chances were increasing to do well, Hewitt fell to Agustin Calleri from Argentina in the second round. Such losses are not going to get you back into the Top 5, Lleyton.

The Farewell

Unable to rid himself from a lingering back injury, 32-year-old Tim Henman felt there was nothing he could do but retire from the sport. In his last Grand Slam event, Henman pulled off one of his best wins of the year, taking out 27th-seeded Dmitry Tursunov in four sets, the Russian who had beaten him in five of their six previous meetings. Hard-hitting Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ended Henman's Grand Slam career in the second round. Henman will play his last match at Wimbledon next month, when Great Britain takes on Croatia in a promotion/relegation Davis Cup tie.

The Malfunction

Was someone not paying attention, or did the system screw up itself? Either way, when Nicole Vaidisova challenged a service call in her first round match against Russian Alla Kudryavtseva, Hawk-eye projected the ball hitting the line, followed by the text OUT. After the umpire made an emergency call and the players waited for the decision, the projection was shown again and the text changed to IN.

The Warning

More decision-making drama. Serena Williams was reprimanded by chair umpire Damian Steiner in her third round match against Russian Vera Zvonareva on Friday for reading notes on the changeover. It was a bad call by Steiner, who should have known that players are allowed to read notes on court as long as they brought them with them before the match started. Steiner eventually relented.