The US Open (Of Tennis) 2005

But in the women's - FOUR seeds gone! Farina-Elia only gets three games off of GLORIA! GLORIA! GLOR! I! A! Molik mullered 6-4 6-4 by Clap Your Hands She-NAY! USA! USA! USA! Also Pennetta got messed up by Schruff, and the Safinette got snapped by Instamatic Camerin.

On court now - by christ the scoreboard facility for this tournament mings - Scoville Jenkins is in a five set thriller with Ol' Dirty Bastl, Tommy Jo and Bjorkperson have gone through simultaneously, and Shari's making Danii With Two I's wish she'd never been born, or something.

Men's qf's -

Federer-Gonzalez
Dent-Ancic
Coria-Roddick
Youzhny-Blake (he's got to do it someday, why not now?)

There are windows of opportunity in the men's draw so big you could throw a small house through them. Before Federer wins the whole thing there could well be many, many shocks...

Women's qfs:

Mirza-Granville (yes yes it will almost certainly be Sharapova-Petrova but LET ME DREAM DAMMIT)
Clijsters-Venus
Jankovic-Likhovtseva
Schnyder-Davenport

Chakvetadze's seeded #29! Groenefeld's seeded #31! = SANIA MIRZA ROAD TO GLORY 2005

the womens 16 that looks like it has a big whole is the dementieva-schnyder one. who is this Jamea Jackson?

I have decided to have a crush on Maggie Maleeva. This is her last slam!

Is there really a player named Anna Smashnova?

I am very happy that Miss Bychkova has made a name for herself in a sense other than the literal, mad props to the girl who gave me my favourite pseudonym.

Anna Smashnova is no longer Pistolesi! She divorced her husband. I think Sybille Bammer is a brilliant tennis name too.

Predictions -

Federer v Nalbandian
Hewitt v Monfils
Lopez v Gasquet
Berdych v Nadal

Sharapova v Vaidisova
Clijsters v V Williams
Henin-Hardenne v Mauresmo
Chakvetadze v Davenport

In staying-firmly-away-from-limbs news I predict FEDERER and HENIN-HARDENNE to be champions.

Which means our big stories so far are just how well the Americans are doing. Meg's 6-2 2-2 up on Da Brat, SpaddyPhatNastee's handling Weiner with very little trouble, Alexa Glatch (WHOOOOO?) is a set up on Fedak (WHOOOOOactually no, she sounds familiar) and Rajeev Ram's a set and a break up on Swiss Stan. Also, PHM's 6-2 3-2 down to Capdeville, Force 9 Gael's a set down to Humourless Sod, and NLV's a set up on The Linnet.

Which means our big stories so far are just how well the Americans are doing. Meg's 6-2 2-2 up on Da Brat, SpaddyPhatNastee's handling Weiner with very little trouble, Alexa Glatch (WHOOOOO?) is a set up on Fedak (WHOOOOOactually no, she sounds familiar) and Previously Unheralded Rajeev Ram's a set and a break up on Swiss Stan. Also, PHM's 6-2 3-2 down to Capdeville, Force 9 Gael's a set down to Humourless Sod, and NLV's a set up on The Linnet.

Henbock about to go two bocks down.

and Starchy's suddenly got destiny on his side - he goes two sets down, races to the third set 6-1, before the fourth goes entirely with serve until there is some variety of miscall at 6-5 to Scuttler, resulting in the internet scoreboard reporting that the German's taken the set 7-5 - except he hasn't, it's a tiebreak and Starchy's 2-1 up! With serve, obv, but still!

Also, Karatantcheva-Shaughnessy has been stuck at Sesil leading 6-5 40-30 in the third for the past half hour. And I'm not sure why.

a) Sesil won

b) the US Open website is pish.

Oh, and The Hurricane vs. No New Wave No Djokovic is quietly turning into a war - the German lad leads 7-5 4-6 7-6.

The Hurricane is turning into The Tornado: reaction to going down two sets to one is to speed out to a 4-0 lead in about five minutes.

The Canadian Briton now down two sets to the British American, the second on a tiebreak...

The US Open site seems to provide certain results and then take them back a few seconds later.

(xpost - I wondered the same)

One other seed out today, and it's another shocker - JCF is downed in three by Arnie Clem, who gets to be the next obstacle for The World's Spottiest Pin-Up, Andy Murray, who went five sets and won against Andy Pav. Other five setters include the Monfils-Djokovic Teen Choice Marathon, with our Serbian chum coming out on top after christ knows how long; Young Wrinkly ensuring Rajeev remains unheralded; and Nieminen edging out Karol Beck's Red Hot Slovak Ass. As such it seems fairly obvious that Santoro went through in straight sets for the loss of six games. His reward? Federer. Poor fella...

By way of contrast, all the women's seeds got through. Every single one. Yes, even Tatiana Golovin. The US Open site therefore decided that today's big story on that side was Vania King taking three sets to dispose of... Klara Koukalova.

Murray on his on-court vomming incident: "It was a sodium-rich energy drink. I had a bit too much, I thought I was going to burp and I threw up. It was pretty funny." Pavel had a fit of the screaming abdabs on an overrule at 3-3 which turned it Andy's way. For the 2nd GS in a row he's the longest-surviving Brit.

Oh, and if you're going to the evening sessions, then Castano-Serena will most likely be a drubbing in favour of the She-Hulk, but Scurvy Jenkins against Nadal could be kinda fun. Admittedly, Scurvy's last match saw him being taken to five sets by, er, George Bastl, but on home turf against one of the big favourites, who's to say what'll happen? (Rafa 6-2 7-5 6-4)

Weather.com keeps updating the status of strong storms set to hit -- now they're predicting nothing until 4pm.

So maybe we'll get to watch some tennis before a thorough tour of the exhibits.

At the moment - Burgermeister-Steradent and Acasuso-Horna are both at a set apiece, though Taylor's tearing away with the third, Ken C's a set down to Alma-Gro, Keggy Kim's on the verge of a two sets to one lead over the Lammer Farmer, and Seppi's clinging on grimly at two sets down in the third against Hrbaty. Oh, and Ferrer's a break up on Calleri.

Three set victories for: Kucera (Poup just keeps on slipping), Almagro.

Merciless crushings doled out by Shaz & Clidge.

The first five-setter is Ferrer & Calleri - 4-6 6-4 7-6 6-1 thus far.

The first seed out might well be AIIIIII - 6-2 4-3 down to The Pasty Cove. Or she would have been except Vento's just taken out White Van Ana 6-1 in the third. Douchebag's House Of Fun plays host to Shahar Peer, and they're currently at one set apiece. Kirilenko's 4-1 down to Venus but threatening a minor fightback...

But it's really all about MEC-Warrior and Mirzbow at the moment. Sania takes the first 6-4, Camerin fires back to take the second 6-1, and now in the third Sania's 4-3 up and serving... no, Camerin's snatched the break back, and it's now 4-4.

I caught Molik and Kuznetsova take apart Linetskaya and Voskoboeva, despite the best efforts of the willowy Vosk. She hit several incredible drops but Linetskaya's head was clearly not there.

The Ferrer - Calleri match was great, very intense tennis from both. I sat near Calleri's supporters, an old Arg. couple and what appeared to be two of his coaches or friends. They stayed enthused for most of the last set hoping he'd come back, but not enough in Gordo's tank.

I caught bits of Clijsters (who didn't look as together as I had hoped), Sharapova, Mirza (who wore a T-shirt in the interview room that said "I'm cute? No Shit" and answered questions about being a bad muslim. Awesome.)

Speaking of the interview room, Venus answered questions for about five minutes regarding the MTV 70s house reality show. Which segued into her own reality show and her mother's "'tude."

I ended my day in the pleasant Grandstand, which had cooled off once the sun was low and was a spectacular place for a late afternoon match. Julia Schruff gave a low-effort dismantling of Lisa Raymond.

Guga with a one set lead over Robredo right now. 5-5 in the second.

Agatha a set up against KarlIvo9 - no breaks but AA may ultimately bust through as he generally does against the servin' machines.

I think I like the blue court.

Game But Gimpy Guga Comes Up Short Against Robredo

'gimpy'?

Anyway - two seeds gone so far today - Yoon Jeong Cho squelched Gissie, Tommy Jo succumbs in four to Wee Seb. No women's match has gone beyond two sets yet except for Groenefeld and Razzano's bottom-of-the-seedings dogfight on court 10, the German serving at 3-6 6-3. Elsewhere Swiss Stan looks ready to pick up Fabrice's baton should he ever feel the need to drop it - he's in a second consecutive five setter, this time against Puerta, and is 3-1 up and serving. Flicka's already a set down to Bobbysods, Haas is a break down to Schuttler, Coria's two sets up on Cousin Vinny and Agassi's just straight-setted Karlo. Guess how many of those sets were tie-breaks...

Dementieva on why pointless bitching and poor sportmanship will never leave the game of tennis.

GO KIM!

TWELVE-MINUTE injury timeout (for Pierce)? I know I'm out of touch with the rules thesedays but since when was this allowed? What next, keyhole surgery and a month convalescing at the change-of-ends?

i am slightly in love with kim clijsters, and happy she doesn't have to play henin-hardenne.

S'pose Federer (and it will be him, won't it?) will have nominally less time to recover for tomorrow if that's any consolation. Agassi has been pulling out of tournaments over the summer if he's done well the previous week to spare his body for Flushing Meadow; if that's how careful he has to be with himself thesedays, tomorrow might be a bit of a mess if he gets there.

Ken Rosewall only won two games off Connors in that '74 final, y'know. Connors only won four from Mac in his last GS final ten years later. There's rarely a fairytale finish for the oldsters.

RF sloppy again for an hour (more errors than winners) but he steamed through the t-b and now leads Chewy 6-3 7-6 2-1.

It's the Kimary experience in the next half-hour.

I fear what might happen tonight is Federer, playing within himself, taking few chances and not attacking the net much, rolls over a fatigued Agassi in three. I hope it's more of a contest than that.

I have ONLY JUST got back home! My displeasure at the Kim and Mary show has taken a definite back seat to the fact that I am having a severe case of the post-rave no-sleep-for-two-days shakes but still can't sleep or anything.

Pierce breaks the time rules every time she serves so it's no surprise she broke them for an injury time out. And she's never been exactly known for her sportsmanship herself.

RF-AA 6-3 1-3 15/15*

Sounds like very good stuff indeed.

Feddy now up a break in the 4th.