Well, well, we are here again, time for the final slam of year. And the draw is out! As a Serena fan, I love the draw! Lucinda, as a Vika fan is not a happy camper! Unfortunately this years US Open will be with out two time defending champion Kim Clijsters, as an abdominal injury ruled her out a little over a week ago. Before looking at a possible champion, you have to take into account to stand outs of the US Open series, this year US Open Series champion Serena Williams (who as the possibility of a one million dollar bonus, if she wins the US Open), Agnieska Radwanska and Andrea Petkovic has all impressed during the series and will be eager to back that up at the open. Women's world number and top seed Caroline Wozniacki has been in a form slump lately and an unfavourable US Open draw won't help with that. For the fith consecutive slam Wozniacki will be looking to claim her maiden slam title and back up her number one rank. Well now here it goes!
First Quarter
Well obviously we have Caroline Wozniacki in the quarter, as well as Daniela Hantuchova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Andrea Petkovic, Roberta Vinci and Li Na. In the second round Woniacki will come up against Arantxa Run, remember her? The Dutch girl who took down Clijsters at Roland Garros? Yeah, this match up will be interesting! I would expect Kuznetsova and Hantuchova to meet in the third round with the winner would likely face Caroline Wozniacki which would be a good match up! Hantuchova was Wozniacki's defeater at Roland Garros. In the lower sector it does seem to be all about Li Na and Andrea Petkovic who look poised for a fourth round clash, although Roberta Vinci could challenge Petkovic in the third round.
Predicted QF - Svetlana Kuznetsova vs Andrea Petkovic
Second Quarter
Two words, Serena Williams. The only obsticale that seems to be stopping Serena from the quarter final is Victoria Azarenka, who has challenged Serena greatly on hard courts before, mainly at the Australia Open though but also at Miami, where Azarenka defeated Williams handily in 2009. The winner of the Azarenka/Williams match up could...to be honest, could face anyone in the 4th round, the seed to do so, Ana Ivanovic has been handed a challenging draw, where she could play Czech Petra Cetkovska in the 2nd round. Cetkovska defeated Ivanovic at Wimbledon this year. The lower section of the quarter stars Jelena Jankovic, Anastasia Pavlyucenkova and Francesca Schiavone where any woman could prevail
Predicted QF - Serena Williams vs Jelena Jankovic.
Third Quarter
The bottom half of the draw is very open, with many dangerous players floating around. In the third quarter we have Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova, Agnieszka Radwanska, Peng Shuai, Julia Goerges and Maria Sharapova. But also includes possible dangerous lower ranked players Virginie Razzano, former US Open semi finalist Yanina Wickmayer and Lucie Safarova. With the current form of Agnieszka Radwanska you could assume she would make the fourth round to likely play Petra Kvitova. The lower sector of the quarter would look like its going to be all about Maria Sharapova, however Peng Shuai and Julia Goerges could both produce tennis to test the Russian star.
Predicted QF - Agnieszka Radwanska vs Maria Sharapova
Fourth Quarter
The quarter is very interesting, Christina McHale and Marion Bartoli could face in round 2. Nadia Petrova and Samantha Stosur could face on in round three. The lower section features Cibulkova, Venus Williams, Sabine Lisicki, Anabelle Medina Garrigues and Vera Zvonareva. It is all very much up for grabs. Williams has not played since Wimbledon, Zvonareva made the semi's of Cincinnati last week but has been less than impressive since the start of the clay season. Lisicki and Cibulkova impressed at Wimbledon in the US Open Series Cibulkova was hampered by injury and Lisicki had mediocre performances.
Predicted QF - Nadia Petrova vs Anabelle Medina Garrigues
QF predictions
Svetlana Kuznetsova vs Andrea Petkovic
Kuznetsova, the former champ and Andrea Petkovic the quirky dancing queen. Petko has been on fire this US Open series making semis at two of her events and quarters in the other. She has played well on hard courts all year with a final in Brisbane, QF in the AO and Semis in Miami. I think it will be pretty hard to look past Petkovic for this match, and well, say hello to your first slam semi Andrea!
Serena Williams vs Jelena Jankovic
I doubt it will be as close or as entertaining as their 2009 US Open final, I do think Serena will win with much greater ease, and I am not just saying that because I am a fan of Serena...okay well maybe I am! But Its great Jelena made the final of Cincinnati and yes, I probably am getting to far ahead of myself and herself to predict her to male the quarters of slam, giving the semis at Cincy is about the first impact she has made on the tour for...well, a while. Serena in an easy two sets...probably two and three or something like that.
Agnieszka Radwanska vs Maria Sharapova
Well I am going to go out on a huge limb here and I am going to go right ahead and say, even injurd and what not, I thing Aggie will be winning this match. She has become a new woman dropping Daddy Radwanska as her coach and she is playing like a new woman. And well Maria is still inconsistent and carrying her unrelaiable sereve, as we saw in Toronto, it can all come crashing down. Aggie in three...maybe but why not play it safe and flip a coin...oh look Maria in three.
Nadia Petrova vs Anabelle Medina Garrigues
I still don't know why. Or who. Or why. Maybe I did this for fun, because that's how open I thought this draw would be? Hahaha, I really have no idea. I suppose Petrova will win, but I also suppose this would never happen!
SF predictions
Andrea Petkovic vs Serena Williams
Serena is just so hard to stop at these stages of the majors. Andrea will put up a stern fight but will fall short of what is one of the toughest challenges in women's tennis. Serena to make her return to slam finals winning in two tighter sets.
Maria Sharapova vs Nadia Petrova
Maria.
Runner Up
Maria Sharapova
Champion
Serena Williams
28 comments:
Without Kimmie around things are looking bleak for a non Serena Williams win... And I'm not excited at all right now about this draw. Although that's subject to change as things start to shake out.
That said, if the rain creates delays including flooding in Flushing Meadows its going to make for some very long 'holding patterns' for the women. And perhaps having to play more than one match a day in singles?
Apparently Bunny's new 'technical adviser' is going to REMAIN anonymous! Plus, looks like daddy is still in the fold and will be hanging tough.
http://www.tennis.com/articles/templates/news.aspx?articleid=13867&zoneid=25
My rebuttal to the Captain's prediction:
This are the players that I don't see as a threat:
Venus, too old and coming from injury.
JJ, will punk out at some point see Cincinnati final.
Kuznetsova, are you kidding? :P She is playing as if she is over the hill, perhaps she is disinterested.
Ostrich, she hasn't play at a high level this summer maybe due to injury.
WickiWickiWicki, poor summer run, I don't see her having a big run. She hasn't been the same since the Ostrich stump over her at Wimbly.
Julia G,Captain you can not seriously call Julia a dangerous threat! She had four first round loses in the U.S. hard courts, only one victory, with a record of 1-5, and her best at USO is the second round. History is against her.
Ivanovic, last I checked she is still an imbecile.
Divapova, I putting her in this category because she has been inconsistent from tournament to tournament. One tournament she does well the other a bust, she did well in the previous tournament that she won albeit a poor performance; so if we follow the pattern she is ripe to be upset.
Angry Bird, she will lose to Serena. I hope she looks good. She can retouch her mascara on breaks cause I don't think she will bring a game plan with her. She wilts under pressure, assuming she doesn't retire as she is my "Snap, Crackle, and Pop Player of the Year".
The Big Stuffed Bunny will be expose as the big fraud.
My semi finalist:
Serena will win, sorry Caps but like Kim when she won her AO title Serena has an easy path. I guess that is how the Gods of tennis have spoken.
Aggie, does have a clear shot at the semis all she has to do is hold her nerves.
Petkovic, dancing queen my left foot! When someone says that they are not going to do something and they do it anyways it goes against their character. Yes she will have a deep run however this is the way that I classify this creature:
Kingdom: Imbecile
Phylum: Lier
Class: Burlesque
Order: Taunt
Family: Jester
Genus: Dancer
Species: Dancius Baffoonus (Dancing Buffoon)
BTW she had deep runs this summer and ZERO titles as she punks out usually at the semis. Remember how the "Cow On Ice" dismantled her at RG?
My dark horse Licki Bean, I know she had a terrible summer but she can take out Venus and Vera Z. who also had a disappointing summer.
I don't think Serena is winning this, although I do have a feeling it won't be any of the younger players.
I just don't see Petrova going far in a slam or any tournament for that matter.
The top contenders for this in my opinion will be: Wozniacki, Zvonareva, Li, Schiavone, Sharapova and Serena with a question mark.
I wish we had a nice surprice though (like Ana getting past 4rd - not happening, I am afraid) or some unknown up-and-comer I wrote about going far.
Caps the rain, along with hurricane Irene and some earthquake deleyes could make for some interesting times :P
Carlos, I originally had Aga winning her QF with Maria, then took into consideration how heavily injurd she was, I remember seeing a pic where she was basically held together with tape :P
Marine, I don't think Petrova could go far either, I just looked at that draw and saw Bartoli (bad summer apart from stanford) and Samantha (terrible at slams this year) it would seem crazy (and far too crazy to predict McHale to make the QF) so I took the next highest seed! Ahahaha :) All of those players do a have a good chance of winning, but are yet to strongly impress in the US Open series.
Captain and Caps is the 2012 kicking in. :P
Captain it is call a mummy wrap. :P
The surprise of the tournament could be Julia G. since she has done little this hard court season that any thing positive would make noise.
Carlos, looks like the predicted it a year late :P Kim must of heard something along the grape vine and decided to get the hell away from NY :P
Carlos Julia could suprise here, and even though she lost early at Wimbledon and RG so lost to very respectable opponents (Domi went onto QF and sponge bart went onto SF) she could easily go far if the draw works for her. If Kimiko was not injurd I think she would have had a great chance to make the 4th round, drawing qualifier R1, Kaneppi R2 and Li R3...Li is quite vunrable on the fast pace courts, and none come quicker than Flushing Medows.
Voskoboeva could easly stun Fran in R1!
Caps...are you looking forward to the Aga/Ula R1 match up? :)
I am excited for McHale and Wozniak :D
If things go Robson's way she could get to R3 or R4, just to bug Carlos :P
Captain I disagree, Ayumi Morita will take down Robson. Morita took down the Imbecile in the first round at Stanford and played tough this summer. Fun facts to counter the Captain's bugginess. :P
I like your latest predictions Captain.
Emily, I mostly agree with most of your top half predictions, I would be impressed if Li reached R4, as you said she's vunrable on fast paced courts! Why she performed well at AO at RG.
Bottom half on the other hand...wow, WOW!
I would more sensibly pick Radwanska/Maria...with with Aggie prevailing in three tight sets, she has been amazing all USO series and well she is rested now.
The lower quarter final...god! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53sOpQQWOOA yeah that pretty much sums up my reaction BTW, Im Tyra...you're Tiffany!
So yeah I would be going for more of a Bartoli vs Lisicki(owning in Dallas atm) or Zvonareva (could so easily just suprise everyone
SF's
Serena d Petko
Bartloi/Zvonareva/Lisicki d Aggie
Final
Serena in straight sets...no matter who she plays!
My dark horse tips for a deep(ish) run!
Benesova (atleast R3 drawn Jarka R1 and Arn/King R2)
Tanasugarn or Kimiko or Soler-Espinosa to make R4 (upsetting Li in R3)
Mirza or Stephens or Cetkovska to make R4 (upsetting Ana in R3/R2)
Voskoboeva (R4 or R3 depends how much gas is in her tank depending on JJ and Pav she could make a suprise QF)
Madison Keys to make thr round of 16
Rezai for a place in R3
McHale to upset Bartoli in R2 and advance to R4/QF
My first round upset picks;
Vesena Dolonts to defeat Venus
Chan to defeat Petrova
Rezai defeating Penetta
Oudin defeat [Q] Oprandi
Dulgheru taking down Kvitova
Cirstea beating Wicky
Voskoboeva d Fran
Mirza def Peer
Tanasugarn over Kanepi
@Emily,
I think Sharapova has already made her mark, so did Serena and today hopefully Woz will as well.So, based on this kind of logic, those are the top 3 favourites.
My rebuttal to Clefairy:
We pretty much agree in the semi finalist.
Agree in the winner.
If the Dancing Baffoon goes down early for sure I'll cheer or do "The Lambada". :P
On your first round picks:
Don't see WickiWickiWicki losing to Sorana unless she annoys Wicki with her chipmunk voice.
Mr. Oudin will lose she is playing bad and I'm being nice to her.
I know Pennetta is done but I don't see her losing to Rezai. That's how high I think of Rezai.
Deep run players:
Don't see McHale beating Sponge Bart. I agree with Caps her game needs tweaking. I like the girl and I hope I'm wrong but my gut tells me other wise.
I also don't see Furby losing in the first round. She can make a deepish run.
Ostrich I'm sticking with my earlier prediction: she will go down in third round.
Aggie vs. Ula is just not right. Poor Ula needs an easy opponent so she'll be around for longer than the first round!
Caps thanks for the links that you gave out in the previous thread.
BTW are you going to be affected by hurricane Irene?
I live in Florida and am currently watching live car cameras of a storm surge on ustream.tv.
Schedule of play:
http://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/schedule/index.html
Ostrich is second on Louis Armstrong.
McHale is 3rd on Court 17.
Julia is first on court 11 and Aggie/Ula are 4th.
Ekaterina Makarova(RUS) vs. Maria Kirilenko(RUS)[25] 3rd on court 7.
ESPN3 isn't starting coverage till 1pm though. So, I'm unsure if Uverse multi court action will have Julia's match or not as of yet. (20 minutes until 11am now.)
usopen.org also has live streaming. The screen just says loading but if you click on 'courts' two mens matches are on.
Looks like Julia's match might be pushed back to 12:00.
Usopen.org/Uverse are using the same feed for Julia's match. There are NO COURT SOUNDS on this channel. I guess the announcers must be in a closet away from court or something. So, I'm watching a lower quality streaming site. Julia is up 3-0.
Julia wins!
Ostrich is coming up after this Harrison/Cilic match.
Usopen.org and Espn3 have men's audio for the Kvitova match! I just tweeted and asked if they're smoking crack. Guess I'll watch some of my backlogged tv shows for a while.
Well that was quick, the Ostrich match now has the right audio and she's down 3-4 in the first set.
Also, Ostrich & Julia seem to be wearing almost the same outfits.
Ostrich blew 3 set points in the first and had 32 unforced errors compared to 10 winners.. Ends up losing the tie breaker 7-6.
I'm sure she'll have to stop sabotaging herself in the second set?!
Just got up to date:
Ostrich lost. Good call Clefairy!
Divapova is not looking hot either, picking up her match leading 4-1 in third. I'm already annoy at her "Come on" and fist pumps.
Hey Carlos, hey Carlos :P guess what? Hehehehe
ROBSON WON :P
Clefairy knows her stuff, good call on her part, tough draw for Ostrich Dulgheru can be dangerous on any surface, seems to be recovered from her injury earlier in the year!
Masha will need to pick up her game if she is going to take down anyone else!
Rub it Captain but Ayumi retired don't know if your Robson would have won the match. :P Robson got lucky. :P
I disagree Captain, allow to re iterate myself Divapova is ripe for an upset. If the youngster Watson would have been more experienced Divapova would have been joining the Ostrich. The match took more 2:30 to complete, and at the end Divapova celebrated as if she won a semi final match. Not a good sign, she may have a deep run I don't see her as a threat though.
Caps the Radwankas match is on, how are you feeling?
Carlos, with Ostrich out I'm calling for Aggie or Julia in the quarters!
Ula seems to hit the ball harder than Aggie but her shots aren't flat enough and sorta hang up on this hard court. On a side note: Ula has a wrap on her left shoulder!
Aggie wins the first set 6-2 and up 1-0 in the second.
I'm also watching the warmup for McHale's match on a lower quality stream.
Uh, oh. Ula's got a little temper and threw her racket in disgust!
McHale won and I found her US Open blog:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/6894843
Kinda lame she has to play Bartoli in the second round.
Post a Comment