The script at this point read that Federer breaks serve early in the fourth set and wins the U.S. Open. Del Potro had other ideas and saved break points in his first two service games of the fourth set. Another tiebreak was upon both players and del Potro took advantage of a Federer double fault to win again on a single mini-break. Despite saving a break point when serving at 2-0 in the fifth set, del Potro basically dominated the final frame of play.

Andy Murray has the tools to win a Grand Slam event, but he does face a tough question: “Should I stick with a generally effective strategy of counterpunching or change strategies by developing and using bigger shots?” Internal doubts arising from this quandary might be worse than just selecting one option and committing to it.

Watching the #9 and #27 players in the world from close range at 7-6, 6-7 was awesome.

The number of players a fan can see at close range on the practice courts and side courts is always great on the first few days of an event.

The USTA, ATP, and WTA are set to hold a press conference tomorrow, August 13th, to announce some changes to the U.S. Open Series line-ups.
In 2011, the two separate ATP and WTA events in Cincinnati will become a combined men’s and women’s tournament. This combined event will be held two weeks before the U.S. [...]

In the highlight match of the evening, Andy Roddick became the 36th player in the Open Era to reach 500 career match victories.

Speaking of tickets. For grins, I stopped by the Lacoste store on M St. to check out how the Roddick ticket give-away was going. There was a healthy and well organized line, with a few people also walking out with shopping bags to boot. Well done all around.

One could easily argue that the U.S. Open Series doesn’t start in Indianapolis or Los Angeles, but in our nation’s capital — because that’s when the top tenners show up. Tennis-X will be there all week to bring you live coverage from next week’s Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, D.C.
This year’s Legg Mason [...]

This is not a column about the color of tennis courts despite clay courts looking like the terrain of Mars and most hard courts at professional tennis events no longer being green. While covering the 2008 Indianapolis Tennis Championships, members of what looked to be a local scouting troop wearing hats saying “Environmental Team” were [...]

“It’s nice in the tiebreak when I serve four times and it’s four aces,” Querrey said. “First serve percentage was key for me and I did that well…If he gets on top of the point it’s very difficult, he’s very crafty.”