NEW YORK -- What the U.S. Open lacks in charm, it often counterbalances with gravitas, true again this promising tennis weekend.
Only Tropical Storm Hanna's outer rains might disrupt the transcendent matchups, and there's always a chance that even she might take one look at Rafael Nadal and run cowering back to the ocean.
Twelve days of the usual mayhem have seen No. 1 Ana Ivanovic bowing out and wondering, Juan Martin Del Potro finally losing after 23 consecutive wins and sobbing, the Bryan twins claiming a sixth Grand Slam doubles title and hugging, and what's left qualifying as pretty riveting.
With Serena Williams versus Jelena Jankovic, Roger Federer versus Novak Djokovic and Nadal versus Andy Murray, the six players in the men's semifinals and women's final have such distinction that the thinnest resume in the bunch belongs to Murray.
That's the Murray enjoying a breakthrough summer, the Murray who'll rise to No. 4 in the world come next week, the Murray who beat Djokovic to win the ATP Masters Series Cincinnati event, the Murray whose hardcourt comfort and brazen demeanor peg the U.S. Open as the Grand Slam he's most likely to win.
It's the Murray who said he didn't just come for the semifinals and said, "I think how you do in Slams is how you're remembered in tennis."
And it's the Murray of whom his opponent, No. 1 Nadal, conqueror of Murray three times this year including Wimbledon, said, "I'm not playing against a guy who his ranking is 50 and for him being in the semifinals is unbelievable, no? Andy, when I come here, for sure he know he can be in the semifinals and he can win the title, no? . . . So going to be nothing strange for him, no?"
That's the worst they've got left here.
On a women's tour in a tepid year, Williams versus Jankovic for the final Grand Slam rates dreamy only partly because the winner will ascend to No. 1 next week.
It's also the introduction of Jankovic and her ready smile to a Grand Slam final audience after two years spent banging hard on the door and losing in four other semifinals before she finally edged Elena Dementieva, 6-4, 6-4, on Friday and cried.
And it's also the reintroduction of Williams as a mainstay in her second straight Grand Slam final. "I've been saying I feel like I just started again, like I just feel so excited to be out there for every match," she said after a 6-3, 6-2 mastery of both the swirling winds and the world's hottest player since May, Dinara Safina.
