United States Open Tennis Tournament

NEW YORK -- A sport that's supposed to be decreasingly American had a heady American Labor Day at the U.S. Open, the host country propped up once more by that long, huge state on its left edge. Not only did two of California's most familiar daughters sustain their emphatic turn of saying hello again on Monday, but one of its freshest sons said a first hello to an Arthur Ashe Stadium that roared back approval at his arrival.

NEW YORK -- At the U.S. Open, Elena Dementieva has been pummeling tennis balls with the brute force of a battering ram and the ticktock consistency of a metronome. Mardy Fish, meantime, has little need for that kind of steadiness. He's spending most of his time slashing toward the net, a little McEnroe suddenly in his Floridian blood.

NEW YORK -- A long, stirring slog of a match that wore on through the Tuesday dinner hour came garnished with a most unusual soundtrack. It featured the repeated, guttural yells of one Roger Federer, the Swiss maestro long given to silent dominance and dominant silence. It had Federer as a sort of mini-Connors impersonating a jackhammer and vibrating his body in a double fist pump after a pivotal break of service in a fifth set.

NEW YORK -- This felt different, felt special, felt more like opening night at a Broadway show than a pro tennis match. As the Williams sisters took the court for their U.S. Open quarterfinal, inside the massive center court stadium the air cracked with excitement and electric energy. Walking shoulder to shoulder among a throng that numbered more than 20,000, you could hear the fans talk.

NEW YORK -- The old notion of Williams-vs.-Williams tennis matches as tepid affairs of impaired quality seemed to grow thoroughly outdated Wednesday at just before 11 p.m. New York time when a packed crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium suddenly couldn't help itself.

NEW YORK -- Something is wrong. Something is missing. The road is bumpy. The clutch is sticky. The searing hot dominance isn't quite as torrid as it used to be. The record will show that Thursday afternoon Roger Federer won a tennis match at the U.S. Open. His 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 victory over hard-serving journeyman Gilles Muller propelled the Swiss star to the semifinals of a Grand Slam for the 18th straight time.

NEW YORK -- The official language of New York, that special brand of booing that comes from someplace deep in the diaphragm, blared through Arthur Ashe Stadium late Thursday night, but the odd part about that was its recipient.

NEW YORK -- Kerplunk. This sound, or something quite like it, came Friday from Elena Dementieva's yellow racket when the most important moments arrived. It was the sound of tennis balls clumsily hit. The sound of them arriving on the racket too far from the center of the strings. The sound of them speeding off uncontrollably, zooming past the baseline or toward the net. Dementieva was my dark-horse pick to walk from here clutching the first-place hardware. She had just won gold in Beijing.

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.

NEW YORK -- That was more like it. More like the genius we're used to. More like sweet-swinging artiste we've come to know. "I definitely had that feeling out there today which I had quite often in the past," Roger Federer said, following a dismissal of Novak Djokovic that launched him into the U.S. Open finals for the fifth straight time. He said this while sitting at a table hunched over a microphone, typically understated. But on this day, there was nothing understated about his game.