The US Open draw was released on Wednesday August 23rd. The 2005 champions were Kim Clijsters (who is out with a left wrist injury) and Roger Federer. The list of seeded players is available. Here is my preview of this year's U.S. Open.
(1) Amélie Mauresmo. 2006 has been the Frenchwoman's breakthrough year with two Grand Slam titles seven years after reaching the 1999 Australian Open final. Although her mental issues have been resolved by her recent major success she has been injured recently and lost pretty easily to a still-recovering-from-injury Davenport last week. She looked particularly sluggish in her first round match, but that could also have been due to the atrocious weather conditions. Prediction: Quarter/Semi-Finalist.
(2) Justine Henin-Hardenne. The "Little Backhand That Could" has reached the final of the first three Grand Slam tournaments of the year, the first woman to do that since Martina Hingis in 1997. However, the Belgian lost two of those finals to Mauresmo. She has a pretty good chance of getting to the final in New York also, but I suspect that Vaidisova, Dementieva and Schnyder will not be enough to prevent her from completing the significant achievement of reaching all four major finals in a calendar year. I may revise this prediction later in the tournamrnt. Prediction: Semi/Finalist.
(3) Maria Sharapova. As usual, the now hulking 6'3" Russian American phenom has a favorable draw at a major. However,this time I think she is tanned, rested and ready to take advantage of her luck and go all the way to the final. Prediction: Finalist.
(4) Elena Dementieva. She has a beautiful draw, with no one really causing her problems until the quarterfinal. Her serve has improved and her title win in Los Angeles recently shows that she is playing well on hardcourts. She has made it at least as far as the semifinals in the last two US Opens and I think she will equal that performance this year. Prediction: Quarter/Semi-Finalist.
(5) Nadia Petrova. No one was playing better than the mercurial Nadia during this year's clay court season but then she had a shock early round loss at the French and a serious groin injury and hasn't been the same since. Prediction: Early Round loss.
(6) Svetlana Kuznetsova. The 2004 champion has had something of a comeback this year by winning "the fifth major" (the NASDAQ-100 Open soon to be renamed the Sony Ericsson Open) in March over Sharapova and reaching the Roland Garros final against Henin-Hardenne. Prediction: Fourth Round loss.
(7) Patty Schnyder. The crafty lefty has often underperformed in Grand Slams. She's stuck in the half of the draw with Henin-Hardenne, Vaidisova, Dementieva and Davenport. Prediction: Fourth Round loss.
(8) Martina Hingis. The come-back kid was destroyed last week by hard-hitting Ana Ivanovic two weeks ago in Montreal. The bad news for the Swiss Miss that Ivanovic is in her quarter and even if she gets past that she would have to play Sharapova. Prediction: Quarter-Finalist.
(9) Nicole Vaidisova. The knowledgeable Jon Wertheim is predicting the hard-hitting Czech will make it to the final against Sharapova. I don't really disagree but I want to wait until the beginning of the second week until I see how Vaidisova is reacting to the raised expectations by her impressive run on clay. Prediction: Semi-finalist.
(10) Lindsay Davenport. Had to retire with a sore arm last Sunday in the title match against Henin-Hardenne at the Pilot Pen tournament in New Haven. May be retiring from a lot more in 2007. If she can play through the pain she should be able to make it to a quarterfinal against Henin-Hardenne but I don't see her getting through that match without divine intervention or Prediction: Quarter-Finalist.
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