US OPEN 2007: Men's Top 10 REVIEW

1 Federer, Roger (SUI). Prediction: Champion. Result: Champion. The soon-to-be-named Greatest Tenns Player Of All Time only lost a set twice in seven matches. In the second round he lost a tie-break set to a huge serving, 6-foot-9-inch American ex-collegiate player named John Isner in the third round and the very next round was outplayed for well over an hour by an athletic, left handed player from Spain with a huge serve named Feliciano Lopez. This led to the best match of the tournament, the quarterfinal matchup between last year's US Open finalist Andy Roddick and the 3-time defending champion. Despite playing his best tennis for well over two hours, the American found himself down two sets and a break and lost soon afterwards. That win basically decided that Federer would indeed win his 12th major title in four years. The Final was a mere formality, although Novak did make it interesting. Grade: A.

2 Nadal, Rafael (ESP). Prediction: Semifinalist or earlier. Result: Quarterfinalist, lost to David Ferrer. Finally, Nadal ran into someone who could run down even more balls than he could and his body simply failed him. The World #2 failed to live up to his seeding again on the hard courts of New York as his unheralded countryman seized the opportunity to dazzle on tennis' brightest stage. Grade: B-.

3 Djokovic, Novak (SRB). Prediction: Finalist. Result: Finalist, lost to Roger Federer. The Serbian phenom made his major final debut in this tournament, cementing his status as the second best hard-court tennis player in the world, despite what his Mom thinks. Thanks to David Ferrer, Djokovic was spared having to face the current World #2 player in his third consecutive grand slam semifinal of the year, having lost to Nadal at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and thus got his first opportunity at tennis greatness in New York. Unfortunately, he blew it. He had five set points in the first set and two in the second set and still managed to lose both of those sets, in an eerie reprise of the compelling quarterfinal match between Federer and Roddick just a few days before. In addition, despite John McEnroe's sycophantic commentary which refused to acknowledge any flaws or deficiencies in Djokovic's game, many tennis fans were appalled by the Next Big Thing's on-court behavior (such as half-emptying a water ball on the court and throwing his racquet) which in almost any other case would have led to at least a warning from the umpire. Grade: A-.

4 Davydenko, Nikolay (RUS). Prediction: Quarterfinalist or earlier. Result: Semifinalist, lost to Roger Federer. Despite having never beaten Federer in 10 tries, Davydenko still showed up to the semifinal showdown with his nemesis playing hard and actually served for the first set and despite losing that set, did not fade away like lesser players but even when down two sets to none was still fighting hard deep in the third set where he again earned set points. True, he lost the match but the consisten Russian beat every player ranked beneath him and forced the #1 seeded player to work harder than he expected to. Grade: A-/B+.

5 Roddick, Andy (USA). Prediction: Quarterfinalist or earlier. Result: Quarterfinalist, lost to Roger Federer. Roddick played his best tennis against Federer for two solid sets while Federer was playing good, but not great tennis. Somehow, the Swiss player's serve was more effective than the American's despite being significantly slower (hey, maybe speed size doesn't matter, after all). Federer ended the match with 15 aces to Roddick's 14. Over 3sets of tennis Roddick had 42 winners to just 24 errors (a very healthy +18) but Federer had 6 fewer errors and 6 more winners for a stunning +30 performance. So where does Roddick go from here? He has nothing to be ashamed about. He would have beaten anyone else in the tournament playing that kind of tennis (including this year's finalist). Grade: A-.

6 Blake, James (USA). Prediction: Semifinalist or early round loss. Result: Fourth Round, lost to Tommy Haas. Despite placing second in the US Open Series, a favorable draw and again winning his hometown tournament the week before the US Open James Blake was unable to make his long-awaited breakthrough at a major tournament. However, Blake was able to make an important personal breakthrough by winning his first 5-set match ever against the veteran French magician Fabrice Santoro but could not repeat the feat against the more talented Tommy Haas. Grade: B.

7 Gonzalez, Fernando (CHI). Prediction: Quarterfinalist or earlier. Result: 1st Round, Lost to Teimuraz Gabashvili. The less said about 2007 after January for the Australian Open finalist, the better. Grade: D.

8 Robredo, Tommy (ESP). Prediction: Early Round Loss. Result: 3rd Round, lost to Ernests Gulbis. Despite (or perhaps because?) he's the best looking player in the Top 10, Robredo doesn't get very much respect from the rest of the players, particularly when he's not playing on a clay court. However losing to a baby-faced, 19-year-old Latvian player named Ernests Gulbis is not conducive to changing player's impression that The Pretty One (El Guapo) is pretty wimpy. Grade: C-.

9 Berdych, Tomas (CZE). Prediction: Fourth Round. Result: Fourth Round, lost to Andy Roddick. Berdych put on a reasonable performance against Roddick for approximately one set of tennis, but after losing that set, the crumpled like a house of cards and actually retired a few games later. Grade: C+.

10 Haas, Tommy (GER). Prediction: At least Fourth Round. Result: Quarterfinalist, lost to Nikolay Davydenko. The confident, talent German player did well to eliminate James Blake in one of the best matches of the two weeks in the 4th Round but was unable to beat the Russian backboard. Grade: B+.

Maybe Mad Professah should predict the results of the men's draw more often! At the 2007 US Open, I made 10 predictions and 4 were spot on, and 4 more could be interpreted as being correct. Only Davydenko and Haas performed differently than I expected. This is very different from Mad Professah's predictions of the Top10 women's players performances where only 1 out of 9 performed exactly as I predicted. Part of the secret is to make flexible predictions, e.g. "semifinalist or earlier" but I think those kinds of predictions are possible in the men's game because the number of players who can potentially get far in any tournament is greater than on the men's side.

Anyway, the Grand Slam season for 2007 is over, here's looking forward to Australia in 2008!