2017 US OPEN: R16 Is Set, Both Draw Wide Open

The 2017 US Open continues in New York City. I will be visiting the tournament today and tomorrow but the weather is not cooperating, with rain scheduled until mid-afternoon on Sunday (but Monday should be bright and sunny).

On the men's side there are 16 players remaining in the draw and 11 of them are seeded, although only six of these are in the top 16 and in the lower half of the draw the highest seeded player is #12 Pablo Carreno Busta! Meanwhile in the top 1/2 of the draw Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are still on track for their first-ever meeting at the U.S. Open, which could happen in the semifinals, if they both win 2 more matches. Federer will play Phillip Kohlschreiber (whom he has never lost to in 11 meetings) while Nadal will face Aleksandr Dolgopolov who actually has won 2 of 8 meetings. But also in the top half remains 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro and #6 Dominic Thiem. This is one impact of the fact that in addition toAndy Murray, three of four 2016 U.S. Open semifinalists (Wawrinka, Djokovic and Nishikori) did not play the tournament this year.

There's a lot of buzz about how wide open the tournament is but on the women's side while there are only 9 seeded players in the remaining seven of these are top 16 seeds. In fact, there are still 4 major champions remaining (although they are all in the bottom half of the draw): Venus  Willliams (7), Maria Sharapova (5), Garbine Muguruza (2), Petra Kvitova (2). Happily, I will get to see Muguruza and Kvitova fight for a quarterfinal slot tonight. In the top half of the draw #1 Karolina Pliskova and #4 Elina Svitolina and #15 Madison Keys are lurking. There are 5 remaining American left in the round of 16, the most since 2002: Keys, Venus,  Jennifer Brady, Sloane Stephens and CoCo Vandeweghe (who finally beat her bete noire Aga Radwanska in the round before and may be building on her 2017 Australian Open semifinal run).