Tennis, U.s. Open | featured news

The Open House twosome take a stab at defining great tennis, which, for New York, demands a Federer-Nadal final.

She came to New York rusty, injured and, by tennis standards, aging. She'll leave after another nice run at a Grand Slam title, though nice runs are not ever what Venus Williams has played for. Williams fell 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-4 to Kim Clijsters in the semifinals of the U.S. Open on Friday, ending a chance to win her first major championship in more than two years and her first title at Flushing Meadows since 2001.

On a wind-swept day at the U.S. Open that had everyone complaining about the conditions, Roger Federer simply embraced them.

Trying to complete a career Grand Slam, Rafael Nadal has won all 12 sets he's played so far at the 2010 U.S. Open.

Nobody can say Kim Clijsters took an easy path to her U.S. Open title last year. She played both Williams sisters.

Grit was not going to be enough to get Maria Sharapova through this one. Not with nine double-faults, including three in a row. Not with a total of 36 unforced errors. And certainly not with No. 1-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark across the net Monday in the fourth round of the U.S. Open, doing "what she does best," as Sharapova herself put it: getting to nearly every ball and hammering it back, stretching points on and on and on until her opponent misses the mark.

Five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer beat 13th-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3 Monday night to reach the quarterfinals at a 26th Grand Slam tournament in a row.

Even Rafael Nadal felt compelled to applaud when his second-round opponent at the U.S. Open hit a spectacular, full-sprint winner and was left doing the splits at the net.

A brawl between fans in the stands Thursday night briefly stopped a match between Novak Djokovic and Philipp Petzschner at the U.S. Open. Witnesses say the fisticuffs started when a female fan told a young man he should stop using the F-word. He challenged her to hit him if she had a problem with his language, and she slapped him in the face. He slapped her back, and another man joined the fray.

One woman's exit from the U.S. Open was jarring and sudden. Another's came off as sad and not all that surprising. Victoria Azarenka and Melanie Oudin said goodbye to Flushing Meadows in starkly different manners Wednesday - Azarenka, a concussion victim collapsing on the overheated court and Oudin a straight-set loser to a player who cared little about the 18-year-old's dreams of a fairy tale repeat.