Friday, August 24, 2012

What to expect?


This time around as we waited for the draw ceremony, for once we weren't waiting to see if Roger and Novak were again going to be in the same half.  It wasn't even possible.  And for the first time in a long time Roger would be leading the field at the very top of the draw.  What had everyone's curiosity piqued, however, was who was going to be the unfortunate one to get Andy Murray in their half and who was going to be the lucky dog to get David Ferrer.  Well, we all know the answer to that by now.  On the one hand I was disappointed, but on the other hand I could already see it, if it would have gone the other way, that if Roger ended up winning, that people would have said "it wasn't fully deserved because he had such an easy draw" or other such comments.  Even though Rafa isn't there, going through both Murray and Djokovic to win his 6th U.S. Open would be a huge accomplishment.

I'm sure the guys in Ferrer's quarter are dancing for joy at the opportunity they have to get through to the semifinal.  There are any number of them who could be there.  I don't see hardly any chance that whoever gets there won't be facing Novak Djokovic, however.  In Murray's section there are a few potential upsets with Tsonga, Raonic and others who could be a danger.  The biggest threat to Federer is Berdych.  He hasn't been playing all that well lately, so we will see if he regains his form with more matches on hard courts. 

I was interested to see the predictions by the ESPN group on who they thought would win for men and women.  I was happy to see that Chris Evert, Brad Gilbert and Patrick McEnroe all thought Federer was the guy, while eight others chose Djokovic.  Interesting not one of them picked Murray as the winner.  And across the board they went for Serena for the women.

While I definitely predict seeing a Federer-Djokovic final, it's really hard to say for sure what's going to happen after that.  A lot depends on how tough their matches are leading up to the final.  Of course one of them could be upset early, but that would be big news.  What I do know though, is I can't wait for Monday to get it all started!

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