CBSSports.com: American men nowhere to be found deep in 2009 U.S. Open

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- Maybe John McEnroe can save the U.S. Open. Sure, he's 50 years old. But he still has a forehand. And a name. And he's American, a triple that at this point in the last Grand Slam tennis event of the year makes him the one and only man in all three categories.

John's a broadcaster now, as you're aware. He no longer shouts at chair umpires. He comments into a microphone, telling the way it is and, especially when somebody misplays a shot, the way it should be.

In a way, this is his tournament. He grew up in Queens, not far from the tennis center, and after spending a year irritating people at Stanford, returned. He won the Open three times. He was emotional, occasionally irrational and supremely talented.

If he's not the most famous male on the grounds -- let's give the honor to Roger Federer -- Mac the Mouth sure is well known and respected. And cooperative. He'll do anything to help his sport.

Novak Djokovic, the No. 4 men's seed, waved Mac out of the booth Monday evening after Djokovic blitzed Radek Stepanek in straight sets. The night was young. Midnight still was 13 minutes away. Let's get it on.

First, McEnroe had to get it off, meaning his coat and tie. Then he slipped into his tennis shoes and rallied briefly. The fans loved it, of course.

They haven't loved a great deal else the way the men's draw has gone, from a parochial view. Six Americans made it to the third round, and one of them, James Blake, overly optimistic, contended, "All these guys are hungry. We're all getting better, feeding off each other."

But of those six, only one, John Isner, went to the fourth round. And when he was eliminated, for the first time in the 129 years of the event, whether the U.S. National Championships or starting in 1968 the U.S. Open, no American male reached the quarterfinals.

McEnroe's younger brother Patrick, who also played for Stanford, who also announces and who happens to be the U.S. Davis Cup captain, conceded, "The reality is the reality. The world has caught up at the same time I believe we can do a better job."

Great Britain didn't do a very good job, either. Andy Murray, the Scot, is No. 2 in the world and was a finalist here last year. But Tuesday he was ripped by a 20-year-old Croatian, Marin Cilic, 7-5, 6-2, 6-2.

Cilic's next opponent is five days older and 10 seeds higher, No. 6 Juan Martin Del Potro, who Tuesday was a 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 winner over Juan Carlos Ferrero. Del Potro is American -- South American, having grown up in the cattle town of Tandil, Argentina.

He's the sort of kid -- Del Potro will be 21 on Sept. 23 -- the United States only wished it had. He beat Andy Roddick in a final in August at Washington, D.C., and seven days later lost to Murray in the final at Montreal.

"I have the confidence," Del Potro said. "I beat many good players in Washington and Montreal, and now I beat good players on this surface." Meaning cement, very unlike the clay courts upon which he learned the game in Argentina.

"I have everything to do a good tournament," said Del Potro, not as adept in English as other players on Tour. "But I would like to be in the semis or my first final.

"It's a big difference past the quarters to the semis. I was so close in French Open to get to the final."

Close? Never mind close. If John McEnroe were 30 years younger, the U.S. would be close to having a man who could play tennis like people from the rest of the world.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12176032
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: New York version of Grand Slam all about fun, entertainment

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- They've made it here. It doesn't matter if they can make it anywhere else.

The United States Tennis Association found the formula to mine gold, to make history, to have a tournament that's an event, noisy, boisterous and, as Andy Roddick verified at 12:45 a.m. ET Tuesday, virtually never-ending.

Truly, there's nothing like it. Other than the corner of 42nd and Broadway. Or 57th and Lexington. Or other intersections in Manhattan.

Wimbledon is quiet lawns and British reserve. The French Open, Roland Garros, is clay courts and long rallies. The U.S. Open is a crowded, rollicking 14 days of celebrity watching, T-shirt selling, latte sipping, beer guzzling, pastrami chewing and great shot-making.

Night and day it goes. Day and night. Seemingly no sooner had Roddick departed in the wee hours than Julia Goerges and 2004 women's singles champion Svetlana Kuznetsova were arriving for their 11 a.m. start. Less than an hour and a half later, Kuznetsova was a 6-3, 6-2 winner.

On to Arthur Ashe Court came the No. 1 women's seed, Dinara Safina, and an Australian named Olivia Rogowska, ranked 167th in the world. And on to the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center came thousands of fans, great gobs of them standing in the bright sunshine outside the stadium, in front of the fountain and watching on the big TV screen as Rogowska took a 3-0 lead in the third set.

Screams and gasps. How could this be happening, the top seed getting beat in the first round? By the time anyone else figured it out, Safina had figured it out, slipping by Rogowska, 6-7, 6-2, 6-4.

"I try to do something good," said Safina, the Russian, who, despite never having won a Grand Slam event is atop the women's rankings, "but when it doesn't go good, then I go like too much into myself, what I'm doing right, wrong, instead of thinking what I have to do with the ball."

Which, of course, is hit it over the net to places where Rogowska can't hit back over the net.

Then, echoing Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, Safina mused that she had made it to the next round "and tomorrow is another day."

Sometimes at the Open, it's difficult to separate yesterday, today and tomorrow. You know the line, about waking up in the city that never sleeps. What about not going to bed at all?

For years they've been writing songs about late hours in New York, "... When a Broadway baby says good night it's early in the morning ..." It's hard to say if the milkman was on his way when Roddick said good night -- do they still have people who deliver milk? -- but presumably some people were on their way to work.

There were some opening-night ceremonies with famous types, including the former basketball player David Robinson, and by the time Venus Williams and Vera Dushevina began, it was almost 8 o'clock.

When they finished, Venus staggering through in three sets, it was almost 11. And Roddick and his opponent, Bjorn Phau, still were waiting.

"The later the better," Roddick would say. "You know what it is. It's just something that's always been there in New York. It's tough sometimes. It's all part of it, kind of the crazies who stay 'til 1 in the morning. There's something fun about that."

Fun is an appropriate word for the Open. And lunacy. Tennis often is thought as a dispassionate activity for the elite. But here they've turned it into around-the-clock entertainment.

James Blake has a cheering section, the "J Block." Sam Querrey, the kid from Southern California who Tuesday beat Michael Yani, is shouted on by his "Samurai."

The famous Carnegie Deli has a booth here, and the lineup for one of those monster corned beef sandwiches is almost as long as it is to get on to Court 13, where Tuesday the lineup included Fernando Verdasco, the No. 10 seed, who defeated B. Becker -- Benjamin, not Boris.

Ralph Lauren Polo is the official clothing outfitter for the Open, but Nike and LaCoste, which Roddick wears, are well represented. If unofficially.

Nike is not allowed to use the phrase U.S. Open on its attire, so the stuff has subtle references such as "New York 2009." A T-shirt with those words costs $22, while a Nike model with "RF" (for Roger Federer) runs $40.

The New York Post had its fashion reporter, one Anahita Moussavian, critique the clothing and jewelry on display by the competitors. The observations were hardly positive.

Moussavian called Serena Williams' choice of basic black for night matches "misguided" and described Roddick's shirts and shorts as "a double fault ... it's boring."

She's entitled to her opinion, but if there's any description that never should be applied to the U.S. Open, it's "boring." On the contrary. For two weeks, the Open might be the most exciting place in the country.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12143436
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.