Below are the 2007 US Open Seeds (don’t bother clicking on the player links, it won’t do much good):

Here is a link to Men’s & Women’s Singles Draws.

As I write this, I’m doing laundry and packing for two weeks in New York, so I’ll keep this somewhat brief, but the following or some comments and predictions on what will happen in Flushing Meadows.

First off, Roger Federer does not have a difficult draw, as some have said.  He plays a qualifier in the first round, the winner of two qualifiers in the second round, and the first seed who he should come across is Jarkko Nieminen.  Jarkko is a solid player, but does not have the ability to raise his game to a level that would challenge Federer.  I realize he might have to play Roddick in the quarters, certainly earlier than he might have wanted to, but he is 13-1 against Roddick lifetime, so I think its worse news for Andy than it is for Roger.

Blake, who is in the semis of the Pilot Pen later today, received a terrific draw.  Even though I feel like I’ve said the exact same thing for the last few Grand Slams, I really feel as though this is Blake’s chance to break through the Semi’s of a Grand Slam (where he would face Roger and most likely lose).  His round of 16 matchup will probably be Haas or Baghdatis, which will obviously be a challenge, but in front of his hometown crowd I would definitely give Blake the upper hand.  Then in the quarters, where he has lost the last two years, he would probably face Davydenko, the 4th seed who Blake has never lost to in six matches.

On the bottom half, I would be pretty shocked if Nadal and Djokavic don’t end up facing each other in the Semi’s.  There are some intriguing names in their respective quarters, like Safin in Nadal, who is always a threat- but let’s be honest, do you really think Safin can keep his head together to win four matches to even get to Nadal?  Djokavic has a tougher road, possibly facing two players who were ranked in the top 10 last year in the first two rounds, in Mario Ancic and Radek Stepanek.  Hewitt is another guy in his quarter that could give the young Serb some trouble, but I think at the end of the day it will be Nadal vs. Djokavic that come through in the bottom half of the draw. 

In the end, I think Federer will take out Nadal in the final.  The only reason I’m picking Nadal to beat Djokavic in the semis is he should be a bit fresher as he seems to have a far easier road to that point than Djokavic. 

Over on the Women’s side, it’s a bit more complicated.  Before seeing the draw, if I were forced to pick my favorites for winning the open they would have looked like this – Henin, Serena, Sharapova, Venus, Jankovic, with Ivanovic just missing out on the last spot.  Well, congrats to Henin, who along with the number 1 seed, also has the pleasure of dealing with one of the more lopsided draws I’ve ever seen.  Both Williams sisters, Jankovic and Ivanovic are in her half, so if Henin manages to get through to the final it will certainly silence any remaining critics she has (truthfully, I don’t think she has any, it just sounded like the thing to write).

On Sharapova’s half, she certainly has some challenges to deal with, such as fellow Russians Petrova, Chakvatadze and Kuznetsova.  By the way, it’s almost as if the USTA wanted to guarantee Russian presence in the Women’s Finals, as the top four seeds on the bottom half are all from Ivan Drago’s homeland.  At the end of the day, I think we will see a Sharapova (I just can’t see her not making it out of the bottom half) vs. Serena Williams final, with Serena taking home her second slam of the year.  I’m picking Serena because getting through the dogfight that is the top half will be a matter of surviving and willing yourself to the next round, and Serena is better at that than anyone.

That wasn’t quite as brief as I had planned, I’ll be back as often as I can throughout the course of the tournament.  I’ll leave you with a link to an ESPN article by Greg Garber about Michael Russell.  One of the best pieces I’ve read about tennis in a long time, makes it hard to ever root against Russell (unless he is playing James Blake in the first round at the Open).

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Grand Slam General Questions, Tennis News, US Open: Travel Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.