US Open Report: Labor Day Weekend

While rain has wreaked havoc with today's schedule, the weather cooperated just enough over this past Labor Day weekend to complete every match scheduled.

Of course the big story still was the parallel farewell tours of former US Open champions Kim Clijsters and Andy Roddick. Clijsters effectively had her final match last Saturday losing in the second round of Mixed Doubles playing with Bob Bryan and against Ekaterina Makarova and Bruno Soares. For Roddick, the dream continues as he won a hard-fought third round match against Fabio Fognini. I ended up seeing the match live and the pervading sense of love and support Roddick was getting from the crowd really was something else. Roddick's next opponent is former US Open champion and 7th seed Juan Martin Del Potro. As I write this, their match has just started on TV.

Fittingly enough Roddick is the last American man in the tournament with 27th seed Sam Querrey losing to 6th seed Tomas Berdych and 9th seed John Isner upset by 19th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber in a thrilling 5-set match that ended after 2:30am. The only other American man to reach the 4th round other than Roddick is 23rd seed Mardy Fish who unfortunately had to withdraw from his match with top seed Roger Federer due to health reasons. This is after Fish upset 16th seed Gilles Simon in another late-night thriller. Fish's withdrawal also meant that Federer reaches his 34 consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals.

Unsurprisingly, Serena Williams is the lone American woman still in the draw and she has been dominant losing only 4 games in her last two matches including a 6-0 6-0 rout of Andrea Hlavackova in the fourth round. Top seed Victoria Azarenka also easily moves through as well as 12th seed Ana Ivanovic who reaches the QF for the first time since she won the 2008 French Open. Defending champion Sam Stosur ends Laura Robson's dream run while Maria Sharapova survives Nadia Petrova after being down a break in the third set. Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, who are still in the womens doubles draw as a team, move through to the quarterfinals after upsetting 6th seed Angelique Kerber and 2nd seed Agnieska Radwanska (the highest seed to lose so far). Finally, 5th seed Petra Kvitova loses a weird match to 11th seed Marion Bartoli 6-1, 2-6, 0-6.

Other notable results include 3rd seed Andy Murray winning a tight match against Feliciano Lopez in the third round and an easier-than-expected fourth round match against 15th seed Milos Raonic while 4th seed David Ferrer beats former champion Lleyton Hewitt in four sets. Other seeds through include 2nd seed Novak Djokovic, 8th seed Janko Tipsarevic, 12th seed Marin Cilic, 13th seed Richard Gasquet, and 18th seed Stan Wawrinka.