David Nalbandian will never win over fans with his personality. Disdainful of the media, surly with tour officials and opponents and seemingly indifferent to his public persona, the Argentine has no time for the image-making responsibilities that come with sports celebrity.

But the former Wimbledon finalist’s crafty, dogged style can be captivating, even beautiful. For opponents, it can be maddening. So while it might be a stretch to say he was missed in the locker rooms or press briefings, Nalbandian’s return in February following hip surgery is a notable addition to the start of the 2010 tennis season, the meat of which really begins here in the California desert. With the women’s tour oversaturated with comeback stories, Nalbandian is the most intriguing return-from-prominence narrative on the other side of the aisle (Mario Ancic is a close second).


Nalbandian faces a tough road. At 28, he is on the back end of his career. And few players have returned to their previous level after going under the knife to repair a damaged hip, as Nalbandian did last May. It brought down the career curtain on some big names, among them three-time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten and former No. 2 Magnus Norman. What’s more, Nalbandian is no stranger to physically taxing matches. A shotmaker hiding inside a grinder’s mentality, Nalbandian often seems to possess a masochistic streak, preferring to torture and frustrate his opponents before putting them out of their misery. We sometimes joke in the press room that a two-set deficit for Nalbandian is a sign he’s done warming up.

Whatever his shortcomings, Nalbandian has always been a big tournament player. I use that phrase to distinguish him from being a big-match player, which, he has demonstrated on numerous occasions, he is not. Check the stats. Despite his all-surface talents, the Argentine has never won more than two titles in any season, and owns just 10 in a decade-long career. On the other hand, he has captured the season-ending Masters Cup and is one of only four active players along with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic with an appearance in the semifinals of all four majors.

In the players’ lounge Friday, the former No. 3 said it was too early to predict whether he could recapture the form that made him a deep threat in any tournament with mega prize money or best-of-five sets. His immediate goal is matches. “First of all, I want to be on court again and try to play healthy a few tournaments,” a surprisingly pleasant Nalbandian said after beating Stefan Koubek of Austria 6-2, 7-6 (2) to move into the second round. Sunday, he goes up against streaky No. 22 seed Jurgen Melzer, also of Austria. With a few tournaments under his belt, he added, he could better assess where his game is. “I think they can be high goals,” he said, “but I don’t know if I am 100%, 90% or 75%. I have to play a few tournaments to see how good I am.”

Nalbandian’s on-court ethic rarely has been in question. Off-court, there have been rumors and reports of life in the fast lane, both figuratively and literally (he is a big fan of race car driving). Nalbandian insisted he dedicated himself to his recovery all last year, working hard five days a week and only taking time to pursue his hobbies like fishing and speedy driving on weekends. He also hung out with his extended family at his home of Cordoba for the first time in years. “It was the most time I spent there since I was 12-13,” he says.



His recovery still took longer than anticipated. Nalbandian, who is ranked No. 139 but has a protected ranking, hoped to return in January at Auckland and then play at the Australian Open. He had to pull out, and then suffered another setback at his return in February on clay at Buenos Aires. He won his first two matches and then withdrew due to an abductor tear in his right leg. It left him wondering if he had come back too soon. “It was a long time out of the circuit,” he said. “I’m not 100 percent happy with the beginning of the year.”

That didn’t dissuade him from traveling to Sweden for his country’s first-round Davis Cup tie this month. Despite his backup role, Nalbandian played the hero in his first Davis Cup match since the ugly infighting during the team’s tense loss to Spain in the 2008 final. He bested Andreas Vinciguerra 7-5 6-3 4-6 6-4 in the decisive fifth rubber for 3-2 win in Stockholm.

Nalbandian admits it was “a lot of risk to play there.” But it was the kind of lift he needed, even if he has arrived at Indian Wells drained. “It was good for the mind, for the confidence….I’m a little bit tired, but it feels good.” He adds: “I think the people know I love Davis Cup.”

If Nalbandian can’t compete in the big events, will he hang it up? It’s hard to see a player with nearly $10 million in earnings that performs best at significant tournaments satisfied with a top-50 ranking and first-week exits at Slams. But he said that would not necessarily drive him from the tour. If he can’t be an elite player again, he said he would reassess -- “try new goals,” in his words. Then he smiled, his crystal blue eyes beaming. “It can be,” he said of attaining his former place in the sport.

    

Most tennis observers saw the positive news this week for women’s tennis with Sony Ericsson staying on as a major sponsor. Some of the news reports on the extension with the WTA left me wondering what the “same level of profitability” meant. It also wasn’t clear to me if the tour could go ahead and sell title rights before the current agreement ends in 2012.

The answer to the latter is no. By renegotiating the last year of the six-year deal that ends this year and extending an agreement to 2012, Sony Ericsson is taking its name off the WTA but not its position as sponsor kingpin. As the tour’s leading global sponsor, any other company seeking title sponsorship can’t sidestep Sony. The upshot: The WTA will have no title sponsor through 2012. “The agreement specifies that we will not sell above them,” a tour spokesman told me.



In the case of profit margins, which the tour has said will essentially remain the same, one must keep in mind that the $88 million Sony ponied up six years ago is a gross number and does not reflect all the goods, services and other benefits the tour delivers. Under the new terms, Sony is paying the tour less – 40% less than the $14.7 million annual average, according to Sports Business Journal – but also getting less in return. Thus, the tour’s profit margin is about the same, even though it is receiving less gross sponsorship money from Sony than before.

As reported, the tour has a free hand to re-sell the title sponsorship at its year-end event the through 2012. That includes the final year in Doha (2010) and two of the three years when it relocates to Istanbul from 2011-13.

    

I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus -- is there such a thing in this 24/7 news cycle we live in? -- but we will be back.

    

With Andre Agassi hitting the airwaves in force today – morning TV shows, NPR, David Letterman – and Marat Safin ending his career with a loss in Paris, it occurred to me that they make nice bookends for a quick discussion of what they have been unduly called out for: hypocrisy.

As we learn in Agassi’s new book, Open, the eight-time major winner consistently said one thing while thinking another, layered the truth in white lies and on occasion delivered outright falsities. The volatile Safin was equally prone to complete contradictions or statements that served the efficacy of the moment.

        

I don’t condone Agassi for his lies to the ATP after testing positive for meth anymore than I do Safin’s relentless double-sided bitching (good entertainment though it was). But I also think both these players deserve some slack. Everyone evolves. Everyone changes his or her mind from teenager to 30-year-old. Everyone is entitled to develop, grow up, or as in the case of Agassi, reinvent himself. These are young, famous, continually scrutinized and ultimately fragile people. Why should we hold them to a standard by which they are not allowed to change, to advance, to figure out who they are and what they are doing? They are human beings, flawed and often with the most narrow of blinders.

If they were politicians, different story. Those are people we elect with a contract that they will serve our needs based on their policy positions. When they switch mid-course for personal, political or philosophical reasons, we, the voters, get burned. Athletes? Not so much.

And, a large part of the appeal of personalities like Agassi and Safin is that we get to see them progress, see their mistakes, their struggles, their triumphs, and can relate them to our own lives, or identify with them, however great or small the similarities might be. Who couldn’t love a guy who was so excited after a brilliant drop shot winner that he pulled down his pants. Who can’t admire a man who goes out of his way to point out his flaws and has meantime become one of this era’s greatest philanthropists?

If you didn’t catch it, here is Monday’s USA Today’s Agassi story, with links to part II and part III of the interview, plus and a reaction story. Here, too, is my piece on Safin today.

    

OK, it wasn’t over a meal, but I did spend a delicious hour with Agassi in Las Vegas at his eponymous academy a few days ago for a story in USA Today that will run Monday. Whatever one thinks about Agassi – pre- or post- his new book, Open – the guy knows how to articulate his views, however conflicted, duplicitous and self-serving they can feel at times. When you sit down with Andre, you have a conversation. That is rare in this era of Teflon tennis players.

Agassi preparing for the photo shoot on the roof of his academy in Las Vegas

The book is chock-full of insight one rarely sees in the jock genre. Agassi mocks several of his peers, among them Boris Becker (he and Gilbert call him “B.B. Socrates” for his phony high-minded intellectualism), Michael Chang for his holier-than-thou religiosity, and Thomas Muster, who once tousled his hair at the net following a loss. He disembowels Jimmy Connors, who he first met as a 7-year-old, labeling the five-time U.S. Open winner an “egomaniac prick.” He relates how after his final match in 2006 only one man stood apart and refused to applaud in the locker room – Connors. “Poor Andy” he says of Roddick, then coached by the five-time U.S. Open champ. He labels Nick Bollettieri “The warden,” and disses not only his tennis knowledge but also his narcissistic greed. 

Gil Reyes, Andre’s surrogate father figure, comes off as a near hero. Ditto his two main coaches, Brad Gilbert and Darren Cahill. Andre’s childhood friend, confidante and ex-business partner, Perry Rogers, also is shown in a positive light. Their subsequent financial battle and personal rift is not discussed, however. Nor is Rogers mentioned in the acknowledgements, but as Andre explained to me, the book ends at age 36, before that happened. 

Perhaps no one comes off worse than his father, Mike, who Agassi depicts as a tyrannical, sadistic, hard-charging and heartless figure that is “violent by nature.” There is a stream of other revelations – how he beat NFL great Jim Brown as a 9-year-old to win a bet for his dad; how his biggest fear going into the 1990 French Open final was losing his hairpiece; how his father gave him speed or some kind of upper as a junior before matches; and the most sensationalized portion, his use of crystal meth during his fog of 1997 and his lie to the ATP to avoid a drug suspension when he tested positive. (Agassi told me he wasn’t even sure what the drug was since his assistant “Slim” bought it, prepared it and dispensed it.) There is his ill-fated marriage to actress Brooke Shields and his warm-and-cuddly courting of Stef(anie) Graf. There are some beautiful lines in the book, too, such as this one about Agassi's tormented soul: “This gap, this contradiction between what I want to do and what I actually do, feels like the core of my life.” (Thanks J.R. Moehringer). And much more. 

Suffice to say, this is a must-read for tennis fans and a near-must for anyone else.

Beyond the juicy anecdotes in the autobiography, the central question for me after reading the book and talking to Andre is this: If the eight-time major winner has had a consistent pattern of concealing the truth or outright lying, why should we believe what he writes now? Frankly, I’m not sure where I fall, particularly since I didn’t cover tennis during the most turbulent times of his career. People will have to make that determination for themselves. I will give him the benefit of the doubt in this regard. It’s his book, it’s his memory, it’s his view of his own life. He’s entitled to lay it out as he sees it, though the truth, too, can be “open” to interpretation.

    

Misery loves company, or at least it provides a platform for commiseration. That could partly explain the growing romantic bond between tennis player Ana Ivanovic and Adam Scott, two promising young stars suffering through major slumps.

Scott, 29, and Ivanovic, 21, met prior to January’s Australian Open and have been captured by paparazzi together at golf events, the beach, and canoodling in New York City. While their relationship has blossomed, their careers have withered.

The likable Ivanovic won her first major at the French Open in 2008 and became the first from Serbia to reach No. 1 before a string of injuries and self-doubt undid her steady progress. Her last significant title came at Indian Wells, Calif., 19 months ago (she has none in 2009) and she pulled the plug on her season for what amounts to a mental health break following first round losses at the U.S. Open and Tokyo (including this odd announcement on her website in which she said she had over trained in the early part of the season and suffered from a shoulder injury that demanded a change to her service motion). Ivanovic, 3-4 since Wimbledon, dropped out of the top-10 and is sure to fall further than her present No. 13.

Scott, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and just the second player born in the 1980s (along with Sergio Garcia) to reach the top-5 in the world rankings, has been embroiled in his own tailspin. The Adelaide native hasn’t posted a top-10 finish since tying for second at the Sony Open in January, and he’s missed 10 of 17 cuts thereafter. His ranking has fallen from a high of No. 3 to No. 69 in 16 months.

Scott was in town for last weekend’s President Cup at Harding Park, so I pulled him aside to get his view on sweetheart Ivanovic’s state of mind (she did not accompany him). Scott told me that they were able to sympathize with each other’s career woes and that it offered a point of intersection. “Yeah, for sure,” he chuckled. “It’s not easy.”

Scott, a somewhat controversial captain’s pick by fellow Aussie Greg Normal who went 1-4 in the competition won by the USA, explained that it was probably wise for Ivanovic to take some time away from tennis and didn’t question her reasoning. “It’s been a rough year,” he said. “If she thinks that’s the right thing to do, it’s the right thing to do.”

Scott didn’t say if he was planning to join Ivanovic for a mini hiatus, but he said he is confident that she will be back. Few observers of the women’s game would want anything other than a strong return from one of the sport’s most pleasing stars, both on and off the court. “I think she’s so talented that she’ll be fine,” he insisted. “She just needs to get really healthy.”

    

Rio’s win in the Olympic sweepstakes is obviously the big headline of the day. My take? As a native Chicagoan, I’m disappointed, mostly because I know my birthplace of 3 million residents is one of the world’s great and perennially underrated cities. Rarely does anyone who visits come away unimpressed. It has tons going for it: world-class architecture, a stunning lakefront, excellent transportation infrastructure, sports-mad locals, a great music/comedy/entertainment scene, etc. Plus, it has that annual collective glee that bursts out in its many music and cultural festivals that only cities caked in ice for several months can showcase when the temperature rises. Summer in Chi-Town is full of fun, celebration and solidarity.

Did I think Chicago was going to win? I did. I’ll cop to bias when it comes to the Windy City. And I’ve long subscribed to the continental rotational theory, which based on recent and future Summer Games (’00 Sydney, ’04 Athens, ’08 Beijing, ’12 London) means that ’16 should have been in America. I suppose since it’s South America, that counts. Based on some articles I’ve read, it sounds like the U.S.O.C. bungled the bid. It apparently also has lost some of its influence.

“The United States, within the Olympic movement, hasn’t engaged as well as we could have for a long time,” Robert Ctvrtlik, the U.S.O.C. vice president for international relations, told the NY Times. “There’s a lot of politics going on. This isn’t just on the merits. I don’t think it’s anti-American. Maybe we still don’t have the horsepower to do some of the politicking within the movement.”

While the last minute lobbying of the Obama’s will be parsed in the days ahead – did it help or hurt? – certainly no one expected that kind of firepower to fall so flat. Voted out in the first round? Forget Second City. How about Fourth? Even some IOC members were stunned. “I’m shocked,” Australian IOC member Kevin Gosper told The Associated Press. “The whole thing doesn’t make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote. To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round is awful and totally undeserving.”

No doubt Rio will put on a mind-bending party. South America also deserves its first chance to stage the Games. Hopefully it won’t bankrupt Rio or drag down the Brazilian economy. The Summer Games are an expensive prospect to carry. They certainly have the panache to put on a spectacular experience. My one caveat (at the expense of sounding bitter): My experience in Brazil and with Brazilians (both as tourist and journalist) is that organization is not their strong suit. But that never stopped me from downing a few caipirinhas.

    

Today is the first day of Q4 2009, and as good a time as any to get back on the blogging wagon after a month-long hiatus. This posting will just be a small warmup. Much has gone down in the tennis world since the end of August -- the emergence of Melanie Oudin and Yanina Wickmayer, the coming of age of Juan Martin del Potro, Serena-gate, and most recently the not-so-surprising return of Justine Henin. As rumors swirled of a return and compatriot Kim Clijsters fought her way to the U.S. Open title in just her third tournament back after a two-plus year layoff, I joked to a colleague of mine that Henin was no doubt sweating buckets on a treadmill in the middle of the night in Europe watching her longtime rival win the final on TV.

In any case, here's the sabbatical story I wrote when the news of Henin's comeback broke. I don't begrudge her the right to change her mind, but it is remarkable how adamant she was that she was done with competitive tennis just a few months ago. Even Larry Scott, who was WTA Tour CEO when Henin pulled the plug on her career (he's now head of the Pac-10 Conference) told me by email he was surprised. The video clip of her press conference at this year's French Open (as Tweeted by my friend and respected colleague Bonnie Ford at ESPN.com) proves how definitive she was. The first two questions in the clip are from yours truly, followed by Ford. Here also is my second-day follow on Clijsters' victory in USA Today, which only ran online.

I noted with interest Roger Federer's decision to pull out of Tokyo and Shanghai last week. Though he cited a "physically challenging year" for his withdrawal, I wonder if his back is acting up again. While it received less attention for his struggles in 2008 ("struggles" being relative since he won a major and reached two other Grand Slam finals), Federer told me this summer than it was a big reason he did not feel physically up to par for much of last year. He also had mononocleosis. The bad back affected his movement, but also his serving, which was horrendous in last month's U.S. Open loss to del Potro. According to the stats page I just pulled out of my file, the Swiss No. 1 hit a paltry 50% of his first serves in (41% in the first set, which he won 6-3) and blasted 11 aces -- 44 fewer than he did against Andy Roddick in his five-set Wimbledon win. While that doesn't tell the entire story of the match -- del Potro gets props for taking speed off his own first serve to up his percentage and pummel Federer with his increasingly deadly forehand -- it does suggest something was wrong, that perhaps Federer was not able to stretch up enough on his first serve comfortably. That he was having back issues was confirmed after the match by a member of his team, though Federer, class act that he is, never mentioned any physical ailment after his defeat.

Meanwhile, in Japan this week, the top women have dive bombed out of the tournament like kamakazi, bolstering the contention that few WTA players can manage the long season and their fragile psyches at the same time. Look for strong showings from two of the women still alive -- Maria Sharapova and Jelena Jankovic -- for the remainder of the fall. Sharapova craves matches and is hell-bent on building up her match toughness, while Jankovic has mega points to defend from her late-season push in '08 to finish the year No. 1. It's only a year removed, but it must feel like a lifetime for the streaky Serb.

    

We're down to the final major of the season, and I find myself more excited for New York than I have been in recent years. In 2008, the players dragged themselves in for the season-ending Slam after the Beijing Olympics. This year, everyone arrives fresher, more eager, with an eye for making up lost opportunities. More than a handful of players come into the Big Apple with bright prospects, and perhaps more important, fresh legs. 
My predictions:

Men's Singles:
Winner:   Murray
Finalist:   Djokovic

The top of the men's game has rarely been as deep and consistent. Week in and week out, the top 6-8 players make deep runs in big tournaments. Whoever makes it to the second week here will have to play lights-out ball because there aren't likely to be too many surprises or upstarts in later rounds.

On the men's side, I'm going with Scotland's Andy Murray. He genuinely likes New York. He was a junior champion here and he calls it his favorite Slam (a poke perhaps at stuffy Wimbledon). He trains here and owns a place in Florida. He reached the NY final in '08, and throughout the season he has been the most consistent player on hard courts, with two big titles (Indian Wells and Montreal) and a ATP Tour-best 34-3 record. It won't be easy for him or anyone, but I think he has enough Grand Slam seasoning and confidence to muscle in on the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal duopoly (incredibly, they have won 17 of the last 18 majors). Two things could hold him back: His penchant for passivity in long matches; and a brutal draw.


Federer -- back at No. 1, secure in history with a record 15th Grand Slam, a father of new twin girls -- heads the top half of the men's draw. It's hard to argue with the silken Swiss reaching another final. He's the hottest player on tour with a 26-1 mark and four wins in his last five events. He's also the five-time defending champ. He brushed aside two of his main nemeses, Murray and Novak Djokovic in winning Cincinnati. During the three days I spent in Cincy reporting tomorrow's cover story on him for USA Today, he appeared as relaxed as I've seen him. As Mike Bryan told me, "He's on cloud nine." But I felt he was almost too relaxed, which is why I'm not picking him to reach the final.

Federer has a tough road even to the semis in the top quarter of the draw, with the likes of 2001 champ Lleyton Hewitt in the third round, James Blake in the fourth, and either French Open runner-up Robin Soderling or No. 8 Nikolay Davydenko in the last eight. Those opponents won't allow him to relax much, but 28-year-old has too many weapons -- not to mention the growing affection of local fans -- to fall before the final Saturday.

The other quarter in the top part of the draw features No. 4 Djokovic and No. 5 Andy Roddick. There are some other dangerous players around -- New Haven champ Fernando Verdasco, Tommy Haas, John Isner, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Igor Andreev -- but I expect Djokovic and Roddick to face off in the quarters. Roddick has owned Djokovic this season, going 3-0, all on hard courts. But this time I'm going with the Serb. Djokovic has been a bit of an enigma this year, reaching four Masters finals but repeatedly coming up short. What caused him to lose his way after a stellar start to 2008 that included an Australian Open title is unclear. Did he get too cocky? The racket switch to start 2009? The distraction of owning, running and playing in a tournament in his home country? Whatever the case, the super talented Serb is due for a big result, and despite the ill-will he generated with fans in New York last year, I'm picking the 22-year-old Serb to get past Roddick and Federer and reach his second U.S. Open final in three years.

The lower half is brimming with talent, too. The top quarter features No. 7 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Thomas Berdych, Fernando Gonzalez, Gael Monfils, 2007 U.S. Open semifinalist David Ferrer and, of course, third-ranked Nadal. That's a lot of firepower. I believe Nadal when he says he arrives in New York in less than top form, though the 23-year-old Spaniard usually downplays his chances. He played well to beat Berdych in Cincy, but overall he hasn't looked as sharp in his movement or serving as he did when he won in Melbourne or prior to his two-month injury absence. A tricky first-round opponent in returning Richard Gasquet won't cause many problems (Gasquet is still too shellshocked from his doping suspension) and I expect Nadal to get better with each match, but I'm not feeling it for him this year. One of the big hitters will take him out, likely Tsonga or Gonzalez, in the fourth round.

Murray has a wicked path to the last eight, with streaky Ernests Gulbis in round one, the dreaded Ivo Karlovic in round three, big-hitting Marin Cilic in round four and then dangerous sixth seed Juan Martin Del Potro in the quarterfinals. Murray will use his speed, range, smarts and improved serve to beat them all back, and then he'll take out Tsonga in the semis to reach a second straight final in New York. If he hasn't run out of gas -- and I'm predicting he'll have just enough left in the tank -- this time he won't leave a bunch of balls sitting mid-court as in '08 and bring home Britain's first Grand Slam Championship in almost three quarters of a century.

Women's Singles:
Winner:   Serena
Finalist:   Safina

How can you pick against Serena Williams in the majors, considering her unwavering ability to turn it up on big stages, not to mention opponents -- Venus notwithstanding -- that wilt under the pressure of important venues? The 11-time major winner hasn't done much outside the Slams. Her only three tournament victories over the last 12 months are in New York, Melbourne and London. But if she gets to the second week and smells the trophy, few can stop Serena but Serena herself.

I've always felt that when the 27-year-old American gets smug, when it comes too easy, she loses focus. I believe that was her downfall after the 2002-03 "Serena Slam." She's not as sure a pick as last year when she came in licking her wounds from the Wimbledon defeat to her older sister, but I'm giving her the nod. However, it would not surprise me if one of the three Slam-less wonders on the top half of the draw -- No. 1 Dinara Safina, last year's finalist Jelena Jankovic, or perennial Slam contender Elena Dementieva -- winds up with the spoils.


In the top half, Safina has a tricky third round opponent in fellow Russian Alisa Kleybanova but otherwise has a pretty clear path to the quarterfinals. The bottom part of the first quarter should see an all-Serb matchup in the fourth round with struggling Ana Ivanovic and rebounding Jankovic (unless promising German Sabine Lisicki knocks off Ivanovic a round before). I've lost faith in the '08 French Open champ and former No.1 for the moment, and if they meet, Jankovic will prevail. The Safina-Jankovic should be a classic power vs. guile match-up, and though Jankovic beat Safina in the final at Cincinnati, this time the 23-year-old Muscovite will manage her game better and reach a fifth straight Slam semi.

In the other quarter of the top half, I like the recovering Maria Sharapova to make a run to the semifinals, though it won't be a cakewalk. She will have to get by No. 4 Dementieva in the third round, who is arguably the hottest player on tour  coming into New York following her victory in Toronto (over Sharapova in the final). I like New Haven winner Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark to advance to the quarters over French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova and face 2006 Open champ Sharapova, who will outhit her to reach the semis. The all-Russian semis promises plenty of grunting and baseline fireworks, but Safina is the more experienced Slam player at the moment. Sharapova is still a few months (and a more reliable serve away) from becoming a legit Slam contender, but she's making progress fast.

The lower half of the draw pits Serena and Venus for the semifinals, but my pick to reach the last four from the top quarter is mom Clijsters. With several top-20 wins under her belt, the athletic Belgian is already back in the mix and probably just a few tournaments away from looking like a top-5 player. Venus, 28, hasn't won a event on cement in the U.S. since '02 and lost two her last three matches to unheralded competition. She could step up and blow through people as she often has in majors, but she's too unpredicable. In this quarter, wild card Clijsters will out-hustle the hardworking No. 8 seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, who has had a solid season (two Slam quarters) since winning Miami in April.

Serena's quarter has hardworking Sybille Bammer and resurgent Samantha Stosur; none can match the American's power on hard courts. No. 7 Vera Zvonareva has done little since coming back from injury, so I'm going with veteran Amelie Mauresmo of France to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal since '06 in New York against Serena. There, the Frenchwoman will be overwhelmed. Clijsters' defense will give Serena problems in the semis, but clutch serving and a few extra fist pumps will pull her through to a fifth New York final and second in a row.

Serena is her generation's big-match player. I expect Safina to finally play closer to her ability in her third major final, but Serena is her generation's big-match player. One way or another -- blowout or nailbiter -- she will bag a 12th Slam.