It took Novak Djokovic five sets and two saved match points to beat Roger Federer.  By that point, Rafael Nadal had a nice break having won his match over Mikhail Youzhny in straight sets.  The US Open is the only Slam that plays semifinals and finals on back-to-back days, ostensibly for TV, realizing far fewer fans will watch a semifinal on a Friday than on a Saturday.  The other Slams try to take the players health into consideration.  One only wonders what might have happened if Rafael Nadal had played Fernando Verdasco in a marathon 5-setter on a Saturday, only to play Federer the next day.  Perhaps Nadal would still have shown inhuman endurance and won, but the likelihood is even the incomparable Nadal would have struggled to come back in a day.

The weather during the US Open had been topsy turvy.  The first week of the US Open was played in heat.  That heat had disappeared the week before.  This summer had been one of the hottest summers ever, but there was a thought the US Open might barely avoid that heat. The heat took its toll.  Ivan Ljubicic, who said he’s historically handled the heat worse than other players, lost to upstart Ryan Harrison.  Novak Djokovic needed five sets to get out of the first round, as did Robin Soderling.  Djokovic was thrilled that tournament organizers put his second and third rounds during the evening matches.  By the time Djokovic had to play in the day again, the temperature cooled down again, and Djokovic could play his tennis.

Late in the first week, Hurricane Earl was making it up the east coast.  It hit North Carolina, but as it moved north, it did not work its way inland, and so most states north of North Carolina escaped the rains as did the US Open.

Although the hurricane missed New York, conditions became increasingly windy and stayed windy for about a week, causing players to adjust their hitting for a more conservative style.

Basically, there was no rain.  There was some thought there would be rain on Saturday, but both semifinals were played without any interruptions.  When Djokovic took five sets to beat Roger Federer, Nadal had to be secretly gleeful were he that kind of person, which, by most accounts, he’s not.  Djokovic knew he would have to recover quickly.  Someone told him there was a chance of rain, and Djokovic wanted a way to summon the rains so he could play on Monday.

Perhaps the luck of the gaudy Djokovic t-shirt that his dad has been wearing and a similar shirt that his mom is now wearing brought some rain.  It didn’t rain all day today.  Indeed, they were able to play women’s doubles and the boy’s singles match.

The finalists in the boys singles were, coincidentally, invited to join the Davis Cup team in the US tie with Serbia.  Although Serbia won this rather handily, both Jack Sock and Denis Kudla got to hang out with the US team (Querrey, Isner, and the Bryan brothers).  Indeed, things were so friendly that Djokovic hit with Jack Sock and has hit with him at other times as well, believing Sock is a good talent. (In the picture above, Kudla is on the left, while Sock, holding the winner’s trophy, is on the right).

Denis Kudla took the first set against Jack Sock 6-3 but Sock came back strong taking the second and third sets, 6-2 and 6-2.

This is the third consecutive year that the US Open final has been played on a Monday.  In 2008, there was a storm working its way north.  Roger Federer was scheduled to play Novak Djokovic in the first semifinals.  The original schedule was noon, but it was pushed an hour earlier to 11 AM.  When it looked like the storm would arrive sooner than expected, they had Rafael Nadal play Andy Murray at 12:30 PM on an adjacent court.  Federer beat Djokovic in four sets while Nadal and Murray only got about two sets completed before rain washed out play that day.  Murray and Nadal came back the next day and Murray beat Nadal for the first time.  The finals were played on Monday.

In 2009, September 11 fell on a Friday.  That whole day was rained out.  Normally, the women play their semifinals on that day and the men get the day off.  However, Nadal was in the middle of a match against Fernando Gonzalez when bad weather postponed the match Thursday evening.   Although he only needed about half an hour to complete the match on Saturday, the men’s semifinals were pushed to Sunday.  This forced the men’s finals to be pushed to Monday.

Will the rest help Djokovic win?  It can’t hurt, one imagines.  Djokovic has beaten Nadal the last three times they met.  Admittedly, this was during a period where Nadal was on a slump, at least, a slump for Nadal.  Nadal didn’t win a title from Madrid 2009 through Miami 2010.  He played Djokovic three times during this period.  They met in Cincinnati.  At that point, Nadal had taken off since the French Open and so he was a bit rusty.  It turns out his abs were bothering him too, but he didn’t let on until the US Open.  Djokovic won that match easily.

Then, they played in the semifinals of Paris indoors.  Again, Djokovic won that easily.  Nadal had his “worst” sustained effort when he lost all three round robin matches in the ATP World Tour Final (to Djokovic, Davydenko, and Soderling).  The two have yet to play in 2010, mostly because Djokovic hasn’t played deep enough in tournaments to meet Nadal.

Since the start of the year, Nadal has been working on being more aggressive on the hard courts, trying to step in more, but he seemed to lack the confidence to win.  He lost to Davydenko in Doha, to Murray in the Australian Open, to Ivan Ljubicic in Indian Wells and to Andy Roddick in Miami.  Once he got on clay, however, Nadal was a new man.  He crushed his opponents in Monte Carlo allowing Verdasco one game in the finals.

Since then, Nadal has been playing pretty well.  He lost to Murray in Toronto and to Baghdatis in Cincinnati, but has yet to drop a set in the US Open.

While I think Djokovic has a good chance to win and I expect a good match, I think Nadal will be able to make Novak’s life difficult.  Nadal’s serve and his aggression has improved.

I’ve been waiting for Djokovic to play Nadal all year.  They generally play pretty good matches, so I’d love to see what happens.

Until tomorrow, then!