The final Slam of the year is upon us and i’m feeling super duper excited right now because I am flying to New York today! I’ll be at Flushing Meadows for the first three days of the tournament and it will be my first time at the US Open. Therefore, coverage will be a little muted during the first week; however I will have plenty of content to share from the first weekend onwards as well the regular previews/reviews during the second week. The hope is to share some photos whilst i’m in New York and then i’ll write some more detailed posts about the tennis and my experiences when I get home. I’ll be posting on my Twitter and Facebook pages while i’m there so you can keep up-to-date with a follow/like!
Photo by Jonni (@All_Things_TNNS) on Twitter
Apologies for the lack of coverage for New Haven over the past week… i’ve been very busy in my day job. A few thoughts from New Haven…
Yay for Petra. It’s really encouraging to see her in the semi-finals following convincing straight set wins over Eugenie Bouchard and Ekaterina Makarova.
Petra plays Aga in the semis. Here’s a fabulous point from Aga’s straight sets quarter-final win over Kirsten Flipkens.
The other semi-final will be contested between Elina Svitolina and Johanna Larsson; the Swede has reached the last four with wins over the two highest seeds in the bottom half, Roberta Vinci and Timea Bacsinszky.
I had hopes to write a post profiling the top 16 seeds but I failed miserably. I did get as far as producing a table looking at previous records at the US Open for the top 16 seeds.
Stats from WTA and Tennis Abstract
A few things that stands out – Serena’s record at the US Open is just astonishing and she’ll be going for her 7th title. Venus is next best for match wins, followed by the 2004 champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova, who has lost her last three matches at Flushing Meadows. Agnieszka Radwanska will be hoping for fifth time lucky as this remains her weakest Slam where she is 0-4 at the fourth round stage and yet to reach a quarter-final. Garbiñe Muguruza will be seeking to win back-to-back matches at the US Open for the first time in her career having previously won just one match in three years.
The US Open feels like it has come around much quicker than usual, most likely because of the Olympics. Wimbledon produced an impressive list of unseeded players but I think the list for the US Open has topped it… it’s totally stacked!
As ever, the draw is going to be key and there are bound to be a handful of brutal first round matches. The main draw will be released at 11.30am local time (4.30pm UK time) on Friday. It’s the same time as my flight so i’m hoping that I might get a sneak peek before we take off. If I do, i’ll try and get a preview written on the plane! I’m not sure when my next post will be as it’s going to be a mad week. If the hotel wi-fi is decent then I will hopefully get a few picture posts up next week and potentially a draw preview of some kind. Anyway, i’ll leave you with some social media posts from the US Open to get you hyped up for Monday.
Time to finish packing!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJYGl-4Am7f/
Moo's Tennis Blog 
Any thoughts on Aga – Petra tonight?
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Enjoy & have fun, James 🙂 🙂
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Thanks, Murphy! 🙂
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Serena’s draw is brutal, everybody else plays a qualifier except Serena. Serena always gets a shitty draw. Angie’s draw is a cake walk.
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Makarova shouldn’t really prove a massive challenge to Serena in her current form. People are such drama queens.
Schiavonne vs Kuznetsova round 1 better get coverage because you just know it’ll be a cracker.
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Exactly what I thought. Makarova is a tough draw but I think the best for Serena as she needs to play her best tennis right from the start. She seems to be struggling more when she is playing someone she is expected to beat in the early rounds. So in the end I think she will win in two and without any drama.
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Despite a right shoulder injury that made her withdraw from Toronto and Cincinnati, Serena Williams got herself back on track at the right time at Wimbledon. Having come into the US Open tying Steffi Graf’s record, she won’t be under much pressure anymore. My prediction is that Serena will reach the final without dropping a set, and win the title in three sets. Or, she will win the title without dropping a set.
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I think it’s Halep’s time. Rounding into form very nicely despite that Cincy SF where she wasn’t ‘feeling the ball’ until it was too late. When she did get going in the 2nd set she pummelled Kerber for those 4 games.
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I’m not so sure about Halep and Kerber. Both somehow seem to look way too much ahead towards the finish line, and that happened to Muguruza when she was stunned by Anastajia Sevastova. Kerber looked extremely vulnerable against Mirjana Lucic-Baroni and Halep has another tough match against Lucie Safarova. With Patrick Mouratoglou being an ESPN Analyst for these next two weeks, I can already sense that he’s making absafreakinlutely 100% sure that Serena surpasses Steffi in New York.
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