Are you looking at the sports news today and scratching your head trying to figure out if you know these surviving women in the US Open? If there is anyone in the world who predicted these 8 women would make the quarterfinals of the Open, I just hope I am facebook/orkut/myspace friends with them, because they are sure to win a lottery sometime in the future.

But let's pause for a moment, take a deep breath and reanalyze the women's field. We absolutely have to begin with Oudin. The clearest dividing line between those that win at the slams and those that don't is mental toughness. At the tender age of 17, Melanie has already proven that this is a quality that she possesses in abundance. The serve and th

It was a night of high drama at the US Open in Flushing Meadows, New York as the unpredictability of the final set tiebreaker claimed a major scalp each in the men's and women's draw. In a match carried forward from the day session Andy Roddick fought back from two sets to love down to force a final set decider against 6 foot 9 inch fellow American John Isner, only to go down 7-5 in the breaker, while the women's draw lost its top seed as Dinara Safina failed to take three match-points in the 12th game of the final set in her match against Czech teenager Petra Kvitova, also falling 7-5 in the deciding breaker.

Andy Roddick came into his match with the gigantic John Isner with a 2-0 record against the young

Melanie Oudin pulled off the greatest shock so far in the US Open, upsetting 4th seed Elena Dementieva in an engaging duel at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Joining Dementieva on the sidelines was Jelena Jankovic who was pipped at the brink by Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova. It was a tough day for several other seeds too. Dinara Safina nearly went the way of her fellow Slavs but recovered from a set deficit to keep alive her dream of capturing her first career Grand Slam. In other matches, Caroline

The number 1 player in women's tennis is not a true number 1. The ‘best' player doesn't play seriously on a day to day basis. We've heard these laments over and over again. So what does the tour do? It turns to a mom to try and bail it out! Before we get into the top contenders, a huge WELCOME BACK to Mommy Kim who has recently come out of retirement to hopefully add that extra zing the women's tour so desperately needs.

It is almost impossible to not consider Kim Clijsters and Maria Sharapova as genuine contenders for this year's US Open and so we are not going to stick strictly to seeding as we look at the top contenders for the title on the women's side. For the purposes of this article, Zvonareva an

Marat Safin will kick off the 2009 LA Tennis Open with the "Millennium Challenge" against Pete Sampras on Monday, July 27. It will be a rematch of the 2000 US Open final, which the Russian won to claim the first of his two career Grand Slam titles.

A former World No. 1, Safin also claimed the 2005 Australian Open championship, and owns 15 titles in his career. In addition to playing the Monday night match against Sampras, Safin will make his sixth main draw appearance in the LA Tennis Open. He has a less than flattering 6-5 lifetime record in LA, including a pair of quarterfinal finishes, and has announced 2009 will be his final season on the ATP World Tour.

As a follow-up to our interaction with Pete Sampras last week, T

It was a historic afternoon for the Williams family as siblings Venus and Serena went head-to-head for the fourth time on the hallowed grass of Wimbledon. Serena tilted the scales in her favour with a crisp 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory over her older sister to postpone Venus' attempt at capturing a sixth crown. The result means that Serena continues to pull ahead of her sister in the Grand Slam stakes with 11 now to Venus' 7, and also gives her claim for a revision of the world ranking system a stronger voice being the proud reigning champion at three majors - the US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon.

Venus came into the match as an odds on favourite, despite being seeded one spot lower than Serena. She had raced through the tournament with relative ease, in comparison with Serena who had come within a point of being eliminated by Russian Elena Dementieva in the semi-finals. Venus had not dropped a set at Wimbledon since the 3rd round in 2007.

If there were ever two completely contrasting semi-finals played in the 122-year history of Wimbledon, they took place on Thursday the 2nd of July 2009. Serena Williams saved a match point en route to beating Olympic champion Elena Dementieva in three enormously hard fought sets, elder sister Venus stepped onto court with Dinara Safina ten minutes later, and left within an hour booking a place in the final against Serena for the second straight year.

The numbers tell the story perfectly while the Serena - Elena slugfest lasted 237 points and 2 hours and 49 minutes, th