Day four at the U.S. Open

Another day done. I managed to stick to my game plan pretty tightly, this time. I watched the entirety of Safina's match, as well as Kuznetsova's. Kuzzie's was not very exciting, because she was so clearly dominant the whole time. Safina, on the other hand, started out brutally bad, and then got intermittently better. She began the match with two double faults, served for the first set and was broken, then double faulted on set point in the tiebreak. And then she served two more double faults to start the second set - I saw her serve seven faults in a row. That's just... oof.

But when she was on, she was hitting some great balls - heavy and deep, and hard to handle. I can see how she got to number one in the world, and based on what I heard about her first round match, she seemed to be more on top of her game and her mental state (15 double faults aside) today. Which is good to hear! I hope she pulls herself together, because she is actually a really good player when she's not driving herself insane.

It was a fun to match to watch, because after she shook off the worst of the rust (when the crowd was stunned into silence), everyone was really pulling for her. Every rally that didn't end in an unforced error would be rewarded with riotous applause. Safina played pretty clean, with 36 winners and 38 unforced errors. Compare that to 19 and 48 in her last match, and it's definitely an improvement.

I saw Djokovic, too. He looked so, so solid against Carsten Ball. I left after the second set, when it was clear that the Aussie couldn't do anything to Novak. Every part of his game is good, but what's interesting to me is that he doesn't really have a defining aspect to his game. The other top players are 'the best' at something. They're good (or at least pretty good) at every part of the game, but they've got a clearly defined strength. Djokovic is just solid in every aspect of the game, but he doesn't really have anything that defines him.

He used to be a jokester, but his light-hearted ways haven't appeared on-court in a while. Really, the thing he's most known for these days is retiring due to exhaustion or getting nervous before big matches. I'm not sure what he should do about it, but it's interesting to me. I wonder how he'll deal with the expectations at this tournament.

I also watched some of the Querrey-Kim match, but there wasn't too much to see. Both of the players were just about even on winners to errors, big serving, not a lot of long points. I'm surprised not to have seen more from Kim before, because his game looked pretty strong. Nice serve, great backhand, but he's been around forever and not done much. Well, this is a good time to go on a hot streak, but it's just a shame when you run into the hottest player on tour this summer.

I saw a bit of Youzhny, who was looking great while I watched him, but then he went on to lose to Chiudinelli (who?). I also got to see Ljubicic in doubles for a few games, and a bit of Isner in the third set. But I mostly watched matches on Louis Armstrong. It's getting tougher to move around the grounds, since there are fewer matches that are really drawing people out there, and you have to set up a lot earlier for a seat.

This is going to make tomorrow really tough, where there isn't a particular court where I definitely want to spend my time. I do want to see Del Potro and Jurgen Melzer, but I've seen Almagro and Ginepri before. And I would like to see Clijsters, though that match may get moved to Ashe, and I have tickets to the night session on Sunday, which is looking very likely to be a Venus Williams-Kimmie Clijsters match.

Tsonga and Nieminen are on the grandstand, and so's Azarenka and Taylor Dent... but Ferrer-Acasuso are on Court 4, and Berdych-Zeballos are on Court 7. And Court 11 has Cilic-Levine, Bellucci-Simon (could be great), and Monfils-Beck. And Ferrero starts the day on Court 13, which then has Ouanna-Gonzalez, later.

This is going to be tough.