US Open Day 1

The first day of tennis at Flushing Meadows was a fine way to start us off - lots of exciting tennis, but not a lot of upsets to write home about. On both the men's and women's side, there were only a pair of upsets, both male vets who couldn't make it to the second round. Fernando Gonzalez had to retire against Brian Dabul, and while Lleyton Hewitt didn't actually throw in the towel, he surely faded pretty severely in the final set against Paul-Henri Mathieu. It's the first time that Hewitt's lost in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament since Wimbledon in 2003, when he fell to Ivo Karlovic as the defending champion.

Aside from that, the most notable loss of the day was last year's top seed on the women's side, Dinara Safina, who fought hard but couldn't quite hold it together against Daniela Hantuchova. Despite her disappointing performance here, I see promising signs in her game of late. She may never again ascend to the heights she was at last year at this time, but I can easily see her making it back into the top twenty, maybe ten.

Melanie Oudin really played well in her opening round, which was admittedly against a player of even less experience, but still, with all the pressure she had, I wasn't sure she could handle it. Credit to the teen. The other top players mostly cruised against undistinguished opponents, except for Robin Soderling, who was pushed hard by Austrian qualifier Andreas Haider-Maurer (I know, 'who?') into a fifth set. But his experience saw him through in the end. Gael Monfils also needed a fifth set to beat American vet Robbie Kendrick. There was a questionable call in that match, but it didn't quite turn the tide in the end - the fact that Kendrick thought it went against him was what brought him down, in my opinion. The other two five setters of the day saw Jurgen Melzer get past Dmitry Tursunov (still hoping for his comeback!) and Albert Montanes over Przynsiezny, 6-0 in the fifth.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, we'll see Djokovic, Jankovic, Sharapova, Nadal and Wozniacki on Arthur Ashe. Not a bad line-up - there's an outside chance that Gabashvili could trouble Nadal, maybe a 20% chance of a close match. Djokovic-Troicki could be tight, but I don't give the junior Serb much of a chance of upsetting his countryman. Really, the matches on Armstrong and the Grandstand are much more exciting.

Baghdatis plays Clement, a French vet who has played some amazing matches of his career, but it's been a while since he's made much noise. Kateryna Bondarenko plays Na Li after that, followed by James Blake against Kristof Vliegen. Blake's going to have a ton of support, but that may not be enough for him. He seems like he's not fully recovered from his surgery, and he needs to be in top form considering his style of play. I hope he can win a couple of rounds, but it will be tough. Fish should have a better time with Jan Hajek, and Svetlana Kuznetsova should be able to handle the tricky Japanese player Kimiko Date Krumm.

On the outside courts, there are some intriguing match-ups. This is Robbie Ginepri's favorite tournament, and he has a good chance against Argentine Eduardo Schwank. On court 7, watch for a potential (though unlikely) upset as Dolgopolov plays Ferrer. He's got a chance, but whether or not he wins tomorrow's match, you'll hear more from Dolgopolov in the future. Also, put an upset watch on Peter Polansky over Juan Monaco, and Julien Benneteau over Radek Stepanek.

I don't necessarily see another upset on Court 13, but the first match could be a cracker, between French Jeremy Chardy and Ernests Gulbis. I lean towards the seeded Latvian, but there could be an upset in the cards if Gulbis isn't at his best, because he can easily get frustrated and go off the boil.

There are certainly plenty of fun matches to keep an eye on tomorrow.