US Open Day 6

At the start of the middle weekend, there were not a lot of upsets today. There were a few close matches, but only one that was really tight on each side of the draw. Mardy Fish beat French veteran Arnaud Clement in the fifth set, and Yanina Wickmayer beat Patty Schnyder in a third-set tiebreak. Beyond that, it was a good day, but perhaps not too stunning. It was extremely windy throughout the day, preventing a lot of players from putting their best tennis on display.

It's always interesting - as a grand slam progresses, less and less action is actually taking place in each round. On the other hand, each meeting has more and more importance for the competitors, and because of the seedings, you expect to get bigger clashes at these middle to later stages. So there is more potential for excitement, but if a match turns out to be a bit of a dud, there are fewer places to look for that excitement. Today, Arthur Ashe was stuffed full of straight-set victories. As I mentioned above, Mardy Fish and Yanina Wickmayer provided some excellent, well-fought, tight matches, but for the most part, things went mostly as expected. Jelena Jankovic was upset, but with how she had played in the first two rounds, that couldn't have come as much of a shock.

So let's go ahead and look to tomorrow's action, and see how things are shaping up. At least on paper, tomorrow looks to be a pretty spectacular middle Sunday.

The day starts off with Ana Ivanovic, former world number one and French Open champion, taking on defending champion Kim Clijsters. That's a pretty enticing first round match - it would be Ivanovic's biggest win in a long, long time, if she can pull off the upset. I'll admit that I'm not expecting it, but it could happen, if she could capture some of her old magic. After that, Venus Williams gets her first test, against Israeli Shahar Peer. Venus has looked great through three rounds thus far, but she hasn't really played anyone of consequence. This could be interesting.

After that, Nadal gets his first day match, and he gets the Frenchman Gilles Simon, who has a win over Nadal on hardcourts a couple years ago. He hasn't been at that level for a while, but he has been playing well this week. I'd like to see him back in the area of being seeded at these sorts of events, but I don't expect him to be able to handle Nadal's ball tomorrow.

In the night session, Youzhny gets Isner, an interesting match. Youzhny once made the semis here at the US Open, but it's Isner's home turf, and he is anxious to show everyone what he's made of. He needs to follow up last year's win over Roddick with another big win, and an upset over the Russian in an Arthur Ashe night match. Considering how much press he got at Wimbledon, he's going to have a lot of people rooting for him. And assuming his serve and ankle hold up, he could pull this one out.

And after that, we get Elena Dementieva against Sam Stosur, which really feels more like a semifinal than a fourth round. I don't know who's going to come out on top in that one, but it's almost certainly the most exciting women's matches I've seen on the schedule so far.

On the other courts, things are maybe not quite as rarefied, but still plenty exciting. Schiavone will try to maintain her stupendous form against Pavlyuchenkova. It will be interesting to see how far Schiavone can make it - she seems to be finally over her French Open hangover. And then Sam Querrey plays Nicolas Almagro, a match that will feature a ton of big-hitting and big serves - the winner will be determined by who can pull off their shots more frequently. And then Andy Murray gets Stan Wawrinka... I can hardly believe that's on Louis Armstrong. They played an amazing match at Wimbledon last year, and it may be Murray's first real test. Stan Wawrinka is a former top ten player, and certainly a step up from the level of play offered by Dustin Brown, no offense intended to the top Jamaican player of course.

And on the grandstand - the grandstand! - David Nalbandian takes on Fernando Verdasco, a match which I think could be an absolutely amazing match, even if it doesn't feature any really big-name players, from the perspective of your average US Open attendee. And the Stakhovsky takes on Feliciano Lopez and Robredo takes on Llodra. Those are not going to be star-studded matches, but they should be a lot of fun. Three of those four players are capable of frequently serving and volleying, with only Robredo usually staying on the baseline. This would be an excellent day to plant yourself courtside on the grandstand.

Ferrer also takes on Daniel Gimeno-Traver, but they put that on court 11 for a reason - Ferrer will dismantle his countryman, I assure you of that. That's the match I see tomorrow which has the lowest chance of being an exciting contest. The rest all have the potential to be classics.