THE U.S. OPEN (2)

I predicted one of the two winners at the U.S. Open. Kim Clijsters cruised to victory in the women's singles final, after a pulsating semi-final against Venus Williams, in which Clijsters alternated between playing brilliantly and like a drain. It was her third U.S. Open title in a row.

On the men's side, I had picked Roger Federer to win through. However, after playing superbly for most of the two weeks, his serve let him down in the semi-final against Novak Djokovic (though he still had two match points at one stage). An exhausted Djokovic was then beaten in the final by current world number 1 Rafael Nadal. This was Nadal's ninth Grand Slam title, and makes him only the seventh player in history to have won all four of them in his career, joining Federer in that select list.

One of the oddities about the men's game at the moment is that it has never had so much strength in depth, yet continues to be dominated by just two players. In the past seven years, Federer and Nadal have won 24 of the 28 Grand Slam titles on offer. Only the 2004 French Open (Gaston Gaudio), 2005 Australian Open (Marat Safin), 2008 Australian Open (Djokovic) and 2009 U.S. Open (Juan Martin del Potro) have gone to another player.

Looking ahead to next year, it would be a brave man who bet against those two harvesting all four titles between them again. The best hope for the rest of the field is that they get injured.

Walter Blotscher