The last grand slam of the year

I have been getting on average about 5 hours sleep a night for the past week or so and I think my body just cannot handle it anymore. I was driving back home and stopped at a red light and almost fell asleep while waiting for it to turn green.

The US Open which is reaching its climax now is not helping with my sleeping pattern. Just as I thought that I would go to bed early and have a good night sleep, all of a sudden one Melanie Oudin dug really deep and out of nowhere produce shot after shot en route to an amazing comeback. Or sometimes just finding out grandmaster Federer was playing would keep me awake.

Melanie Oudin is out now, i just saw a rerun of her quarterfinals against Wozniacki in which she lost in straight sets. It is so refreshing to see these two women players. It is not their playing skills that impress me most, rather its their mental toughness. There was one game in the second set where Oudin was on breakpoint, and Wozniacki managed to keep her composure and hold her serve. I am pretty sure Oudin would have won that game if it was, say Safina that she was playing against. I am rooting for Wozniacki, she does not have the killer shots; at least she did not show that agianst Oudin; but I was really impressed by her composure and tenacity.

I think all these stories of women tennis players with their emotional meltdown, crazy nerve, 40 unforced errors and what not are getting old. The mother of all emotional breakdown-prone women tennis players, Elena Dementieva, just cant seem to deal with this problem despite all those years on the circuit and being one of the top players in the world. She was also the one who was infamously quoted saying " I dont know how to serve". To her credit her serve has improved tremendously, but despite possessing one of the best groundstrokes in the women's games she hasnt won a slam and I attribute that mainly to her nerves (now that she can serve better and get her double faults under control).

Dinara Safina is another tragic story. She is, thank god, a milder version of Safin but clearly it runs in the family. She seems to be on the verge of breaking down and cry in every game, and its is not fun to watch to say the least. And is it just me or does Safina alwasy look like shes 4 months pregnant?

The other day Sharapove had like 20 double faults (also lost to Oudin) but in all fairness she just came back from an injury. But still if not for the double faults she definitely would have won. Against the Italian player Zvonareva was really winning but in the second set she somehow had a meltdown and end up losing the match. At one point she looked like she was talking to her bandaged knee, as if blaming it for the shot caught in the net or a backhand down the line that went wide.