For the first time in years, both the men’s and women’s draws in this year’s U.S. Open Grand Slam tennis event are there for the taking. Defending women’s champion Justine Henin is now retired. Four time defending men’s champion Roger Federer is struggling (comparatively). With these factors involved, who is going to step up and take the crown?

In the women’s draw, number one seed Ana Ivanovic is gone–upset by a lesser-known qualifier by the name of Julie Coin. It is safe to say the qualifier made more coin in this match, by far the best of her career, then in most of the entire tournaments she’s played in previously. If this doesn’t represent how wide open this year’s draw is, than I don’t know what does.

The top seeded woman remaining is the stellar but unspectacular Jelena Jankovic (well, her on court full-on splits are pretty impressive, but other than that, nothing too great).  The Williams sisters are always competitive and if one gets hot, she can easily win it all. Then there are the Russians–all 20 of them, all ranked somewhere in the top 30, many in the top ten. Pick a name out of the hat, she can win. That about sums up the women’s draw.

The men’s side is not quite as open, but clearly more intriguing. It’s hard to call this a make-or-break tournament for arguably the greatest tennis player to ever live, but in alot of ways it is. For the first time in years, Roger Federer’s status as the best player in tennis is in jeopardy. Over a four year span, Federer won 11 grand slam titles, including four straight U.S. Open’s. His quest to break Pete Sampras’ career grand slam record of 14 seemed inevitable.

Since that time, a new superstar has emerged. Rafael Nadal, who had been waiting quietly in Federer’s massive shadow has crept out from behind it to claim the #1 ranking in the world, destroying Federer on his way to the top. It was already known that Federer, despite being clearly the second best in the world on clay, could not beat Nadal on that surface. Since that time, Nadal has also beaten Federer on grass in the Wimbledon finals–a task few thought he could accomplish. 

Now it is Federer who is struggling, losing more matches in the last few months than he had in ALL of 2007. With the dominant Federer struggling, Nadal and youngster Novak Djokavic excelling, and American hard court specialists James Blake and Andy Roddick looking to get a piece of the action, this year’s U.S. Open field is as exciting as ever!