Cue the ‘U-S-A!’ Chants: Blake Beats Federer

Lost amongst the hype of swimming and gymnastics is a real sport -- tennis -- which has received little-to-no coverage. Granted, the Olympics don’t seem to matter much to the players themselves (Roddick opted to play in the U.S. Open series instead of Beijing), but anytime Roger Federer loses to an American, well, that’s gonna be kind of a big deal. And that’s exactly what happened today, as James Blake took down the soon-to-be No. 2 player in the world in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6.↵↵For Blake, it’s a nice win for a guy who’d previously taken one set total against Federer in eight matches. It also means that the Americans still have one hope left for Olympic gold in tennis -- all other U.S. men were previously eliminated. For Federer, this is another loss in a string of disappointing performances this season. If he doesn’t manage to win the U.S. Open next month, 2008 will end up being the first year since ’03 in which he didn’t win a Grand Slam title. ↵

↵↵The biggest disappointment here, however, is for the fans, who won’t get to see another Nadal-Federer championship match. Blake is on to the semi-final, where he’ll face the winner of Paul-Henri Matheiu-Fernando Gonzalez. The other semi-final could potentially be Djokovic-Nadal, which I suppose is the next best thing to Nadal-Federer. Of course, better than anything would be Blake vs. Anyone in the final, but let’s not get carried away. ↵

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