US Open Men's Tennis Players

All the big guns of the professional tennis fraternity will gather in New York in August 2009 to wage war against each other for one of the most coveted prizes in the world - the US Open men's singles crown.

There is little doubt that the thousands of spectators expected to flock to Flushing Meadows will witness some epic battles, as well as the blood, sweat and tears which always accompany any drama of the magnitude of the final Grand Slam event of the season.

There are plenty of contenders for the men's singles throne, but before they can lift the trophy in victory they will have to subdue one of the most talented sportsmen the world has ever seen - the indomitable US Open men's tennis player, Roger Federer.

Federer is, without a doubt, one of the finest court technicians of the current era. He displays grace and elegance, but is ruthless when hunting down a win. He has some of the most potent weapons in his artillery and is never afraid to shoot salvo after salvo at his hapless opponents.

Federer is the most dominant man in pro tennis today - he has held the number one berth since February 2004 until 2008 when he slipped down to number two. There does not seem to be anybody else out there who has the ability to knock him off his lofty pedestal, unless Rafael Nadal can crack the hard courts which have eluded him for so many years.

What makes him even more dangerous is that he has won the title for the past four years, taking out Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic with relative ease.

He is now on the quest to break his own US Open record of five back-to-back wins. Not even the latter day giants of Sampras and McEnroe have managed this celebrated feat, only Richard Sears in the 1800s has managed seven consecutive titles, but that was in the days before professionalism changed the game completely.

Although Rafael Nadal is the number one man on the ATP rankings, he has effectively reached these heights by his awesome displays on clay. He has yet to attain a slot in the final at Flushing Meadows, and his best performance to date was reaching the semi finals in New York in 2008. It would be highly unlikely for Nadal to cause an upset on the acrylic courts of the Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Novak Djokovic had a surprise win at the 2008 Australian Open, where he claimed his very first grand slam title. This young Serb is proving to be one of the rising new stars of professional tennis and quite a threat to tennis giants Federer and Nadal. Djokovic pushed Federer to tie breaks in the first two sets in the 2007 final, but had a shocking end to the season with second round eliminations at the year-end Cincinnati and Paris Masters, as well as being eliminated in the round robin stages of the Tennis Masters Cups in Shanghai.

There is, however, one man who could very possibly cause a major upset at the 2009 US Open, and that is David Nalbandian of Argentina. He beat both Federer and Nadal convincingly at the Madrid and Paris Masters at the end of the 2007 and had a stunning run with the Davis Cup Argentina Team for 2008. He is looking in great form going into 2009.

Then, of course, there is the home-boy - Andy Roddick. He won the title in 2003 with a great win over Juan Carlos Ferrero, and in 2006 he gave eventual champion Roger Federer a bit of challenge in the final, only to lose in four sets. His 2008 grand slam season ended uneventfully with Roddick losing out in all for tournaments.

Andy Murray, David Ferrer and Fernando Gonzalez also ended their year with respectable stats, but at the end of the day our money will most likely be on the Swiss master claiming his sixth consecutive US Open men's singles title.