Rafa shares his Pasta and Gambas recipe. Enjoy!

The US Open Series is the six-week summer tennis season linking 10 ATP World Tour and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour tournaments together. The Series leads to the US Open. It is often referred to as the U.S. or North American hard court season.

It was organized in 2004 as a way to focus more attention on American tennis tournaments by getting more of them on domestic television. Until 2004, most summer North American tournaments were not on television, the exceptions being the highly televised ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati.

Players earn points according to their results in the events; points awarded at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and WTA Premier events are doubled.
The male and female player with the highest point totals each earn double the prize money at the U.S. Open, players with the second highest point totals increase their prize money by 50%, and players with the third highest point totals receive a 25% increase.

Last year’s US Open Series winners were Sam Querrey and Elena Dementieva.

Week 1:

Atlanta Tennis Championships      Atlanta, Georgia      July 19 – 25      Defending Champion: Robby Ginepri      FIND TICKETS

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Enjoy the latest TV spot with Roger Federer, Kim Clijsters, Melanie Oudin, Andy Roddick…. and get ready for this year’s Olympus US Open Series:

Their rivalry was listed as the third best rivalry of the past decade by the ATP, behind Federer-Nadal (of course) and Sampras-Agassi (kinda weird because they only met 6 times in the 00′s ).

In just over 4 years, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic already met 27 times (Federer and Nadal “only” met 25 times). And they provided some intense matches: 2009 Madrid SF, 2008 Olympic Games SF…

Quick facts:

- Nadal won five of six of their Grand Slam matches.
- Nadal dominates on clay and grass, whereas Djokovic rules on hard courts.
- Djokovic won their last 5 matches this year at Indian Wells and Miami on hard courts, Madrid and Rome on clay, Wimbledon on grass

In pink the Grand Slam matches, in gold the Olympic Games. You can click on the column to sort.

This match is without a doubt the best ATP match played in 2009.

Nadal had a tremenduous start of the year with wins at the Australian Open, Indian Wells, Barcelona, Monte Carlo and Rome. He seemed unbeatable on clay and was the clear favorite to win a record fifth consecutive Roland Garros title. But things didn’t really turned out that well for him.

With a win in Madrid, the Mallorcan would have been the first player in history to win the 3 Masters tournaments played on clay the same year.

Nadal and Djokovic met for the fourth time of the season in Madrid semi finals, Nadal having won their 3 previous meetings (Davis Cup and finals of Monte Carlo and Rome).

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Everyone expected a Federer-Nadal final. But lucky loser Guillermo Canas ended Federer’s 41 matchs unbeaten streak in the 2nd round, just 5 short of Guillermo Vilas’ record of 46 straight victories.
Canas defeated Federer again one week later in Miami and made it to the finals where he lost to… Djokovic.

After straight sets wins over Clément, Verdasco, Ferrero, Chela and Roddick, Nadal faced Djokovic in final.
It was the first final ever for Djokovic who captured his first title in Miami two weeks later after defeating Nadal in quarter finals.

Visibly nervous, Djokovic made a lot of unforced errors in the first set, winning just two points total the first four games. Nadal secured the opening set 6-2. Djokovic managed to shake off the nerves in the second set but Nadal broke his serve at 5-5 on his second chance and finished off the match in the next game.

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