In the tennis world, we have grown used to assuming that when good players lose, especially in "upsets," the loser must be suffering from injuries. And the truth of injury declarations has been a factor towards the end of this tournament, as when Novak Djokovic publicly defended himself against Andy Roddick's maybe-joking doubt about Djokovic's medical issues.

In a graceful press conference after his semifinal loss against Andy Murray, though, Rafael Nadal told the truth: Murray just played better.

"Injuries? What injuries?" he said in response to a question which seemed to assume that Nadal must have been dealing with a handicap. "No, no. Not one during all the season."

So, if it wasn't Nadal's injuries, what could possibly have led to this unforeseen victory?!?! "He play better than me and he beat me."

Simple.

About 26 hours after the match was delayed yesterday, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray have resumed play at a packed-house at Arthur Ashe Stadium, a far cry from their match at a half-filled Louis Armstrong yesterday.

And Nadal, who was up a break in third set yesterday, has taken the set, 6-4.

Reflection on early play: Nadal held all three of his service games, but Murray, particularly in the last game, played really nice defense. The conventional wisdom going into today's match was that Nadal, a 5-time Grand Slam Champion and a veteran for matches like this one, would come out today playing with soaring confidence and Murray, a neophyte to this stage, would play tight. Not so. Murray had a break chance on Nadal's serve, and just missed getting the game evened at 5-5.

We're going to have a good final two (one?) sets.

Play for the rest of the day has been canceled.

This means the Rafael Nadal-Andy Murray semifinal--which Murray currently leads 6-2, 7-6, 2-3--will resume tomorrow at 4pm, with coverage on CBS. Women's tennis will have its biggest stage ever, with a primetime 9pm final tomorrow night on CBS. The winner of the Nadal-Murray match will play Roger Federer in the men's final on Monday at 5pm.

Roger Federer has found his game. He's playing confidently, elegantly and has reestablished himself as the player to beat in this tournament. With the rain holding off for just long enough, Federer outlasted Novak Djokovic in four sets, taking the last set 6-2.

Djokovic, who started to find his own game in the second set, uncharacteristically unraveled toward the end of the match; he started rushing his points, stopped chasing balls and had the look of a guy who couldn't wait to get out of New York. His post-match presser is going to be interesting.

At the end of the match, Mary Jo Fernandez asked 4-time U.S. Open champ Roger Federer who he'd rather see in the finals: Rafa or Andy Murray. He didn't dodge the question.

"I'll say Rafa," he said.

Please bring it on.  

Well, this is going to be an interesting day!

Today, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic square off at 11am (promptly!) at Ashe. Nadal and Murray follow, though the USTA allows the possibiltiy that they may play on Armstrong.

We thought we retired that court four days ago, but with the possibility of squeezing the men's finals and the women's finals on the same day is too tempting for the USTA. And they may play both men's semis at the same time.

This is something the USTA has never faced over the last four decades, and here comes a ridiculously insane day of tennis.

Will they get it through?

Boo, Hanna!

In the first set, it looked like it might happen. Everything that Mardy Fish said before the match--his "absolute" confidence--suddenly made sense.

Until it didn't. Nadal made extremely quick work of Fish after dropping the first set. It was just an overwhelming blitz of slicker, faster stronger tennis from the No. 1 player in the world.

By time the match ended, at a little after 2 a.m., the crowd was mostly gone from Arthur Ashe Stadium, and the few unlucky souls left had to battle overeager livery cab drivers who wanted to charge $55+ for a ride anywhere in Brooklyn, and far more for Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Nadal's next test, Andy Murray, should be much tougher, but Nadal has been on this stage before and he's this close to making it to his third consecutive Grand Slam final.

It's hard enough when English isn't your first language, but it's even worse at 3 in the morning. With that, here is, unquestionably, the best exchange in Interview Room 1 during the 2008 U.S. Open conducted after Rafael Nadal's victory tonight:

Q. It must be a good story to tell your children that you played a match over two days. It started on Wednesday and ended Thursday.

RAFAEL NADAL: OK.

I just caught up with the retired American Todd Martin to talk about the Mardy Fish-Rafael Nadal match later tonight.

Martin has been in Fish's shoes a million times: playing someone who is clearly very much better than him, needing to figure out a way to grind his way to a victory.

When I asked him about it, Martin said the match-up favors Fish more than one might think.

Observer: What are your thoughts on Nadal-Fish?

Martin: It seems fairly clear that this court is the quickest of the four Grand Slams, which is only good for Mardy's sake primarily because the point can start well off his serve.  read more »

Mardy Fish has the biggest match of his career later tonight against Rafael Nadal. When asked about it on Monday in a press conference, he said Rafa might be afraid of him.

"Absolutely, absolutely," he said in a briefer when asked if he was confident. "I feel like a guy with my style of play is someone that [Nadal] doesn't want to see."

The way Fish plays--lightning quick, serve-and-volley tennis--is what he feels is his greatest weapon.

"You got to be able to finish points quickly. [Nadal] is going to last longer than anybody.He wants to keep points as long as possible and run the guys down, kind of body blow after body blow.  read more »

The one thing that has surprised me over the last few days here is the utter lack of buzz over another potential Federer-Nadal final. No one is talking about it. I guess it's for two reasons: (1) Federer has been struggling, as he did yesterday and (2) Nadal has never gotten past the quarters here, and he is still stuck with that old reputation that he's not much of a hard court player.

But he doesn't like that rap. Nor does he like the idea that the Olympics (where he won a gold two weeks ago) is what got him kick started on hard courts.

"I was playing good in hard court before the Olympics, no?," he said at a press briefing on Monday. "I won in Toronto, semifinals in Cincinnati and semifinal in Indian Wells and Australia, and Miami final, no? So the results was very good, no?"

O.K., yes.