TENNIS US OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS: WITH JUSTINE Henin, last year's US Open champion, retiring in May at the ripe old age of 25, Maria Sharapova missing injured and Serbia's Ana Ivanovic, the number one seed, losing in the second round here last week, next Saturday's final is beckoning strongly for Jelena Jankovic, the most talented woman in the top 10 not to have so far reached a grand slam singles final.
The 23-year-old has the ability and brain to win a slam event but she has come to a juddering halt four times in the semi-final stage, at Roland Garros (twice), Melbourne and Flushing Meadows.
She is a beautiful mover, and hits the ball with considerable power, but her slight frame has frayed at the edges during the second weeks.
To this end she has taken on the services of the American trainer Pat Etcheberry, who helped Henin overcome her physical disadvantages.
The main problem for Jankovic is she gets drawn into so many long matches during the first week that she often has little left when the real crunch comes.
This pattern has continued here, although there were signs yesterday she is beginning to manage the stresses and strains a little better.
Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki had won the New Haven warm-up tournament just before the US Open - "the biggest win of my career" - and represented a distinct threat to the world number two.
The potency of the teenager's challenge was quickly evident and she duly took the opening set, hitting through the ball in awkward, windy conditions with freedom.
The 18-year-old Dane was a junior Wimbledon champion two years ago and has climbed into the top 20 this year. She is likely to make a big impact in the coming years - but not on this occasion, when Jankovic finally brought her experience to bear.
The Serbian steadied her early waywardness, forcing Wozniacki into more and more mistakes to win 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.
"I have been working very hard on my fitness and I think I am now ready to make it to my first slam final," said Jankovic, clearly overjoyed and relieved to reach the quarter-finals, where she will play the winner of the match between Sybille Bammer of Austria and Marion Bartoli of France.
Champion Roger Federer moved smoothly into the fourth round of the men's singles with a hassle-free 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 win over the 28th seed, Radek Stepanek.
The Swiss second seed, chasing his fifth successive US Open crown but his first grand slam title of the year, served superbly as he breezed past the Czech to reach the last 16.
Stepanek beat Federer in Rome in May but the Swiss was on his game from the start, particularly on serve, frequently leaving the 29-year-old hitting air on his returns.
The Czech stayed with Federer in the second set until 3-3 but the second seed then pulled away to set up a meeting with the Spaniard Fernando Verdasco or the Russian Igor Andreev.
Fifth seed Nikolay Davydenko continued his ride with a 6-2, 7-6, 6-3 third-round win over his fellow Russian Dmitry Tursunov.
The 26th seeded Tursunov stretched him to a tiebreak in the second but Davydenko won it 7-3. He claimed an early break in the third to go 3-1 ahead and closed it off efficiently.
Serving for the match at 5-3, the 27-year-old slugged it out from the baseline during the long rallies and kept up the pressure until Tursunov made the first error.
"I need to control the baseline, which is what I did today," Davydenko, who has yet to drop a set in the tournament, said in a courtside interview.
Davydenko, who has been a semi-finalist in New York for the last two years, could run into the four-time champion Federer in the quarter-finals.
The Russian will next face either Nicolas Almagro of Spain or Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.
Jamie Murray, who won the 2007 Wimbledon mixed doubles title with Jankovic, reached the third round here with his naturalised American partner Liezel Huber, taking less than 90 minutes to defeat the Czech pair Kveta Peschke and Pavel Vizner 7-5, 6-3.
Murray and Huber made the semi-finals here last year.
