Silently hoping the U.S. Open makes some noise

Reporting from New York — 

The sounds of silence around the U.S. Open on Saturday will be the collective breath-holding of U.S. Tennis Assn. officials. The prayer they will be praying will be that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer win their way into Sunday’s final.

The sounds of silence around the U.S. Open on Saturday will be the collective breath-holding of U.S. Tennis Assn. officials.

The prayer they will be offering, and the words they cannot be saying, will be that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer win their way into Sunday’s final.

It’s not that anybody running this event has any dislike for Nadal’s opponent, Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny, or for Federer’s opponent, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic. They are both capable of great tennis and Grand Slam titles. As a matter of fact, Djokovic has already won one, the 2008 Australian Open.

No, what is on the minds of the folks in charge here is the need for some buzz, for a legacy moment, for something that will stir large numbers of sports fans. The 2010 U.S. Open needs something that gives people who follow sports for mostly the Super Bowl, the World Series and Kobe a reason to talk tennis around the water cooler.

Rare as that is, the U.S. Open usually does it, generating something notable, memorable, even bizarre. It is, traditionally, the guy showing up at the office Christmas party in an orange blazer.

This year, nada.

There has been no Jimmy Connors, shaking his fist at Aaron Krickstein, and at approaching old age.

There has been no Pete Sampras, pouring his heart, soul and most recent meal onto the court.

There has been no Andre Agassi, ending a career with an exclamation point of words so poignant that his tears spread to all corners of 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium.

There has been no Serena Williams, standing over a linesperson, proposing a painful destination for the tennis ball in her hand.

Something at the U.S. Open usually rocks the world. This year, little has.

Oh, Fernando Verdasco won a fourth-round match in a fifth-set tiebreaker by chasing down a drop shot, scooping a winner around the net post on match point and collapsing as the crowd went wild. But Verdasco, a wonderful Spanish player, has absolutely no juice with the public and, especially, with the current noise leader in sports media, ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

Youzhny beat Stanislas Wawrinka in a five-set quarterfinal Thursday in Ashe Stadium. In a swirling wind that made playing tennis like ice skating in a swamp, the match actually served as a showcase for how great these players are. For four hours, they strategized, adjusted. Where topspin would usually prevail, they sliced. Where first-serve rockets would be the norm, they kicked in slower seconds. It was great tennis, but by players whose names are hard to pronounce, much less spell, and whose fan base is strictly Russian and Swiss, respectively.

The Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike of Camarillo, won the men’s doubles Friday in a packed Ashe Stadium. They beat Rohan Bopanna of India and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, the most unlikely of pairings, given the longstanding hatred each country has for the other. In the Bryans’ news conference afterward, the United Nations ambassadors from India and Pakistan, who have been, incredibly, sitting side by side and rooting for Bopanna and Qureshi, made a special presentation of ceremonial shawls to the Bryans.

There was talk of huge TV screens being set up in India and Pakistan so that people could watch the final. There was speculation that millions had. There was also the likelihood that the story of the Indo-Pak Express, as Bopanna and Qureshi call themselves, would move the interest needle only slightly.

The U.S. Open needs Nadal-Federer. Even Youzhny recognized that when questioned about being a spoiler.

“I’m ready to be the bad person,” he said.

Federer is a fountain-of-youth legend. He has won 16 majors, more than anyone else. He has won a career Slam, meaning each of the majors at least once, something that Nadal would achieve with a title here. Federer turned 29 in August, is now No. 2 after more than five years at No. 1, and won the first major of the year, the Australian. If he beats Djokovic, he will have made his seventh straight U.S. Open final, losing only last year to Juan Martin del Potro.

Nadal won the other two majors this year, the French and Wimbledon, and has supplanted Federer atop the rankings, leaving the impression that, at 24, he is the future and Federer is fading. Nadal has won 14 of the 21 matches they have played, and the only major Federer has won over Nadal has been Wimbledon, in the 2006 and ’07 finals.

Their last meeting in a major was the 2009 Australian, won by Nadal. The Spaniard took both the ’08 French and Wimbledon with victories over Federer, the French with a shocking 6-0 clinching set.

Neither has lost a set going into these semifinals. They have never played each other at the U.S. Open.

So the stage is set, fingers are crossed, TV executives are goose-bumpy and people with tickets for the final are sharpening their tweeting fingers.

The U.S. Open seldom saves the best for last. Maybe this year.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com