Roger Kaplan

It has been a tournament of come-backs-from-the-brink, grit, and courage.

Tremendous match. The drama was in the first set, when it appeared close right through the tiebreak, and in the second Miss Pennatta got a big lead early; still, Miss Vinci, with the old fashioned style, very heavy on sliced one-handed backhands and graceful approaches to the net, that flummoxed the No. 1 seed and defending champion Serena Williams in the semi, gave her higher-ranked friend a run for her money.

Civilization as we have known ended a few minutes before 3 p.m. on a hot Friday afternoon at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows, as Serena Williams blew the thrilling third set of her semifinal against Roberta Vinci.

The stupidity or dishonesty of tennis professionals and allegedly serious observers of the sport compels them to comment that the Williams’ way of playing is “muscular,” meaning masculine. This reflects a meanness and envy and mostly an incomprehension of what they are doing. Sports like all other fields are filled with dopes and blockheads. Every once in a while someone comes along and innovates in ways that influence the sport profoundly. That’s the Williams sisters.

The competitive fury is arguably the Williams’ most characteristically American trait. Legend has it that Richard Williams saw a match on television and was so enchanted by the check presented to the winner that he decided to make tennis number ones of his youngest daughters. The reality is somewhat more nuanced. He said not: “How can anyone do this?” He said: “Why not us?”

Marin Cilic gave Japan’s rising son a tough match in the semi-finals of Washington’s Citi Open, a small gem of a tournament that warms players up for the end-of-summer U.S. Open. It was competitive enough to say he coulda had he only woulda.