Well, not long after I posted it, all of those players have been eliminated. American upstart Ryan Harrison, after having three match points in his 5-set match, blew them all and lost on Friday; Jankovic blamed the wind for her shocking loss on Saturday; Murray fell in the third round, his worst performance at the Open in three years and began doubting himself with whether he'd ever win here; Dent was blown away in straight sets on Thursday afternoon, only hours after I posted the story. Another player who stayed--though only briefly--was Svetlana Kuznetsova, and she lost today in another upset.

Could it be: Is the Radisson cursed?

The only surviving Radisson player is Vera Zvonareva who plays tonight at Ashe. It must be getting awfully lonely in the hotel, and now she has to shoulder the load and keep honor to the Radisson. Maybe she should do a seance, and, hopefully, the bad luck won't rub off on her.

EARLIER:Forget the Waldorf! Rally Round the Radisson! New York Home for Tennis Stars

First, let me give you a report from the ground. It's crazy out there! I almost want to compare it to an early April Mets game where it's cold, and Gary, Keith and Ron spend as much time discussing bags and debris flying around the infield and outfield as they do on the game. But it's actually windier than that! The ball is going to fly, and Jelena Jankovic said it was incredibly difficult, especially on Ashe.

"You hit the ball in one direction and it goes another," she said after her match today. "You're getting ready to hit the ball and just moves away from you."

How would she sum it up?

"Really tough. The conditions were really, really tough to play."

She continued, " I think on Arthur Ashe Stadium the wind is really strong, and you really feel the wind a lot. For me, I don't know how it is for the other players, but it's very hard when the wind is like this. When it's strong, it's very hard to play the game. Sometimes you need as well a little bit of luck in there and really try your best to make, you know, as many balls as you can in the court. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that today."

So when she was asked at a press conference about fellow serbs Ana Ivanovic and then Janko Tipsarevic (who defeated Andy Roddick last night) after she won today, she was not pleased.

Q.  How much do you know about [Tipsarevic's] game?
JELENA JANKOVIC:  Can I please talk about myself?  We go to ATP tennis, San Diego house. Guys, I'm tired. I just played a three-hour match. 

But where do stars like Andy Murray and Jelena Jankovic stay?

How about the Radisson!

That's right. For starters, who even knew that the Raddison--that inexpensive hotel where you stay when you make those unfortunate trips to cities like Cincinnati or Jacksonville--was in Manhattan? But it is!

And who else--other than Murray and Jankovic--is staying at the Radisson on the corner of 48th and Lexington?

How about Ryan Harrison (Wednesday's star at the Open), Taylor Dent and Vera Zvonareva? Also: Nick Bollatterri.

According to a guest at the hotel (where all this information comes from), Mr. Bollatterri is a close friend with the folks who run the hotel chain, so anyone who has made a tour through his Academy has a pretty good shot of winding up bunking there.

Apparently the hotel gets pretty decked out for the Open as well. There's tennis everything, a tennis-loving bartender and also a sushi bar (which Open players love, love, love).

Why else stay there? Ah, maybe this has something to do with it, too: Our source tells us the rates are really good.

So if you somehow wind up at the intersection of Lexington and 48th, be sure to give a yell for Taylor Dent who takes on Robin Soderling later today. Or anyone, really. And if Andy Murray winds up winning the Open, we'll be looking closely for the after-party in the Radisson lobby.

With Jankovic (yet another chapter in the Fall of the Power Serbs) and Dementieva out, and Dinara Safina looking uncertain after another difficult win against Kristina Barrois, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-3, the top half of the women's draw is looking rosier for Svetlana Kuznetsova, who won today, not to mention for Safina herself, who would have been on track to meet Jankovic in the quarters. Bondarenko and 23rd-seeded Sabine Lisicki (who lost to Anastasia Rodionova) were also cleared out of Safina's quarter of the draw.

Things are still more more stable in the men's tournament. All the seeds who played--Sam Querrey, Tommy Haas, Nikolay Davydenko, and Fernando Verdasco--advanced, though Querrey had a lively fight from Kevin Kim. The Greatest Twins in Tennis History also won!

Because they haven't.

Last year, we watched Novak Djokovic transform himself from a New York hero into a villain after he gave a cringe-inducing post-match speech at Arthur Ashe (where  Richard Johnson booed him). When his Open run ended in the semifinals last year, he explained to the press that he wanted to forget the tournament as soon as possible.

After he won the 2008 Australian Open, we were expecting Novak to elevate himself into the top tier of players. That hasn't happened yet, and neither has a convincing run for a title since his triumph in Melbourne.

Meanwhile, Ana Ivanovic has had a spectacular fall from the top. After being ranked no. 1 in the world, she has dropped to no. 11 and has done no better than the fourth round of a Slam this year, and lost in the third round at the Australian Open. She won the French last year, but nothing since, and has become, quite simply, a middling women's player.

Jelena Jankovic, who played a competitive match with Serena Williams in last year's final, also has slowed down. After being ranked no. 1 going into last year's Open, she has fallen to fifth in the world and, like Ivanovic, has done no better showing than the fourth round in a Grand Slam this year.

All three will debut today, and to little fanfare: Novak Djokovic will play Ivan Ljubicic at Arthur Ashe today, and Jelena Jankovic will take on Roberta Vinci and Ana Ivanovic will play Kateryna Bondarenko. Both of those matches are at Armstrong.

Update: In the original version of this story, we stupidly forgot Ana Ivanovic's triumph at the 2008 French Open. Thank you to the commenter who alerted us.

Serena Williams defeated Jelena Jankovic in an often nervous but ultimately riveting match 6-4, 7-5.

It lasted over 2 hours, including a 1 hour, 17 minute second set that brought everything to the table: dramatic rallies, set points saved, a match point saved, key errors and stirring winners.

For Serena, it was a coronation of a long road traveled back to the top spot (literally--she's now the no. 1 player in the world). With the top players in women's tennis knocked away with an injury (Sharapova), early retirement (Henin) and a bad loss (Ivanovic), the sport is rewarding the player who hung around the longest, even if it wasn't exactly playing the best tennis we've seen from the game, or the best tennis we've seen from her.

Jankovic had her chances, including four set points when she was serving 5-4 in the second set. But she hit into key double faults, and, in the match, won an inexcusably low 54 percent of her points off her first serve; it was her first Grand Slam final, and it clearly showed. Serena herself was only 2 of 12 on break point chances in the second set.

Even if the match wasn't perfect, it was certainly dramatic. Thanks to her fitness, Jankovic has a knack for inducing really long rallies, and when Serena is in the heat of the match there's nothing she loves much than a long rally. Ultimately, Serena's strength--mental and physical--is what led to her to the victory.

In flashes, Serena's performance tonight reminded me of the Serena Williams that last won here in 2002 and dominated the game so profoundly five years ago. She's back at the top now by virtue of the game's problems just as much as her own determination, but she has the chance to prove that she, unlike every player after Justine Henin retired, is a worthy No. 1.

It is, also, bigger than a Saturday night match or a Sunday evening match--the traditional time for the women's and men's finals, respectively--and the biggest primetime slot ever dedicated for tennis: 9 p.m., CBS, Sunday night (the only other primetime Sunday night match was that ridiculous "Battle of the Sexes" exhibition in 1973).

The downside is that the women's final will have plenty of competition tonight: NBC has the first Sunday night football game of the 2008 NFL season; ABC has a primetime benefit concert that's featuring Janet Jackson and Jessica Simpson; MTV has the Video Music Awards; HBO has the season premiere of Entourage.

But! It's women's tennis on a Sunday night with tons of ratings potential. The USTA is giddy over the fact that they've got Serena Williams to showcase their game in an Open final for the first time since 2002.

It's also going to be a really good match. For all the talk over Jelena Jankovic's nerves, and her inability to win in big matches, she's never really crumbled under high pressure. Last year when she played Venus Williams in an incredibly close quarterfinal match at the Open, Venus took command to win it--Jelena didn't choke.

With expectations sky high for Serena, don't be surprised if we have a major upset tonight.

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.

Serena has lost to both Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic this year. She lost to Safina at the Qatar Telecom German Open, a match which ended in a third-set tiebreaker. And she lost to Jankovic at the Australian Open in straight sets (though Serena has also recently beaten her, at the Sony Ericsson Open).

Safina and Serena are underway now at Ashe, and Safina is up a break. So there.