Their careers certainly have had very different trajectories, and their styles and personalities are singular. But Mr. Roddick and Ms. Clijsters have one very important thing in common. Their tennis legacies were written on the hard courts of the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens.

Both Mr. Roddick, who won the U.S. Open in 2003, and Ms. Clijsters, a champion in 2005, 2009 and 2010, chose to end their career at this year’s Open. Ms. Clijsters made it clear months ago that she would be hanging up her tennis bag after her last match in Flushing this year. Mr. Roddick surprised the tennis world by announcing mid-tournament that he, too, would retire after the Open.

Both players won the hearts and loyalties of New York’s discerning tennis fans with their professionalism, charisma and sense of style. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Mr. Roddick married a woman named Brooklyn (although she’s from Ohio, and they live in Texas), and Ms. Clijsters married a Jersey guy and now lives (among other places) on the Jersey Shore.

They may not have been New Yorkers, but they clearly felt at home here. It was in Flushing a decade ago that Mr. Roddick won his only major championship, and from that time until this week, he carried the flag for American men’s tennis in the post-Pete Sampras era. It was his bad luck to come of age just before a young Swiss champion, Roger Federer, burst on the scene, to be followed by another great champion, Rafael Nadal. Mr. Roddick never did get that second major championship. But he’ll always have Flushing.

Arthur Ashe Stadium was the setting for Ms. Clijsters’s comeback from a premature retirement in 2007, about a year before she gave birth to her daughter. Beginning with her opening match in 2009, she went on a two-year tear, winning back-to-back championships. New York’s supposedly hardened, sophisticated fans melted at the sight of Ms. Clijsters hugging her daughter after those two memorable victories.

The Open produces winners every year, but not every champion captures the city’s imagination. These two did—so it was fitting and gracious that they chose New York for their final matches.

In arguably the most boring women's final ever played in Queens, Kim Clijsters defeated Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 6-1 in a 59 minute match.

For some perspective: The Djokovic-Federer fifth set was 68 minutes. They played four sets of tennis before that! Someone should have given Ana Ivanovic a wild card! She went 59 minutes, and that was without extra commercial break time since it was the women's final. Clearly the Radisson had some effect on this match, after all.

After Clijsters went up 5-1 in the second set, thousands of fans streamed out of the stadium. They weren't even in their seats for an hour, and they were leaving. Money not well spent. The USTA should have put Kim and her daughter Jada out there for an exhibtion.

Congratulations to Clijsters who clearly should have been given the women's crown yesterday afternoon after she defeated Venus Williams. That match was worthy of a women's final. Imagine how Venus feels after she sees the result of this match. She would have had a walk-through if she made this far.

Clijsters is a true champion, and she deserved more competition. In the two tests she got in this tournament--Venus and Stosur--we saw some reasonably good tennis (even though in both of those matches both Clijsters and her opponents played, admittedly, sloppy tennis). The women's game has a lot of problems right now, and without Serena (and, at some point sooner, without Venus) they have got to find a way to develop some more talent. If they don't, we're headed for a dark era than it has been for the last couple years, and it hasn't been great recently.

The good news? A worthy person took the Open this year, even as the game around her looks weaker by the second.

UPDATE: The women's final length of time was originally posted as one hour. The USTA just announced that according to the umpire's card the match was actually 59 minutes, and not 60 minutes. Even worse.

This was by no means high quality tennis, and, yet again, Venus couldn't get the job done at a major not named Wimbledon. Like she did against Justine Henin at the Open in 2007, or Serena in 2008, or against Clijsters last year, Venus shot herself in the foot. She had nearly a 2:1 ration on unforced errors to winners (50:27) and had 7 double faults, including two critical ones in a second set tiebreak that she lost 7-2. 

Opportunity came knocking at Venus's door today, but we don't need to rewrite her legacy quite yet. Venus took on her first Big Time opponent at this tournament, and fell. And Clijsters certainly appreciated it.

"I just tried to make the points," said Clijsters in an on-court interview after the match. "I tried to keep the pressure on her. I'm glad she made a few double faults in the tiebreaker there."

"Obviously in the tiebreak I wasn't able to play as well as I wanted," said Venus, in her opening remarks in a presser reflecting on the match. "I made a lot of errors."

Clijsters obviously didn't have her A-game either, but Venus played slightly worse. Though it always seems silly to make comparisons of Venus to Serena if there's a reason why Serena is showered with so much attention than her older sister the second set proved why: Serena would have closed the deal then and there. This match would not have gone three sets. She would have finished the job.

Even in the third set, Venus had her chances, and they slipped away.

"I don't feel like [Clijsters] settled in a lot," said Venus, talking about the third set. "I had chances for 2-love, and I don't think she felt that comfortable even at 4-all. It was tough. In the third set, it was a good game. She just made good plays. Normally if I'm coming in that much, I'm probably gonna win the game."

And what was the difference?

"I guess at the end she may have made a few less errors. Last two games just went her way."

It seems that Venus and Clijsters reached the same conclusion: Clijsters made fewer mistakes, and a few more big plays.

But, I have to say, I'm glad it went three because we got to see a riveting tennis match, even if it wasn't flawless. It's been a very long time since we saw a match of this magnitude--a semifinal--that was this thrilling. Maybe Capriati-Serena in 2004 is the closest thing to it (and, that too, was full of mistake-prone tennis). And it really goes to show that even if Clijsters and Venus are two rough-and-tough vets, there is still no better stuff that is produced in women's tennis than by the players who emerged on the scene a decade ago. We really should appreciate that era of women's tennis because it continues to entertain.

For Clijsters, this is another great moment. For a second straight match, she came away with a W that she didn't necessarily deserve. But she deserves props for that, and it'll serve her well as she tries to knock down Vera Zvonareva in the women's final tomorrow night.

It's the only time this U.S. Open--whether she wins or loses--that she'll have to play a fellow two time+ Grand Slam champion. Neither Venus nor Clijsters are playing their best tennis--Clijsters got through her quarterfinals match by seemingly losing less than Stosur--but we're hoping they put on a show today. For Venus it presents an opportunity. An opportunity to finally elbow her way back into a Grand Slam Final that isn't named Wimbledon. It would be a big statement from her.

Over the last few years, Venus Williams has played the role of a sort of Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. She's always a competitor at a major, she might make her way to a semifinal or a quarterfinal, but if you're a Justine Henin or a Kim Clijsters or--most especially--a Serena Williams, you're going to beat her. So, her little sister isn't playing at this Open, and the door is open. Clijsters hasn't lost at the Open in a very long time--dating back to before her first retirement--and won't crumble because of the pressure. Venus is going to have to win it on the merits.

Considering that these two are meeting at a moment where neither is exactly playing their best tennis, I'm expecting a match not unlike the 4th round match we saw last year. The first two sets were a blur--each won at love--but dramatic tennis finally emerged in the third set. If Venus wins today, she'll be proving something to a lot of folks out there who aren't convinced that she can still beat the best. The battle of the two veterans begins in a couple hours.

We can make a big deal of Clijsters subpar play, but guess what? She won. So, she lost her service games seven times. Well, she broke Stosur eight times. Stosur was an astonishing 7 for 12 on break point chances, so Clijsters responded by being a slightly better 8 of 13. This was not Clijsters's best day, and she found a way to win. It's what champions do.

"I didn't play a good match, but I was able to win it," she said.

Clijsters can show flashes of uneven and streaky tennis. Remember her fourth round match against Venus last year? In the first set, she won 6-0. In the second set, she lost 6-0. Then she held on to win the third set. We'll see if Clijsters can keep her Open winning streak alive on Friday afternoon against the streaking Venus.

Meanwhile, only minutes after the Clijsters-Stosur three setter ended, Fernando Verdasco capped off an incredible comeback to defeat fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in a five-set thriller before a few hundred people at Armstrong. Verdasco hit into a jaw-dropping 89 unforced errors in the match. That gives him 216 total errors for the tournament, the most by any player. But! He also hit 73 winners, including a running, lunging, screaming forehand that finished off Ferrer in the fifth set tiebreak. It was a fifth set tiebreak that Ferrer led 4-1 at one point, and the Cardiac Kid Fernando Verdasco reeled off six straight points to finish the comeback. Here's

Kim Clijsters blew away Ana Ivanovic in just under an hour in an easy 6-2, 6-1 victory. This was Ivanovic's first fourth round Open match since 2007 when Venus Williams beat her 6-4, 6-2 on a Sunday afternoon on Ashe. That match looked like Agassi-Sampras 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 match in '01--happened nine years ago today!--compared to this one.

Despite the fact that Clijsters and Ivanovic are two wonderfully nice players and two of my favorites, this was not easy to watch. There was a point very early on when the two traded breaks, but after Ivanovic lost a second service game in the first set, it began a streak where she would lose 10 of the next 11 games.

In the second set, the tennis became ugly, ugly, ugly. Ivanovic said her confidence is back, but she clearly still has a lot of work to do before she can compete in a real way at Grand Slams again. In the first set, she won just 9 percent of her points off her second serve. In the second set, she won just 38 percent of points off her first serve. She had 5 double faults for a match that didn't last an hour.

She admitted that she was overwhelmed by the moment.

"I was on a big stage again," she said. "I didn't have that feeling for a long time. Lots of emotions came back, and I just felt a little slow, and just a little bit out of it," she said.

Clijsters said her strategy today was to apply a little bit of pressure, and then sit back and watch Ivanovic implode.

"I knew once I got out there that Ana is the type of player -- she's playing with a lot more confidence, and if I can stay with her in the beginning of those first few games where she was playing really good tennis, if I could just stay with her and kind of just, yeah, make her once in a while doubt a little bit," said Clijsters.

As a result: "She starts making a few little unforced errors and a couple of double faults," she continued. "I really tried to use the chances that I had, and that's what I did really well."

It's a shame that a wonderful competitor like Clijsters didn't get any challenge today. It would be so great for women's tennis if Ivanovic should pull her game together, but clearly there's a lot of work ahead of her.

Clijsters should be ready for a tougher match in the quarters. She'll get the winner of Sam Stosur and Elena Dementieva, which takes place on Ashe later tonight.

We have first-hand experience with Ana Ivanovic's niceness. Even after she bottomed out and lost in the First Round here last year, she gave a ridiculously cordial performance in her presser last year, at a moment when any other number of stars would have been just awful to be around. Once Ivanovic lost her no. 1 ranking, we heard the same thing about Ivanovic that was once latched to Clijsters: She's just too nice.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, but these two aren't hiding it.

"She and I are good friends, and I'm happy to see her doing well again," said Clijsters after her last match.

"It's true also when I was struggling, she was messaging me," said Ivanovic after her third round victory. "She was very supportive. That's really rare and really nice to see. In those times, you know who your friends are. She's definitely a nice girl. We always have a nice time catching up."

I mean this sincerely: Aww. That is really nice!

Onto the match. Even though Clijsters hasn't done much since her improbable victory here last year, she's been described in the press as a favorite to win again. I don't see it. Ivanovic is slowly, quietly and steadily regaining her form that once brought her to the no. 1 ranking and a French Open championship. The last time she played on the Ashe court for a Fourth Round day match on CBS, she couldn't hold a candle to Venus Williams. But this is a different player now from the one three years ago. As Ivanovic has said herself, she has nothing to lose. She's going to play the role of spoiler in this U.S. Open and it'll start tomorrow morning. Look for a stunning upset with Ivanovic's victory that will probably get more recognition than her French Open victory.

Ivanovic, the former no. 1 player in the world and Observer cover girl in 2007, has tumbled all the way to no. 40 in the rankings. Her problem? Her head. The pressure.

The talent is there, and to listen to her now, you're starting to believe in her.

"I feel like I'm playing like a top 10 player and I have confidence that I can beat these players," she said. "That's huge for me."

That's a big statement, and she'll need that confidence too.

Her potential opponent in the third round is the Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli, a feisty player with the exact opposite situation as Ivanovic: She is limited by her body, but she's mentally tough. Ivanovic's potential fourth round opponent? Kim Clijsters.

With the way she's playing, it might be a stretch to say she's a contender again (then again, who isn't a contender on the women's side at the Open?) but you're starting to believe she could knock off a couple players in the draw.

"I see myself as two different persons," she said, right before the Serbian began her knack for speaking in run-on sentences. "Once you're actually coming up and you have no expectations, you are hungry for success, and you really don't know what the stakes are, you just go for it, you have no fear, you play freely against anyone you come up against."

Then, she said, once you get a French Open title and a no. 1 ranking you do feel it. "That creates some doubts and obviously pressure."

But now?

"Now I feel, you know, as I am just coming up again, and I have really nothing to lose. I got that joy of competing again."

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After Clijsters' straight sets first round victory today over Greta Arn, the returning U.S. Open champ said she's seen Serena's injury and it's legit.

"I saw the injury, so...and it's not something that she's making up or that it's a small cut or anything," she said a press conference this afternoon.

She said she saw the injury when the two played in an exhibition in Belgium in July shortly after the injury supposedly occurred. Clijsters said that the injury affected both of Serena's feet--something I didn't know until now.

But when she was asked whether it was the top or the bottom of her feet, Clijsters stayed quiet.

"Um, I don't remember," she said. "I wasn't paying such close attention."

Color me (still) skeptical!

"I remember Justine [Henin], she was one who could mix her game up even if she was not playing well," she said. "Someone like [Amelie] Mauresmo, even Venus and Serena, were hard hitters, they can still work their way through matches even when they're not playing their best tennis. I'm not saying everybody's like that, but I haven't seen a lot of girls change their game up a little bit."

Early in tonight's match, Clijsters was having a world of problems with Caroline Wozniacki. The Dane was hitting moonballs. She was playing ugly. She didn't have enough pace on the ball for Clijsters. Like a knuckle-ball pitcher who's dumping it down the middle of the plate at 60 m.p.h., Wozniacki was lobbing it, and Clijsters was whiffing.

Clijsters lost four consecutive games at one point in the first set, and it looked like we might have a competitive match. Then she figured it out. Clijsters slowed everything down, and reminded us why she was a champion. She took the match right out of the hands of Wozniacki one her way to a 7-5, 6-3 victory. Though the match was sloppy, it was an emphatic statement on how the women's game has regained its form. We've got a true champion to root for again.

"Women's tennis is back," Billie Jean King told us two days ago when we asked her about Clijsters. Thanks to Clijsters' play in the first week--and Melanie Oudin's, of course--we made the same argument.

Remember, before her premature retirement, Clijsters was regarded as a choke artist. Before she won the Open in 2005, Clijsters had that ugly moniker "Best Player Never to Win a Major." It was only a year after she finally won that she decided to retire.

Now those heavy-hitters on the women's tour--Elena Dementieva, Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina--can take a valuable lesson from Clijsters' story. (Maybe, for starters, have a baby!).

Her run at this year's Open was riveting from start to finish. In the second round she lost the opening set to the feisty Frenchwoman, Marion Bartoli, but Clijsters took control of the match and dominated the next two sets. When we watched it, it seemed like Clijsters had the goods to go all the way. Marion Bartoli told us after the match that Clijsters was an instant contender to win the Open. The only problem, Bartoli said, would be Venus and Serena.

Clijsters had to get through both of them, and like Justine Henin in 2007, she did so. Before Serena gave away the match with her spectacular meltdown last night, Clijsters played stirring tennis. She dictated every point. She moved Serena from side to side. Clijsters moved better and looked a lot more fit than Serena, celebrated as the fittest player in the women's game. What will be forgotten, sadly, is how much Clijsters dominated that match.

And perhaps most wonderfully of all, Clijsters just seems so content with her life right now.

"Kim's so happy," said Ms. King in our interview. "She's the happiest I've ever seen her."

On the first day of the tournament, we spotted Clijsters and Roger Federer in the hallway outside the players' locker rooms chatting about their babies.

"Once she got to 10.5 months, she started walking!" said Clijsters to Federer, who was nodding thoughtfully.

When we passed her in the hallway, she always gave us a bright smile, for no particular reason. Two days ago, during a rain delay, Zack and I spotted Clijsters and her husband, Brian Lynch, in the player's dining room. They were slapping each other playfully. They were laughing. They hugged.

Before her retirement we knew Clijsters as the nicest player on tour. Now, with her second championship, she's a true champion. It's very good to have her back.