It all started when I asked Richard in the player's lounge yesterday about what he thought of the field.

"I think Victoria Azarenka is no one to look over, that girl can play some tennis!" he said. "Also that other girl, you know, the one who is no. 1..."

Safina, I said.

"Yes, Safina! She's not no. 1 because of a mistake. I don't care what anyone says about her."

"I think she's playing great tennis," he continued. "I think she deserves to be no. 1. I'll tell ya something else, no one wants to play Sanowa, or whatever her name is. That girl hits that ball."

Richard Williams likes to play games with the press, and we wouldn't put it past him to purposefully forget her name--particularly when the lesser known Victoria Azarenka rolls right off his tongue--but maybe Safina can go ahead and win a Slam and put this one to bed once and for all.

"I just was feeling dizzy, a little sick to the stomach," she said. "Was just having some energy problems. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me."

Neither does anyone else. After making 56 unforced errors in her agonizingly close quarterfinal match with Jelena Jankovic, Venus made 35 this afternoon—compared to 26 winners—in a straight-sets loss to Justine Henin.

Williams said she's been feeling strange—dizzy, tired, depleted—since she got two days off after the fourth round. That's when she told her mom, Oracene Williams, that something was wrong.

Oracene spoke to a group of reporters afterwards and revealed that Venus was feeling was sick after Wimbledon and was diagnosed with anemia.

"She was happy when she found out she had anemia and she thought that was it," said Oracene. "Now there's something else wrong. We need to get this checked out."

Venus told Oracene she was feeling sick after her match against Ana Ivanovic. It was a match where Richard Williams told me that something seemed a little off. Oracene recalled Venus telling her that when she hits a ball it feels like the ground beneath her is moving (sort of like vertigo). Oracene spent the last two days racing to Whole Foods buying up oranges for Venus, finding anything that could boost her energy.

Venus' boyfriend, Hank Kuehne, told me last week that he spends her matches paying close attention to her body language. While packing up the Williams family Lexus this evening he told me: "She looked zapped. I won't know what's wrong until I get in in the car with her tonight."

Venus was asked if she told her sister Serena about the apparent illness. "Serena was my opponent in the draw, too. I didn't tell her how I was feeling," she said laughing.

Maybe it's just fatigue after playing a three-set match the other night, or maybe it's something serious. The only thing that we do know: Venus didn't have the energy to keep up with Justine Henin today.

"I felt really strong in the tiebreak, I felt fairly fresh," she said, "and I stopped missing, so that helped."

By contrast, Jankovic made errors at the key point and said she was so nervous that when she spoke to the crowd afterwards her voice was shaking. 

Venus will need to play that type of tennis for three sets against Justine Henin is she's to avoid her sister's fate.

"I really, really want it," said Venus. "I'm doing everything for it." 

Jankovic was walking back into Arthur Ashe Stadium when she told me how she could win tonight. “I’m gonna have to lift my game from where it’s been over the last few matches,” she said.

Jankovic has played in two consecutive three-set matches, while Venus Williams has cruised to the quarters without dropping a set.

A big question tonight will be whether Jankovic will have the stamina to go three sets with Venus.

Also: Is Venus really playing flawlessly? The infrequently reliable Richard Williams told me two days ago that he wasn’t happy with Venus’ play. If you consider what he said, though, he was sort of right.

Last thing to consider for tonight: Jankovic is 3-1 in their last four matches, including wins at the French and Wimbledon.

This could be a good one.

After her match against Marion Bartoli, she was asked if anything was affecting her physically: “I would be the last person to tell you just in case Justine or Safina reads it, and they're like, ‘Oh, I know what to do.’”

Then her father, Richard, had this to say to me two days ago: “I think Serena can beat anyone when she’s well. Serena’s really not well. I know she’s not well. I won’t let you find out what’s wrong with her, but she’s not well.”

Let's see if Henin can figure it out.

“I don’t think she played that great today,” said Richard Williams. “The second serve wasn’t doing anything. Venus wasn’t turning. She wasn’t meeting the serve return. She hit too many serves out.”

But Mr. Williams, she won 6-4, 6-2 against the no. 4 player in the world.

“Sometimes tennis scores doesn’t reflect how a person plays. In my opinion, Venus played bad.”

What was the difference then?

“[Ivanovic] outplayed Venus, she just didn’t play the key points well,”

He had kind things to say about Ana.

“Keep in mind, she’s 19”, he said. “She got to the finals of the French. She probably needs a little more experience because she hits well, she plays well, she’s not moving that bad. She played a lot better than Venus.”

Perhaps it's a motivation technique, maybe it's something we're all missing, but what will it take for the quarterfinals-bound Venus to play better?

“If Venus wants to win this tournament she’ll not only have to play key points well, she’ll have to play the other points better.”

I sit on the No. 7 train, heading to the U.S. Open, and I admire the shapely calves of the woman sitting next to me. She’s talking to two colleagues who stand in front of her, and they’re all going to the Open. One of her colleagues is a fey young man who bears an uncanny resemblance—especially considering our destination—to Pete Sampras. The other colleague, a middle-aged woman, appears to be the boss, and she’s gossiping about someone in their office: “She’s gone on four dates with this guy who is categorically handsome, but he hasn’t made a move. He’s not aggressive enough.”

“Four dates?” says the woman next to me.

“That’s a lot of dates,” says Pete Sampras.

“She’s the third woman I know who said she’s dating someone who’s not aggressive,” says the boss.

I wonder what’s going on with these passive men, some of whom are categorically handsome, and then I tune the trio out. I tell myself that I should be thinking about tennis—after all, I’m on assignment. For some reason, my mind then flashes back to this town tennis tournament I won the summer before eighth grade. I was supposed to get a trophy, but it wasn’t ready when I won. The guy in charge of the tournament and the trophies was this fellow who had a withered leg from polio. He was in his late 40’s, and the town paid him a small fee to be in charge of all things tennis. He loved the sport and was constantly playing, heroically dragging that leg all over the court.

I had two baseball trophies, two soccer trophies and one fake, unearned trophy, which featured an athlete in a bathing suit, and I desperately wanted to replace the false trophy with my tennis trophy. Five trophies would really show the world what an athlete I was. How the world would know this I’m not sure, since no one ever came into my room other than my mother.

So I started calling the man with the bad leg every two weeks, asking him if my trophy had arrived yet. After about four months of phone calls, he yelled: “It’s just a trophy! Stop calling me!” Then one day, about six months after I won the tournament, he put the trophy in our mailbox. I positioned it on my bureau where I could stare at it narcissistically for hours, but it was a bit tainted now since I had tormented the tennis guy to get it. I was the town champ, but I still felt like a loser—my life story.

4 p.m.

I’m outside the press office at the tennis center, waiting for my credentials, and I spot Virginia Wade, the former British champion. She’s tanned, handsome and dignified, with gray hair feathered down the middle. Then I spot the beautiful Maria Sharapova coming from the practice courts. She’s in a halter top and sweatpants, and though she is thin and tall, I can see that beneath the sweat pants she has powerful buttocks, which must aid her serve. Sharapova then disappears into the players’ entrance to the stadium, and I admire, on my right, a policeman with a German shepherd. The dog is panting from the heat and lying down on the job. I see that on the back of the policeman’s shirt it says “Canine Unit.” Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to be a policeman, and I’m also madly in love with dogs, so I write in my little notebook that being a part of the Canine Unit would be the best of both worlds for me, and then I remember how, years ago, a transsexual prostitute in the meatpacking district whispered to me like a siren as I walked by, “It’s the best of both worlds,” and then a girl in the press office comes outside and tells me that my credentials are ready.

7:30 p.m.

I’m sitting in the journalists’ section of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The humidity is as thick as a phonebook. It’s like being in a bathroom with the windows closed after taking an epically long, hot shower. I’m wearing a linen blazer that feels as comfortable as a suture. To my right, in the V.I.P. section about 30 yards away, Mayor Bloomberg and former Mayor Dinkins, both in suit and tie, seem impervious to the heat.

Maria Sharapova is playing a Greek woman named Daniilidou. Sharapova is in a light-blue dress with yellow trim and no sleeves. The dress flaps up when she exerts herself, and you see bright yellow undergarments, which aren’t really panties but the kind of thing that a superheroine might wear—a cross between panties and tights.

When she serves, I note that her armpits are quite white, as opposed to her tanned outer arms, and I find this very sexy. I’ve always had a thing for women’s armpits. It’s not an all-consuming thing, like a foot fetish, but just a general admiration for the female armpit.

Sitting near Mayor Bloomberg, I observe Andy Rooney hunched over in a posture that would seem to indicate rapt attention, but on closer inspection, I can see that his spine has been crushed by age and time, though it doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention. David Boies, Al Gore’s lawyer, sits a few rows behind Rooney, and my mind drifts back to the 2000 election, but it doesn’t like to drift back there for too long.

From the upper reaches of the stadium, a man cries out, “I love you, Maria!”

She wins in straight sets.

9:30 p.m.

Andre Agassi is playing superbly and is easily defeating his opponent, a guy named Razvan Sabau. Women call out, “I love you, Andre!”

Agassi seems to waddle a little, and I imagine that his body, after running thousands of miles on tennis courts all over the world, is a bit worn down, but he still hits the ball with great authority.

I wonder what keeps Agassi going. This is his 20th year playing the U.S. Open—isn’t he bored with it? Then I think how being competitive never goes away. It’s instinctual, like lust: No matter how much you’ve made love, you’re still more or less interested in sex. I, for example, never play competitive sports any more, but I do play Internet backgammon against anonymous strangers, and I find myself wanting to win. But why? Who cares? It must be Darwinian. To prove you’re the best is part of our programming, because if you’re the best, then you get to have a mate and you get to pass on your genes. Why we want to pass on our genes, I don’t know, but seemingly we do. So this desire to pass on one’s genes fools one into striving, even at Internet backgammon or professional tennis. Something like that. Well, we’ve all been hearing about Intelligent Design, and I’ve just now given an example of Ignorant Darwinism.

10:45 p.m.

I’m in the interview room with many journalists. Agassi, who has won his match quickly and efficiently, comes in. He has white threads hanging from his chin, which he seems unaware of. He must have dried his face with a towel that was falling apart.

He fields a number of dull questions with patience and generosity. I then work up the courage to ask, “Do you ever feel bad defeating your opponents? You handily beat that guy tonight and it was his first U.S. Open.”

Agassi looks me right in the eye and says firmly, “No. You don’t cheat anybody out of their experience. It all makes you who you are down the road. You’ve got to learn from it. I’ve been on the other side.”

I love his answer. It’s the thinking of a champion, but it’s also quasi-spiritual, acknowledging the other player’s destiny. Then I think how, when I was 14, I let my best friend beat me at tennis. I had been defeating him for years and so, this one time, I finally let him win—and when we were done, he lorded his victory over me. He carried on for several minutes, and then I weakened and said, “You only won because I let you.” This resulted in a terrible fight, and we never played tennis again.

Sept. 2, 2005, 4 p.m.

Serena Williams is playing an Italian woman named Francesca Schiavone. Serena has very appealing, well-defined armpits and her superheroine panties are burgundy. When she walks, her rear seems to have a life of its own, and a very nice life at that.

It’s a bright, beautiful day, and above us the Fuji blimp makes a loud, droning sound like an enormous, noisy refrigerator in the sky, and men call out, “I love you, Serena!”

I’m sitting with a bunch of salty old journalists. Bud Collins, the legendary, jovial tennis maven, is directly in front of me, and I say to him, “Excuse me, Mr. Collins, but I was wondering—do you know when fans started shouting out ‘I love you’ to the players?”

“I first heard it a century ago,” says Mr. Collins, “in Boston. Someone shouted ‘I love you, Cooz!’ to Bob Cousy. I’m not sure when it started in tennis. They get some sort of self-fulfillment proclaiming it.”

Then Mr. Collins says, to a man to our left, “Would you please sit down, sir?” and I see that it’s Richard Williams, Serena’s father. He turns and smiles at Mr. Collins, who was, of course, joking, and says, “If I sit down, I won’t be able to get up.”

Serena is playing inconsistently but winning. She’s too much for Schiavone. During tough points, her father, with a slight lisp, encourages: “Come on, Serena!”

An old Italian journalist next to me says to an even older American journalist, “You know what ‘Schiavone’ means?”

“No,” says the weather-beaten old American. These guys are a fraternity of tennis press, and they enjoy teasing each other.

“‘Big slave,’” says the Italian.

Bud Collins turns around and says, “It means ‘big slave’?”

“Yes,” says the well-spoken Italian. “I have to talk to you, Bud, about these things, not this old alligator”—referring to the weathered American journo—“who can’t understand nuance. He’s not civilized.”

“Go, big slave,” says the old American.

5:10 p.m.

I’m in the corridor of the stadium. Serena has won. Two journalists are speaking with Richard Williams. I approach and they peel away, and I say to him, in journalist mode, “You hear so much about the American Dream, but I think you’re an authentic dreamer. You envisioned your two daughters as champions, and it came true.”

“I wanted them to be No. 1 and No. 2 in the world, but I was a fool then,” he responds.

“What would be your goal now?” I ask, surprised by what he has said.

“Unity of the family,” he says, a bit forlornly, and then we part, and I don’t know the full story, but I think he must be broken-hearted that his marriage has failed.

6 p.m.

I’m in the interview room, and Serena Williams is fielding questions. She’s eloquent and charming. I ask her, “Amidst all the calls of ‘Come on, Serena!’, are you able to make out your father’s voice?”

“I can kind of differentiate my dad’s voice,” she says. “I definitely listen for it innately.”

“Does it help you when you hear him?”

“I think it does,” she says sweetly. “I think it does.”

I’m tempted to ask her about her father’s statement about family unity, but it doesn’t seem necessary.

9:50 p.m.

The air temperature is pleasant. It’s the kind of night that makes you forget about global warming for half an hour, and Roger Federer, the No. 1 man, is playing a wily Frenchman named Santoro. Federer walks about the court with great self-possession, seemingly unflappable. His eyes are set a bit too closely together; otherwise, he’d be matinee-idol handsome.

In the V.I.P. section, Nicole Kidman, ethereal with her yellow-blond hair and luminous skin, leans back in her chair, calmly elegant, like a 21st-century Grace Kelly. She sits with the director Steven Shainberg, who has cast her as Diane Arbus in his latest film. I watch her watch Federer. It all feels vaguely Roman—he’s a gladiator and she’s an empress—except no one’s Iife is at stake, only money, and lots of it. I wonder if she finds Federer appealing. I imagine myself talking to her, how I would fumble for words, like a fool.

11 p.m.

I lie on a bench near the enormous World’s Fair globe, which is just outside the tennis center. Fountains go about their business of shooting water in the air. I look up into the black night sky. I’m a bit lonely, and I think about my failings as a person. Then I give it a rest and just look into the sky and, for a moment, I feel at peace on a beautiful summer night.

We're guessing that the Sept. 11 ex reconnection will become an annual ritual, like the lonely-hearted calls people make during depressing December holidays or after a few eggnogs late on New Year's Eve. The anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington will trigger many emotions in people, but the date will likely always serve as a marker for where one's romantic life stands. And chances are that means we'll pick up the phone and call the same exes we did one year ago.

Ben, a 34-year-old entertainment lawyer, is thinking of spending some time on Sept. 11 talking to a faraway ex who called him a year ago. "Four years ago, I met a guy in London who I thought I was in love with, the folly of which was revealed when he visited and we had nothing to talk about," he said. "No contact for years, until Sept. 11. I was so touched to hear from him. I felt as if the different strands of my world were being sewn back together. This Sept. 11 has reminded me to get back in touch."

It's not hard to see what makes Sept. 11 a date of romantic reflection. Sept. 11 made one intensely aware of his or her relationship lot in the world-if you were alone or unhappy, you were instantly more so. It reconfirmed romantic priorities, and it asked the question we never thought we'd have to answer. For years we joked-rather ghoulishly, it seems now-about who we'd want to spend time with if the world was about to end. Sept. 11 was a real-life drill.

And when we called, our intentions were more honest than they'd ever been. It goes without saying that in the past, an ex who called you unexpectedly was often looking for a return to the sack. Surely that happened with a few of the Sept. 11 reconnections-we're not made of wood, after all-but most of the callers that day were looking for the earnest basics: a familiar voice, comfort, a hug, for goodness' sake. It was the emotional opposite of the Booty Call.

Sept. 11 helped rehumanize relationships and dating in this city. New York likes to style itself as a dating shark tank, but Sept. 11 brought a new vulnerability to the ritual. Being cynically single wasn't so cool any more; for a few months, it really sucked. Likewise, hating your ex was cheesy and over. Amy, a 25-year-old teacher, made amends on Sept. 11 with a volatile ex, and the two have remained friends, if just that. "We've put our petty differences aside and realized that we're just lucky that we're in each other's lives," Amy said. Last weekend, as an anniversary homage, she and her ex got ice cream and walked around the city together.

Which leads us to another Sept. 11 development: the Sept. 11 partner. Plenty of people we know will be spending Sept. 11 with the same people they spent the last one with, and in a lot of cases, it's an ex. Mitch, 42, a copywriter, is getting together with an ex to attend memorial events. The two are just friends now, he said, but there's still a pull. "On Sept. 11, I was the first person she called," he said. "We're spending this Sept. 11 together because neither of us is in a relationship, but we want to be around someone of the opposite sex whom we're close to." A little over a year ago, that would have sounded like a line, but now, it's the straight truth.

-Lynn Harris

The Problem With Tennis

People sure like getting mad at the Williams sisters. First it was that their games were too reckless, that they'd never evolve into tennis champions because they lacked the discipline needed to capture Grand Slams. (There was also the bit about them playing too few tournaments, remember that?) Then Serena won a Grand Slam, and it was poor, poor Venus , she's been surpassed by her kid sister, how's she gonna cope? Then Venus herself won and won and won, and then it was poor Serena -but wait, now Serena has won three Slams in a row. Over Venus. So now it's poor Venus again-who, we're told, was a little dour after losing in the U.S. Open final, and now wants a little time off. Imagine that. Fax machine breaks down in my office, and folks want a little time off.

People get mad at the Williamses because they don't hang out off the court with the other players on the tennis tour. That's understandable, since the only thing real tennis fans care about more than good tennis is making sure everyone on the tour gets along with each other off the court. Why just the other day, my father and I were having a long conversation about whether or not Anastasia Myskina and Magdalena Maleeva get along off the court.

People also think that Venus and Serena care too much about careers in fashion, and that's also understandable, because if you spend a lot of time around young women in their early 20's, the last thing they think about is fashion. People gripe that the outfits that Venus and Serena wear are too risqué. The Williamses should understand: If you're going to get ahead in this country, the last thing you want to be is a young woman in risqué clothing.

People get mad at the Williams parents. But they've always been mad at the Williams parents, especially the dad, Richard Williams. Remember - "That Richard Williams, he's crazy, he doesn't know the first thing about tennis, he needs to get them a real coach." Women's tennis has a proud tradition of stable parenting, of course, and Richard Williams must be the craziest know-nothing-about-tennis who's ever had two daughters ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the world. People even seem to think it's crazy that Richard Williams now wanders around the tennis court with a big camera, taking photographs of his daughters. And it's true. Whenever I go to a Little League game, the last thing I want to see is parents taking photographs of their kids.

Now the big complaint is that Venus and Serena are too dominant. True again. Women's tennis has prospered because it never had dominant champions-except for Suzanne Lenglen, Helen Wills Moody, Alice Marble, Pauline Betz, Margaret duPont, Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles and Martina Hingis.

There's also the grievance that the Williams' Grand Slam showdowns are too boring. True: Their matches haven't exactly been triple tie-break nail-biters. What's interesting is how people explain the lack of suspense in the Williams-Williams jousts. There was the claim that the matches may have been fixed by Richard Williams-a neat charge, since no one has ever produced a shred of evidence. Then there's the belief that Serena and Venus like each other too much to be blood-lustily competitive with each other on the court. That's a shame-sisters liking each other too much to want to kill each other.

The solution, of course, is for Venus and Serena to move to the men's tour, and the women's tour could free up space for exciting competitions between Daja Bedanova and Silvia Farina Elia. But wait: Haven't male tennis players complained that the Williams sisters couldn't compete with men? Maybe Venus and Serena should start thinking more about careers in fashion.

-Jason Gay