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I mean this with no disrespect to the good people of Istanbul or those who will enjoy attending the WTA Championships there in a few weeks' time. For the past two years, the tournament has been a success in terms of organization, attendance and a commodity no amount of sponsor money can buy: genuine enthusiasm.

But given how things have gone this fall, you could cancel the WTA Championships without causing a ripple of criticism in the knowing tennis crowd. The worst outcome, if that were to happen, would be for the fans who would be denied visiting Turkey for a glimpse of the internationally celebrated tennis stars.

The reasons that Istanbul will be anticlimactic are more complex than the fact that Serena Williams has already clinched the world No. 1 ranking for 2013. They go right to the heart of how the WTA stars have viewed and approached the fall tournaments, even in years like 2012, when the No. 1 ranking was determined at the WTA Championships.

Remember that episode last year? Victoria Azarenka clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking in the semifinals, then played a muted, somewhat listless match to surrender the final to Maria Sharapova. Sure, clinching the top spot was the major mission for Azarenka at the tournament. But it was glaringly obvious in the final that the result (and thus the tournament itself) was more afterthought than grail.

For the WTA, that’s what the tournament always has been, and that’s likely to change only if the players really want it to and/or when the battle for the year-end No. 1 ranking actually ends in the final match of the WTA Championships.

Take a quick look at the fall lineup: Serena Williams played her first match since winning the US Open on Sunday in Beijing. She had been entered in Tokyo but pulled out, citing general fatigue. Azarenka made her post-US Open debut in Tokyo but lost her first match to Venus Williams. She’s playing Beijing this week, but that’s it for her until the championships.

Then there’s No. 3 Sharapova, who’s been out of action since before the US Open. Even if she’s fit and eager to play the WTA Championships, she’d be sorely lacking seasoning. It’s hard to imagine her going to Istanbul now that the best she could do is play the spoiler and retain the ranking points she earned there last year. For a player like Sharapova, it’s always about just two things: Grand Slam titles and the No. 1 ranking.

The ATP has a similar problem with its World Tour Finals, even if the event is a huge hit and a hot ticket in the capital city of tennis, London. You don’t get the sense that players are falling all over themselves in the race to qualify. But at least the men are providing a livelier fall post-US Open swing than their WTA counterparts. Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, counterparts to Williams and Azarenka, are each playing at least three tournaments before the WTF.

When you consider that the ATP season is weeks longer, it shows what a failure the much-ballyhooed WTA Roadmap 2010 has become. The longer offseason was just a gift to the top players.

The amazing thing is that both the ATP and WTA have been trying their darndest to up the prestige of their year-end championships for decades now without really getting over the hump. In theory, those finales provide a logical way to end the year on an up note of the kind that we had in 2000, when Gustavo Kuerten upset Andre Agassi on a hard court in Lisbon in the WTF final to clinch the No. 1 ranking for the year (nosing out Marat Safin).

But those electric moments are rare; the one the WTA hoped to produce last year fizzled in the semis, which shows you just how fully the stars need to align to produce a year-end championship that really seems to matter.

The big problem isn’t so much the championship itself. If the players embraced the idea more passionately and targeted the title more doggedly, the playoffs could develop greater resonance. But although the WTA likes to promote the "race" to Istanbul, it’s hard to get all jacked up for the event when the players seem to be moving at a slow jog.

Don’t look now, but the big four whom everyone has been jabbering about for a couple of years now has suddenly shrunk to a big two, which is rivalry as it was meant to be in the gospel according to Pete and Andre or Chris and Martina.

Just a few months ago, as current ATP world No. 3 Andy Murray won Wimbledon to make history, claim his second major title and add credence to the idea of a big four, we were talking about this new golden age of tennis. Now, we’re wringing our hands in the wake of Roger Federer’s disastrous attempt to salvage his summer (and subsequent plummet to No. 5) and out of fear that Murray’s theoretically minor back surgery might prove less “minor” than anyone thought.

And that leaves us with just two men standing, top-ranked Novak Djokovic and No. 2 Rafael Nadal. And one of them (can you guess which one?) looks very unsteady on his feet.

How did this happen so quickly?

Well, age seems to have caught up with the 32-year-old Federer faster than anyone expected. It wasn’t so much that the defending champ was upset in the second round at Wimbledon by Sergiy Stakhovsky. It was what came afterward: Federer's truly bad losses in European post-Wimbledon clay-court tournaments while he floundered with a new, larger-headed racket and then an ugly, mortifying loss to another over-30 player (Tommy Robredo) in the fourth round at the US Open. Whoever thought the name “Federer” and "ugly" could wind up in the same sentence?

But Pete Sampras and others can tell you that aging in tennis is never a pretty thing. The only way to get out with your reputation fully intact is to quit while you’re on top, and that’s neither easy (who knows when you’re truly done?) nor fair to yourself. As Billie Jean King has said, you owe it to yourself as a human being to experience the truths and lessons that come with decline. It seems that Federer is living out that process now.

Murray’s situation is a little more complicated and perhaps more interesting. He was accorded big-four status mainly on the strength of his record in Masters events (nine titles) and the encouragement he received from his big-four peers as he struggled to win that first major final -- a feat he accomplished in his fifth try, at the US Open in 2012.

The reality is that Murray, while he’s been ranked as high as No. 2, has always been the laggard in the big four. That doesn’t mean he’s some sort of fake; he’s clearly a better, more able competitor than, say, Tomas Berdych or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. But he’s never really been able to establish parity with those other three guys who have taken turns beating up on each other.

The proof is in pudding of the rankings. Murray trails No. 2 Nadal by nearly 4,000 ranking points. That’s four Masters 1000 titles or two Grand Slam titles worth of points. That wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t a couple of players bearing down hard on Murrray. ATP No. 4 David Ferrer trails Murray by just 400 points, and Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro, a former U.S. Open champ, are not far behind.

Ferrer is sure to surpass Murray within weeks because Murray is out for the Asian circuit, perhaps the entire year. He’s losing over 1,200 ranking points if he pulls the plug on the entire year, meaning that Federer, Berdych and del Potro will have a good chance to pass him in the rankings while he recuperates.

Murray traditionally plays well in Australia, the most likely site of his return. (He’s a three-time runner-up at the Australian Open, the first major of the year.) But it’s still hard to dodge the feeling that at the start of 2014, there will be no trivalry, nor a quadvalry. It looks like Nadal and Djokovic will turn a four-man photo op into a two-man race.

Finally, Ernests Gulbis has made news for something other than shooting off his big mouth. The talented, mercurial and actually quite likeable Latvian was last in the headlines when he declared that success has gone to Novak Djokovic's head -- that the top-ranked player has become just another phony celebrity.

On Sunday, though, he finally won a tournament again (St. Petersburg, Russia), at which time he went all Gulbis on us, declaring: “I’ve been very consistent, especially in finals. I’ve never lost in a final. I’m proud of that record.” Be warned, though: This isn’t quite like Rafael Nadal’s 8-0 record in French Open finals.

Wait, wasn’t Nadal the guy whose win over Gulbis back at Indian Wells so mystified the loser that he felt obliged to announce: “I thought I was the better player in the match”?

Let the record show that Gulbis is, indeed, undefeated in finals. He’s played four of them since he turned pro in 2004, all in the lowest, 250-grade ATP events. He earned two of those titles at the ATP 250 in Delray Beach. Fla., so it’s possible that Ernie won last week because he thought he was playing in St. Pete, Florida. The other title Gulbis won, he collected at Los Angeles, a tourney that has since gone belly up because of a lack of interest. That’s four career titles, six fewer than Nadal has won -- this year. And two of those were Grand Slam tournaments.

But let’s give Gulbis his due. The 6-foot-3, No. 36-ranked 25-year-old is outspoken, frank and fun-loving. In other words, he’s what pundits and insiders would describe as a “head case.” The ATP Tour these days is loaded with guys who carry their racket bags as if they were stuffed leather briefcases, and they’re as colorful as that image suggests. Not Ernie. No sooner did he finish posing with the St. Petersburg trophy than he began assessing his place in the game and making bold predictions. “Everybody knows I can play well for a tournament or a match and then I go downhill. I just need to bring this consistency to bigger tournaments, especially Grand Slams. Then I believe I am a top-20 player for sure, and not so far from top 10.”

There’s just no quit in this guy, at least not when it comes to self-regard. But there’s no doubt that he has the talent to back up his imaginings, even if the same could be said for, oh, a few dozen other ranked players. And though most find him nothing less than insufferable, others among us accept his wild claims as part and parcel of head-case syndrome. And you have to hand it to Ernie, it looks like he may end up the last head case standing when the year comes to a close.

Think back to this spring, and the hubbub created by those three other ultra-talented head cases, Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria), Benoit Paire (France) and the oldest member of this anti-big four, Fabio Fognini (Italy). All three of them signaled that they might (finally) be ready to do some major damage from the mid-point of the season onward, but they’ve gone quietly back into netherworld.

Fognini won exactly two matches since his hot run on clay this summer. That’s one fewer than Paire notched up over the same span. Dimitrov lost in the first round of the US Open and hasn’t been heard from since. You could say that by head-case standards, Gulbis is a model of consistency. Since Wimbledon, he’s had wins over Andy Murray, Feliciano Lopez and … Fognini.

So let’s enjoy Gulbis while we’ve got him, for if he judges himself accurately and then does what he must do to remedy his situation, the next thing you know some head case is going to say he’s changed -- that he’s become just another phony like that Djokovic guy.

One of the more persistent criticisms of tennis is that the game has no real offseason, but the lengthy calendar doesn’t really stop tennis from going over a cliff in the fall -- loaded ATP and WTA schedule or not.

In just the past few days, WTA No. 1 Serena Williams and No. 3 Maria Sharapova officially pulled the plug on upcoming commitments to the Asian tour. British insiders are reporting that Andy Murray is about to withdraw from his own Asian commitments. Heck, even Martina “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Hingis is fed up. The 32-year-old who can’t seem to get enough of this game just canceled the rest of yet another comeback tour. Did she really have to add insult to injury by pulling out of Tokyo, the same event Williams and Sharapova are snubbing?

Sharapova continues to struggle with bursitis in her right racket shoulder; she’s skipping the entire Asian swing and says she hopes to be back for the year-end championships. I’m not sure I’d count on that. Williams withdrew from Tokyo, declaring that she’s still exhausted from the effort that earned her the US Open title. She may even expect that someone, if not anyone, will take this as a reasonable excuse three weeks after she played her last tennis match. The smart money is speculating that it’s going to take a prize as juicy and glittery as the year-end championships in Istanbul to lure Serena off the chaise lounge by the pool and back into fighting trim. And why not? She’s the hardest-working woman in the tennis business.

Murray is said to be pulling out of three Asian tournaments (Thailand, Tokyo and the Shanghai Masters) and may even be done for the year. But at least you can’t second-guess his reasons if this news -- still fresh and unconfirmed by the Murray camp -- is true. The British press keeps a close watch over its overnight icon, generally with his blessing. So the tweets breaking this news are as close to bankable as you can get without actually swiping your ATM card. Clearly someone broke an embargo, probably requested by Murray himself, on this intelligence.

And troubling intelligence it is. When you say “back surgery” you think of names such as Miloslav Mecir (who underwent it and was never the same player) or former No. 1 Marcelo Rios (who didn’t have surgery but was never the same player as in his halcyon days, either). He was forced out of the game by back pain by age 27.

If Murray does have back surgery, it’s going to present him with an interesting dilemma, for he already has qualified for the ATP World Tour Finals, which will be held again in London’s spectacular 02 Arena.

As the Wimbledon champ, Murray would certainly be the hottest ticket in London, and thanks to the hybrid round-robin/knockout format, spectators could buy tickets well in advance, assured that they will see him through at least three nights of play. But would it be wise (or even possible) for Murray to prepare for, and compete in, the WTF so soon after surgery?

Is there any such thing as “minor” surgery for a tennis player?

Veteran British journalist Simon Cambers already has tweeted that Murray plans to have a full training block this winter and hopes to travel to Australia fully fit to compete, and that sure makes it sound as if Murray is done for the year.

Thankfully, Rafael Nadal -- once a chronic complainer about the fall schedule -- has fish to fry on the Asian tour. He’s in the process of overtaking Novak Djokovic in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking. And No. 5 Roger Federer could use a few wins himself to shore up that crumbling ranking. That’s the opportunity presented by Murray’s situation, and a good reason for Federer to be one of the few elite players who actually welcomes the fall tournaments.

Now that three of tennis’ big four have taken their bows and added to their resumes during the third (and best) Davis Cup week (you get the semifinals and the critical World Group Playoffs), it’s time to look ahead to the final segment of the season -- the two big Masters 1000 events (Shanghai and the Paris Indoors), plus the year-end championships.

The main thing to watch will be the chase for the year-end No. 1 ranking, which can be summed up easily. Top-ranked Novak Djokovic remains in the lead, but No. 2 Rafael Nadal has been closing on him like a cheetah running down a fatigued antelope. Right now, Nadal trails Djokovic by a mere 260 ranking points (11,120 to 10,860). That’s fewer points than a player earns for making a Masters1000 semifinal (360 points).

And believe it or not, that’s the least of Djokovic’s problems.

The fact is, Djokovic is holding a mortgage on more than 2,000 points (2,110 to be exact) that he earned last year with big wins in the ATP World Tour Finals, the Shanghai Masters and the Beijing 500 event. Djokovic will be unable to add to his points total at any of those events; he can only replace those points with the same amount or lose ranking points by failing to duplicate those outstanding results. It’s how the ranking system works. Each week the points earned from the previous year drop off the computer while the points earned that week are added.

The only tournament where Djokovic can actually post a net gain in points would be the Paris Indoors (that is, unless he adds 500 or 250 tournaments to his schedule). He was a second-round loser last year and picked up all of 10 ATP ranking points.

Now look at Nadal’s situation: He has absolutely no ranking points to defend until well after the Australian Open because he missed the entire year after Wimbledon in 2012. If Rafa really wanted to torture Nole, he could take a late wild card into the Kuala Lumpur 250 event next week, win the thing (the top seed is likely to be David Ferrer; enough said) and close to within 10 points while Djokovic sits in that magic egg thing, nibbles on a gluten-free soy muffin and wonders, “What the heck do I do now?”

In fact, Djokovic could conceivably thrash Nadal in the two remaining Masters events and the year-end championships and he’ll still lose that precious year-end No. 1 ranking to Rafa, simply because it’s all profit for Nadal now and all operating expenses for Djokovic. It points both to the great strength and the great weakness of the ranking system.

If you’re a Djokovic fan, you can always look on the bright side: Losing the top ranking will be painful for him, but he looks like a man in need of a wake-up call after a wonderful-but-bittersweet year. He made three Grand Slam finals and one semi, and while his year was made in advance when he won the Australian Open, those losses at the other three majors had real sting.

Let’s take a quick look at the other, trailing two members of the elite ATP quartet. No. 3 Andy Murray has 7,705 points, so he’s in a really distant third. He can pick up some ground, as he was a third-round loser in Paris and a semifinal failure at the World Tour Finals, but he’s also defending a final in Shanghai. If he had a great fall, though, he could actually press Djokovic at No. 2 (because of all the points the latter is defending) if not Nadal, who seems the pre-destined No. 1.

As for Roger Federer, he will be fighting for his top-10 life this fall. He’s No. 5 presently, with 4,515 points. He had an outstanding fall last year, a run that may end up looking something like a last hurrah unless he pulls himself out of his current tailspin. He’s defending nearly 1,500 points this fall, which includes a WTF final and a Shanghai semi. Unless he experiences a magical resurgence, he’ll have to watch, horrified, as those points melt away. You know what you get for making the quarters at a Masters 1000? One-hundred and eighty points.

Federer has his work cut out if he hopes to hang in there in the critical (for seeding purposes) top eight. Meanwhile, the cheetah is running free and wild.

There was poignancy about the results in the final major warm-up tournament for the US Open, the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. Each singles final featured an American, and both of the U.S. players lost. ATP No. 22 John Isner lost the men’s final to Rafael Nadal 7-6 (8), 7-6 (3), while Serena Williams, the top-ranked player on the WTA Tour, No. 2 Victoria Azarenka in three sets.

That seems to be a biting comment on the state of American tennis, but it also provided a realistic preview of what we might expect at the upcoming Grand Slam, for these two players clearly are the nation’s best hope. And in some ways, the forecast for the immediate future is certainly brighter than it was a few weeks ago.

Isner has said during these past few weeks that he’s pleased with the way he’s playing and hasn’t felt so sharp in a long time. But because of the way the ranking system works, he dropped out of the top 20 a few weeks ago -- dropped like a bomb, in fact, when pundits figured out and broadcast that his fall represented the first time the U.S. had no male player in the top 20 since the ATP rankings were launched 20 years ago.

Thanks to Isner’s high level of play these past few weeks, though, he’s back up to No. 14 -- just five ticks below his career-high ranking. He seems to be peaking ideally for the US Open, although you have to wonder whether it’s wise for Isner to play (as planned) this week in the Winston-Salem Open.

Granted, Winston-Salem is right in Isner’s backyard. And he’s the two-time defending champion, so the ranking points and available prize money at this most cozy ATP 250 are delicious incentives to play. But Isner has just played in three tournaments in as many weeks (two of them high-effort Masters 1000 events), and as runner-up played the maximum number of matches in two of them.

You have to wonder if that won’t prove too much come next week in New York. Although he’s rarely as tired as he looks on court, Isner could become a victim of his own success. It’s a nice problem to have, but it would certainly be a bummer for American fans if Isner ran out of gas at the US Open and bowed out meekly in the first week.

Remember that Isner has yet to crack the US Open code. His best result was a quarterfinal (l. to Murray) in 2011, so hopes that he’ll break through to another level are running high in his camp. Mike Sell, his coach, has done some really good work on two areas of perpetual concern, Isner’s footwork and movement, and it’s starting to pay off.

Also, it’s encouraging that while Isner lost the final to a re-energized Rafael Nadal (who’s playing the best hard-court tennis of his life, and is on track to finish the year at No. 1), his serve wasn’t broken once in those two, tight sets. Isner makes his living by the tiebreaker (he was 32-12 going into the Cincy final), and this time around, Nadal outfoxed him twice. Next time, who knows?

As for Serena Williams, a wag might look at that loss to Azarenka and scoff, “Serena has her right where she wants her.” The win by Azarenka improved her still dreadful head-to-head record with Williams to 12-2, and the lingering question is who will the result help more?

The win by Azarenka will put her under pressure to repeat that feat at the US Open, while the loss ought to act as a sort of wake-up call for Serena. The loser admitted that after she won the first set in the Cincy final, she took her foot off the gas and allowed Azarenka to assert herself with just the kind of aggressive play that is one of the two ways to bring down Williams (the other being extreme consistency combined with great defense).

Serena now knows she’ll have to be sharper and more energetic if she hopes to defend her US Open title. But given that this is Williams’ home Grand Slam and the surface is ideally suited to her game, there seems to be another factor at play here. She’s often felt pressure in New York and perhaps lost some matches because of it. (Samantha Stosur, Kim Clijsters, anyone?)

Serena doesn’t feel like she’s found her best tennis on a consistent basis yet, and the sands in the hourglass are running out. What happens next will surely be entertaining, as Williams and Isner have stoked both hopes -- and concerns.

And if neither Williams nor Isner can come through, not to worry -- there’s always the Bryan twins, who won the 25th Masters 1000 title of their career Sunday and continue to shatter doubles records left and right.

Tennis fans, the good news is that Arthur Ashe Stadium is getting a fancy new hat. The bad news is that the new roof that will make the stadium weatherproof won’t be ready until August 2017 -- which means don’t give that foul-weather gear away to some cod fisherman just yet.

The USTA, under pressure for a few years now to join the Australian Open and Wimbledon as Grand Slam tournaments with roofed stadia, has finally come up with a way to retrofit that roof without, as once suggested, having to knock off the top half of the stadium (which wouldn’t be a bad idea in and of itself).

In recent years, the USTA has gone from denying that a roof is either necessary or affordable (or both) to hoping that lowering the stadium and rebuilding it with lighter materials might enable the present structure to withstand the weight of a roof was the solution to this ever-growing problem. (The men’s final has had to be played on Mondays because of rain for an incredible five consecutive years now.)

As the search for a viable roof took on greater urgency, and rain kept washing out one final after another, the USTA also faced mounting pressure and criticism as those other two Grand Slams made roofed stadia not just state-of-the-art -- but business as usual. The Australians even added a second roofed stadium.

As USTA chairman of the board and president Dave Haggerty said when unveiling the plans Thursday, “We have been working toward a viable design for a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium for a decade. We feel that we now have a design that meets the criteria of being architecturally sound, aesthetically pleasing, reasonably affordable and buildable.”

That’s a long way from neither affordable nor necessary.

“Reasonably affordable” means a mere $100 million-plus, which will cover the cost of erecting eight steel columns around Arthur Ashe to support a retractable roof made of flexible, translucent, PTFE (Teflon) fabric stretched over a steel frame. It seems similar in design to the roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and that one has been a huge success.

The projected five-year timetable is somewhat disappointing, even if we’re talking about a miracle of engineering. Wimbledon’s own roof took just three years to complete, and it cost about half of what the USTA is estimating for its own roof. But then Ashe is a vastly larger arena. Although I admire the commitment this represents on the part of the USTA, a nagging voice inside me asks, “Is it really worth it?”

The answer may very well be “no,” but that doesn’t mean the USTA shouldn’t do it. The reality is that the organization got caught in what the smart folks call a “shifting paradigm.”

Ashe Stadium was built in 1997, just nine years after Tennis Australia built the first dedicated tennis arena to feature a retractable roof, Rod Laver Arena. But in those intervening years, the roofed stadium was transformed from a cross between a luxury and a novelty into a necessity. The only other Grand Slam venue that lacks a roofed stadium is the Stade de Roland Garros, home of the French Open. But the French are in the midst of a massive redesign as well and plan to cover the iconic Philippe Chatrier court.

The USTA was caught up in the tide of history; had the organization waited a few years to build Ashe, it certainly would have opted for a roofed design. This was either a case of truly bad timing or a critical failure on the part of USTA trustees to see even a little ways into the future. The price tag on that myopic vision is hefty, indeed.

The looming question before Sunday's final in the Masters 1000 event in Montreal seemed to be how Rafael Nadal would handle that atomic serve of Milos Raonic. The better question: How would Raonic handle Rafa’s serve?

The answer to the more prescient question: Not very well.

You can put a lot of that down to Raonic’s continuing education in this game. There’s a reason the guy burst on the scene like a supernova in 2011, but then began spinning his wheels -- albeit at a very high level -- not long after affirming his top-10 potential. The world now knows, even if it did not before, Raonic has to improve his return game if he hopes to penetrate deep into the top 10.

Also, Raonic surely felt a lot of pressure as a first-time Master-level finalist playing in front of his Canadian countrymen on a historic occasion (the first time a Canadian reached the final of a Masters event). But the more compelling takeaway is that Nadal looked sharper and more formidable than expected in his 6-2, 6-2 victory -- stronger and tougher than any other contender, including top-seeded and No. 1 Novak Djokovic.

Roger Federer probably felt a little better about sitting this one out when he saw how well Nadal was playing in his first outing since he was ousted in the first round of Wimbledon by Steve Darcis.

That hurtful loss gave Nadal two weeks off at a time when he’s traditionally accustomed to leaving it all on the court and then trying to find the motivation, legs and mental freshness to challenge at the US Open. We know how that’s worked out in the past: Although Nadal has been at least as far as the semis in each of the past four years, the persistent feeling is that the American major has been the toughest nut for him to crack.

That probably has had less to do with the nature of the hard courts (Nadal has acquitted himself pretty well on the hard courts at, say, Indian Wells) or the character of the US Open (he’s not the sort of snob who looks down his nose at the New York crowd), than with the state of Nadal’s legs and mind.

It’s hard to see the US Open in “must win” terms when you’ve just won Roland Garros. The success of American players like Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and John McEnroe -- all No. 1 players as well as high performers in New York -- tended to overshadow the shortcomings of their peers from overseas toward the end of the long, hot summer.

Given that, Federer’s success in New York has been truly remarkable -- especially in contrast to the record of Nadal (Federer won five straight titles in New York; Nadal has won one title and lost in the final on just one other occasion).

But this year it’s apt to be different. Nadal has pronounced his knees fine, and this week he even dispensed with that once ubiquitous strap he’s worn on his knee. He was alert and opportunistic in Montreal all week, and his commanding performance in the final reminded some of us of the outstanding factor that drove Nadal’s win in New York in 2010: an ultra-effective if never overpowering serve.

When he won the US Open, even Nadal was hard put to explain why his serve suddenly seemed so lethal. It was deadly against Raonic as well Sunday. Everyone knows Nadal is going to have to meet returners of a much higher caliber than Raonic if he hopes to win the US Open.

That’s all right, there’s plenty of time to mull over all that. Right now, Nadal is truly looking -- and playing -- like a new man. And that’s a danger sign for one and all.

Milos Raonic is having an amazing week in Montreal -- and not in an entirely good way. The role he played Thursday in helping create the greatest day in the history of Canadian tennis was marred by a controversy that -- if I know anything about my colleagues in the media -- isn’t going to go away overnight, no matter what.

And that could put a damper on a wonderful story that has been developing all week.

First, the uplifting, good stuff: Seeded No. 11 at the Coup Rogers (the money name for the Canadian Open), Raonic recorded a major upset in the fourth round when he knocked off one of the most menacing hard-court contenders, former US Open champion and No. 6 seed Juan Martin del Potro. The win took on greater resonance when his countryman Vasek Pospisil answered the call at gut-check time and won a third-set tiebreaker over No. 5 seed Tomas Berdych.

Canada hasn’t put two men into the quarterfinals of its domestic throwdown since before either Raonic or Pospisil was born. Grant Connell and Andrew Sznajder pulled off the double, but it was a mite flukey -- Connell never cracked the ATP top 70 in singles, and Sznajder topped out at No. 46. Raonic is just 22, but he’s already ranked No. 13.

That’s an impressive ranking, but some pundits are disappointed that Raonic hasn’t punched through into the top 10 yet. That’s because Raonic, who has an atomic serve and a state-of-the-art forehand -- in an era dominated by this shot -- broke through as the ATP Newcomer of the Year in 2011, when he leaped from No. 156 in January up into the top 25 (by July). He’s been a one step forward, one step back player since then, but perhaps that’s judging by too strict a standard.

Given the incident that marred Raonic’s win over del Potro, the “one step forward” analogy is apt, as is the speculation on the standards by which we judge players, albeit in a different way.

Raonic got hammered in the court of public opinion for failing to alert umpire Mohamed Lahyani that his foot had indisputably skidded into the net at about the same time that his inside-out forehand went whistling past del Potro. At the time, Raonic had a set in hand and was down a break at 3-4, but after Lahyani missed the infraction (he was watching Delpo) and Raonic remained mum (while looking a lot like a kid who had just stolen a piece of candy), Delpo went into a funk so deep that he never won another point and lost 7-5, 6-4.

I personally can’t get as worked up about this incident as Delpo, but some pundits did. Admittedly, it isn’t my reputation or the size of my paycheck on the line. Lahyani didn’t blow a call as much as get caught in an awkward situation in which he was unable to make one, while Raonic -- still a youth by any measure -- seemed so caught up in the situation that it probably clouded his judgment. I feel comfortable saying that if you took Raonic out of the moment and asked what his response would be if he had to do it all over again, he’d volunteer to give up the point.

Manners and the solid ethics of tennis are bred into a player at an early age pretty successfully. (Isn’t that what Jimmy Connors is always complaining about?) And everyone is capable of making a mistake -- especially one of omission -- under duress.

Lahyani's first reaction when Delpo questioned the noncall was to say, “The ball was dead for me.” The replay shows that Delpo was heading east, and the ball was heading west, both at a rapid clip. There’s no question at all that the shot was a clean winner.

Although that doesn’t excuse a missed call, or Raonic declining to point out his own infraction, it does relegate the infraction to the realm of the truly minor. I was stunned that Delpo was so upset by Lahyani's refusal to overrule the call that he never won another point. The situation had to be at least as distracting to Raonic, who clearly understood his own role in the affair.

As much as I believe in playing by the rules, I’m not going to get all lawyerly about this. It was a noncontroversy about a noncall. You know what the real “good sport” response to this would be? Writing it off as one of those weird things that happen now and then, and moving on without making much of a fuss. I can’t see Rod Laver acting as Raonic did, but I also can’t imagine him going to pieces the way Delpo did, either.

Right about now, the typical ATP journeyman is taking a deep breath and trying to swallow as he contemplates the fact that the party is over. After a month during which the ATP presented 10 tournaments without anyone mentioning Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray or Roger Federer in anything like an ominous tone, the sixth Masters 1000 event of the year is upon us.

And that quartet has salted away the title at 50 of the past 59 Masters events. Fabio Fognini, it’s time to cowboy up.

Compare the consistency of the top players in big events with that of their less gifted brethren -- even at those times, such as the past month, when the main antagonists have called a truce and retired their tents to rest and plot. The ATP has held 10 events since the end of Wimbledon and the results can only be called kaleidoscopic. The top seed won at those events a grand total of twice (John Isner in Atlanta and Juan Martin del Potro in Washington, D.C.).

Two winners this month weren’t even seeded, and one of them was a wild card, to boot. Unseeded Carlos Berlocq kicked off the ATP’s Wheel of Fortune month with a win in Bastad, Sweden, while charity case Nicolas Mahut won at Newport -- and celebrated by bagging the doubles title as well (with Edouard Roger-Vasselin).

Things will be a little different this week, even if beleaguered Federer is taking a pass on Montreal, presumably to hunt down and strangle whoever suggested he change to a racket with a larger head than the frame with which he won all 17 of his Grand Slam titles. It tells you something when Fognini, handsome devil though he may be, has a better month than the all-time Grand Slam champion.

But the big story to my mind in Montreal is Rafael Nadal. He has called a moratorium on discussing his aching knees, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep droning on and on about it. It may seem surprising to some, but right now Nadal still leads the field in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking. That’s mainly because he’s so utterly dominant on European clay.

And though Djokovic and Murray have laid claim to the hard-court kingdom in recent years, Nadal is no slouch on the surface. He has won two Grand Slams on outdoor hard (the Australian and U.S. Open) and six hard-court Masters titles, including four in North America and two in Canada. Montreal could be a telling indicator for the US Open, which begins less than a month from now.

Nadal’s camp has insisted that nothing is wrong with his knees. (He took a seven-month break beginning in July last year in order to rest and rehab his tendinitis-plagued knees without undergoing surgery.) But excellent sources told me that his personal physician forbade him to play in the weeks between his triumph at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and we saw how that worked out.

Nadal was upset in the first round by Belgian journeyman Steve Darcis, and reporters by the dozen were treated for eye strain after they spent all that time peering at Nadal, searching for a grimace here, a wince or hobbled step there.

The additional, precious two weeks of rest and treatment following Nadal’s early exit at Wimbledon should help improve his disposition, and Nadal also has the incentive to improve upon that laughable No. 4 ranking. (He is one tick behind David Ferrer, who has won just four times in two dozen meetings with Nadal.)

But in order to win Montreal, Nadal would (likely) have to topple top-ranked and top-seeded Novak Djokovic in a semifinal, and No. 2 seed Andy Murray in the final. And Djokovic, whose mastery of Nadal on hard courts is well established (he has won four straight meetings with Nadal on the surface going back to 2011), is bidding to become the first man since Ivan lendl to win the Canadian Open three times running.

It could be worse for Nadal. He could be in the shoes of his old pal Federer, holding a racket with a 98-square-inch head but scratching his own noggin while he pores over the user’s manual.

Is it fair for the ITF to suspend a player for 18 months -- which is roughly a full 10th of an ATP career -- for a doping offense while simultaneously announcing that the player bore “no significant fault or negligence” in the actions that led to the suspension?

That seems to be the question left hanging in the wake of Thursday's explosive announcement that the ITF had suspended Viktor Troicki for that length of time (six months less than the maximum violation) for failing to provide a blood sample to the doping control officer (DCO) at the Monte Carlo tournament on April 15th.

As in almost all doping cases, the censured player claims innocence and has a confusing tale to tell. Troicki, a 27-year-old Serb and Davis Cup hero who once ranked as high as No. 12 (now No. 53), was asked to provide urine and blood samples after his loss to Jarkko Nieminen in the first round of Monte Carlo. He provided the urine, but did not give a blood sample, claiming that he was feeling unwell and concerned that drawing blood would leave him further weakened, perhaps even hospitalized.

And this is where it becomes a “he said/she said” story. Troicki claims a doctor told him it would be all right for him to submit the sample the following day, when he felt better. She even helped him compose a letter of explanation to the ITF, assuring him (Troicki claims) that doing so was an acceptable alternative to giving blood at the requested time. The tricky thing here is that some performance-enhancing drugs can be washed out of the system over the course of 24 hours.

But that was Troicki’s defense when he was called before anti-doping tribunal. That body chose to take the word of the DCO, who clearly told a different story. She claimed to have told Troicki that she couldn’t assure him that his excuse would pass muster and that she couldn’t vouch for what the ITF would do. Now, Troicki claims that she lied and that she’s just trying to cover up for her mistake -- that she’s trying to save her job.

As is so often the case in a U.S. court of law, you never really know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether a person is innocent or guilty. Sometimes, it depends on whom you choose to believe when one or the other person must be lying.

I find it hard to imagine that the DCO would lie to hide her mistake. It’s hard to imagine that her career would be destroyed, or that she would receive some draconian punishment for giving Troicki the wrong information; she’s presumably an educated professional. It’s hard to imagine she has no conscience, either; doctors are generally an ethical lot. Conversely, it’s easy to see how an uneducated tennis pro, caught doping, can see his career evaporating as quickly as morning dew in August and then do anything to prevent that from happening.

Furthermore, I find it difficult to swallow Troicki’s claim that feeling sick and a fear of ending up in the hospital (from drawing blood) led him to refuse to give blood. This guy is a 6-foot-4 specimen. What’s he doing playing the wimp card? Had Troicki won that match with Nieminen, I might be disposed to give his claim more credence. But he was feeling ill and he lost the match. Why not draw the blood and fulfill your obligation, get out of Dodge and write it off as just a bad week?

But I would have little trouble accepting Troicki’s suspension if the ITF flat-out rejected his defense. But the rationale for reducing the sentence by six months -- the clearly worded suggestion that he was not at fault or negligent -- suggests that he did absolutely nothing wrong beyond failing to follow the letter of the law. And I do have a problem accepting a suspension of that length on those grounds.

I imagine there are legal reasons for why the ITF is using exactly those words. (Besides, how could it prove at this point in time or in the future that Troicki was doping in the spring of 2013?) But the lack of clarity here bothers me. How could he not be at fault, or negligent, if he refused to give a blood sample -- and then appeared to try to lie his way out of that action (or at least chose to tell a fundamentally different story than the DCO's)? You have to believe one -- or the other.

Troicki said he’s spoken with his buddy, fellow Serb and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. He, along with many other players (Troicki claims), is behind him. It will be interesting to see just how far behind Troicki they are, and whether they’re willing to take on his cause in a big way.

The weeks following the Australian Open and Wimbledon are usually toss-off weeks; all the top players are worn out from the grind leading up to the event or the demands and tensions of those events. They can’t afford that luxury at the French Open, because Wimbledon comes on so quickly and is played on a grass surface so different from clay.

This year has been the exception to this rule, though, and this deviation suggests that while players may complain, sometimes bitterly, about the long tennis “season” come October, the system works and the options it offers are a useful feature of the game for the players as well as the fans.

The post-Australia swing gave Rafael Nadal a great platform for testing those damaged knees and working his way into mental and physical shape for the European clay-court circuit. Last week, WTA No. 1 Serena Williams decided to take a busman’s holiday on clay in Bastad (no doubt partly to wipe the bitter aftertaste of her round-of-16 loss at Wimbledon out of her mouth), while Roger Federer made his return to Hamburg, the site of so many of his great performances after a long absence.

Serena is laying low this week, but Federer is playing -- again. He’s in Gstaad, the Alpine Swiss town that’s got an exotic, James Bond-ish allure. What is it with this guy? Does his mother have to take the racket out of his hand to make him take a break?

The reality, of course, is that Federer seems to be pulling out all stops to get accustomed to his new racket, which has a 98-square-inch head, about eight percent larger than the frame he used throughout his entire career until now.

The results in this early stage have been mixed. The racket clearly gives Federer a greater degree of pretty much everything in his arsenal, but it also magnifies the role timing plays in his game. He’s like a racecar driver testing a car that has x-amount more horsepower and a higher top end, but a more delicate throttle.

The tricky part of making this change is not whether Federer can learn to use the new frame; it’s about how long it will take him to use it with confidence, and to get that, you need Ws -- plain and simple. Without them, you end up spinning your wheels … or blaming your equipment.

Fast approaching 32, Federer may have played himself into a hole by adding these clay-court tournaments with the US Open coming up. While I’d never write him off as long as his breath shows on a mirror, there’s a chance that Federer, who’s down to No. 5 in the rankings, may have decided that he’ll spend the rest of this year getting accustomed to the new racket and make a big push again in 2014. The clock may be ticking, but not necessarily at the same rate as our own. Federer has never had a serious injury, and at times, has looked like he can play forever -- or at least as long as Kimiko Date-Krumm.

By the way, Federer’s Swiss compatriots aren’t the only ones who will suffer this week (believe it or not, Gstaad is blacked out on Swiss TV -- shades of the bad old days in the NFL!). U.S. fans may suffer, too, as Federer has enough seniority and credentials to skip any of the American hard-court events he wants to.

Maybe we’re just experiencing a complex and multilayered period in tennis, but there’s no doubt that the big stories concerning the top players are no longer contained in the precious eight Grand Slam weeks; they spill over and help create a running narrative for the entire year.

Proving he’s still willing to leave no stone unturned in his quest to remain a Grand Slam champion, Roger Federer has abandoned the racket with which he’s done all the damage in his career. That racket had a 90-square-inch head area, while his new one (also by manufacturer Wilson) has 98 square inches of hitting surface.

That’s about an 8 percent increase; a significant one for someone as intimately acquainted with his equipment as a top pro. (Who else can, or can afford to, have any one of his eight rackets restrung after using it for just a portion of one match?) Imagine an Olympic skier having to adjust to 8 percent of length in his staves, or Tom Brady throwing a football 8 percent larger than the official NFL pill.

It’s still too early to tell how this experiment will work out. Give Federer props for his pride, but also for his humility in deciding that the same-old same-old, the habits that have enabled him to collect 17 Grand Slam titles, are no longer adequate. He’s almost 32 and down to No. 5 in the rankings now, but the switch suggests he hasn’t run the white flag up the mast just yet.

"I’m just still looking for the timing and the rhythm here," Federer said after his second win with the new frame on Hamburg’s red clay. "Clearly it [the racket] reacts better to some shots. But it's important not to think of it the whole time, not to talk about it all the time, but more just sort of go with it, fight for every point, have the right mindset, be optimistic about playing here now and wanting to achieve a good result, and that’s what I'm doing.”

The result Thursday was intriguing. Federer won in straight sets in just 72 minutes over qualifier Jan Hajek. But Federer squandered a whopping 10 of 13 break points, including five match points. And it’s not like Hajek was swinging for the fences and landing bombs to fight his way out of those jams.

Federer played some puzzlingly tight, unfocused tennis on many of those points. That can suggest many things, but equipment failure is not one of them. Such unexpected lapses of determination are part and parcel of Federer’s game these days. He just doesn’t attack break points with the relish and confidence of a young warrior. In the course of a career, many great players take a long journey from desperately wanting it (success) to quietly wanting it -- to searching for the motivation to keep the wolf of retirement and all it implies at bay.

However, given how fresh this racket experiment is, it’s possible that whatever Federer lacked on many of those big points could at least partly be blamed on insufficient (if growing) confidence in his new stick.

The one thing that struck me is that this new racket really does seem to make a difference. It seemed to magnify all of Federer’s traits as player. His slice appeared to have significantly more and nastier bite. The extra power came in handy when Federer had to fight his way back to neutral from a distressed, defensive position. Those forehand shanks were more stupendous than ever before, and the backhand down the line seemed to come off the racket with more pop than ever.

In fact, I found myself wondering whether the racket could really be playing as differently as it appeared. Maybe it was less about Federer using a new frame than it was about me watching with new, critical eyes. Either way, this change is a pretty big deal simply because everyone -- including Federer’s rivals -- also will be apt to watch and wonder anew.

Federer has hit the “reset” button all right, probably for the last time in his career. But keep in mind that however the experiment works out, there are a lot of guys out there playing with 98s. Federer’s last battles will be fought in the heart, mind and legs, but it never hurts to be swinging Excalibur.

Serena Williams returns to action this week in Bastad, Sweden, following her unexpected early departure at Wimbledon. It seems like red clay is in her blood ever since she won that career-enhancing second French Open title, or is it just that the American fashionista can’t wait any longer to get her feet into Bastad’s most famous product, a pair of Troentorps clogs?

Whatever the case, Serena playing Bastad is a little bit like one of those legendary gigs it is your destiny always to miss, like when Guns N’ Roses gets back together to play one night at some small dive in L.A. This is apt to be a big deal in the fun-loving seaside community of Bastad. Serena may be getting a big appearance check and scant competition (the second seed behind her is WTA No. 32 Simona Halep), but she’s got a good attitude. "I've never been to Sweden but I've heard it's a lovely country with a lot of tennis fans,” she said in a statement. “I'm really looking forward to come to the courts where Borg, Edberg and Wilander grew up.”

A goodwill tour is exactly what Serena needs, given how complicated her life became not long after she won her 16th Grand Slam title in Paris in early June. There was the controversy over the remarks she made about the Steubenville rape case, the cat-fight with the rival whom she dominates, Maria Sharapova, and that unexpected loss to Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round at Wimbledon. At least that last setback was a simple matter of forehands and backhands. The other two were not, and I found myself in greater sympathy with Serena than her critics or antagonists in both cases.

As far as the Steubenville rape case goes, the seeming lack of sympathy for the victim and concern for the juvenile perpetrators in the media and elsewhere was a real issue. In a long article in "Rolling Stone," Williams said, “I’m not blaming the girl, but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember?”

Williams was expressing -- albeit awkwardly -- a position that many watchful parents and advocates of “tough love” take. It’s a call to be street smart, to be master of your own destiny as much as possible and to take responsibility for your own life and actions. And I can easily see either Richard Williams or Oracene Price sitting their girls down to read them the riot act about delinquent behavior.

Williams might have been emotionally tone-deaf looking at the incident that way, but it was mostly a case of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Her comment about what the unfortunate girl’s parents ought to have taught her (and perhaps did try to teach her) would make for a PSA that any radio or TV station would happily air.

Williams apologized for her comments, with heartfelt words. Among them: “It was not my intention to cause the victim and her family any additional pain. But I did, and I am sorry.” But the dust had not yet cleared from that painful episode when Maria Sharapova went nuclear on Williams. It was in response to some comments Williams made about Sharapova in the same "Rolling Stone" article. She called the Russian blonde “boring,” and referred to Grigor Dimitrov, Sharapova’s boyfriend, as a guy with a “black heart.” Could she have said that because Dimitrov and Williams had a dalliance some time ago and it did not end well?

Williams’ comments certainly smacked of sour grapes, but Sharapova’s response seemed disproportionate and ugly, potentially hurtful to people besides Williams. “If she wants to talk about something personal,” Sharapova said in a classic passive-aggressive moment, “maybe she should talk about her relationship and her boyfriend that was married and is getting a divorce and has kids."

The reference was to Patrick Mouratoglou, Williams’ coach and alleged paramour. Laying that out there in so icy a manner had to be humiliating for Mouratoglou’s family. And who even knows how Williams’ kin might feel about it? And if you think Sharapova was just trying to stand up for her man, Dimitrov, you can’t know much about men. It’s unlikely that Dimitrov, a 22-year-old stud muffin, spiraled into a deep depression after being called “black-hearted.” My guess is that he smiled and shrugged.

Of course, Serena set both these controversies rolling. She has no one to blame but herself, but I still think in both cases the punishment exceeded the crime. It couldn’t have helped her mental state at Wimbledon where, for one of the very few times in her life, she failed to muster the requisite aggression and opportunism on an important occasion during her fourth-round loss to Lisicki.

So right about now a dose of Swedish hospitality, some Swedish meatballs and herring with onion, and a nice pair of new clogs might help restore Serena’s spirits and prepare her for the long, hard-court slog coming up. Now that Sharapova has hired Jimmy Connors as her new coach, Williams will need to pay attention and bide her time to even a score that’s by no means settled.

Once again, those who have been chomping at the bit, ready to declare the end of the Roger Federer era in tennis, have to pack up those votive candles and set aside the black lapel ribbons. For the first time in about 10 months, Federer won a tournament, earning a three-set victory on Sunday at Halle.

Whenever Roger Federer needs a lift, you can count on the man he beat in the final, Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny. Ranked No. 29 and just days from joining Federer as a 31-year-old, Youzhny has won a grand total of four sets (and no matches) against Federer in 15 meetings over the course of a decade-plus.

Youzhny was nothing less than tonic for a man in sore need of relief. Take Federer’s win at Wimbledon last year out of the calculation, and Federer has clearly been hard-pressed to remain relevant at Grand Slam events. Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have mastered the hard courts; Rafael Nadal owns the clay. After he won the Australian Open in 2010 (d. Murray), Federer went 0-6 against Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Murray at the four majors. He did win Wimbledon last year, with back-to-back conquests of Djokovic and Murray. But in the three Grand Slam events since, he’s lost to Tomas Berdych, Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. That’s 13 majors with one title -- and just one win against his big-four rivals.

Those statistics tend to blur in the shadow of all that Federer, the all-time Grand Slam singles champ, has achieved. That too, he’s only been losing at late stages of tournaments and only to his rivals. Most top-10 pros of any era would give their eye teeth to experience a similar decline. The obit writers won’t dip their pens in the poisoned ink and sway anyone until Federer loses in the second round to a Jeremy Chardy or Martin Klizan at, say, the US Open.

Even so, Federer did himself a lot of good with his win at Halle. Federer has played a greatly reduced schedule this year, and that’s put him under a lot of pressure to win in order to maintain his sky-high ranking (he’s been in the top three since the fall of 2011 and is presently No. 3). To borrow a favorite expression of his, Federer is “collecting information” on just how little match play he needs in order to feel like he’s still competitive at majors. He skipped almost the entire European clay-court season, and when he lost to Tsonga in the French Open quarterfinals two weeks ago, it sent a shiver of alarm through Federer partisans.

Because Federer was defending finalist points at Halle and is defending winner’s points at Wimbledon, it theoretically makes this four-week stretch the toughest month of his year. This period, ending in early July, could be a harbinger of his future. You don’t stay in the top three in this era without winning tournaments, even if you do have 17 Grand Slam titles to your name.

The first and easiest part of Federer’s mission is complete, and it again confirms that you have to be an idiot to write off Federer until he’s good and ready to go. Halle is an ATP 250, so Federer picked up just 100 points more than he collected when he lost to resurgent Tommy Haas in last year’s final (by contrast, he’s got 2000 ranking points at stake at Wimbledon). But don’t get too hung up on the numbers. It’s no coincidence that Federer’s only Grand Slam victory in his last 13 tries was at Wimbledon. After all, he’s a seven-time champion. He showed last year that he’s still the best grass-court player of his time, and the win at Halle probably gave him a lot more confidence than it did rankings points.

“These are exactly the kind of wins I need at this part of the season,” Federer said of his wins over Haas and Youzhny last week. “I've been preparing well for this part of the season and I'm happy it's paying off. It's obviously important for my confidence looking forward to Wimbledon now."

And if that’s not enough to zip the lips of naysayers, consider this: Two Sundays from now will mark the 10th anniversary of Federer’s first triumph at Wimbledon. A decade ago, Federer kicked off his drive to the title with a win at Halle. One of his victims there?

Mikhail Youzhny.