2015 U.S. OPEN MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP
ESPN, 4:00 p.m. ET
The men’s and women’s championships at this year’s U.S. Open couldn’t be more different. On the women’s side, one high-ranked seed after another fell before the championship match, including top-ranked and calendar-Slam-chasing Serena Williams, leaving the fight for the biggest trophy to a pair of Italian women: No. 26 seed Flavia Pennetta and unseeded Roberta Vinci. Pennetta, 33, won in an elegantly fought match, then stunned the crowd, and everyone else, by announcing that she’d decided, a month ago, to retire after the U.S. Open – allowing her, thanks to her play the last two weeks, to retire as champion, with her first major victory ever. Amazing, dramatic – and it only happened because Vinci upset Williams in their match the day before. Now compare that unexpected drama, between two relatively unknown players, with today’s championship match on the men’s side: No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic vs. No. 2 seed Roger Federer, who accomplished everything they needed to do to get here. They’ve played each other 41 times before, and Federer has won 21 times, Djokovic 20 – so as personal rivalries go, it couldn’t be any more even. At Wimbledon, Djokovic beat Federer in the final last year (pictured), and the year before. Overall, Federer has 17 major titles, Djokovic nine. At the U.S. Open, Federer won five times, consecutively from 2004-2008, including one victory over Djokovic in 2007. Djokovic has won the U.S. Open once, in 2011. In this year’s Open, both players defeated their semifinal opponents in straight sets rather commandingly, and today’s championship ought to be a dramatic and impressive win – but only for one of them.