It took 11 days and 246 matches for the U.S. Open to wind up where everyone figured it would.
Oh, there were a few surprises and a couple of upsets along the way. But the pretenders have gone home or are playing doubles while expected contenders vie for titles.Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras - Nos. 1 and 2 - are still in the hunt for the men's singles title, while the women's top two seeds - Steffi Graf and Monica Seles - are on track to battle in Saturday's women's title match.
They aren't there quite yet, however, and others could wind up playing for the big checks at the National Tennis Center.
The women's semifinals Friday will pit Graf vs. ninth seed Gabriela Sabatini, and Seles will take on No. 4 Conchita Martinez.
Matchups for the men's semis will be completed today when Sampras takes on unseeded Byron Black of Zimbabwe, and fifth-seeded Michael Chang plays No. 14 Jim Courier.
Wednesday, both Agassi and No. 4 Boris Becker struggled to four-set wins for semifinal berths.
Becker needed 4 hours, 1 minute - the longest match of the tournament - to outlast Patrick McEnroe 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (7-3), 7-6 (8-6) before Agassi topped Petr Korda 6-4, 6-2, 1-6, 7-5.
In the women's quarterfinals, Seles, going for her third consecutive U.S. Open title, defeated No. 5 Jana Novotna 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 and Martinez eliminated big-serving Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2.
Agassi was supposed to breeze into the semifinals. Korda, though, had other ideas.
After dropping the first two sets, Korda zipped through the third set in 28 minutes, breaking Agassi twice and dominating their laser-sharp baseline rallies. He then took a 4-1 lead in the fourth set when Agassi double-faulted on break point in the fifth game.
"He got the break early in the third, and that got his game going," Agassi said. "The next thing you know you're in a dogfight. I just didn't adjust to that level of competition."
With his seventh and eighth aces of the night, Korda held at 15 to take a 5-3 lead and move within one game of leveling the match at two sets apiece. But Agassi once again found the game that had netted him the first two sets and he won the last four games.
"He started to hit the ball hard, as hard as he could, and everything went in on the important points," Korda said.
Becker also had to deal with his opponent coming back from a two-set deficit. "Every set was close, entertaining. The crowd gave us a standing ovation almost after each point in the fourth set."
McEnroe said the loss offered him an important lesson. "When it gets to be crunch time against a guy like Becker," he said, "you've got to really go for your shots and not hold anything back, not just hope he misses, because he is not going to miss."
Seles didn't miss much, either, on key points. Going for her first set point at 40-15, Novotna hit a hard first serve that Seles returned even harder down the line for a winner. That wowed the crowd. Even Novotna was impressed.
"That is where Monica really showed up," Novotna said. "She didn't worry about it at all, what the score was, and just went for her shots."
It was that way the entire match: Seles did what was necessary, running down every ball, finding all the angles, all the passing lanes. She even ventured to the net for a winning volley.
In her loss to Martinez, Schultz-McCarthy served 11 aces with one serve clocked at 118 mph. But Martinez was able to negate Schultz-McCarthy's booming serve enough to wear her down from the baseline.