U.S. Open Tennis Betting - Russian is #1 Seed

Dinara Safina of Russia has never in her career won a Grand Slam singles title. Yet she is the #1 seed in what is arguably the biggest tournament of the tennis season.

Safina, the sister of former #1 men's player Marat Safin, is the top women's seed in the U.S. Open, which begins on August 31 in Flushing Meadow. It does not come without at least a little controversy, to the extent that Jim Curley, the director of the tournament, did consider putting Serena Williams, who beat Safina in the Australian Open and also won Wimbledon, into the #1 seed instead.

None of this is to say that Safina hasn't accomplished anything this year. Indeed, she made it to the finals of the Australian Open on a hard court and the finals of the French Open on clay. Last year she won a silver medal at the Olympics in Beijing. Mostly, though, she has played pretty well over the last twelve months, winning at Tokyo, Rome, Madrid and Portoriz and grabbing three runner-up spots aside from those in the Grand Slams.

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This contributed to her being elevated to the #1 spot on the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) computer, and the U.S. Open's top seeded players, whether it is on the men's or women's side, are determined by what is on the computer (in the men's case, it is the ATP computer). That means Safina, whose best finish in the U.S. Open was a spot in the semi-finals last year, when she actually got beaten by Serena 6-3, 6-2, is seeded ahead of 13 different Grand Slam singles champions, twelve of whom are seeds in this event and one of whom (Kim Clijsters) is in on a wild card issued by the United States Tennis Association.

Curley's pertinent comment is this, however: "At the end of the day, whether you’re seeded No. 1 or seeded No. 2 at the U.S. Open, it really doesn’t matter." Some may say that's not the point, but then again, I wonder whether it is precisely the point. It's no different than what we talk about every year when the NCAA basketball tournament field is announced. Sure, a certain seeding can make things tougher for some teams than others in the first round, but in the end, if you want to win the tournament you still have to beat everyone they put in front of you. When it comes to the semi-finals, it's rare that the players who advance in Grand Slams have gotten there as a result of seeding.

Maybe the player who finds herself more of victim of the current system than Serena Williams is Maria Sharapova, who has won three of the four Grand Slams, including last year's Australian Open and the 2006 U.S. Open and has a 91-20 career record in Grand Slam competition. She is seeded a lowly 29th (the U.S. Open seeds 32 players) because she has been bothered with an injury to her right shoulder, which has caused her to withdraw from several tournaments. No matter how well you have done in the past, you are only graded on what you have done over the previous twelve months.

The Williams sisters are seeded second and third, because Serena is followed by Venus. The two recently announced that they have purchased a small share in the Miami Dolphins, a team that may know what they are feeling right now, having won the AFC East title last year and now, in effect, "seeded" as low as third in that division, listed at +800 in the BetUS odds.

The draw will be announced on Thursday.