Now my hopes are for the U.S. Open. I'm in a much better place right now than I was a few weeks ago.

He's the best I've ever played against, ... There's nowhere to go [against Federer]; there's nothing to do except hit fairways, hit greens and make putts. Every shot has that sort of urgency on it. And if you do what you're supposed to do, you feel like it gives you a chance to win the point. That's just too good.

He was serving well, playing really smart, taking chances on my second serve. If there's anything to fault him on it's not closing me out in the second, it's going away in the third.

Tennis is the loneliest sport

Freed from the thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic.

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement....