NEW YORK -- Serena's not here. Sharapova's gone. Halep's out. Day by day, the stars have dimmed at the US Open. Last year's champion, Angelique Kerber, lost in the first round. All three 2017 Grand Slam champs -- Serena Williams, Jelena Ostepenko and Garbine Muguruza -- are absent from quarterfinals and story after story laments the lack of drama remaining on the women's side of the final Slam of the year.
But while we're focusing on who isn't here, the most intriguing matchup of the fortnight, one with the potential to deliver the eventual champion to the final rounds, is shaping up Tuesday night on Arthur Ashe Stadium: Venus Williams vs. Petra Kvitova.
Before the start of the tournament, this was not a late-round matchup many would have predicted. Although Williams, a two-time US Open champ who last won in 2001, has been brilliant in Slams this year, she has failed to make the quarterfinals in each of the two events she has played since Wimbledon.
Kvitova, who returned to tennis at the French Open after a six-month absence to recover from severe cuts to her left hand suffered in an attack at her home in the Czech Republic, won at Birmingham in the lead-up to Wimbledon. Then she lost in the second round at the All England Club, where she was a 4-1 favorite, and has seen the quarterfinal round only once since, at Stanford.
But in New York, Kvitova's game is beginning to live up to the heartwarming comeback story many predicted she would script at Wimbledon. In her fourth-round match against Muguruza on Sunday, Kvitova was poised, confident and aggressive as the underdog; she found her groove midway through the first set and knocked the Wimbledon champ off balance and off her game.
After falling behind 4-1 in the opening set, Kvitova rallied to a 7-6 (3), 6-3 win over the tournament favorite and was emotional in the moments after the match. For Kvitova, a win over a top-three player signaled that her return was real.
But against Williams, the 27-year-old will need everything she threw at Muguruza and more. In the TV interview after her quarterfinal win, Williams said she planned to come out in her next match "as aggressive as possible."
"Nobody ever gives you a Slam. You've got to take it," Williams said in her on-court interview Sunday. "So I'm going to try and take it." She smiled, twirled and exited the arena looking like a player ready to make good on that promise, like a woman tired of coming thisclose.
Because as much as the sport has marveled at Williams' incredible runs deep into majors this year, this late in her career, her runs have ended in almosts. Almost at the Australian, where she finished runner-up to her sister. Almost at Wimbledon, where she lost the final in straight sets to Murguruza.
At those tournaments, as Williams walked away from her final match, she was able to look ahead to another Slam just around the corner. Williams often talks about being a player who does not focus on the past or dwell on wins and losses. Instead, she lives in the moment while focusing on what's next.
"I'm firmly a person that lives in the future," Williams said after her Sunday night win over Carla Suarez Navarro. "I don't get nervous or tight because I have to defend points or because I won a tournament last year. I'm very focused on the next result. I don't focus on success. I'm looking forward."
But in New York, a loss would mean a much longer lens to view her next Slam opportunity, the Aussie Open, which is five months away. Sure, there are late-fall tournaments in Asia, and the year-end WTA Finals in Singapore. But at 37 and with seven Grand Slam titles to her name, those are footnotes to major wins, and it's tough to get motivated for footnotes. So although both players come into Tuesday's match with momentum, it is Williams who arrives with urgency.
"You have to have a love [for the game] because it's a lot of work. Being a professional athlete is a lifestyle," Williams said Sunday night. "Every decision you make is based on getting better out there. So there are sacrifices you make with your family, your loved ones, doing normal things like sitting on your own couch that are taken for granted."
Williams reiterated that she still has the love. After a 20-year career, she still plays the game because she loves the game and wants to win.
But without a doubt, it is moments like Tuesday night's that keep that love alive.