NEW YORK -- Michael Chang, who retired after his first-round loss at the U.S. Open, will be honored by the USTA on Tuesday night between matches at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Chang played for 16 years and was the youngest winner of a Grand Slam event when he won the French Open in 1989 at the age of 17. Two years earlier, he was the youngest player ever to win a match at the U.S. Open.
Chang won 34 career singles titles and was runnerup in three other Slams -- the 1995 French Open, the 1996 Australian Open and 1996 U.S. Open.
The USTA held a similar ceremony honoring Pete Sampras on the first night of the Open.
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KILLING TIME: Waiting out the rain delay at the U.S. Open, players hung out in their lounge, played video games and found ways to kill time.
Seventh-seeded Anastasia Myskina, waiting for a round-of-16 match with Mary Pierce, munched on three doughnuts and played cards.
Why the doughnuts, which is not exactly training table food?
"I just want a sweet right now, something sweet because the weather is not sweet," she explained.
The card game, played with three others including her coach, is called "Stupid." A strange name for a card game. Myskina explained.
"Who lost, they called stupid," Myskina said. "But they cheat, for sure. I have to find out how"
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FORM HOLDS: The seeding of the men at the U.S. Open, following the rankings, has turned out to be right on target so far.
All eight of the top men's seeds reached the round of 16, just the third time that has happened at this tournament in the Open era and the first time since 1981. The top eight men have survived this far just four other times in Grand Slam events -- 1969, 1976 and 1982 at the French Open, and 1970 at the Australian Open. It has never happened at Wimbledon.
If all eight -- Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Andy Roddick, Guillermo Coria, Lleyton Hewitt, Carlos Moya and Rainer Schuettler -- make it to the quarterfinals, it would be the first time for that at any Slam in the Open era.
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PLAY ON: Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui, fast becoming a crowd favorite at the U.S. Open after winning five tiebreaks on his way to the round of 16, loves to hit. Wild card Christopher Koderisch was the beneficiary of his enthusiasm at the Halle Tournament in Germany in June.
Koderisch met El Aynaoui in the first round of the grass court warmup for Wimbledon and lost quickly, 6-1, 6-2. After the match ended, El Aynaoui wanted some more tennis and asked Koderisch if he would like to play another set. The wild card quickly agreed and got to stay on court for some extra games against El Aynaoui, who won that unofficial set, as well.
El Aynaoui reached the finals at Halle before losing to Roger Federer, who went on to win Wimbledon.
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RAINING ON ANDRE'S PARADE: Top-seeded Andre Agassi has been dogged by the rain at this U.S. Open.
First, his match against Yevgeny Kafelnikov on Saturday was halted after one set and completed the next day, creating a schedule which would have him on the court three straight days.
Then, he waited out Monday's rain which delayed his round-of-16 match with Taylor Dent.
Agassi's victory over Kafelnikov was his 199th Grand Slam victory in the Open era. He is four from Pete Sampras' 203 wins and third place on the all-time list. The leader is Jimmy Connors with 233 victories, 98 at the U.S. Open. Ivan Lendl is second with 222.
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KIM'S CLIMB: Three victories in the first week at the U.S. Open pushed top-seeded Kim Clijsters' total for the year to 70, 11 better than Justine Henin-Hardenne, who is second.
The last player to reach 70 victories this early in the season was Chris Evert, who did it in 1974.
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