Plus, who can pronounce those names?

I’m not making this up.

As the U.S. Open tennis championship started into its second week, here were the featured matches on Labor Day.

Among the men, Jurgen Melzer was playing Roger Federer in the top match of the day, and Mardy Fish was playing Novak Djokovic.

On the ladies side, Caroline Wozniacki was playing Maria Sharapova in the feature, Svetlana Kuznesova was playing Dominika Cibulkova, and Andrea Petkovic was playing Vera Zvonaneva.

The day before, Francesca Schiavone defeated Anastasia Pavlyochenkova, and Kim Clisters beat Ana Ivanovic.

Now you know why they call it the U.S. Open.

Looking for a familiar, or pronounceable, name, there was of course Venus Williams, carrying the whole United States on her broad shoulders.

This is meant as no slight on the Slavs and other central European women, or the remarkable Spanish men. Six of the final 16 male players are from Spain. Indeed, it is a tribute to what the strong ladies have done to women’s tennis, turning it upside down and inside out, and how far the Spanish men have come in perfecting their games.

But where in hell are the Americans, women or men?

We have asked the question before, and still no answers, in what once was an all-American sport.

While awaiting an explanation, we turn to what happened in neighboring California last week.

Betfair, the huge English betting exchange, widened its footprint on American soil, with a putsch or coup or whatever you choose to call it, starting in Los Angeles and winding up in Sacramento.

First, it helped persuade John Perez, speaker of the California Assembly, to amend his bill on takeout, originally filed last winter, to include exchange betting, until now barred in American racing. Perez willingly obliged, and the pliant California racing board chairman, Keith Brackpool, desperately looking for solutions to help the state’s diminishing racing industry, quickly jumped aboard.

Perez’s amendment, issued in the closing weeks of the legislative session, called for immediate implementation of an exceedingly important step in American racing, without time for study or due diligence. Del Mar and Santa Anita surprisingly joined the fun, along with horse owners. Magna, thoroughbred trainers and Republicans in general, in alarm, urged delay.

Cooler heads prevailed, at least temporarily, as a Democratic state Senator named Ron Calderon brokered a deal – his office called it compromise and not consensus – calling for a 20-month cooling off period providing racing time to think this thing through.

The bill passed, and was awaiting governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature as this is written, holding off implementation until May of 2012.

Exchange betting, in which bettors offer their own odds to takers, with the betting exchange as middleman, can appeal to whales and other heavy hitters, sophisticated players with big pockets. If they jump ship from track play and opt for the stock exchange concept, and abandon the tracks, the plan can backfire.

Also still of deep concern is the notion of betting on a horse to lose.

Betfair tries to cover this possibility by saying a bet to win is in effect a bet on all other horses to lose, but there is a vast difference between selecting one to win or lose. The object of this game is, and always has been, to reward all involved – player, owner, trainer, jockey or driver – for winning. Doing otherwise is an open invitation to chicanery, and Betfair’s assurances of superior security measures fail to satisfy those who remember the old radio show "The Shadow," which opened each show with, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" and responded with a deep laughing voice saying, "The Shadow Knows."

Where the devil is he now when racing needs him?