Rusedski's powerful left-arm serve could prove the weapon to win the US open

Revitalised British No 2 fresh from victories over world's top three is peaking in time for Flushing Meadows

Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin, who took turns in mugging the great Pete Sampras to win the United States Open, are seeded to play each other in the final two weeks tomorrow. Both have a tendency to come unstuck against Greg Rusedski, the unseeded British No 2. Why so?

"I think," Rusedski says, "it comes down to movement and being able to hurt them, because a lot of guys don't have enough weapons these days to hurt those two players."

Rusedski, who defeated Hewitt en route to winning his 12th ATP Tour singles title in Indianapolis last weekend, had been scheduled to meet the Australian world No 1 in the second round, but the late withdrawals of Thomas Johansson of Sweden and Argentina's Guillermo Canas elevated him to seed status. The pleasure of meeting Hewitt at Flushing Meadows will now have to wait until the final.

A contest with Safin, whom Rusedski defeated recently in Cincinnati – his third consecutive win in five matches against the Russian world No 2 – would come a round earlier. Although the possibility of such meetings may seem remote, Rusedski appears to have reinvented himself as the dreadnought who advanced to the US Open final in 1997.

In his mind, a revitalised Rusedski has replaced the injury-stricken, woe-begotten, turn of the century Rusedski. Recent results have emboldened his spirit. He sees himself as a serious contender, a match for the best of the new generation.

Rusedski, who opens against the American wild card Alex Kim, is then in line for a possible second-round match against Paradorn Srichaphan, who overwhelmed Andre Agassi at Wimbledon. All being well Rusedski would then play Sampras, whom he describes as "a dark horse or one of the outside bets", in the third round. Tommy Haas, the world No 3, whom Rusedski defeated in Cincinnati, could be waiting in the fourth round, with the intriguing prospect of a quarter-final duel with Tim Henman, the British No 1, to follow.

"I think Sampras is still a great player," Rusedski says, "but he doesn't move as well as he did, and Safin and Hewitt really punish him with the return of serve and their movement. Plus Sampras had a lot of long matches last year leading up to Hewitt, and Hewitt took advantage of that. The reason why I do well against these guys is because I can hurt them with the lefty serve. They don't see too many lefties, and there are not too many lefty serve-and-volleyers. You've only got myself and [Wayne] Arthurs. He's very dangerous. He beat Sampras in Cincinnati. It's strange, because Wayne is peaking now when he's 31. With his game you would expect it would have happened a little bit sooner, but it's finally coming good for him."

Arthurs, an Australian based in Pinner, is due to play Juan Carlos Ferrero, of Spain, the seventh seed, and good luck to him. But we are concerned here with Rusedski, Britain's Canadian-born lefty, and what he might achieve to add to a memorable summer of sport.

Of course, similar hopes were raised midway through Wimbledon after Rusedski's emphatic third round win against the American Andy Roddick. Although we could see Hewitt on Henman's horizon, primed to defeat the British No 1 for the sixth time in a row, Rusedski was making impressive waves in the lower half of the picture until he foundered against Xavier Malisse, of Belgium.

"I felt every match at Wimbledon I'd improved, especially after the Roddick match," Rusedski recalls. "Against Malisse obviously I didn't play as well, but I was only one or two points away in that fourth set. We were trying to get it in before the darkness came. I had two break points. I remember one of them, he had a passing shot, he hit his volley down the line, it was short, he came up and hit a wrap-around down the line against me. If I would have won that one point I probably would have gone all the way through, had I either struck that volley a little bit more or managed to get the down-the-line passing shot."

The detail underlined his frustration. "I had a wonderful opportunity. Then there was only one former champion left in that section, [Richard] Krajicek. Basically I think Malisse did a great job after he beat me. He beat Krajicek, 9-7 in the fifth, and then all of a sudden he realised where he was and the pressure was all on him because, let's be honest, against [David] Nalbandian I think I'd take Malisse nine out of 10 times, and I think he realised that himself and thought, 'Oh, my God, I'm going to be in the Wimbledon final'. There was really no pressure on him until that stage of the tournament: against Krajicek, Krajicek was expected to win, I was expected to win. In the earlier rounds nobody really paid much attention to Malisse until he beat [Yevgeny] Kafelnikov the round before. And then the expectation hit him and he didn't cope with the situation as well as he could have."

As a positive thinker, Rusedski can take consolation from the excellence of his serve-volleying against Roddick, which was all the more impressive considering the number of players who bemoaned the slowness of the Wimbledon lawns due to the introduction of rye-grass in the mix. "I think what happens is that it gets down to confidence and self-belief," Rusedski says. "It gets down to just taking a game for the moment and not worrying about the elements so much. You can't change the elements, so you've just got to do the best you can with what's out there. But if you get a combination which you like even more, that means you can achieve that much more."

Rusedski likes the combination of the medium pace rubberised concrete court and the Wilson ball at Flushing Meadows. "The Wilson ball was also used in Indianapolis, and the courts here are very similar, so I think it's a surface and a ball that really suits my game," he says. "The ball does what you want it to, and that always helps."

Prior to 1997, Rusedski had failed to win a match in three previous visits to the US Open. Once off the mark, however, he grew, round by round. Pat Rafter defeated Rusedski in the 1997 final, the first to be played in the enormous Arthur Ashe Stadium. The popular Australian successfully defended the title in 1998. "I think this is a good time in the season for our sort of style," Rusedski says. "There are not too many serve-and-volleyers left, what with Rafter gone now, and I'd like to establish myself back in that top echelon of tennis. This is a wonderful opportunity for me, and I feel very confident."

Rusedski turns 29 before the tournament ends. "When I'm here on my birthday it usually means I've done something right," he smiles. "The sixth of September is on the Friday, which would be a day off, with the semi-finals played on Saturday. Usually my birthday is a quiet affair. If I'm in the tournament I'm just really focused on the tournament, and then I celebrate it afterwards. Hopefully there will be two celebrations, my birthday and the tournament trophy."

Victories against Safin, Hewitt and Haas have convinced Rusedski that he is ready. "There's no question about it, I've kept the momentum going, just getting the consistency and just getting those one or two points extra a match that I was missing a little bit this year. Everything's good now. I had a blip this year on the clay court season. If you're going to have blip you might as well have it then, to be honest with you.

"Otherwise I've been able to maintain that consistency, feeling healthy, feeling fit, and being able to win those matches that I need to win. From '97 to about '99 I was in the top 10 for all the time until the end of the season, when I had to have foot surgery. Now I'm getting back to those years where I felt like I was hitting the ball well and moving well and being able to go out and compete and play the kind of tennis I know I can play."

The tennis to which he aspires demands the booming of 140mph-plus serves at appropriate moments. These have begun to bruise the courts again. "I think it's because I've continued my work physically as well, so I've got stronger and I've increased my muscles. Even though I look lighter I actually weigh more just because of the muscle I've put on my body.

"Now I can get back to hitting the big serve and mixing it up with the kicks and the slices, just everything. I'm back, basically. After surgery, it takes about a year to two years to feel 100 per cent fit and confident again, and now that I'm over my injuries and my surgeries the last year or two years, I'm back to what I was in '97 when I was 100 per cent.

"The big serve is so important with today's game, because a lot of guys are returning better and they're passing better, so you have to have your weapon. And that's why I base my game around the serve completely. That's what Sampras has based his game on for the last 12 years, or for as long as he's been a professional. It's been his forte. And it's a core of my game. I'm also backing it up with the volleys."

There have been times during the past two years when some people wondered how long Rusedski's body could withstand the punishment. "I think it's just about determination, about work, about having good people. It's about getting over the thing emotionally, mentally, and just putting your body through assessing how much tennis you play, how little tennis you play, just knowing how long are you willing to be out there to get yourself back. You've just got to believe that you're going to get back to where you were before."

Similar thoughts may be going through the minds of Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport, two former Wimbledon and US Open women's singles champions and world No 1s, both of whom are about to play their first Grand Slam tournament since surgery, Hingis to her left ankle, Davenport to her right knee.

Rusedski, an admirer of Hingis' skilful play, advises patience: "It will take Martina a good year since her last operation to recover her form. As for the level of expectation, she'll still be in the top 10, because I don't think the standard is such that she'll drop out of the top 10 with her game. If she does, she'll get straight back. The question for her is if she wants to be in that top one or two positions in the world, and that's what's going to take the hard work. I think it will take her a year to a year and a half to get back where she can really be fighting for that No 1 or No 2 place in the world.

"She has the talent with the tennis racket to do that, she just needs to get a bit more 'pop' on her serve. She has every shot in the book but she doesn't have the raw power that some of the other girls have. She's going to have to work harder on her fitness and she's going to have to find a way to put a little bit more sting on her serve so the other girls can't come in and attack her and dictate to her so much. It's going to be a tough road for her this next year."

Apropos of the return to Test cricket of some of England's wounded warriors, your correspondent wondered if Rusedski considered there might a parallel between the fast server and the fast bowler in terms of wear and tear? "I've actually had Brett Lee bowl a few balls at me at the Oval and Nottingham when I was there last year," he says, admitting that he has been in London long enough to follow Arsenal but not long enough to become absorbed in the summer passion of the Compton brothers beyond watching the odd one-day international.

"You can see that it takes a lot out of the fast bowlers, but they've got a straight arm position on their bowling, so it's a little bit difficult physically, plus they're playing with a heavier, harder ball. I think the stress on them is different than it is on us. They have a lot of problems with backs and shoulders and different areas. In tennis you can try to make your motion as good as you can to take some of the stress off. But the nice thing about cricket is you can always switch bowlers after a few overs, so it's not too bad."

Rusedski is not cut out to stand on the baseline after a change of ends.

Greg Rusedski: The life and times

Name: Greg Rusedski.

Born: 6 September 1973, Montreal, Canada.

Lives: London.

Height: 6ft 4in.

Weight: 13st 5lb

Plays: Left-handed.

Turned professional: 1991.

Career prize money: £5.18m.

Family: Wife, Lucy. Mother, Helen, was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire. Father, Tom, is Canadian of Ukrainian descent.

Interests: James Bond films; musical tastes include Lenny Kravitz and Elton John; Arsenal supporter.

Singles titles (12): 1993 Newport Rhode Island; 1995 Seoul; 1996 Beijing; 1997 Nottingham, Basle; 1998 Antwerp, Paris Indoor Masters; 1999 Grand Slam Cup Munich, Vienna; 2001 San Jose; 2002 Auckland, Indianapolis.

Career highlights: 1997 United States Open singles finalist, achieving highest ATP Tour world ranking, No 4; Wimbledon singles quarter-finalist; BBC Sports Personality of the Year. 1998 Beat Pete Sampras in Paris Indoor Masters final; hit fastest serve ever recorded, 149mph, in Indian Wells, California.

They say: "That was the teacher giving the pupil a lesson. Rarely have I ever seen anyone so dominating, not just with the serve but with the game plan."

John McEnroe after Rusedski's win against Andy Roddick, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2, in the third round at Wimbledon.

"He plays big in the bigger matches if he's on his game. He's tough to beat."

Lleyton Hewitt, the Wimbledon champion and world No 1, after losing to Rusedski, 7-6, 6-4, in the third round in Indianapolis.

He says: (of his wins against Marat Safin in Cincinnati and Lleyton Hewitt and Tommy Haas in Indianapolis) "There aren't that many players who have beaten the top three players in the world over a two-week span."