A rash of injuries has taken much of the shine off women’s tennis this year: Justine Henin-Hardenne, Kim Clijsters, Jennifer Capriati, and the Williams sisters have all missed significant time. But the game might get a well needed jolt at the U.S. Open.

Henin-Hardenne, the game’s best player and top seed, recovered from a strength-sapping viral infection to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Capriati is trying to defend her title at the Pilot Pen in Connecticut this week and says her injured hamstring feels strong. Lindsay Davenport, one of the few top players in good health for the better part of the season, has turned back the clock and beaten each Williams sister in finals this summer. And young Russian Maria Sharapova said this week that she has set her sights on the no. 1 ranking. At last, this could be a draw that yields drama rather than drubbings.

For Davenport, the next two weeks present the best – and perhaps the last – chance she’ll have to win a fourth Grand Slam title. Unlike in years past, Venus and Serena Williams are not invincible, and last year’s runner-up, Clijsters, will sit out the tournament as her wrist heals from surgery. Though Henin-Hardenne proved in Athens that she should be considered the favorite to defend her 2003 title, she has played only one tournament since the French Open in May and may lack consistency.

As other top players have sat on the sidelines this summer, Davenport has dominated, winning four straight tournaments in convincing fashion and showing no ill effect from recent knee and foot surgeries. Though she dropped out of the Pilot Pen this week with tendonitis in her left wrist, the move seemed more a precaution, and a reason to rest, than a response to a serious injury.

Davenport has not said that this is her last year on the tour, but it would be surprising to see her playing a full schedule next year. At 28, she is far older than most of the top players, and talks about having children and traveling less. She’ll be the first to say she approaches competition much differently from how she once did.

“The wins don’t get me as excited anymore,” she said earlier this year. “On the flipside, the losses don’t hurt as much.” Davenport says she has not lost her desire to compete, but adds, “It’s not there every day. And physically it just gets tougher and tougher after you’ve done this for so long.”

Davenport is seeded fifth and if she plans to win this championship, she’ll have to do it the hard way. She would likely play Venus Williams in the round of 16, followed by fourth seed Anastasia Myskina of Russia in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, she would meet Henin-Hardenne, who has won their last three matches.

Though she has no thoughts about retiring, Capriati – also 28 years old – sounded a bit like Davenport when she told reporters this week that it wasn’t as easy these days to prepare for top-level competition.

“I wouldn’t say that every day, day in and day out, that I have the passion,” she said. “It’s difficult and sometimes I have to force myself to do it. But it’s more days that I don’t have to force myself, that I actually do really enjoy it.”

If Capriati won her first U.S. Open this year, it would be a shock. She had a great chance to win the French Open, but lost to eventual champion Myskina in the semifinals. She won just two games against Serena Williams at Wimbledon, and her hamstring woes have limited her to only two full tournaments all summer, including the Pilot Pen. In the next two weeks, she could face Serena Williams in the quarterfinals and France’s Amelie Mauresmo, the second seed, in the semifinals.

Still, Capriati says she feels close to 100% coming into the Open, where she lost in the semifinals last year to Henin-Hardenne in the most intense and entertaining match of the entire tournament. And she insists that her best tennis is not behind her. “I still think that, believe it or not, I really haven’t reached my peak yet,” she says.

While Capriati talks of peaks, Sharapova, all of 17 and the Wimbledon champion, claims she has just barely begun her ascent to the top of tennis. “I’m only about 50% of where I can be,” she said on Sunday, two days before playing her first match at the Pilot Pen. On Tuesday, she revealed the truth of her statement, falling to 28-year-old wild card Mashona Washington in the first round.

It was a surprising defeat, but it seemed of little consequence to Sharapova, who expresses no fear of failure and sounds unfazed by the higher ranked players on the tour. She says she didn’t watch much tennis as a child and never looked to any player as a role model. So far, she relies on the same strategy against every opponent she faces: “When I’m on the court I don’t think about anything except natural instincts.” As for the future, she is not shy about her ambitions. “I’d love to be no. 1 in the world, that’s my next goal,” she said.

If she is going climb closer to the top in the next two weeks, Sharapova will have to sneak by veteran Mary Pierce of France and compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova. If she does, she’ll get her shot at Henin-Hardenne in the quarterfinals.

Of course, either of the Williams sisters could walk away with the U.S. Open, which neither of them played last year. Serena is seeded third but the status of her surgically repaired knee remains unknown. If she remains healthy, Serena will have the easier road, with her most difficult match coming against Switzerland’s Patty Schynder, seeded 15, before a date with Capriati in the quarterfinals. She has beaten Mauresmo, her potential semifinal opponent, seven out of eight times.

As for Venus, 2004 has proved difficult. She has been bothered by an ailing wrist, and she is coming off a disappointing Olympics in which she failed to medal in singles or doubles. Her seed has fallen to 11 at the Open and she hasn’t won a Grand Slam since she beat her sister in the 2001 U.S. Open final. She should advance easily to the round of sixteen against Davenport, but from there would have to contend with Myskina and Henin-Hardenne.