It’s hard to believe that Richard Gasquet, perhaps the most gifted tennis player France has ever known, is just 20 years old.

Among tennis aficionados, the name Gasquet has been synonymous with potential for a decade. He began playing at age three, thanks to his tennis-coach parents. At age nine, he appeared on the cover of a tennis magazine in France. In 2002, the 15-year-old Gasquet became the youngest winner of the junior French Open, and he followed it up with another title at the junior U.S. Open after his 16th birthday, where he defeated Marcos Baghdatis. Last year, in his third full year on the tour, he defeated Roger Federer in a spectacular match in Monte Carlo on clay and moved inside the top 15 by the end of the U.S. Open.

Since then, Gasquet has lost time, and ranking points, owing to elbow and abdominal injuries, but all signs from the Rogers Masters in Toronto this week project a fine future for the Frenchman. He may have lost to Federer in the final yesterday, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, but he stayed with the world no. 1 for much of the afternoon and played beautifully at times.

At this stage in his career, Gasquet looks a lot like Federer did — a slightly shorter (6-foot-1 compared to 6-foot-2) and stockier version of the prodigy who never met a shot he could not hit — like that astounding underhand forehand Gasquet hit in the second set yesterday with his back to the net as he chased down a Federer lob that looped over his head. Both men have elegant one-handed backhands, though Federer’s was not quite as powerful or precise as Gasquet’s at this age. Both have excellent footwork and formidable forehands (Federer was ahead of Gasquet in those areas at age 20, and is a bit quicker on his feet) and neither man is unfamiliar with the volley.

When serving, Gasquet does not have the raw power of his more athletic countryman, Gael Monfils, but he excels at placement and spin, much like Federer. As far as mental attitude, Gasquet, like the young Federer, often allows frustration and negative thoughts to spoil his strokes, though he continues to improve in that regard.

In terms of tournament results after three plus years on the tour, Gasquet and Federer are nearly identical. In his first four full years on the tour, Federer won four titles, including one Masters Series event on clay in Hamburg, Germany. He also lost in the final at the Nasdaq 100 in Miami, on a hard court. Prior to that he had fared no better than the quarterfinals at Masters events. In the Slams, he his best result was the quarterfinals, which he reached at the 2001 French Open and Wimbledon.

Gasquet, in comparison, has won three titles in three plus years, one on clay and two on grass. He has reached the finals of two Masters events, one on clay (in Hamburg, where he also lost to Federer) and on a hard court yesterday. His best result at a Grand Slam so far is the fourth round (Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2005).

Suffice to say, if you are a Gasquet fan, there’s reason to hope. Federer did not win his first major title until his fifth full year on the tour, and he did not become the maestro we now know until his sixth year (the beginning of 2004). Since that time, Federer is 217–14 with seven major titles, and six of those losses were suffered at the hands of Rafael Nadal (Nadal, like Gasquet, is only 20, and unlike Gasquet, far ahead of the pace set by Federer).

It’s unrealistic to think that Gasquet’s career will continue to mirror Federer’s. For one, he’ll have to contend with Federer in his prime for perhaps five more years, something that Federer did not have to do against Pete Sampras. Nadal, if he remains healthy, ought to keep Gasquet from hoisting many French Open trophies, and there are several other promising young men — Baghdatis, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, and Monfils, among others — who might well make tennis a more egalitarian sport in a few years, once the reigning king begins to slow down. But Gasquet should have his chances, and that’s a happy thought for his home country, whose fortunes in tennis already have improved markedly with the emergence of Amelie Mauresmo this year. For now, though, Gasquet and his followers will have to remain patient.

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This week the world had another look at Serena Williams, and while the results were not half bad, she hardly seems ready to make a title run at the U.S. Open.

Williams, playing only her third tournament of the year, lost to Jelena Jankovic, 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday evening in the semifinals of the JP Morgan Chase Open in Carson, California. Jankovic went on to lose the final to Elena Dementieva, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in a captivating match of nerves that saw Jankovic recover from a 5-0 deficit in the third set.

While Williams’s performance will put her inside the top 80, it did little to show that the former world no. 1 is committed to returning to her rightful place atop the rankings. She remains overweight and too slow, and her footwork was awful for much of her semifinal match. She finished the evening with 17 winners and 31 errors, and Jankovic had little trouble with what was once the most formidable serve on the tour.

Williams will skip the two remaining tournaments before the U.S. Open, the Rogers Cup in Montreal this week, and the Pilot Pen in New Haven next week. Several other top players — Maria Sharapova, Justine Henin-Hardenne, Venus Williams, and world no. 1 Amelie Mauresmo — have pulled out of the Rogers Cup with injuries or, in Sharapova’s case, fatigue (she lost in the semifinals this weekend to Dementieva). Kim Clijsters, it seems, will end the summer as the U.S. Open Series champion for the second straight year, unless she is upset early in Montreal.