Expect tennis's big guns to be booming when the US Open begins on Monday, despite a rash of injuries that saw many of them sidelined for significant stretches since Wimbledon.
Men's world number one Roger Federer has played just once since claiming his Wimbledon triumph, basking in the victory and resting a painful foot ailment.
The strategy appeared to pay off when he won his first Cincinnati Masters title, and Australian Lleyton Hewitt, for one, didn't think a lack of matches would prove any hindrance to Federer in the gritty confines of the National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows.
"Federer is in a class of his own," Hewitt said. "I don't think limited matches are going to affect him too much whatsoever.
"He's played enough big matches and his record in finals against top 10 players over the last two years really speaks for itself. I don't think it's really going to cause him a lot of havoc."
Hewitt himself, who fell to Federer in last year's US Open final, has been beset by a succession of injuries and illness.
American Andy Roddick, who claimed his lone Grand Slam title at the 2003 US Open, not only lost again to Federer in Cincinnati but injured his right foot in the process.
Australian Open champion Marat Safin has been struggling with niggling knee injury since before the French Open.
The Russian said that his healing knee remains a distraction.
"All the time you are thinking and checking and trying not to do strange movements. You cannot focus 100 percent on your game because you think of the knee."
Things have been just as bad on the WTA Tour. Open top seed Maria Sharapova was forced out of one August tournament early and skipped another to rest a strained right chest muscle.
Lindsay Davenport, seeded second for the Open was sidelined seven weeks with a back injury, and Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova's preparation for the defence of the title she won here last year has also been disrupted by back pain.
Australian Open champion Serena Williams has been battling a sore knee in recent weeks, while elder sister Venus fell prey to fatigue and flu weeks after her triumph at Wimbledon.
"I think the last three or four years it has been an epidemic," tennis icon Martina Navratilova said. "We have too many injuries, not just on the women's tour but the men's tour as well.
"You see players have a great year, and they drop down. Look at Juan Carlos Ferrero or Carlos Moya. They were No. 1, 2 in the world, and now they're barely top 30 or something.
"We need not just better training, but most of all they need that off-season ... I think people just play too many tournaments in a row."
Players are under pressure to play however, not only to defend their ranking points but also to honour their commitments to tournaments and sponsors.
Bill Peterson, tournament director of the WTA Tour event in Carson, California, saw Davenport and Serena Williams withdraw from the tournament before it started, and Sharapova pull out before her quarter-final.
He backed the idea of tying US Open seedings into performance in the US hard court tournaments that precede it.
"That is something they have explored at the USTA, and something we'd definitely support," he said.
Players, however, aren't likely to support an idea that would penalize them for resting injuries.
"Players, obviously, we're going to do whatever is best for us and our bodies," said Belgian Kim Clijsters, who has won three of her four starts in July and August to head into the US Open as a favourite.
"The player ultimately has to take responsibility," Navratilova said. "If they're not 100 percent, they're the only ones who can make that decision."
No one knows that better than US veteran Andre Agassi, who will be the seventh seed in his 20th consecutive US Open campaign.
Managing sciatic nerve pain has become a constant factor in the 35-year-old's career choices. After a two-month layoff he won the title in Los Angeles in late July, then withdrew from Washington to rest. He reached the final of the Montreal Masters, then withdrew from Cincinnati to rest even though he was defending champion there.
"A year or two years ago, I could have made the decision to try to push through it," he said. "I know exactly where it leads, and I'm going to have to be a little bit smarter with how I approach all these tournaments now."