Let’s go around the horn and recap what went on in the wide, wide world of sports over the weekend, highlighted by the opening slate of games for the National Football League.

US Open tennis. On the distaff side, what can be more frustrating than being a female professional player not named Williams competing on the tour? Sisters Serena and Venus Williams are dominating the women’s side of the tour like no siblings have ever dominated any sport. Serena, who won her third straight Grand Slam title by defeating her sister in the Open finals Saturday night, could have wrapped up the 2002 Slam if not for an ankle injury that kept her out of the Australian Open earlier this year. Don’t feel too sorry for Venus, though: she was the two-time US Open defending champion, had entered the tournament on a 19-match winning streak, is 60-3 against everyone outside of her immediate family, and has won a tour-high seven titles this year. Imagine: two kids from the same household being number one and number two in the world in a particular sport, with no real danger of being unseated anytime soon.

Who would do it? Martina Hingis? Nicht. Monica Seles? Grunt. Lindsey Davenport? Just a little past her prime, coming off a major injury, and a 6-3, 7-5 loser to Serena in the semis. Nope, the Williams sisters are going to be at the top of this sport for quite a while longer, at least until they lose interest, because at their ages and with their overwhelming skills, they could probably knock off quite a few blokes from the men’s draw as well.

Speaking of the men’s side, I had to admit to being torn about who to root for in the Men’s Final. My brother works for Nike, and he’s mentioned in the past that Pete Sampras can be somewhat "difficult" to please as far as providing the 14-time Grand Slam tournament winner with acceptable products and apparel. On the other side of the net in yesterday’s final was Andre Agassi, who was a notorious whiner and the pinnacle of obnoxiousness and arrogance when he first became a force on the men’s tour. It was like watching the Cowboys play the Raiders, or around here, the Yankees against the Mets: can’t they both find a way to lose? Ultimately, though, I have come to respect Agassi for growing out of his youthful indiscretions and apparently becoming a solid citizen, philanthropist, husband (to former women’s star Steffi Graf), and father (to 10-month-old Jaden). Sampras, on the other hand, had nearly been written off after a string of early tournament exits, but one had to admire the feistiness he showed in emerging from a lowly 17th seed to knock off Agassi in Sunday’s final, 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. Even though faceless and non-colorful characters have dominated the men’s tour in recent years, an All-American final was appropriate this week, and as Agassi said afterward, "It was nice to see New York smile again."

NFL Football. In advance of Monday night’s titanic battle between the Patriots and Steelers, these other stories played out over the weekend.

• Nice performance by former Patriot Drew Bledsoe, who — despite throwing only one TD pass, tossing two interceptions, and being sacked four times — did an admirable job of bringing the Bills back late against the Jets. Bledsoe converted a couple of critical fourth-down passes on Buffalo’s final drive of regulation and hit Eric Moulds with a 29-yard connection with just 26 seconds left to tie the game at 31. Unfortunately, the Bills’ special teams, which game up 300 yards in kick returns and also allowed a blocked punt, let Chad Morton return the opening kickoff of overtime for a touchdown — his second return for a score of the day. Drew threw for 271 yards on 26-for-39 passing in his non-Patriots debut. The Bills, as predicted, will give everybody a good game, but they must be concerned about their special-teams play and their defense, and the favored Jets are no doubt wary about their defensive prowess after they gave up nearly 400 yards while being on the field for 40 of the game’s 60-plus minutes.

• Fans in Dallas and Baltimore must be fuming this week, as the Cowpokes dropped their opener to their cross-state rivals, the expansion Houston Texans, 19-10, while Baltimore lost 10-7 to Carolina, a team that was 1-15 last year and finished the season with 15 straight defeats. It wasn’t that long ago that Dallas and the Ravens were en route to Super Bowl championships, and now they have already surrendered certain Ws to two of the worst teams on paper in the NFL.

• Lots of high-scoring action on Sunday, which is great for the head honchos marketing the league, but not so great if you’re the coaches of Green Bay (which gave up 34 points, 374 offensive yards, and nearly the game to Atlanta), Philadelphia (which suffered a 27-24 loss to Tennessee after blowing a 24-10 halftime lead), St. Louis (which, after a 0-4 pre-season, dropped its regular-season opener at Denver, 23-16, with Marshall Falk gaining just 19 yards on the ground and the vaunted Ram defense giving up nearly 300 yards of offense), and Indianapolis (which narrowly beat the woeful Jaguars by a field goal, while the defense — supposedly greatly improved by defensive guru Tony Dungy — gave up 25 points and 225 passing yards).

• Strangest game of the day came in Cleveland, where the Browns apparently had a 39-37 victory over Kansas City in the bag, but Browns rusher Dwayne Rudd, thinking he had sacked KC QB Trent Green to end the game, threw his helmet 15 yards down the field in premature celebration. Turns out that Green had managed to escape Rudd’s grasp and made a 28-yard completion as the gun sounded, and the Chiefs used that gain and Rudd’s subsequent unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty to get within field-goal range and kick the game-winner with no time left. While Rudd will spend the week getting his goat horns chiseled and sharpened, the much improved Browns must look back on blowing a 27-17 fourth-quarter lead, and getting outscored 23-12 in that wacky final quarter. Which loss hurt more, Buffalo’s OT loss to the Jets, or the Browns’ heartbreaker to KC?

• Coasting to easy victories on Sunday were the Dolphins (49-21 over Detroit) — who along with the Jets and Pats are favorites to win the AFC East — and the Raiders, who knocked off the always underachieving Seahawks, 31-17. It’s becoming apparent that the Patriots will have their hands full winning at Miami and Oakland this season, and based on the Chargers’ cakewalk over Cincy and other aforementioned games, New England road wins at Nashville, San Diego, Buffalo, Chicago, and New York can also hardly be considered gimmes. No one can say the Pats didn’t earn it if they manage to win the AFC again this year.

• Of the 15 NFL games played since Thursday night’s opener in the Meadowlands, three went into overtime, four were decided on the last play of the game, and 10 were decided by a touchdown or less. Call it parity, or call it great match-ups, but the upcoming season is shaping up to be a dandy year of NFL football, one that could make people begin to forget about Major League Baseball once and for all, strike or no strike.

Major League Baseball. While you were watching college or NFL football, or even US Open tennis, baseball parks around the country continued to draw sizable crowds. The Yankees continue to motor along, leading the sorry Red Sox by nearly 10 games in the AL East. Minnesota’s ready to clinch its division, too, as the Twins lead the White Sox by 13 big ones. The Amazin’ A’s lost out on their AL-record 20-game win streak on Friday night, but they put together two more victories on the road at the Metrodome over the weekend, and they’ve won an unconscionable 22 of 23. While the A’s, like the Yankees, have 89 wins, Oakland’s division lead is just a game and a half, thanks to a 10-game winning streak by second-place Anaheim. The Angels appear a lock to take the wild card unless Seattle (four games behind Anaheim) or the Sox (as if — eight and a half back) can somehow manage to put together a particularly strong finish while Anaheim hits the skids.

In the National League, Atlanta’s already printing playoff tickets by virtue of its 20.5-game lead in the East; St. Louis has a six-game lead on the Jimy Williams–led Houston Astros; and a great race is shaping up out West, as Arizona’s division lead is just 4.5 over the Dodgers and 5.5 over San Francisco, with the Giants just a game behind LA in the wild-card race. The Dodgers and Giants play each other seven times over the next fortnight, with the team left standing holding the inside track for the wild card.

If we have to mention them — which we don’t, because they’re officially irrelevant — then we will, but the 2002 Red Sox continue to stagger to the finish line. It’s all been written before, but the incomprehensible underachievement of this squad in recent months continues to boggle the mind. Yep, 40-17 in late May; 79-62 as of Monday. Figure it out: 39 wins, 45 losses in two-plus months for a team that has a $114 million payroll, the third-best hitting stats in the majors, and the third-best pitching staff in the AL; what’ll that get you? A bag of Doritos and a prime spot on the sofa to watch the telecast of the American League playoffs in October. Every starter in the Sox’ everyday line-up is batting .260 or above, and the average mark of the Sox’ first five hitters in the order is .309. One telling statistic, however, is as follows: in one-run games, Boston is 12-22 (after a 7-1 start in such games); Oakland is 27-9, and Anaheim is 26-16 in games decided by a run. Over the weekend, the Sox managed only a four-game split with the lowly Blue Jays, and now it’s on to even-lower-than-lowly Tampa Bay, where Boston could actually win a game.

I’m with you: who really cares anymore? It now looks like neither Pedro nor Derek Lowe will win the Cy Young (Oakland’s Barry Zito is now 20-5), and instead of Grady Little being touted as a Manager of the Year candidate, he may instead be the first manager fired this off-season.

If you feel like wasting your breath, let the postmortems for the hapless Red Sox begin. In the meantime, the NFL is back and better than ever, and we’ve still got the Super Bowl champions in our midst until at least January 26. NHL training camps open this week, college football and soccer are kicking into gear as well, and NBA basketball is just a few weeks away as well.

Lots going on to help us forget that it’s "Wait till next year" for the local nine again.

Eighty-four years and counting. Pathetic.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com