Besides all of the verbal barbs being traded during the week leading up to the game, Ryan made a plea to the fan base to step it up a notch, too. A recorded telephone message went out to all of the Jets season ticket holders telling them to make some noise and the 78,312 in attendance didn’t disappoint. The Patriots had four delay of game penalties called on them and the crowd was a major factor in the Jets snapping a home eight-game losing streak to their division rivals.

“The fans were huge in this victory,” said Ryan. “We’re giving them a game ball and putting it in our trophy case. This was a great win.”

The Jets offense put up just enough points to earn the victory while their staunch defense pitched a shutout as far as giving up touchdowns for the second consecutive game. “We’ve been preaching the whole time that if you do your job good things are going to happen to everybody,” safety Jim Leonhard, who finished the day with four tackles. “In the first two games, there have been guys all over the place making plays…different guys. No one is trying to do extra right now. Everyone is just doing their job.”

The mentality going into the game was to get New England quarterback Tom Brady off of his. Giving the perennial All-Pro different looks up until the last drive accomplished that. “If he knows what kind of defense you’re in, chances are he’s going to find the right spot to throw it to. You have to try to confuse him as much as you can. It doesn’t happen very often.

“On that last drive, we weren’t going to just sit back,” added Leonhard. “We were coming after him.”

Brady finished 23 for 47 for 216 yards, one interception and – most importantly – zero touchdowns. He led the Pats (1-1) to three field goals on drives that never seemed to get going. “We just didn’t do a good enough job,” Belechick said of his team’s struggles in the red zone. “They did a better job than we did.”

A game of field goals resulted in a 9-3 halftime lead for the Pats. The Jets came out throwing in the second half when quarterback Mark Sanchez (14 for 22, 163 yards, one touchdown) found wideout Jerricho Cotchery open for a 45-yard gain to the New England 11-yard line. Two plays later, the rookie out of Southern Cal hit tight end Dustin Keller in the end zone and the Jets found themselves ahead, 10-9.

The Jets extended their lead to four points with 8:26 left in the third quarter but were close to making it more with an apparent six-yard touchdown pass from Sanchez to wide receiver Chancey Stuckey. The Patriots challenged the play and it was reversed after instant replays showed that he only had one foot in bounds. Although they had to settle for a short field goal, Sanchez did not see that as a negative.

“Those two drives coming out of halftime were great,” he said. “We really responded.”

Feeley hit his fourth field goal of the game, a 39-yarder, with 9:48 to go to extend the lead to 16-9. That is when the Jets had to bear down and hold on in a one-score game. Perhaps the biggest play of the day came on the ensuing drive. New England was facing a third-and-one situation at their own 37-yard line with 7:51 left in the game. Running back Fred Taylor tried to go left but was swarmed by linebackers Bryan Thomas and Bart Scott for a one-yard loss, forcing them to punt the ball away.

“That was a big momentum changer,” Thomas said. “They tried to load our defense to the right side so we knew at that time that they were going to try to do something to get that quick first down.”

The Jets improved to 2-0 on the young season and will face Tennessee next Sunday at the Meadowlands. The Titans are surprisingly winless so far after going 13-3 a year ago. As Ryan put it, “I get to enjoy (this win) for about a half an hour.”

Although the Jets did win in Tennessee in 2008 to snap the Titans 10-game winning streak, there isn’t the same intense rivalry like the match-ups with the Patriots. So don’t expect a lot of bulletin board material this week.

“The big deal is, we’re a football team that should be respected,” said Ryan. “Sometimes we talk a little bit, but only because we have confidence in our football team.”

With two impressive wins to begin the campaign, as well they should.

And once again, there was Oudin coming from behind to win. First, there Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, and then Elena Dementieva left the open early, After that, Maria Sharapova double faulting her way to defeat. This time it was Nadia Petrova and she knocked off the No. 13 seed, 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3.

“I think it’s just mentally I’m staying in there with them the whole time, and I’m not giving up at all,” said the 17 year-old from Georgia. “So they’re going to have to [give it their all] if they’re going to beat me, they’re going to beat me, because I’m not going to go anywhere.”

Much like the last three Russian titans she defeated, Oudin had to come back in this match. It was almost as if she raises it up a level as her back is against the wall. After dropping the first set, 1-6, she fought back with the match on the line.

And in the second set, she was down a break, 4-3 when she brought the set back to serve, forcing her Russian opponent back on her heels.

“I don’t actually mean to lose the first set,” she laughed. “I sometimes just start off slowly, I guess. Maybe I’m a little nervous and all this stuff.

“But today my timing just wasn’t there in the first. My mindset going into the second was different. I totally forgot about the first. I was like, ‘All right. This is a new set.’ I’m going to start differently and forget about the first one and just start off like it’s a new match, and I started playing better.”

Playing better and more intense. It’s almost like she lulls her opponent into a false sense of security. Much like her idol, Justine Henin, Oudin becomes a powerhouse when the chips are down, maybe because she just refuses to lose.

“I think it does help me because I’ve been in that situation many times of losing the first set and being able to come back and win,” she said. “Because I do well with forgetting about the first one and starting over like it’s a totally new match, so I forgot about the first set, and I’m just going to start off and my mind is going to be just on what’s happening right then.”

After she brought the second set back to serve, Petrova couldn’t do much against Oudin. Able to force a tie break, the young American won the extra session and brought the match to the third, where she quickly broke, her Russian opponent with a 5-deuce battle, finally won with an overhead lob, which just hugged the baseline.

“I had a lot of break chances in that game and she didn’t have any, so I knew that I needed to come up with she came up to net, and it was, like, ‘Yeah, I’ll throw up a lob,’ and it ended up going in,” Oudin said.

“Yeah, I think I was on the defensive at that point.”

After that point, Oudin was on the offense. Although Petrova was able to get it back on serve, Oudin continued to assault the Russian with the approval of the Arthur Ashe crowd.

Petrova only could manage three wins in the third set. Although she blames herself, for some of the match, there’s no doubting the Georgian fireplug.

“She’s a very good mover,” said Petrova about her opponent. “You really have to come up with a great shot. Seems like, you know, you feel like you’re coming up with a good shot, and she just runs the ball down and she’s very good in defense. You have to really come up with a good shot against her.”

So as Svetlana Kuznetsova looks to advance tonight Caroline Wozniacki, the No. 6 seed may have the Russian killer in the back of her mind, because the winner of that match will face Oudin in the Quarterfinals.

“I don’t really care who I get,” Oudin said. “I’m happy to be in the quarterfinals. I know it’s going to be a tough match no matter who I play.”

The following is an excerpt from the new Skyhorse Publishing bookFaith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets by Greg W. Prince.

If you’re a Mets fan, you know me. How could you not? I’m you. Maybe a little older or perhaps younger, probably a bit heavier, no doubt substantively more weighed down by facts, figures and occasionally accursed memory, but I’m essentially you.

That is if you’re a Mets fan. ‘Cause that’s what I am. And that’s what I’m here to talk about.

I can talk about being a Mets fan from the moment they open Gate C for batting practice (if, in fact, we still have a Gate C) ’til the tarp covers the field. I can talk about being a Mets fan through an entire homestand and a couple of road trips. I can talk about being a Mets fan when I’m supposed to be talking about or thinking about anything else. I don’t know if it’s something to brag about, it’s just what I do.

I’m you. I’m a Mets fan. What the hell else are we going to talk about? And this is my life, see? There are other aspects to it, but when disconnected from the Mets, few of them are significant to me, not really. Don’t pity me, however. I like being this guy. Actually, I like being “That Guy.” You know …

That guy from work who has all that Mets stuff on his desk and who you can’t stump on baseball trivia and always remembers who was traded for who and when.

That guy from down the block who’s always going to or coming back from Shea; I swear he must have like ten different Mets jackets.

That guy at that thing who we thought was hard of hearing and wore an amplification device. Turned out it was an earplug for a radio. He was listening to WFAN the whole time.

That guy. The Mets fan. He’s the biggest Mets fan I know.

I don’t mean to declare myself a bigger Mets fan than you. That would be impolite and unknowable on my part. I’ll give you yourself. You wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t think you were the biggest Mets fan you know. But if you exclude yourself, I think you’ll find I’m decent Met company.

Yes, I have my share of bobbleheads and tchotchkes, enough overpriced licensed Mets crap to pay for at least one of Johan Santana’s warmup tosses. I could probably arrange to function an entire day and never go without seeing orange or blue. But it’s not my merchandise that makes me a big Mets fan. Other people have more stuff.

And I am pretty good at remembering the obscure Mets and Mets happenings, partly from a memory which I’m told is exceptional (I wouldn’t know; it’s the only memory I’ve ever had), partly from my conviction that nothing about the Mets should be considered obscure. But it’s not the knowledge that makes me a big Mets fan. Other people know more stuff.

Can’t even say it’s because I’ve been to more games than most Mets fans. I’ve been to a lot, but I’ve never been a season ticketholder. I do go out of my way to keep up, pitch by pitch, but it’s not my commitment to staying current that makes me a big Mets fan. Other people have seen more stuff.

Yet after forty years as “That Guy,” I can’t believe anyone takes it more personally than me; that anyone embraces it more fervently than me; that anyone gives it more thought than me; that anyone, even after the final loss of 2007 yielded its mass quantities of devastation upon my psyche, was less willing to disavow it than me. I may grow tired of the Mets at the nadirs when they are less than Amazin’, but I never tire of being a Mets fan. And I do love to talk about it with other Mets fans, other baseball fans, anybody who’ll listen.

If I’m true to my own self, it’s my life. It’s how I interact with those I care about most, whether it’s my family, my friends, my cats sometimes. It’s what I do. It was the case when I was six; it’s been the case throughout the long season that’s been in progress ever since; it’s the case right now. I never got the memo that I was supposed to outgrow these Amazin’, Amazin’, Amazin’ Mets.

I guess I’m just easily amazed.

You can order a copy of Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets by Greg W. Prince (foreword by Jason Fry; afterword with Gary Cohen) from Amazon. You can read more about the Mets from Greg and Jason at their blog, Faith and Fear in Flushing.