Do squirrels make you paranoid? As I kid, I was walking home from a friend’s house one day when a squirrel turned around and began to run straight at me. Seeing all that raw, gnawing, hungry, spastic energy careening in my direction almost gave me a heart attack, so I hopped over to the other side of the street. After a few minutes I looked back and saw—I swear it’s true—that my new friend had crossed to my side of the street and was following me. I ran the next 10 blocks back to my house and peeked back out the door to make sure he wasn’t coming up my front walk.
Then, a couple of years ago, I was visiting a friend in Philadelphia when I looked out his living room window and saw a squirrel staring at me, gnawing away on something. He had a definite look in his eye; he didn’t like me. Was it the squirrel I had given the slip all those years ago? The next morning, when I sat down in the same spot for breakfast, he suddenly appeared again, this time gnawing on a bone. A pretty big bone. Who knows, maybe it was a human bone. I switched seats so he couldn’t see me. I’ve never been back to that house.
So you see, I can relate to Robby Ginepri’s shock at finding a squirrel in his path while he was biking this week. Ginepri was so surprised that he fell off the bike, broke his arm, and will now miss the rest of the season. I’m not joking when I say I feel bad for the guy. Ginepri at various points has served as living evidence of how tough tennis can be when things start going south. The former U.S. Open semifinalist is one of the rare athletes who has admitted publicly to fighting depression, and I could see some of that when I watched him play Lleyton Hewitt two years ago in the opening round at Wimbledon. Ginepri got out to an early lead in the first set and was controlling the points. Then something happened, a double fault maybe, and he was finished. It was midway through the first set, but his slumped shoulders said that it was over, all over. He barely won another game. Ginepri had reached maximum fragility. He began every match waiting for something to go wrong, waiting to see the evidence that he couldn’t win, and then believing it. Get better fast, Robby, you've played too much good tennis in the past not to believe it can be done again.
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Triumph and disaster: Those are the famous words of Wimbledon, and there’s some of both every week in pro tennis. While Ginepri is sidelined from one tour, Caroline Wozniacki looks poised to take over the other. She has advanced to the semis in Tokyo; if she wins there and reaches the quarters next week, she’ll pass an idle Serena Williams for the No. 1 spot for the first time in her young career.
I wrote last week that Wozniacki might want to be careful what she wishes for. If she does get to No. 1, her storyline may change drastically, and unfairly, from cute, plucky up-and-comer to undeserving usurper of the top ranking and symbol of all that is dysfunctional in tennis, especially women’s tennis. The questions about whether she’s the “real No. 1” will be sure to follow, questions that drove Dinara Safina around a bend and contributed to her total loss in confidence last year.
Granted, Wozniacki may not make it there next week, but as she says, “there will be other chances.” But let’s nip this line of thinking in the bud anyway: Yes, she would be the real No. 1, and she would deserve it. She would not be the best player in the world; that’s still Serena, who won two majors this year. Being No. 1 is a different achievement. It might not sound glamorous, but it’s an honor nonetheless: Wozniacki would be recognized as the best in the world at her job. In 2010, she’s put her head down, made it through some rough patches, and seems ready to end the season on the same high note that she reached in the spring. It’s not like she can’t play tennis with Serena, either. Last year in Sydney, in their only full match, Wozniacki took her to a third-set tiebreaker.
Even when she was younger, Serena didn't consider trying to be No. 1, or playing to other people’s ideas of a schedule, essential to her job. She and her sister have always been about the Slams, winning when everyone knows it counts, like their hero Pete Sampras—though Pete was big on being No. 1 as well. Now that Serena’s got 13 majors, she’s playing against history rather than the rest of the tour. It’s a drag for fans and tournament directors around the world, but you don’t think Serena would put any stake in how a computer rated her ability, do you?
Wozniacki, pushed along by the appearance fees she can now command, has played a lot of tennis this year. If she hasn’t shown she can win the big events yet, she has shown the resilience of a future champion. The toughness and intelligence below the nice-girl exterior were displayed for most of the two weeks at Flushing. Part of me hopes that she doesn’t become No. 1, for her own sake—it would mess with her natural career trajectory. But a bigger part of me hopes that she does. Unfairly or not, the pressure will be on Wozniacki to live up to that billing, to make something artificial into something real. I would look forward to seeing how she measured up. She might be tougher than she looks.
Indian Summer: It might be the best-sounding phrase in the English language (which means any language to a uni-lingual American like myself). We got a taste of Indian Summer this weekend in humid NYC. Maybe it was a little too close to summer itself to qualify, but that’s what I’ll call it, just because I like saying it.
As a phrase, "Asian Hard-Court Swing" doesn’t have exactly the same calming ring, does it? Nevertheless, that is where find ourselves as September winds down, and we must face that fact head on. Rafael Nadal, Fernando Verdasco, and Juan Martin del Potro have traveled to Bangkok, while many of the top women are in Tokyo. There’s even been an upset with some local flavor already: Wild card Kimiko Date Krumm beat Maria Sharapova in their opening-rounder.
I realize it’s a little late to “preview” two events that have already begun. But it’s been a long few days at the office, so you’ll have to cut me a break. If all goes as planned, I should be posting and commenting here much more often in the future.
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Bangkok
This must be the first 32-draw tournament that I've broken down. Where’d the other half go? The event is an appearance-fee special, of course. I can remember watching Andy Roddick and Marat Safin casually zip, exhibition-style, to a third-set tiebreaker in Bangkok a few years ago. Neither of them had ever, or would ever, play more quickly than they did that day. At the same time, this not the worst thing in the world. There are no massive expectations for an event like this, and likely no titanic ramifications for the future of the sport. It's there to be played, enjoyed while it lasts, and forgotten.
Nadal has had Bangkok on his schedule a couple times in the past and not made the trip. He’s in town this time, fishing, not riding an elephant, and getting ready for either Ruben Bemelmans or Frederik Nelson in the second round.
More intriguing and newsworthy is the presence of Juan Martin del Potro for the first time since January. Del Potro, who comes in as the fifth seed, could have gotten an easier start: He plays Olivier Rochus in the first round, and then possibly Mikhail Kukushkin, who is coming in on a high after helping Kazakhstan knock Switzerland out of the Davis Cup World Group last weekend.
The names that stand out in the rest of the draw are Gulbis, Troicki, Melzer, de Bakker, and the second seed, Verdasco. The surface is hard, which doesn’t favor anyone in particular. Other than the U.S. Open champion, of course.
***
Tokyo
Here’s where the big draw is. This time 64 seems to be the magic number, as there are a lot of interesting match-ups and potential match-ups right away. Wozniacki is the first seed; in the next round she might get Pavlyuchenkova, who is coming off a quality win over Cibulkova. Kuznetsova and Petkovic face each other next. Bartoli vs. Ivanovic, Azarenka vs. Safarova, Hantuchova vs. Date Krumm, and, possibly, Zvonareva vs. Dementieva in one of the quarters. Plus the French Open finalists, Stosur and Schiavone, are here. That’s not a bad lineup for a tournament sans Serena, Kim, and Justine, and it will be a meaningful title for whoever survives, in terms of prestige, points going into Doha, and, of course, cash.
Sharapova earned all of those when she won here in 2009, and it seemed at the time that she was setting herself up for a major return to form in the new year. The new year came and went, and here we are, back in Tokyo, and Sharapova’s top form never came close to materializing. There were shoulder and elbow problems, as well as racquet issues, but she also simply didn’t play as well she had in the past. She plays the same game, with just a notch less consistency, which is enough to turn wins to losses. After her loss today, Sharapova said that Date Krumm liked pace and was good at changing the direction of the ball. That’s true, but Sharapova had no answer for it. She’s always ridden on one tennis track: Hit hard, flat, close to the net, and close to the lines. But what she's won with mostly is all-consuming desire. After seven years on tour and many, many millions in the bank, nothing all-consuming can be easy to summon each week. For the moment, Sharapova can only hope Tokyo will be as much of sign for the future as it was for her last year.
Drums fingers on desk. Puts hand under chin. Stares at computer screen. Clicks on TennisTV. Sees highlights from Cincy in August. Clicks off TennisTV. Drums fingers some more.
Does this describe your tennis-viewing life at the moment? A post-Grand Slam pullback is OK for a week or so. Time to decompress, worry about the government again, become enraged when you remember how horribly the media treated your favorite player, etc. But, nice Davis Cup weekends aside, a pullback can quickly turn into a lull, which then can turn into a drag. Considering that the biggest headline in the sport yesterday was that the men’s No. 1 has committed to playing Queen’s, next June, a tournament he played two of the last three years—what's he going to reveal next, he's planning to play Wimbledon?—we're deep into lull stage already.
More troubling may be the long-term viewing situation. Is there a good reason to watch for the rest of 2010? Rafael Nadal has locked up the No. 1 spot for the year, which means that nothing of any historical significance is likely to happen on the men’s side. A similar situation exists among the A-listers on the women’s: Justine Henin is done for the season, Serena Williams doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to return, and Kim Clijsters is planning to enter one tournament before the year-end final in Doha.
Nevertheless, other players will get into airplanes, tournaments will be played, and we will watch them. The question is: Why? I'll gvie you 5 reasons.
The return of Nikolay Davydenko I have mixed feelings about his inevitable, opportunistic autumn rise. I like the guy’s hoppy, peppy, clean game, but not enough to miss it, I guess. I haven’t found myself wondering what happened to him after he began the year with such a bang (injuries did play a role). Was he really the talk of the Australian Open for a few minutes?
Now that I think about it, I did see Davydenko play, sort of, against Richard Gasquet last month at Flushing Meadows. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than a tennis court. Maybe because it was sunny. Maybe because it was outdoors. Maybe because it was a Grand Slam. Maybe because he was saving himself for the big-money, low-prestige, indoor fall season. This is Davydenko Time: the serious Grand Slam contenders have lost a little of their edge, which means no one is guarding the bank. Last year the Russian even went ahead and stunned himself by winning the World Tour Final. That led some of us—me, too—to speculate that he had finally begun to think of himself as one of those serious Slam contenders. He hadn’t. He never will. Still like his game, though.
Rafael Nadal’s fall improvement campaign Nadal is No. 1, but he does have something to gain in the fall. At his press conference after the Open final, he spoke about wanting to improve on his ragged end-of-season performances of 2009. The bar is pretty low. He was blown out by Davydenko and Cilic in Asia, and he could barely get the ball past the service line in Paris and London. If Nadal has anything left to prove, or aim for, it’s winning the World Tour Finals. This is a tournament where the past two long-term No. 1 players, Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, have been dominant. Nadal has never even reached the final, and last year he finished dead last among eight players after losing six straight sets. Nadal said as much at Flushing, where he mentioned that the WTF is the only “big” event he hasn’t won. The fast indoor surface that’s been used in the past hasn't suited him (Nadal joked about getting it played on clay one of these years), but he also had never won the U.S. Open before this season. After the French, he sounded determined to make that happen, and in New York he sounded similarly focused on London. He should be able to do it. It's his world now.
The chase for No. 1 on the women’s side—and whether anyone should want it The stars may or may not be out, but starting next week there will be big money floating around for the women. First they go to the $2 million tournament in Tokyo, where Maria Sharapova is the defending champion, and then on to the really big cash ($4.5 mil total) at the mandatory event in Beijing, which Svetlana Kuznetsova won in 2009. What else is stake? For Caroline Wozniacki, there’s the possibility of finishing the year No. 1: She’s 1,000 points behind Serena, even though she’s already played 24 events to the American’s 14. Wozniacki may want to be careful what she wishes for. Right now she's thought of as a nice, resourceful, unexciting up-and-comer. Will she want to risk changing her storyline to: undeserving No. 1 and sign of all that is wrong with women’s tennis? She might want to avoid seeking Dinara Safina’s advice on that one.
The Fed Cup final It’s a rematch of last year’s final between the U.S. and Italy, though this time it will be in the States, for the first time in 10 years. Venus and Serena Williams have said they're going to play it, though they’ve made similar statements before backing out in the past. There may be more incentive this time. The tie is in San Diego, not far from Serena’s home, and they each need to make two Fed Cup appearances before the 2012 Olympics if they want to be eligible to play. Captain Mary Joe Fernandez has said that if the Williamses do show, they’re in. Whoever is there for the Yanks, you know the Italians—Schiavone and Pennetta—will be ready. They’re the defending champs, and they live for this thing. It should be an entertaining tie either way.
And, last but not least, to see some tennis
To see . . .
The first Davis Cup final in Serbia, and the second World Tour Final in London
Andy Murray’s backhand return, and whether or not his game changes at all after his Open debacle
Juan Martin del Potro’s comeback, and what Mardy Fish and Sam Stosur have left for fall
Novak Djokovic stick his tongue in his cheek when things are going well, and look to the heavens in agony when they aren’t.
Jelena Jankovic with her hand on her hip, or over her mouth
Where Roger Federer’s head, body, and game are at this stage, and whether he and Paul Annacone have implemented anything new
What Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is up to
Whether Maria Sharapova begins to look discouraged, or whether she keep up the fight as always
If Ana Ivanovic can fully re-establish herself
Who is going to go all Julien Benneteau and break down in tears after scoring a huge upset
To see what Francesca Schiavone does if Italy wins the Fed Cup, and what Novak Djokovic does if Serbia wins the Davis Cup. I don't even want to think about what the photos of the latter would look like.
***
Anyway, the season is past its peak, no doubt about it, but there should be enough to keep us from drumming our fingers on the desk for the rest of the year, anyway.
In 2007, the U.S. beat Russia to win the Davis Cup in Portland. Afterward, in the beery post-clinch press conference—we could hear the team chanting “U.S.A.!” as they marched down the hall together—Andy Roddick and James Blake laughingly demanded that reporters ask their non-playing teammates Robby Ginepri and Mardy Fish a question. (They specifically told us to ask Ginepri to “multiply something.”) When someone finally obeyed and began to address Fish, he grabbed the mike and blurted, “Bring it!” The question was a simple and obvious one about how he felt being on a Cup-winning team. Fish gave it a more emotional answer than might have been expected at that moment. He talked about how honored he was just to have been a part of it, to have played some important matches along the way, and to have helped out where he could. For a second, at least, the room was quiet.
At that point, Fish was largely the forgotten man of U.S. tennis. After a few years of back and forth, Blake had established himself as the team’s No. 2 and relegated his friend to hitting-partner status. Fish never showed any public bitterness, and he kept coming to ties. The 29-year-old got his reward this weekend in a place he could never have expected, a red-clay bullring in the elevated climes of Colombia. Fish became the first American since Pete Sampras in 1995 to win three rubbers in one tie (that’s three matches in one round, for the Davis Cup uninitiated). In 11 hours of tennis, the equivalent of what Isner and Mahut did over a similar period of time at Wimbledon, Fish eked out two five-set singles matches and a four-setter in doubles. From what I could tell, even at the end of his third match he wasn’t tired. He’s lost weight, as we know, but Fish and his physio also credit something called Generation UCAN for his stamina. It’s an energy drink with a “unique carbohydrate called SuperStarch” which was originally created to treat a child who couldn’t produce blood sugar. “I get stronger as the game progresses,” Fish said, somewhat eerily, in a press release for the stuff at the start of the U.S. Open.
Whatever this wonder drink is doing—Fish did look eerily stronger as his matches went on—the American was also fortunate that both of his singles opponents, after raising the home crowd’s hopes, let the occasion get to them. Giraldo’s case was especially tragic. After playing with so much positive energy and intelligence for five sets—his percentage game from the baseline was masterful—he couldn’t get the ball over the net after he finally earned a chance to serve for it. Still, I’ll never forget the sight of him leaping in the air over and over at 3-5 in the fourth set and getting everyone in the stadium on their feet with him. But Fish beat him eventually, the same way he did Alejandro Falla on the first day: By staying patient, applying pressure at the right moments, and hanging around long enough to let his opponent implode. Fish said afterward that it was the performance of his life, and it was. The U.S. remains in the World Group, which should also get him in pretty good with whoever replaces Patrick McEnroe as captain next year.
Fish’s wasn’t the only heroic performance of the weekend. Making attacking tennis look like child’s play, Michael Llodra won two matches to lead France to the final. There they’ll face the Serbs, who were led back from the brink of defeat against the Czech Republic by Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic.
It was an entertaining, though time-consuming, weekend if you had the Tennis Channel. Maybe that’s the key to making the Cup a bigger deal—dedicating a channel to zooming from tie to tie over each weekend and showing as much as possible. The scope of the event is underappreciated—totally unappreciated, in fact—but whatever coverage it gets, it remains a strange interlude in the season, like an alternative tennis universe that we glimpse four times a year. Watching the U.S. team bounce up and down in triumph, and Llodra run around like a banshee after clinching the doubles for France, I tried to think of an equivalent in another sport. I guess in basketball it would be like having the Olympics cut into the NBA season on four separate occasions. In Davis Cup, the players come together for a weekend, feed off the team energy, experience emotional highs and lows they experience nowhere else in the sport, and then go their separate ways again.
It’s imperfect and seriously under-marketed, but this weekend the Davis Cup did what it always does best: Spread the glory. When else is Llodra going to get to take his aging but brilliant game to center stage? When else is Mardy Fish going to get bloody, draw a heart over his chest with his finger, and play the role of life-saving hero? I didn’t see what Djokovic did when he won, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he went ballistic. I also heard rumors of similar heroics by the Indians against Brazil. Tennis in its tournament form is a selfish sport, and it can be hard for a lot of guys to stay motivated when they’re not playing for anyone else. Davis Cup shows us that it isn’t just Federer and Nadal who have greatness in them. Dozens of other guys own a little of it; it's just waiting for the right moment to come out, even if, like Fish, it takes years of hanging around on the sidelines. The best thing about DC is that it gives these guys that opportunity; it democratizes success in a normally all-or-nothing sport. It’s just too bad more sports fans don’t get to see that success.
As of 9:00 this morning, it was one of those perfect late-summer days in New York City. I walked out my front door and was seriously tempted to turn in the opposite direction from my normal route to work and just start walking—who knows, maybe never to return. But we’re wrapping up an issue today and sending it to the printer, so it’s back to the desk and the keyboard and the monitor.
The upside is that on the monitor I've been watching the various Davis Cup goings on, both of the semis and the U.S. relegation match all at once if I can move my eyes fast enough. Nalbandian-Monfils is underway as I write this. Davis Cup would seem to be an ideal place to see these two slacker stylists face off. If they’re going to give it their all, with no trick shots or tanked sets, it’s going to be now. (Update: It was definitely true for Monfils, who played inspired but not irresponsible tennis.)
Tennis never slows down—that’s its exhausting beauty. In the aftermath of the U.S. Open, it's catch-up time. Here’s a grab bag of thoughts and developments, mostly tennis-related.
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At ESPN.com, I’ve got a post up on Novak Djokovic, the general idea being: Where does he go from here? (First, considerimng that he had to pull out of his Davis Cup match today with a case of gastroenteritis, he goes to the bathroom.) His win over Federer should make him believe that he can still play for major championships, but that belief hadn’t sunk in yet by the time of the final. He played to win a set to start, but when he did, he got no momentum out of it. I don't think he could more than that against Nadal. When Rafa aced him at 5-4, 30-30 in the third, Djokovic threw his hands in the air as if all was already lost.
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Later in his career, the British art critic John Berger regretted that he hadn’t factored the idea of individual genius into his analysis more. As a good Marxist, he thought of artists as products of their times and societies and material conditions, and that was it. But as time went on, he came to believe that individuals could transcend those conditions.
I’m starting to feel the same way about the word “champion.” It’s roughly the tennis equivalent of a genius in art—you’re either a champion or you're not, you’ve either got it or you don’t, and those that do have it are set apart from the normal run of player. Despite the recent examples of Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, I’ve been skeptical of this slightly mystical idea. I thought those guys were simply better, more talented, more physically gifted tennis players than their opponents.
But watching Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal this year, I’ve started to come around to the idea. Williams is clearly a superior athlete, but she also does a lot of things you wouldn’t teach and hits a lot of winning shots from unlikely positions. It isn’t just natural talent that lets her do that, because she’s the rare player who hits more of those winning shots in the moments when she needs them. That combination of fearlessness and giftedness defies the normal run of human action.
Nadal does get nervous, and it affects his play. And he can’t win points and get out of jams as easily as Federer or Sampras—whatever his record, he’s never been as plainly superior to his opponents as those guys were at their best. In the Open final, there were times when Nadal appeared to be about to give the advantage back to Djokovic. His backhand in particular was very tight on break points. With any other player, I would have expected consequences—a lost of momentum, a turnaround in his opponent's favor, a loss of another set. But Nadal finds a way through. As with Serena, it’s more than just being “tough.’ There’s something unexplainable about it, the mark of a champion.
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A couple of months ago I posted a clip from a documentary on the 1981 French Open. Here’s another one, of Yannick Noah talking, from what I can tell, about the uncanny perseverance of Bjorn Borg, who tries to answer him. Is there anyone out there who can translate what Noah is saying about Borg?
For good measure, I've included one more clip from the movie above. A good start to any tennis fan's weekend.
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Speaking of the Angelic Assassin, did he give up on tennis because he and his family were too superstitious? During his Wimbledon run, he stayed in the same Holiday Inn each year, ate the same meals before matches, folded and unfolded his clothes the same way, drove to the club by the same route, always sitting next to his coach, with his fiancée in the back seat. His parents were only allowed to come in odd-numbered years, which might have been a good thing. In the 1979 final, his mom had been chewing on the same piece of gum (or candy, or something, I can't remember) for good luck. When Borg went up 40-0 in the final game of the fifth set against Roscoe Tanner, she decided it was safe to spit it out. She was wrong. Borg proceeded to lose all three match points. His mom picked up the gum off the floor of the player’s box and stuck it back in her mouth. Borg won the next two points and the match.
When all of that superstition finally failed to work two years later, you sort of wonder whether Borg believed his demise was fated.
***
What’s your favorite score of all time? The three-out-of-five-setters have their poetry. Much more so than the scores of other sports, they communicate the ups and downs and the epic quality of a great match. They’re numerical tongue twisters, and you get some idea of the effort involved when you recite them. I thought that the score of the Djokovic-Federer semi was a good one: 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 7-5. Strange, symmetrical, but with a surprising twist in the fifth. The 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 final is hardly a classic, but its descending numbers at the end do a good job of showing how Nadal wins matches, by wearing you down, in body and score.
You never remember scores the way you do when you’re young. One of my favorites to think about as a kid was Jimmy Connors’ 7-5, 7-5, 7-5 win over Borg in the (yes) 1975 U.S. Open semis. I can’t remember them exactly now, but I once committed the scores of the Pancho Gonzalez-Charlie Pasarell 112-game epic at Wimbledon in 1969 to memory. Those 112 games were, according to at least one writer, a record that “could never be broken” because Wimbledon had eliminated the tiebreaker. He somehow couldn’t foresee Isner and Mahut, who gave us the scoreline of 2010.
My favorite score always was and still remains Borg over McEnroe at Wimbledon 1980: 1-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (16), 8-6. It starts low, shoots way up, comes back down to earth, shoots back up, and then, against the odds, goes higher at the end. As a kid, I used to roll it around in my mind like a poem.
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I learned recently that my favorite rock critic, Robert Christgau, has had his venerable and essential Consumer Guide column tragically terminated by MSN—or whoever he was writing for these days; I knew him from the scratchy copies of the Village Voice that came like messages from another planet to our local public library in PA. When I visited New York looking for work after college, I actually found where he lived, walked to the address, and looked up at his apartment window from the sidewalk. I was awed: Robert Christgau lives there.
He was my writing God in high school and college, before I found others (though I never left him). I loved and copied the speedy energy of his capsule record reviews. His longer stuff can get convoluted at times, though any Beatle fan should read his John Lennon obituary from 1980. It’s a model of the form at its most emotiomal and rational.
To a few of my friends and I, Christgau was always right. Even when you disagreed with him, you had to say that at some level, within his own system, he was right. It was the strength of his writing and judgment that made you respect him even when you thought he was off base. He stayed true to himself, but was also able to surprise you; you can’t ask for more from a critic. When a friend and I discovered Pavement’s first record in 1992, we thought we were onto something, maybe the next great band. But we were cautious. We didn’t know what “Bob” thought yet. We happened to see his Voice review of it when we were together. We read it at the same time, shoulder to shoulder. At the bottom was his grade: an A! That was a rare mark from Bob. “He loves it!” we both said. It was the equivalent of a high-five, from two people who would never high-five. We were right, Pavement was the real thing.
Recently, Christgau came out with his Top 10 records of the last decade. MIA was No. 1, no surprise there, but No. 2 was a serious curveball: an album from 2005 by a duo from Ohio named Wussy. Who? What? Second-best album of the last 10 years? I had to get it, of course. I listened respectfully for a couple of weeks. They were good, but best-of-the-decade good? No.
One day this summer after playing tennis, I got caught in the rain. Torrential rain. With no umbrella. But I was too far from my apartment to bother running, so I just decided to enjoy it. On my IPod was the last song from that Wussy album, “Don’t Leave Just Now.” It’s a good walking in the rain song—it rolls along gently. For the first time, I paid attention to the words.
The garbage trucks are on parade The drivers smile and wave as they go rolling by
Good start. Then:
Accuweather calls for rain It’s falling on the little things you love the most
Better. Finally, it ends:
Beside you in the driveway I’m considering the things I never figured out. Like trying to describe to you the feeling That goes through me when I kiss your mouth
Damn, I thought, smiling, soaked with rain: Christgau’s right again.
It’s decompression time around the Tennis Magazine offices. For the first time in 16 or 17 or 18 days—or is it two years?—we aren’t making the stop-and-start journey to Flushing Meadows. For me, that means I don’t have to thread my way through three boroughs—underneath Brooklyn and Manhattan, over top of Queens—two times each day.
The first thing you notice is the amount of extra time you suddenly have. The second thing you notice is how much of that time you sudddenly waste. The Open, where there are always thousands of people whirling around you, is, in a paradoxical way, good for focusing your attention, especially if you have to think and write down an article every day. Now that I’m back at my desk, with no daily deadlines, I’m prey to the evil spell of the computer once again. Wow, Internet shopping, I’d forgotten all about it.
In the last two days I’ve also reacquainted myself with Slate, the PBS Newshour, David Brooks, Mad Men, Gossip Girl, the Great Gatsby, a pair of black office shoes, the Philadelphia Eagles, a classical musical station from Philly on ITunes, Vinny’s pizza by delivery, the roast beef sandwiches at the deli near my office, a local wine store, and the look and feel of my neighborhood in general. There are positives and negatives in all of this. Fall has a serious tone that’s refreshing—it feels literary, a time to use your brain. And coming back to the familiar can be soothing. But there’s also an undertow of disappointment to the process. You feel the old limits of your world narrowing in around you again.
That’s the beauty of the Open. You’re somewhere special, somewhere buzzing. Like all of the Slams, and at most other tennis tournaments in general, the place feels elevated above the normal run of life—richer, better-looking, more thoroughly tan, better-dressed, shinier, happier, richer. Even midtown Manhattan, the great concrete and metal hub of the universe, is a grubby freak show by comparison.
For someone who works in the sport, the Open also shrinks the world considerably. You’re surrounded by people on all sides, but there’s a small-town atmosphere. You might see a friend here, a player there, or a face you recognize out of the corner of your eye. But whether you know them or not, whether you look like them or not, you're linked by tennis. Sometimes it pays off to follow a niche sport; you can feel like you’ve found your own niche in it.
That explains the most noticeable feeling I have when the Open ends: An acute sense of anonymity. It’s the prevailing condition at all times in New York, of course, and while I’ve never liked it, I’ve adjusted to it. Every year when the tournament ends, though, it gets magnified for me. Away from the tennis bubble, other people in the street seem to have no relation to me whatsoever, and a depressing lack of significance. While I never exchange a word with 99 percent of the people I see at the Open, a connection exists. This is one of the unsung pleasures of a mass event: Even more than the forehands and backhands you see, it’s the sense of gathering that gives the place that extra energy that you don’t get in your daily life.
The subway is where it hits me. After standing in cars crowded with tennis fans from all over the world for two weeks, the New Yorkers I’ve seen coming to work the past couple of days have been absolute strangers to me. The black-haired woman reading Agatha Christie. The brown-haired woman reading Inc magazine. The Middle Eastern man with his arms folded. The black woman staring at her Kindle. The skinny punk kid in red Chuck Taylors. All of them hold the typical, expressionless pose of the subway rider; people in this city have turned the poker face into an art form. This would normally never bother me, but last night I found myself thinking: If you want to know exactly how distant every person is from every other person, ride a New York City subway. It reminded me of a friend who moved here from Pennsylvania a little after I did. Part of him expected, after reading about the downtown music scene for so many years in magazines, that everyone he met would be a massive Sonic Youth fan. It was the indifference—indifference right there, in your face, all around you, visible, passing you on the street—that he found most disorienting.
Like I said, there are positive and negatives. Yesterday, I got caught up listening to my IPod during my ride. It was one of those relatively rare days when I wasn’t sick of all 15,000 songs in there. For once I didn’t scroll past everything and finally click on Yo La Tengo out of desperation, just so I wouldn’t have to scroll back up. Maybe it was having that New York groove going again, but I stopped on Bruce Springsteen and dialed up his Hell’s Kitchen saga, “Incident on 57th Street.” It has the best intro and best fade out of any of his songs, though I found myself wondering what kind of “incident” could possibly happen on 57th these days—shoplifting at Bergdorf’s? I’d forgotten that the song melted into “Rosalita,” which I hadn’t heard since high school, on a Panasomic record player. Bruce's Jersey street characters made me start to laugh right there in the subway: “Dynamite’s in the belfry, baby, playing with the bats/Little Gun’s downtown in front of the Woolworth’s trying out his attitude on all the cats.”
The upshot is that I missed my stop and ended up heading over the bridge, across the East River, and into Williamsburg. I got out at the first stop and walked over to the other side of the platform, to catch the train back into Manhattan. After two weeks of heat and wind, the weather was finally perfect. So perfect, so comfortable, it made you feel safe. It was just after sunset, and from where I sat, I could see the Williamsburg Bridge, its curves lined with lights, and the lower city skyline behind it. I’ve lived in New York for almost 20 years and have never glimpsed this particular, beautifully industrial view. I wasn’t worried about getting anywhere. I didn’t even want the train to come right away. For the first time in a while, I felt like I had some extra time. It felt good to waste a little of it.
We’ve heard for years that the French Open is the toughest tournament to win. But what about the U.S. Open? It’s not on clay, it doesn’t require as many hours of work, but it does require that you play in two entirely different sets of conditions in each week, from the stiflingly humid to the chillingly blustery. Even Rafael Nadal, playing some of the best tennis of his career, dropped a set along the way. No shame in that: The last time a man won it without losing one was 50 years ago. Let's see how Nadal, and everyone else, fared over two tough weeks in 2010.
Rafael Nadal
In the next couple of days, you’ll hear a lot about Nadal’s heart and legs and cussed competitive spirit. You’ll hear even more about whether he can become the greatest of all time someday. But since I’m writing this a few minutes after watching his arduous, rain-delayed win in the U.S. Open final, I’ll let those topics go for the moment and talk about of a few other elements that made this performance a special one. It’s not hard to find them: Nadal’s wins are always in the details.
***
I watched the first few games on my press-room monitor before heading onto the court. Only there could I get an idea of what Novak Djokovic had to do to make any headway against Nadal’s shots. Even on routine balls, Djokovic was jumping, and grunting, and putting every ounce of energy he had at that moment into the ball. And then he was doing it all over again.
***
You know that phrase, “Make the other guy hit a volley”? It’s rarely heeded, even by the pros; it’s so much more fun to go for an outright passing shot winner. And no one hits those better than Nadal, especially tonight. But he also had the discipline, when the outright pass wasn’t there, to flip his running backhand crosscourt up over the net and at Djokovic’s feet, and let him deal with the volley. Djokovic, to his credit, handled these tricky shots well, but the tactic paid off for Nadal in the nervous final game. There, Djokovic hit a drop shot and followed it in. On the dead run forward, Nadal, instead of trying to rip the ball past him, went to the safe backhand flip again. It was just enough to get Djokovic out of position and set up an easy volley on the next shot.
***
As he did at Wimbledon, Nadal got tight after winning the first set. Djokovic started to dictate down the line and went up 4-1. Nadal bottomed out during the first point of the next game, when he hit a very uncomfortable-looking forehand long. But this is where the confidence that Nadal has built this season kicked in—even at 1-4, nervous and playing poorly, that core confidence was strong enough to generate its own momentum seemingly out of nowhere.
From 0-15 down, Nadal was a new player. He shrugged off everything that had happened in the second set to that point, began to hit with more depth, and carved up a neat drop volley to hold. On the first point of the next game, he tried an entirely new tactic, sliding a low forehand return down the line and following it up with a looped backhand deep and crosscourt. He won that point and broke serve. Nadal’s confidence, as I’ve said before, is tied up not with his timing or his ball-striking as much as it is with his intelligence. It’s often said that athletes shouldn’t think when they’re on the court. Nadal proves that cliché wrong.
***
In the third, it looked like Nadal was going to leave Djokovic behind. His shots had more weight than they’d had all tournament. But he couldn’t shake the Serb, who saved innumerable break points with lightning-strike forehands. When Djokovic saved a few more to make it 4-5, the crowd stood, pushing for him—New York loves a doomed battler. Nadal suddenly looked pretty lonely standing at the baseline to serve. He played two tight points to go down 15-30. If he lost this game, you could sense that the whole match might go with it. The dark-suited Serb fans in the section next to mine were on their feet, in full bellow. Nadal hit a service winner. He hit an ace. He hit another service winner for the set. Djokovic’s fans sat down. Afterward, Nadal seemed as happy and surprised by those three serves as he was his victory. “I have something happen that never happen before,” he said, “and believe me it was nice.”
We’ve heard about Nadal’s new serve, of course, but it wasn’t only the bomb that got him out of trouble tonight. It was just an additional weapon among many. He won tonight with 115 m.p.h. body serves, 105 m.p.h. serves out wide, 125 m.p.h serves up the middle. He only out-thought himself once, at set point for Djokovic in the second. Instead of the wide one, he went to the body, and Djokovic timed it for a perfect return and the set. That lost point was notable mainly because it happens so seldomly to him.
Nadal owns the career Slam, a stunning achievement at 24, and a ground-breaking one for Spanish tennis—there’s no precedent for him. He also has a couple of Davis Cups, an Olympic gold, and umpteen Masters titles. This was his most masterful and complete performance yet; as Djokovic said afterward with a laugh, the frustrating thing for Nadal’s opponents is that he's getting better. Can he become the best ever? Nobody can say. “We gonna see, no?” is how Rafa might answer the question. We gonna see more of Rafa. For tennis fans, that’s the best part of the story. A+
Kim Clijsters
It should be said: No Serena, no Justine. But from 5-4 up in the third against Venus Williams, Kim showed us everything she has. She shook off all of her considerable nerves, as well as a horrible attempt to hold two games earlier, and played what may have been the finest finishing game she’s ever played in a match of this magnitude and against a player of Venus’s stature. Then Kim went out and did it for two sets in the final, in a match where it didn’t appear she could miss if she'd tried. I’d like to think that match-winning hold against Venus might be a career-changer, but it’s probably too late for that for Kim. She’ll keep rushing when she gets nervous, she’ll keep throwing in clunker matches at unexpected moments, and on her best days she’ll keep giving us the finest combination of ball-striking and athleticism of any player today. A+
Novak Djokovic
From the first point, his quest to win against Nadal felt valiant and tragic. He won the first point after a barn-burning rally, and then came up limping. Djokovic brought everything he had over and over, lifting himself off the court to hit each ball, while at the same time acting like he didn’t quite believe it was going to work in the end. He was right, but he did everything he could to make sure.
It’s hard to remember now, but Djokovic was hardly considered a threat at the start of this tournament, and in the first round he was down two sets to one and a break in the fourth. He looked more likely to end up in an ambulance than holding the runner-up trophy two weeks later. But Djokovic returned to his finest form, his hungry form of three years ago, against Federer and Nadal. He surprised all of us by derailing the Federer-Nadal express and eventually giving us a final worthy of the one we had hoped to see. But my favorite Djokovic moment came in the trophy ceremony. He congratulated Rafa, thanked the crowd, and told his coach he missed him, all with the open-hearted honesty that makes him such a valuable—necessary—part of the emotional fabric of tennis today. Good to have you back, Novak. Don’t go anywhere. A
Novak Djokovic’s father’s shirt
Why not? Why not wear his first-born's face plastered across him? His first-born gave us more to watch over the course of the last two weeks than any other player. A
Pam Shriver
She’s not the smoothest sideline reporter, but how many other former Grand Slam finalists are willing to schlep around Flushing Meadows all day to track down interviews? It’s not often that we get to hear from Uncle Toni on the sidelines, but Shriver got him. A-
Vera Zvonareva
It would be nice to give her the benefit of the doubt, to offer some sympathy. And judging by many of the recent women’s finals here, it’s not easy to go out and play the Saturday night match for the first time. But after Zvonareva’s smart and patient dismantling of Wozniacki in the semis, it was a disappointment to say the least. All the old nerves and instability which she seemed to have banished came rushing back to the surface. Clijsters can’t play much better than she did in the final, but after this it’s hard to imagine Zvonareva taking the next step. B+
Caroline Wozniacki
She didn’t make it as far as she did last year, and she didn’t live up to her top seeding, but this was still a step forward. When Wozniacki won, she won convincingly, and her straight-setter over Maria Sharapova was an impressive display of control and opportunism. The trouble is, when a crack develops in the wallboard, as it did against Zvonareva in the semis, there’s not a whole lot that Wozniacki can do about it. Wallboards are solid and hard to move, but they’re not known for their flexibility. B+
Roger Federer
Federer looked like the player to beat through the first week, and he put on a dominating performance against Robin Soderling. Aside from his serve, he didn’t have a terrible day against Djokovic in the semis, but he can thank his reputation for helping him get as far as he did. Djokovic, who was up a break in the first set and narrowly lost the third, said afterward that Federer feeds off his opponents’ nerves. While Djokovic gave him plenty to feed off near the end, for the third time this year Federer couldn’t cross a match-point finish line. As he said afterward, the fact that this keeps happening could be bad luck, or good play by his opponent. This time it was clearly good play by his opponent; Djokovic said he “closed his eyes” and went big on the two match points, and there was nothing Federer could do about it. Yes, he served poorly overall, and yes, he missed some forehands at the end, but if there was a sign of decline for Federer in this match, it was equally a sign of incline for his opponent: In the fifth set, on the final weekend of a Grand Slam, a player was good enough to beat Federer when Federer was pretty darn good. That hasn’t happened all that many times in the past. B+
Venus Williams
This was a tough one, and maybe her last best chance at the Open. She began with an imperious display on her serve and forehand in the first set against Kim Clijsters, and then, just when Kim was ready to give her the second, Venus couldn’t find the court in the tiebreaker. However well, however confidently, she seems to be playing, it always slips away from Venus here. The fact that, as usual, it happened against the eventual champion won’t be any consolation for this proud player who believes she should win every match she plays. Maybe she should blame it on her dad. When Venus evened the second set at 6-6, Richard Williams suddenly popped up from his seat in the second row on her side—he was nowhere near the player’s box—and began to shout in her direction. I’m not sure even Venus knew he’d been sitting there. She barely won another point in the breaker. Before it was over, Richard was gone. B+
Stanislas Wawrinka
He’ll never be a dynamo or a crowd-pleaser, but at least his new coach, the bellower-in-black Peter Lundgren, had him using everything he’s got in this tournament. And while he blew a spot in the semifinals at the last second, it may have been the best sustained performance of his career. The first question for us now is: Are we ready for more Wawrinka? The second question: Are we ready for more of those guys in his player’s box? B+
Sam Stosur
She beat Dementieva in one of the better matches of the tournament, then faltered against Clijsters in the quarters. She struggled with her serve at times, and never matched her form from the spring. Net loss or net gain? Big picture, it’s as far as she’s ever gone here. Small picture, she couldn’t sustain her best when she had a shot at going even farther. B
Francesca Schiavone
After a tough couple of post-French Open months, it was nice to have her back and nipping at her opponent’s heels, pit-bull style. She was just hopelessly overmatched against Venus in the quarters. B
Fernando Verdasco
He looked like he didn’t believe against Nadal in the quarters. And why should he? He played the match of his life in Australia last year and couldn’t beat him. But before he went out, Verdasco did give us one of the great moments of the tournament: his scrambling, hooking forehand to win a fifth-set tiebreaker over David Ferrer, complete with celebratory fall to the court. B
Maria Sharapova
She’s only 23, but after this tournament, the question can be asked: Will she ever win another major? On this evidence, I’d say no. Too many things can go wrong with her game now, from the service toss to the most routine forehand. She’s always played on the risky edge, but no one gets more accurate as they get older. C+
Andy Murray
We’ve always asked when he’ll get more aggressive, when he’ll find a way to make use of his various talents. Maybe it’s time to ask whether he can change at all. When he tried to create against Wawrinka, he was clearly out of his comfort zone. And when he fell behind, his answer was to hit . . . drop shots. C+
Andy Roddick
His all-time high came here seven years ago, which only made this one seem one lower on the career scale. Roddick lost early, he lost a match he would and should normally win, and he lost his cool in embarrassing a tongue-tied lineswoman. Granted, Roddick came here on the heels of an illness, but it’s his attacking game that could use a cure. As with the other Andy, the patient style that worked at the Masters events wasn’t enough to get it done at the Slams. C
Gael Monfils
Conclusive proof that tennis is not, and should never be, entertainment and entertainment alone. It's no fun like that. C
OK, history has eluded us, and, no matter how thrilling and nerve-wracking the match we just saw was—and it was easily the match of the tournament, if not the year—that takes a few minutes to get over. But look at it this way: What are the chances that Roger and Rafa would have put on a more scintillating and dramatic show than Roger and Novak? It’s hard to imagine.
From the Djokovic perspective, it’s just too bad this couldn’t have been a final. It deserved to be a final. He reacted, naturally, as if it were a final, staring, stunned, at his delirious parents in their I-don’t-give-a-damn-if-Anna-Wintour-is-here, my-son-is-awesome T-shirts. It was a poignant moment, I thought. Djokovic, like his mom and dad, wears his ambition on his sleeve—and his back, and his hat—and that ambition was always to be No. 1 and to unseat Federer. Three years ago, when he reached the final here and won in Australia, Djokovic appeared to be the streamlined future of the modern game, a player who fused clean and uncluttered ball-striking with an uncannily flexible athleticism.
Since then, while he’s remained in the Top 5, Djokovic has also had to learn to live with being a third-fiddle—this will be his first Slam final since he won in Melbourne in 2008. At times, like last year’s semi against Federer at the Open, Djokovic has accepted his fate too readily. But it was clear from the beginning on Saturday that we were going to get him at his best. Federer was sharp from the baseline early; 99 percent of the time that would be enough. But Djokovic was on every ball, giving as good as he got, if not better. Federer drove Djokovic back, but he ended most of the points on his own heels.
Djokovic’s head wasn’t ready to keep up with what his body, his hands, his shots were doing. He botched two service games and lost the first set; he botched one and lost the third. Otherwise, it was his match through four sets. The fifth belonged to both of them. This was the tennis I’ve been waiting all year to see. To put it in British sportswriting terms, each player had the answers to the other one’s questions. Federer picked up his serving in the fifth, but Djokovic lifted his return higher. Federer showed off his flick flat backhand pass, a shot that no one else has ever owned. But Djokovic’s passes were threaded to equal perfection. It got to the point in the middle of the fifth where neither of them wanted to venture forward unless there was no other choice. Federer remained passive on his returns, and Djokovic refused to come in even after cracking an utterly devastating approach, which he did many times. I couldn’t blame either of them. Both had been burned enough times up there.
Federer reached double match point, but there was something in Djokovic today at the start that stuck with him until the end. He was, simply, hitting the ball too well to lose. He smacked a titanic swinging volley on one match point and a blistering forehand an inch from the line on another. And when he served for the match and went down break point, he swung with total confidence at a forehand that Federer couldn’t handle. Watching the final rally, listening to Djokovic work and grunt, I thought: He’s not going to miss.
***
Now, in less than 24 hours, he gets the rested and hungry Nadal, who also happens to be playing the best hard-court tennis of his career. Before his semi with Mikhail Youzhny, I said that the Russian would be able to hit his backhand down the line, and that that would trouble the lefty Nadal. Ha! Youzhny spent the afternoon darting from sideline to sideline and flailing futilely. Nadal’s shots look heavier than ever, and he was expert at finding the inside-out corner deep into Youzhny’s forehand. He dismissed a guy who had beaten him four times on hard courts, and made the No. 12 player in the world look like a sparring partner at best.
Should we expect anything else in the final? Is Nadal a lock? It’s certainly all working in his favor, and he couldn’t ask for a better chance to finish off his career Slam. But there’s work to be done. Nadal is 14-7 against Djokovic for his career (the same record he has against Federer), but Djokovic is 7-3 on hard courts, with straight-set wins in their last three meetings. While Federer and Nadal have staged their share of classics, Djokovic and Nadal may be the more entertaining rivalry from a rally-to-rally standpoint. Remember Hamburg 2008? Beijing 2008? Madrid 2009? All were epics of baseline brutality. And they all developed the same way. Djokovic started strong, using his ability to drill the ball down the line with power and accuracy to put Nadal on the defensive. But as the games wore on, Nadal wore Djokovic down with his speed and accuracy and cussed determination. Djokovic couldn’t keep finding his spots on those risky shots over the high part of the net.
Only one of those matches was on hard courts, at the Olympics in 2008, which was played with the same ball and on the same surface as the Open. It went down to the wire, and Djokovic lost it on a horrifying shank overhead at 4-5 in the third. Nadal, who is No. 1 and may be playing the very finest and heaviest tennis of his career, must be the favorite. Djokovic, the more fatigued player, will likely work to shorten points. But while he’ll be more fatigued, he’ll also come out on an emotional high after Saturday. I can imagine Djokovic firing away early and winning a first set. Then I can imagine Nadal winning the rest.
This isn’t exactly the women’s final I expected, but maybe it should have been. Kim Clijsters, defending champion, lover of Flushing Meadows, part-time resident of New Jersey, was an obvious contender. I’m pretty sure I picked her as the runner-up (to Maria Sharapova, whoops). But, even though she was the Wimbledon finalist this year, I didn’t see Vera Zvonareva coming up in the rear-view mirror. After her controlling performances through the first five rounds, I thought Caroline Wozniacki was going to put her smart bland blond stamp on this tournament.
Every day is a new day, though, and Friday was a bad one for Wozniacki. It was breezy, as usual, in Ashe Stadium, just breezy enough to throw her normally automatic ground strokes off. Her opponent didn’t help. Playing a wallboard requires an extremely patient mix of consistency and aggression. You’re not going to out-rally Wozniacki, but you also can’t fire away from risky positions; the odds are against you. In their fourth-round match, Sharapova had, predictably, erred on the side of too much risk. Zvonareva was the first of Wozniacki’s opponents to find the blend and—hardest part of all—maintain it for two sets.
“It’s the right balance between being patient and being aggressive,” Zvonareva said afterward. “With those windy conditions, sometimes you have to play ugly.” She pushed forward, against the wind, and made Wozniacki try to come up with the perfect shots in those imperfect conditions.
Zvonareva earned her third date with Clijsters in 2010. The Belgian was at both her brilliant and awful best against Venus Williams in the semis. Up a break in the second, she rushed through a terrible service game; each of her shots went a little more haywire. The same thing happened when she was serving, up a break again, at 4-3 in the third. Clijsters rushed in at break point and sent a swinging volley 10 feet long. It almost looked like she did it intentionally, just to get the horrid game over with and behind her. At the first sign of nerves, Clijsters starts to rush; there doesn’t seem to be anything she can do to combat it. It’s hard to imagine that it won’t happen at some point in the final.
What mattered, though, was that in her next service game, at 5-4, Clijsters did not rush. In fact, she played her best tennis of the match, patiently but forcefully moving Williams out of position and finishing points when she had the chance. This had to be a stinging loss for Venus. You could see the anguish in her face as a Clijsters lob landed in, and frustratingly out of reach, for the final break. It may have been Williams last best chance to win a tournament that, once upon a time, she looked destined to own. I’ve seen her find a way and refuse to lose in these situations in the past, and when she got back to 4-4 in the third, I thought she would find a way again—knowing that Zvonareva, rather than her sister, would be waiting in the final, had to make her desperate to get through this one. Credit Clijsters for not letting Venus find that way in the last two games.
Cijsters has a 5-2 career record against Zvonareva, but the Russian has won their last two meetings, at Wimbledon and Montreal this year, both times after dropping the first set. Zvonareva’s challenge will be different from what she faced against Wozniacki. She’ll get more pace from Clijsters, something this rhythm hitter normally likes. Still, I’ve been surprised by both of their last two matches, because Clijsters is the better athlete—stronger and faster—as well as a better ball-striker. I would think that, as long as she kept her head together, she would gradually overpower Zvonareva. But that’s not how it happened, especially at Wimbledon, where Zvonareva seemed to anticipate Clijsters’ every move, and the frustrated Belgian rushed herself out of the tournament.
In the semis, it was Zvonareva who had to strike a difficult balance. In the final, that job will fall to Clijsters. She should be able to dictate and at the same time track more balls down. But she’ll have to be patient about it. After their last two matches, both players will know that the result of the first set isn’t going to determine the result of the match. As for Zvonareva, she'll need to balance her notorious volatility with her emotional control; she came out a little too controlled, and a little flat, in the Wimbledon final. I think she’s ready to win, but I don’t think she will. After her semi, Clijsters knows that good things can come after bad, that one choke won’t necessarily cost her the match, and that she can gather herself when she must. Clijsters has won 20 straight matches at the Open. No. 21 is not a lock by any means, but I think she’ll get it.
If there are no upsets in a tennis tournament, you might think there’s no story. The top two seeds advancing solemnly and efficiently toward the final is too predictable to be noteworthy. Not so with this U.S. Open so far: What’s set the tournament apart on the men’s side has been the otherworldly quality of both of those top seeds, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. They've been handing the beatdown baton back and forth to each other every evening in Ashe Stadium. Last night it was Nadal’s turn. He took the stick and ran all over the court, as well as a helpless and poorly coiffed Fernando Verdasco, with it. Nadal played with a sense of purpose rare even for him.
The other news is that the Open is the only Slam where Federer and Nadal have never played. New York wants a piece of this generation’s great rivalry before it’s too late, and we’re never going to have a better shot at it. We’ve seen Ali and Frazier. We’ve seen Borg and McEnroe. Even Godzilla took a cruise to Manhattan for a showdown with King Kong. Are we finally going to get Nadal and Federer?
Nadal vs. Mikhail Youzhny The head to head is 7-4 in Nadal’s favor, though the last time they played on a hard court, in Chennai a couple of years ago, Youzhny won love and 1. While Nadal was coming off an epic match with Carlos Moya the day before, there’s no question that Youzhny has troubled him at times in the past. He even eliminated Nadal in the quarters at Flushing Meadows four years ago and was up two sets on him at Wimbledon the following year, before Nadal completely turned the tables. Since then, Nadal has mostly had the upper hand.
Last night Nadal said that Youzhny’s shots are difficult because they’re so flat, and that they work well on this court, where the ball picks up speed more than it does on some of the other hard courts on tour. Youzhny is also adept at taking his backhand down the line, which is a huge help against Nadal’s lefty serve and forehand.
If you go by Nadal’s form so far, none of that will matter. He’s been playing too well, with too much self-assurance, aggression, speed, and determination, for Youzhny to take even a set. Plus, Youzhny is coming off a a very draining five-setter against Wawrinka. Nadal wasn’t serving quite as hard last night, but he’s only been broken once in the tournament. Most impressive to me has been his ability to hit offensive shots, mostly forehands, from positions, like well back in his backhand corner, that would normally be defensive, for him or anyone else. Nadal has been less patient than ever with the grind of the rally. According to him, that approach will continue. To combat Youzhny’s flat strokes, he says he can’t cede much territory to him. That should be music to the ears of Nadal fans, because that’s always been his attitude at Wimbledon.
One caveat, because there always must be a caveat. Recent form is a good predictor of future form—except when it isn’t. I watched Nadal play two of the very best matches I’ve ever seen—one against Youzhny—in Rome three years ago, and then come out utterly flat against Davydenko in the semis. The shots that penetrated were now floating. Offense had given way to defense, dictating to defending. It can happen, even tomorrow. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Winner: Nadal
***
Federer vs. Novak Djokovic On paper, this should be the trickier semi, but I don’t see it. Djokovic has lost to Federer the last three years at the Open, and in 2009 he caved mentally. Federer’s between the legs winner near the end just confirmed Djokovic’s thinking at the moment—the guy is too good.
That shouldn’t necessarily be true. Djokovic came back to beat Federer on his home court in Basel later in the year. And the Serb has been winning almost as efficiently here as Nadal and Federer. But he also hasn’t faced the world’s most tenacious competition. In the fourth round he got Mardy Fish, who conveniently forgot he was a New Player. In the quarters, he got Gael Monfils, who conveniently forgot that he was a tennis player at all.
Federer, on the other hand, has been his old regal self, making No. 5 seed Robin Soderling look like the flat-footed Sod of yore—like, 2008. Federer has at times appeared to be moving more quickly than ever. Or maybe he’s just moving more aggressively. Like Nadal, defense has been offense for him, there’s been little sign of the erratic, shank-ridden stretches that have cost him this season, and his consistency with his serve in the wind has been astounding—judging by his comments after his quarter, Federer thinks the wind works in his favor, because of his uncomplicated service motion. You might even say that the wind has actually helped him, the same way it’s helped Nadal. Both guys mentioned that playing in it requires you to be especially vigilant with footwork, with making tiny adjustment steps as the swerves toward you. It’s made them both a little sharper. Too sharp for anyone else.
Rog and Rafa haven't lost a set. I'm guessing they won't lose one on Saturday, either. This should be it. These guys deserve each other.
