US Open Report
Sunday-Monday, September 12-13, 2010
Jerry Balsam
A New Member of
the Career Grand Slam Club
I paid a surprise visit — by which I
mean surprising to me — to the US Open men’s singles final. This two-day project
arose from a last-minute invitation by a friend who had an extra ticket, which
was a very generous reciprocation of my having given him an extra ticket for the
September 5 day session.
This was my fourth time at the final. In
1976, as a pup, I was disappointed to see Jimmy Connors defeat Bjorn Borg. In
2001, two days before 9/11, I was disappointed to see Lleyton Hewitt beat Pete
Sampras. Things improved in 2008, when I had a wonderful seat to watch Roger
Federer beat Andy Murray to pull within one of Pete Sampras’s record for Grand
Slam titles. This time, I would be rooting for Rafael Nadal to defeat Novak
Djokovic and complete the career Grand Slam, even though a win would pull him
within hailing distance of Federer’s post-Sampras record of sixteen major
titles. There’s still a long way to go from nine to sixteen, but of the seven
titles Rafa will need (assuming Roger is done winning majors), how hard is it to
imagine his picking up at least five more at Roland
Garros?
As is the practice with these
dispatches, my report is supplemented by photos, the full album of which may be
accessed by clicking here. Italicized hyperlinks in the report refer
to individual photos in my album.
Ashe: Rafael Nadal (ESP) (1)
v. Novak Djokovic (SRB) (3)
When a match is televised
internationally and reported extensively, there is not much to add from one’s
seat in the stadium, so readers would be well-advised to read the coverage on
the US Open’s Web site or Stephanie Myles’s blog, among other sources. Instead, I’ll try to
give a flavor for what it was like to be at the
Open.
First, there was Sunday, when it was
raining lightly and just wouldn’t stop in time for CBS. I saw Justin
Gimelstob, now working for Tennis Channel, hanging out under the stands.
I couldn’t resist asking him to pose for a photo,
in which I look ridiculous because I’m talking about his 1999 second-round match
against Daniel Vacek. (By the way, it’s not that I’m
terribly short, it’s that Gimelstob is a legitimate 6’5”.) Gimelstob, who
plans to run the New York Marathon this year (and
has a $10,000 bet on whether he finishes the race), correctly recalled that he’d won that match 6-3
in the fifth set. We both thought that the match had been on Court 11, but I
wouldn’t swear to it.
Though it was not raining hard, it was
enough to soak the courts, as you can see in this photo of Armstrong.
Because the rain was persistent, there was no chance to implement the
court-drying technology that we’d see soon enough.
So it was back to Flushing Meadow on
Monday afternoon, but not before a reminder of why “Trust us, we’re the
Transit Authority” was a funny line. I was changing from
the E train to the 7 at
I’d estimate that the upper tier of
seats was about 30% empty through the first set, and more so after the end of
the second set’s two-hour rain delay, when some people went home and others
moved to better seats. This was the third consecutive year in which the men’s
final was bounced to Monday. The folks in
Nadal’s game was impressive in some of
the usual ways, and in some relatively new ways. His serve certainly has more
bite, as he dialed it up to 132
miles per hour. I very much liked his one-handed slice backhand, which
he could hit straight down the line to keep the ball from Djokovic’s forehand
(not that there’s anything wrong with the Serb’s backhand) or hit crosscourt
with heavy spin to keep the ball low and difficult to attack. Both players
picked their spots coming to net, with Djokovic even serving and volleying a few
times. The problem was not a fear of the net, but the excellence of the
opponent’s passing shots. Several times, especially when it was Djokovic on the
attack, a player came to net in a seemingly impregnable position, only to be
passed or lobbed. We know of the down-the-line forehand that Nadal can hook from
beyond the doubles alley into the corner of the singles court, and he used it
more than once. But no one should underestimate his ability to do something
similar with the backhand, even from far behind the baseline. When the shot is
seen in replay, the viewer can appreciate how Nadal, a natural right-hander, is
essentially hitting a two-handed righty forehand, with the top hand giving a
little extra oomph at the point of contact, hooking the ball crosscourt at a
sharper angle than would seem possible. Against such firepower, an opponent has
to think of other ideas, especially since slugging it out from the baseline is
not a great strategy for beating Nadal. Djokovic tried some drop shots; for the
most part, however, they were not the answer.
In the first set, Nadal went up an early
break and Djokovic broke back. Eventually, Djokovic was to break Nadal’s serve
three times, which was one time more than had occurred in the first six rounds.
Nadal reasserted himself in the fifth game, when it took him six break chances
to come up with the goods, an inside-out forehand for which there was no answer.
The clouds began to gather as Nadal served out the first set, and the lights
went on at 5:10 p.m.
In the second set, it was Djokovic who
got the early break, abetted by a Nadal double fault that made the score 0-40.
In the seventh game, Nadal needed three break points to get back on serve.
Eventually, it was Djokovic serving at 4-4 30-30 when the rains came. The
spectators were instructed to evacuate the stadium because of the severity of
the expected thunderstorm. Here, the organizers of the tournament, though they
might have some explanation, demonstrated what seemed to me abject stupidity,
bordering on recklessness.
Fans in the upper tier were herded into
the walkway behind the stands and told by men wielding flashlights to move “to
the left.” There was nowhere
to
go, however. Were this not a relatively genteel tennis crowd, there
could have been a stampede and even fatalities. Eventually, I heard fans saying
that all but one of the staircases had been blocked off — for security reasons,
perhaps? — and it was not until they were unblocked, perhaps 20 minutes after
the scrum began, that we were able to move. The USTA has to address this issue
before it arises again. If they don’t, they are asking for
trouble.
Play resumed after a two-hour delay,
with a crew of motorized
squeegees followed by ear-splitting orange
blowers. (During the delay, I milled around the stadium, where I saw,
among other things, an interesting example of the persistence of image
advertising: a BP
logo on Rod Laver’s tennis whites in a photo probably taken forty years
ago.) While Djokovic had a tough hold in the 4-4 game, it was Nadal who stumbled
in the twelfth. At 30-15, he hesitated on his way to net and dumped a
half-volley into the net. He misfired on a backhand pass to fall behind 30-40.
On set point, Djokovic jumped on Nadal’s first serve, sending it back at his
feet, and Nadal’s forehand found the net, so the match was abruptly
tied.
After that, Nadal tightened the clamps.
In the third set, he had eleven break points, while Djokovic had none. The lone
break came in the third game, when Djokovic scrambled from 0-40 to 30-40 but
then pulled a forehand approach shot wide. Nadal took care of serve the rest of
the way, closing out the set with an ace and a service
winner.
In the fourth set, which was my
opportunity to move down and get a better look when the
players faced off at net, Djokovic saved a break point in
the first game, but succumbed in the third when his forehand ticked the net cord
and sailed long. Nadal ran his lead to 4-1, with two breaks, when Djokovic
dropped serve in the fifth game, partially because of a double fault at 0-30,
which came when he was following his second serve to net. Djokovic’s last stand
came in the sixth game, when he had his only break point of the set. Nadal
fought off the challenge and, on his way to holding serve, hit one of his
crosscourt backhand passes that ended with his racquet wrapped around his neck.
Nadal hit a small speed bump when serving for the match, as Djokovic grabbed a
point with a net cord winner, which led to his raising his arms in mock triumph. At 30-30, with
flashbulbs popping throughout the stadium, Nadal hit the accelerator, hitting a
forehand pass that clipped the baseline (as confirmed by Hawk-Eye) and then,
after Djokovic pulled a final forehand wide, collapsing to the court in joy. Djokovic crossed
over to Nadal’s side of the court to hug the victor, and before long one of the intrepid workers had climbed the ladder outside Armstrong to post the
score of Nadal’s victory on the giant draw sheet.
Final Score: Nadal d. Djokovic 6-4 5-7 6-4
6-2
This was a well-played
match, as indicated by the stat sheet: the four sets took 50, 71, 57, and 45
minutes, respectively. There were long points and multi-deuce games, and the
match was far more won by the indomitable Nadal than lost by a brave
Djokovic.
As the crowd, some wearing
Vamos Rafa shirts, filed out rather later than they’d expected to,
Court 13 was still covered in water, and another US Open was history.
Now, USTA, please — do something about crowd control before next year’s Open.
(I’ve complained about this before, and remarkably there has been no
progress!)