grades from tennis.com.
We Saw, No? 09/14/2010 - 12:41 AM
Rn 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
The Fight Guy
Welcome back, New York tennis. We missed you. D