Monday, July 7, 2008

The 2008 United States Open


by Savannah
They must be nervous. After a Wimbledon that will go down in history for achievements by athletes in both the ATP and WTA does the United States Grand Slam dare come across as, well, meh? How do you guarantee that in this post Olympic 2008 US Open the players come in ready to play their best tennis? They can't. Who will come in injured? Who will come in with a bad case of the "I can'ts" and find their way to the exit during the first week? For the American tennis establishment there is an even bigger question. Will the American players represent or will the second week feature all of the familiar names that dominated the European clay and grass court seasons?

The only major player on the men's side who is not going to the Olympics is Andy Roddick. He is the top ranked US man and to say that his year since Monte Carlo has not been good is putting it mildly. No one expected much good to happen during the clay court season and Roddick pulled out of competition due to a shoulder injury sustained, he said, while moving into his new condo with his fiancee. No biggie. Grass courts are what would heal the American psyche they said. Expect our men to show their dominance.
Not quite what happened is it?

Instead of showing up in top shape mentally and physically one could argue that American men showed up ill prepared for any play in Europe. I remember seeing a picture of Rafael Nadal personally scouting an Andy Roddick match at Queens. The man that Roddick took the court expecting to play did not exist anymore. And Andy found himself on his way to prepare for Wimbledon after making what has become an all too familiar early exit.

This is not to pick on Andy. James Blake, who also made a good early run on the terre battue was a non presence at Wimbledon. And lest we forget the Bryan Brothers crashed out as well.
So who will be the men's favorite coming in? Normally I would say Roger Federer but this is an Olympic year and unlike Andy Roddick Roger will be attending. I don't know if we'll end up like we did in 2004 with Nicolas Masssu as the Olympic champion or not. I do know Andy Roddick is banking on having a great US Open Series and coming into the Open more rested than his peers.

Will we see Roger playing events other than the two Masters Series events? Will more of the Europeans who play well on concrete play in the US Open Series? Will an American come from nowhere and stop bloggers and columnists from writing the obituary for American tennis?

And no I didn't forget the women. It's just that the situation is a little trickier here. The top American man was born and raised in the States. The woman a casual fan could be forgiven for thinking is American actually claims Russian nationality and has no intention of exchanging her Russian citizenship for American citizenship. And she will limp into the US Open Series for 2008 as well. Her clay season was, well, moving on. At Wimbledon she made an early exit and showed up at Paris Fashion week the next day with her friend Camilla Belle. Yet Maria Sharapova always seems to get a friendly draw in New York so she can't be counted out.

Then there is the Serbian woman Ana Ivanovic. She is the first player from her country to be ranked number one. She also made an early exit from Wimbledon. That's her with her back to the camera. The woman giving the power salute is Zheng Jie of China. She sent Ana packing early while she made a run to the semi finals that saw her give a good fight to someone named Serena Williams. Thanks to Ms Zheng the Chinese may now be thinking they can try for a medal in singles at the Olympics.

By the way that's Serena Williams in full stretch at the top. She has a sister named Venus. You may have heard of them. Something about Venus winning her fifth Wimbledon title and then along with her sister winning the Ladies doubles crown there as well.

If both Venus and Serena show up healthy they should be favored to make a deep run. Unless of course they're on the same side of the draw. That tends to happen a lot to them. Rankings people say. They were on opposite sides of the draw in London and ended up playing each other in the Final. Their romp through the doubles took place while they were tearing up the singles draw.
The thing is some people seem to have a problem with them being the top American women. They have lives away from tennis, something they've been criticized for in the past. Some of those critics have been eating a large side order of crow to go with their humble pie these days. Seems having a life outside of tennis can indeed be a good thing. And lets not forget that they were the only American's to make it through.

I have to digress for a minute. There was a lot of chatter about about the easy draw Venus had and that kind of ticked me off. Novak Djokovic had the easiest draw of all the seeds at Wimbledon. I don't recall seeing his name among the quarter or semi finalists at Wimbledon. Did I miss him? Roger Federer didn't play a seed until the quarters if I recall correctly. But no one thought anything amiss with that situation. They just had to keep talking about Venus draw. Hey, isn't it random? She could only play who was in front of her right?

This past fortnight the designated cannon fodder seems to have realized that they are professionals and that if they come on court thinking they don't deserve to be there then they don't. Alla Kudryavtseva, when asked if she was surprised she won against Maria Sharapova replied that she came on court to win. Zheng Jie is now on everyone's radar. She was supposed to be a speed bump in Ana Ivanovic's sweep to the Final. Some speed bump. And this is what made the Wimbledon fortnight great. Men and women came to play to win. They didn't accept their media designated roles and we got to see a quality of tennis that hasn't been seen in quite some time. The "others" came to take names and in some cases they did.
One of the best women's matches involved Dinara Safina of Russia and Shahar Pe'er of Israel. The commentators talked on and on about Dinara's big brother. But he wasn't on court. Dinara was and on one leg tried to will herself into the next round but it wasn't to be. Laura Robson of Great Britain by way of Australia and Singapore impressed with her win over a very good player, Noppawan Lertcheewakarn from Thailand in the Junior Girls final. She's fourteen. She can't play a Slam until next year. The British can hardly wait. She's talking trash to Venus Williams already. But she won't be playing in New York. She got television time though. The other trash talking teen Bernard Tomic made it to the semi finals of the Junior Boy's tournament in London. The young man who won the Junior Boys title somehow didn't get any air time. His last name is Grigor Dimitrov and he's from Bulgaria. I don't think he got air time.

In the end we saw glimpses of glory past trying to be reclaimed and previews of what glory there is to come.Unfortunately none of the future, and very little of that past glory was American.

So in the end what does this mean? Who are the favorites? Healthy Venus Williams and Serena Williams have to be considered favorites on the womens side. As for the men right now Roger Federer has to be considered the favorite. He tends to get favorable draws in New York too. I think Andy might luck up and get one too this year. Will the number one ranking for the men be decided in the heat and humidity of New York City come September? Will a dominant woman emerge from the pack of wannabe's currently exchanging places at the top of the WTA ranking? For the first time in a very long time the US Open as well as the US Open Series is important. Let's see what we have come September.

6 comments:

Helen W said...

That picture of Roger looks like he has been heavily made up and/or the pic was air-brushed. IAC I find it quite unappealing.

I can't get my head around the US Open yet -- still haven't come down from Wimby. I'd love to see some younger players coming up, both men and women. Maybe we will see Isner, Querrey and Young make strides on the men's side, and just maybe Bethany Mattek will go deeper into the women's draw.

Savannah, how do you feel re the US Open vis-a-vis Roland Garros & Wimbledon? I know you live in NY and get to attend some of the matches -- any thoughts on the feel of the tournament? I recall that Andy Murray likes the US Open over Wimbledon.

Savannah said...

I find that picture of Roger depressing for want of a better term. In view of yesterday's events he looks brooding and pensive. I didn't want an action shot. He's got a lot on his mind right now and I think that pic captures it all.

I've never been to Wimbledon, The French, or Australia. Australia is probably the one I may never get to for various and sundry reasons.

The US Open is great. It's something about taking the subway, the best way to go, and seeing hundreds of people exit the train at Willet's Point all to see tennis. It's fun playing games about "guess who they're fans of" while on the way. And the Californians always stand out. They're just so - California.

The atmosphere in the day is very laid back. People wander the outer courts and drift from match to match, especially during week one. Night matches are completely different. More suits, less knowledgeable tennis crowd in the best seats. They're all there to see and be seen.

A lot of time is spent during the day seeing who is on the practice courts. I was about twenty feet from Rafa and less than one from Toni at one point. sigh. I've never seen racquet speed like Rafa's. Oh yeah. Federer was on the practice court that day too.

Maybe I'll get to Wimbledon and the French soon.

Moose said...

Great analysis, Miss Savannah. I'm trying to recall anytime in recent history when both mens and womens USO titles seemed so open to competition going in to hard court season. You've always had one/two, and maybe at times 3 legitimate contenders. But the argument is there that there are a lot more than that this season.

Roger's in a funk, Nadal's on a high. Novak may be the best hardcourter of them all this season. Davy won Miami. Roddick is giving it his all. Ferrer was a semi-finalist last year. Gasquet and Murray keep threatening breakthroughs.

And then there's the ladies. Don't even get me started, because I can think of 8 that there is an argument for why they can win it, and an equal argument for why they won't be around come semi-final time.

Craig Hickman said...

Andy Roddick made the semifinals in Rome for only the second time in his career, 6 years after making his first.

Rome is after Monte-Carlo, so this season was arguably his best start in his career: 2 titles, 2 Masters semis, defeating Roger Federer for the first time in 5 years, defeating the top 3 players in the world in the same season for the first time ever.

Andy's preparation for Queens and Wimbledon took a nosedive because of the shoulder injury that caused him to retire in Rome and the fact that he got a retirement and a walkover in Queens certainly didn't help his overall grass court preparation.

Andy had never lost so early at Wimbledon, but in context and given his opponent, it's hardly some great shock. Yes, the way he lost was somewhat stunning, but it showed his lack of preparation.

The year after Venus lost in the second round of Wimbledon, she returned the next year and won the title. A year later she lost in the third round. Andy isn't Venus and the ATP isn't the WTA (Raja will want his title back and Rafa will be determined to defend), but Andy will always have a chance to advance deep in the draw at Wimbledon provided he's healthy and confident.

This year, he was neither.

His decision to skip the Olympics and focus on the US hardcourt swing at the US Open seems more sound by the day.

Jess said...

Thanks for the insight on how the atmosphere is in the USO, Savannah.

I find that this year, on the men's side at least, it's quite open. You have Federer, who will want to take a grand slam title this year after disappointing losses for him, you have Nadal, who is arguably the no.1 player right now with the FO and Wimby, and you have the rest: Djokovic, who, like Moose said, loves hardcourts. You have Roddick, who seems to want to focus more on going deep/winning the USO instead of taking the long, arduous flight to Beijing, and a whole slew of others who want to make inroads on reaching the top. On them women's side, I think it comes down to the Williams x2, the Serbs, and Maria. Although, I guess we'll have to wait until how well they do during the summer hardcourt season.

tennischick said...

I like that pix of Roger -- it looks like something out of Vogue approved by Anna Wintour herself. and I agree that he has a lot to think about. Can you just imagine if he faces Nadal in the finals? Here we go again...