Sunday 25 September 2011

US Open post-mortem

Okay, 2 weeks late, but I have an excuse! I was in Austria the last 3 days of the tournament, without internet access, so I only saw the matches when I came back last week. Granted, it took me a week to watch 3 matches, but whatever.

I guess the biggest "story" at this year's US Open was the rain, and the consequences of it. Third year in a row the final was played on monday instead of sunday. More "the US Open needs a roof!" discussions. Players (and fans) complaining about a variety of organisatory woes.
Of course, they have a point. Personally, I think the 3 days of rain/lack of roof showed just how inflexible the US Open is. I heard one of the reasons why there's no roof over Arthur Ashe is that the roof would just be too big and too heavy. Not sure if it's true but it makes sense, a roof over Louis Armstrong would be easier. I'm thinking it would probably be cheaper to build a brand new court with a roof than refit Arthur Ashe with one.

Anyway, on to the actual tennis.
There were a lot of withdrawals and retirements, not surprising at the end of the year. The big one was Soderling not even participating "due to illness". Later it turned out he had (still has?) mono. Too bad, he could've done some real damage. My boy Nishikori retired in his first match. Actually, in the first couple of days, there were at least 2 retirements each day (on the men's side alone).
As for early matches...well it was fun seeing Cilic destroy Tomic in a very impressive way (6-1, 6-0, 6-2). Tomic, of course, being a bratty little shit who deserves every beating he gets.
Personally I didn't think there were that many memorable matches in the first 10 days or so of the tournament. It was nice seeing Federer struggle a bit against Cilic, but then he completely destroyed his opponent in the next match. The Tsonga-Fish match was nice, as expected, and Djokovic-Dolgopolov had a really good first set. Djokovic-Tipsarevic was a very interesting match for the first 2 sets, but we all knew Tipsarevic was going to retire at some point, right? And Federer beating Tsonga rather easily was a certainly a relief for Federer fans.

But the two best matches of the tournament were definitely Djokovic-Federer and Djokovic-Nadal. As a Federer fan I was upset that he again gave away a 2 set lead, but in the end Djokovic was of course the better man. It was a good match to watch though, but I'm actually glad I wasn't able to watch it live heh (I was on a bus to Austria at the time), I'm pretty sure my twitter feed wouldn't have been pretty. But yeah, the first 2 sets (and the last set) had pretty, clean, efficient tennis, the sort of tennis I enjoyed very much.
A difference with the final then, which was a total grindfest. Long, sometimes very long rallies with almost every point. It was almost the complete opposite of the Federer match, which also shows how Djokovic can adapt his style to the opponent he's playing. In the Federer match, Djokovic mainly had to outsmart his opponent by playing textbook tennis. Against Nadal, he didn't just have to outsmart him, he also needed to outrun and out-hit him. And even though it's not my style, it was really great to watch these two go at each other, in a true test of skill and atlethicism. If Federer-Djokovic at Roland Garros was the best semifinal of the year, then this was easily the best final of the year. Mostly one-sided, yes, but the tennis on display was certainly very exciting and on a level rarely seen before.

As for the women, I haven't followed it as much as I usually do - like I said, some tennis boredom sets in this time of year, and it didn't help that Kvitova went out in the first round. One of my other girls, Petkovic, got pretty far, but I was disappointed she couldn't win against Wozniacki. Good thing Serena showed her who's boss. And I was honestly quite surprised Stosur won against Serena. Serena again showing her ugly side, by attacking the umpire with some nasty comments ("you're ugly on the inside" - how is that not a personal attack?), and of course she always gets away with it - some silly, . Sickening really. I like Serena's tennis but I have zero respect for her as a person.

Okay, that's all I have to say about it. Next tennis update will probably be about the World Tour Finals.

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