US Open
Over and out
We have done it. We have come to the end. A deep breath, a double portion of the blackest coffee on earth and a deep talk with a non-tennis-person - that’s what it will take to get over the last three weeks. Every major tournament anew, things feel fresh and different, as if anything could happen - from new formats to greek tragedies, from unknown players catapulted into tennis fame to matches we’ll tell our kids about - but in the end, it was the same players competing for the trophy as we had at the tail end of Wimbledon. The Aryna Sabalenka and Amanda Anisimova final was a Wimbledon semifinal re-match and then of course, we had Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
Despite seeded players falling like leaves in the first week of a very autumny New York, we had the same ol’ people playing for the title once more.
Are we bored yet of Sinncaraz? I am not. I love these guys dearly and I could watch them play each other every day of the week. Seeing Jannik’s red curls peek from under his hat and Carlos’ well-formed scalp through the shaved stubbles of hair gives me a strange form of comfort.
Still to me, the stand-out player of final’s weekend was Aryna Sabalenka. Seeing how well Amanda had overcome her Wimbledon loss against Iga Swiatek, most people were talking about Amanda’s resilience and her tennis coming into this year’s US Open final. And it is true, what she accomplished throughout this fortnight and how she turned the match around against a re-emergent Naomi Osaka was very impressive.
I called a few of Amanda’s matches from the so-called whisper position which is basically the second row behind the chair umpire. To see her ball-striking up close is a view to behold. I had played her twice while I was still active but watching it from the side is somehow even more mesmerising. Usually, the court slows struck tennis balls down, that’s just a law of physics. Yet for some reason, Amanda’s balls (particularly the backhand) pick up speed while they move over the concrete. At an average 77 miles per hour, Amanda’s backhand was the quickest of the tournament, followed by Jannik Sinner’s average backhand speed at 76 miles per hour.
Back to Aryna. Yes, you read correctly: Despite Sinncaraz III, despite Naomi Osaka’s renaissance and despite Amanda’s amandaness - Aryna Sabalenka was the standout player to me during the last few days of the US Open. There was so much pressure on the world number one to win a major title in the last possible moment. After Wimbledon, something shifted in the narrative around Sabalenka. What had been one of the more impressive seasons in the past few years on the women’s side, suddenly became incomplete in the telling of it as if it just wasn’t quite enough.
UNLESS she got the US Open title. This is what sometimes happens in tennis and beyond it. Firm narratives we had told ourselves twirl and twist, shift and budge, and come out the other end in different shape and form.
Well, Aryna got the US Open title. And she played her best match of the tournament in the final against a player she has traditionally not liked playing. This year, names who were able to get past Aryna were either players who have the ability to extend rallies ad nauseam like Mirra Andreeva (Indian Wells final) or Coco Gauff (French Open final). Or they were players who could outhit Aryna which is a feat in itself. Think Madison Keys at the Australian Open and Jelena Ostapenko in Stuttgart. That and the 6:3 head-to-head in favour of Amanda had many experts pick Anisimova as the US Open champion. Aryna showed up with that certain kind of determination on her face that is very sabalenkaesque to me. Brows furrowed, eyes slanted and throwing small fireballs. I love that expression.
She was prepared for the match to come. Expecting the big, powerful groundstrokes of Amanda’s with a lower than usual stance, neutralising anything that came her way with a bit of spin on the forehand side and one knee almost touching the ground on the backhand. She was also serving tremendously well. Apart from a hiccup when serving for the match, it was a nearly perfect tennis performance. Seeing players excel under pressure is my favourite thing to witness in tennis and it annoys me that we sometimes tend to focus on those who succumb to it. Aryna did wonderfully and maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of spite mixed into it, a little bit of: You dare to doubt me? I will show you!
And why not? Novak Djokovic has built an entire incredible career on that premise.
The men’s final, on the other hand, was weird. I don’t mean the tennis itself, but the atmosphere. The delay of the match due to increased security measures (US-American president Donald J. Trump attended the event as Rolex’s guest) and the half-empty stadium at the very beginning of the first set when people were still waiting outside to be let in took a tinge of the importance away. It felt more like a very good first-week match rather than Sinncaraz III.
Carlos, however, was sharp from the get-go and broke Jannik in his very first service game lasting 8 minutes.
It’s new this Carlos, isn’t it, the one that shows up intense and focused from the start, breaks immediately and then casually and stress-free consolidates throughout the set. He did it against Novak in the semis, he did it against Jiri Lehecka in the quarters and he did it to Jannik.
Do we remember when Carlos used to come on court like an excited puppy, would hit a few blistering winners but also a few ravens on the way out before settling into being the best tennis player on the planet? I barely do. This Carlos - shaved head, low eyebrows, focused and physically imposing - is an adult. He makes sound decisions and only plays with fire in measures. Chaos Carlos seems to be a thing of the past.
The place came alive when Jannik broke Carlos to open the second set but it was a brief moment of exhilaration for the Italian who could never quite find the level of play he was able to produce in the second set. He had struggled with an abdominal issue in his previous match and looked unusually shaky whenever he faced a Canadian throughout the tournament (he lost sets to both Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime). If I had to guess, I would say that Jannik Sinner was tired (if not injured) - whether that was emotionally, physically or both. I’m speculating as I don’t live in his freckled, white body but some of you might remember my last week’s newsletter where I talked about the protective layer of toughness tennis players carry around with them and that becomes penetrable when they get tired. We rarely see Sinner show any kind of emotion but he did shoot balls in the sky in frustration twice and even threw his racquet. It was a gentle throw as if not to hurt it but still unusual for Jannik. To me, those are signs that his energies were not quite at a 100%.
Ever the gentleman though, he didn’t mention a thing of this in press as not to take away from Carlos Alcaraz’ triumph. He did, however, mention that he thinks he’s become too predictable whereas Carlos has many game plans and varieties up his sleeve. Isn’t it scary to think that Jannik Sinner will probably become an even better tennis player after yesterday’s loss when you hear him talk about it?
As for Carlos: He is unpredictable. He is capable of playing at the net and from the baseline, he can attack with forehand slices like he did yesterday to throw Jannik off -usually a fantastic passer - and Carlos can suddenly take the pace off his shots and instead put heavy rotation on it. He does everything and anything to keep changing up strike zones for his opponent who is known to be the best in-tempo player in the world. In this regard, Carlos is like the most accomplished baseball pitcher to ever walk this earth. He throws a couple of fast balls and the moment you think you figured him out he mixes in a curve or knuckle ball and everything you thought you knew needs re-evaluating. So basically, Carlos is life. If you can figure out life, you can figure out Carlos. I’m pretty sure we can’t but if anybody can, it’ll be Jannik. If only for a little while.
Things that make me happy:
After three weeks of the 7 train and the US Open, I felt so dead inside that I needed the spiciest and most flavourful dish possible so I ordered a good portion of dark meat Jerk Chicken and pickled vegetables and I’m happy to tell you that yours truly has come back to life. I also dragged myself to the Hot Chip concert at Webster Hall after the men’s final just to see something that is not tennis balls and concrete. The band was SO GOOD. I danced for an hour, left, ate Jerk Chicken and went to sleep. It was a good night after a long day.
Things that make me unhappy:
Some of you might know that my parents are actually from Bosnia. They left back then Yugoslavia just before the war broke out in the 90s to settle in Germany. I have both Eastern European and Western European culture in me. One of the more mind-boggling differences and something I still haven’t understood about the West is the fact that Westerners seem to prefer the white meat of chicken to the dark parts. I’m here to tell you: You’ve been wrong your whole life. Dark meat chicken is where it’s at.
This is not a political newsletter so I won’t get into it too much but I just prefer it when things don’t distract from the tennis. Seeing the atmosphere in Arthur Ashe be weird made me feel bad for Jannik and Carlos, particularly because I had been at the women’s final the day before where the spirit was so lively. Good thing is, chances are very high they will get a re-match in another major final soon.
I went on BBC radio just before the Sinncaraz final and they asked me a question I would like to pass on to all of you, too. Who will be the next major men’s champion outside of Alcaraz and Sinner and when will it happen? I can’t wait to read what you all think! Until then, I remain…
Yours truly, Andrea
Andrea I am beginning to wonder if Chaos Carlos was actually "I'm willing to try stuff" Carlos?
In Jannik's post-match presser yesterday he talked about his predictability and adding more variety to his game. He said he needed to try things, and maybe that will mean losing as part of the improvement process. (Here's the full quote: "I'm going to aim to, you know—maybe even losing some matches from now on—but trying to do some changes, trying to be a bit more unpredictable as a player, because I think that's what I have to do to become a better tennis player.")
I think it's very interesting that he articulated this and I'm actually excited to see him "try some changes." Do you think that we are about to see Janky Jannik a la Chaos Carlos?
Who will win who isn’t Sincaraz? Simple: Henry Bernet, the Swiss junior with a one-handed backhand who won the Aussie Open Boys Singles. He’ll come good in a few years just as Alcaraz is slowing down a tiny bit and Sinner is figuring out a new game. And every top trio needs a one-hander.
We also need an in-depth investigation into how Switzerland keeps producing players with one-handed backhands. Is it the chocolate? The mountain air? The huge influxes of not-at-all-shady money to their banks? Get Netflix to commission you on a 10-part documentary, AP.