US Open Third Day Report

Women’s highlights – a few notes

– Kontaveit d. Tomljanovic. Both played very well. I like both their games. Kontaveit hits a nice ball, both went for their shots. No messing around. I like it. I’m impressed Kontaveit won this. Tomljanovic seemed like she was on the verge of upsetting Kyrgios again with a win! Not that he’s upset, but you never know.

– Jabeur d. Sasnovich. Jabeur is so good! What a talented played. A little like Kuznetsova. Seems to take the ball early. Both played so many drop shots, might have to rename the WTA “the kingdom of drop shots”. Jabeur seems like she can do it all. Knows the game.
– Ferro d. Mladenovic. This wasn’t too much fun. It was a similar level to the Kontaveit vs Tomljanovic match but I don’t know how Kerber lost to Kiki. And I like Kiki. Not much to say here.

– Cirstea d. Bolsova Cirstea has the fire! Glad to see her playing this well. She really rips the ball and goes for it. Appreciate this style of see ball, hit ball, put it where opponent isn’t. No playing games.

– Wang d. Van Ut…not fun. Not a fun match. Van U. hits a heavy ball and Want for the most part played with better strategy. But a little mindless out there. Maybe the heat got them. No fun. Nothing to see here, no offense meant.

– Ostapenko d. Risks. Now I do talk a lot about variety and Ostapenko does not have this. But – her angles and placement on her groundstrokes is fantastic when she’s on her game. And boy was she on her game today – she found all sorts of winners off the baseline that I didn’t know were possible. Maybe it wasn’t a mirage that Ostapenko won a French Open! I could have sworn it was some kind of Halep bad dream, where she’s in a final and can’t close the deal. But no, no mirage, Ostapenko has a real game and real talent. Not impressed with Riske (have not been). Ostapenko could use more dimensions to her game, but what she does she does well. So many times I thought Ostapenko was out of the point only for her to come up with something special. If she never wins a slam again it doesn’t matter, worth seeing.

– Goerges d. Di Lorenzo. Wow, Goerges was excellent. She’s a good player, plays with some strategy, hits hard like Tomljanovic and Kontaveit but puts something on the ball. I liked her when I saw her play before, she is playing well. Nice game, can do it all, mostly goes for winners off an early ball and keeps pressure on the opponent.

Bublik d. Fabbiano, that outer court looks like a regular public tennis court! I didn’t expect that at the open. Seems to give players the least amount of room, the stands are right on the court next to the players. Fabbiano for a stretch reminds of Hewitt.

My prediction for the final: Serena v Gauff 🙂

The USTA would go insane.

All these other good matches going on and elsewhere it’s Gauff Gauff Gauff mania – please Naomi, beat her.

Shapo game is fun. Next to Kvitova he has the cleanest game of any lefty on tour? Seems like it. He’s also going about his early matches with professionalism and a game plan. Good to see him doing this on one of the world’s biggest stages.

I think it’s possible that the excellent but less hyped young players like Shapovalov are heading for the top twenty. I know he’s big in Canada. For tennis sake, he should keep working hard and adjusting better to the tennis seasons and transitions to surfaces. I’d like to see him do well.

One of few players that I look at and say – only issue is consistency and tighten up the backhand, make it as dependable as his best shot. That will make sure next time he’s top twenty he stays there for a while

Gauffmania! Not going to fall for it. Timea Babos is a clever player and quite a good one, and Gauff outplayed her. I should watch more Babos.

I’m not sure what else to say. Gauff is very good. I’ve seen so many great young female players that it’s hard to put it in context. She’s very good. But I leave it at that.

When Denis is playing well he exudes so much joy on the court.

I hope he has learned his lesson about scheduling. For the last 2 years he played way too many tourneys in the fall, with no breaks. Last year he had to withdraw from the Next Gen finals because he was exhausted, physically and mentally.

I guess because Denis, FAA and Bianca are so huge in Canada it’s easy to forget that they aren’t such big deals elsewhere. Bianca is something like No.8 in the Race live rankings. It’s amazing to think she could be in the WTA year-end finals.

I think Denis will reach a top 20 ranking and hopefully go higher. Shapo did make the top 20 briefly right after Miami, before he had his slump. He is defending points from last year’s USO, but I don’t think he has a lot of points from last fall, so top 20 this year is a reasonable goal. Félix is in the top 20 now and should be able to maintain that ranking.

Hartt – I like that Bianca isn’t drawing the crazy attention that Gauff is doing in NY. Can only help her.

Scoop, you and Dan know the grounds from ground up! I’m watching some highlights and, even though they are selective, I think they show enough to make some light observations. Everything is better in person. Haven’t been to the Open in a long time. I’m still shocked that some matches are played on the equivalent of a court that anyone plays on – just take the corner of a well maintained set of public courts, install some stands, put in an ump chair and there you have it. I’ve never been to that court, but I think the grounds have changed in the last 1.5+ decades!

I think Dan reserves “great” for “hall of fame or more notable champs only”.

I like to believe it’s safe to say Nalbandian hit a great ball, and Rios when motivated hit a ball we may never see again. Why Toni Nadal thought he was so unique, just that Uncle Toni disliked Rios behavior, which overshadowed his best tennis.

I like to think about their ball striking ability, how often it was cleaner and better than other players save a handfull like Federer. We know Federer studied Rios, reverse engineered many of his shots.

Take TP re: Brooksby. Wins his first rounder against Berdych, who’s not the same as he has been. Loses to Gabashvili, who by all accounts has a superior game. Gabashvili of course is a top twenty player and should have won in straights. And if anyone sees the pattern…he did win the last three sets, however close.

The decision should be easy: go to college. Second round of US open, winning four matches including three qualies and pushing a top twenty player around the court for a few hours would fill any player with bigger dreams. The US $163K check staring him in the face could also persuade him, know what, top fifty in a year, can beat these guys.

But Brooksby would be overlooking things such as how what Gabashvili saw will be observed by other players, and suddenly the top hundred adjusts to his game. The Brooksby game won’t necessarily improve, especially given that this is the game that brought him success.

The Stathovsky rule should rule the day. The hype around the new players needs to be seen as hype. Brooksby will need to work on a lot of things to even repeat what he’s done this year.

Could be why France sees no French Champ at Roland Garros, why Murray’s Wimbledon wins are so special, etc

And Australian Open does a great job! Just saying their is a special component of how’s Australia doing here?

Hence the coverage of Gauff-mania. I think this balloon is popping soon but you never know, Osaka could crumble. She should win in straights.

Seems like optimal weather in NYC, those US Open grounds are special. Have been to Forest Hills, caught Pat Mac vs Voltchkov, Cherkasov vs Javi Sanchez (of the Sanchez Vicario clan – Aranxta, Javi, Emilio). It becamr hard courts, but walked past grass. Classic setting, nice stuff.

My dad loved Voltchkov the lefty. I didn’t think he had much game! He did.

Yes, playing at your home tournament must entail tremendous pressure. Raonic wants desperately to win the Rogers Cup, but has never played particularly well there, outside of early in his career when he made the final and was crushed by Rafa.

Shapo is an interesting case because he did get a lot of hype at the USO a couple years ago, after beating Delpo and Rafa at the Rogers Cup. Suddenly he was a big deal, and even played a couple matches on Ashe.

Now he is no longer the next big thing, although he and FAA did play on the Grandstand. His last match was on the very small Court 5, where the fans are practically on top of the players. It was packed, with people standing, and fans watching the neighbouring courts turning to watch Shapo. He had a lot of fan support, from both Americans and Canadians, with shouts of “Shapo, Shapo.” But playing in front of maybe 300 people is a huge change from Ashe.

I wondered how he felt. In an interview with a Canadian reporter right after the match (no regular on-court interview out in the boonies), Denis was positive, talking about the wonderful fan support. But still it must have been a strange experience for him. His next opponent is Monfils, so presumably that will be on a show court.

Scoop, my bad, Volkov the lefty 🙁 Voltchkov was better than Volkov!

How is losing three straight sets to a superior player showing he has the game to make or stay in the top fifty?

Each court must be different. Again the grounds must have changed a lot. Now some courts have a view of the enormous stadium courts. That’s quite a landscape. I would hope Shapo enjoys court five – it is different but it grounds the player – it’s like having hundreds of people watch them practice on your public parks court.

If the US tennis folks had this in mind they succeeded. I had a tough time in the stadium at US Open, it was hard to see the ball from the highest seats out there. Not really worthwhile actually – the privilege of being in the highest seats is not a good privilege at all.

Saw some big players from way up there, and they were far away. Was different at other big tournaments in the states that didn’t invest in the overwhelming stadiums, where even in a large stadium you felt like you were part of it.