Some of the other highlights of the US Open

Instead of concentrating of the back end of this year’s US Open and the major stories like Roger Federer breaking what would be a Grand Slam drought (for him!) or Andy Murray’s impressive run to the final, I decided to write about some of the more memorable moments of this year’s US Open as well as some other observations which may not necessarily be considered a highlight.

One of the most memorable moments for me would have to be the fourth set tie-break that was contested between Nikolay Davydenko and Gilles Muller. The first thing that struck me in this match was the determination and will to win that Davydenko showed. He was hustling around the court showing a sense of urgency in his movement and grunting louder, or should we call it breathing, because his grunt sounds like him taking a very deep breath? Keep in mind that it was only two weeks ago when Davydenko was quoted as saying that he had currently lost his passion in tennis, so it looked like playing in a grand slam event had fired him up.

The tie-break in this match was epic, extending all the way to 12-10 which Muller finally won. It was full of drama, intensity and backed up with high quality play from both players, with all of this occurring on Armstrong stadium with barely anyone in the stands. Muller, in comparison to Davydenko was calm and collected under pressure, often coming up with big serves and following them up with solid volleys.

Muller’s volleys are mediocre but he covers the net well with his large wingspan and he is an intimidating presence. Davydenko hit possibly the best shot of the tournament to get himself up a mini-break when he hit a running forehand crosscourt squash winner passing shot, with all of his body weight going backwards, moving from short in the court to the baseline.

From then on, every point was decided by winning shots from both sides until Davydenko thought he served an ace. Muller then challenged it and was successful, and what so usually happens when there is a delay in between first and second serves, Davydenko threw in a double fault to hand over the crucial break.

On the match point, Muller hit a drop volley that was backspinning wide to the doubles alley of the court but sat up high for Davydenko to put away, which he failed to do so, missing wide. Davydenko then smashed his racquet in disgust and I don’t mean one of those racquet bounces that you regularly see, then he collected himself to give Muller a warm handshake at the net.

Another match that had some of the same qualities was the fifth set between Kei Nishikori and David Ferrer. For me, it is one of the most fascinating things to witness, when a relatively inexperienced player is in a position to produce a big upset and one of the biggest wins of their career, and to have their opponent force them to come up with their best tennis to win the match.

Nishikori is one of the rising stars of the ATP tour, and first caught the attention of the tennis world when he captured the Delray Beach title while being ranked in the 200s defeating James Blake in the final, and later in the year pushed Rafael Nadal to three tough sets at Queen’s Club. Nishikori is a shotmaker and unlike some of the other young guns, he is able to quickly recognise an opportunity to come to the net and has the tactical awareness to switch between defense and offense quickly, although in the matches that I watched, he had a tendency to be a little impatient at times.

Playing in the first five set match in a Grand Slam against a tough competitor like Ferrer who had compiled an almost perfect five set record of 9-1 prior to this match, it seemed like a daunting task especially given that Nishikori had dropped the third and fourth sets after taking the first two. Nishikori served for the match unsuccessfully the first time at 5-4 and this started to look like another typical Ferrer match where he grinds his opponent down both mentally and physically.

Ferrer continued to make Nishikori work hard to win every point, but Nishikori put the disappointment of being unable to serve out the match out quickly and continued to go for his shots with authority. One of the best examples of this was the match point where it looked like Nishikori had just about won the match, then Ferrer threw up a high defensive lob that landed deep about a metre from the baseline to essentially restart the point. Nishikori then got it back deep and folllowed it up with a winning forehand down-the-line to win the match.

The best match of the first week of the US Open was surprisingly between Donald Young and James Blake, which looked like it was going to be a rout at least on paper. It turned out to be just that in the first set, and the first thing I noticed about Young is how fidgety and impatient he looks when he is playing, and he started off the match rushing on most of his shots. I had heard a lot about Young’s apparent variety and court smarts which made him different from the other American players. But in the first two sets, what I saw was poor shot selection and erratic play from both players, with Young often wanting to finish off the point far too quickly. What they did have was fast-paced rallies and plenty of ebbs and flows of the match which made for compelling viewing. Blake let Young into the match late in the second set when he dropped his own service games with three or four unforced errors and from that on is when the quality of the match picked up.

Young started to figure out that he didn’t need to play so aggressively and started standing a metre further back than he was from the baseline giving him a bit more time to react and started to open up the court much better with his forehand catching Blake out time and time again trying to camp out in the backhand side looking to run around it.

Young’s forehand is a dangerous shot. He is able to generate large amounts of racquet head speed on that side and that allowed him to produce flashy winners on that side on many occasions in this match. His backhand is compact and solid especially when given pace to work with. Blake’s shot selections were questionable to say the least and his shots were lacking in accuracy, but in the end, his greater experience (or his opponent’s lack of experience) won him the match.

But this match is memorable more because of Young’s performance, because of all the potential he showed, which for now, I can’t really pinpoint a spot in the rankings that he should be at, because while he does have an excellent all-round game, good shotmaking abilities and court speed, there are noticeable weaknesses in his game and there is a reason why he is ranked where he is now.

Other observations worth mentioning

• I enjoyed seeing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga back more than I thought I would. I couldn’t believe how well he was playing against Moya in the 2nd round given how long he was out for. He is such an explosive player that it is hard not to be excited when he puts it all together. Unfortunately he was not able to back it up in the next round against Tommy Robredo where he tried to force himself to raise his energy levels, but it didn’t work and he ended up not being anywhere near as consistent as he needed to be.

• Both Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils won over the crowd with the enthusiasm and energy they showed in their tennis and their interaction with the crowd. Is it me or does Monfils slip and slide around even more when there is a big crowd and they respond to him? While I admit that it was somewhat enjoyable watching both of them this US Open, I don’t think it would be the same watching them play in front of a crowd that didn’t make any noise where they wouldn’t be feeding off the energy of the crowd. Having said that, I didn’t enjoy Monfils’ matches in his run to the French Open semi-finals this year at all, especially his matches against Ferrer and Ljubicic.

• Has anyone noticed that since Richard Gasquet started working with Guillaume Peyre, he has reverted to playing a more aggressive game, but often in the matches he has lost, like the matches against Haas (at the US Open), Tursunov, Nadal and Murray, he was far too quick to go for big shots in the closing stages of the match and ended up losing convincingly in that final set. His forehand which was criticised for being too loopy and landing too short, now sometimes flies on him when he tries to accelerate through it. I find it interesting that he has gone from being too defensive at times, to the other way around, but most of all, I’m curious to see if he can end up finding the right balance.

• The two best matches that I watched in the tournament were between Gilles Simon and Juan Martin Del Potro, and the semi-final match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal.

• When is there going to be an official pay live stream of the US Open and other grand slams (excluding Wimbledon)? Wimbledon is really the only grand slam that offers this worldwide, with their coverage extending to eight simultaneous courts and all of those matches being available on-demand. Eurosport have had their Eurosport Player service where Europeans are able to pay to watch from a choice of five courts for a couple of years, but no such luck for the rest of us. I was frequently hopping onto my computer hoping that there would be a live stream of the match that I wanted to see. It was a difficult decision to make everytime I found one that was in poor quality (usually on justin.tv) to decide whether that would be worse than watching a match that I was not interested in, but could see what was going on. I usually prefer not to watch early round matches featuring Federer, Nadal or Djokovic if there are other choices unless if they have a match that looks more difficult on paper than usual. I think this is an opinion shared by many tennis fans, but TV coverage is catered towards casual fans which is why there needs to be better online coverage.