FLUSHING MEADOWS – The 2018 US Open has been a strange tournament so far. All four semifinals were extremely one-sided and produced very little entertainment, nevertheless the tournament offered plenty of interesting storylines.
All of the top women’s seeds fell like dominoes during the entire fortnight, almost replicating the same dreadful scenario as the Wimbledon tournament, where no top ten seeds survived the first week of competition. In New York, five seeds – Halep, Muguruza, Wozniaki, Kerber and Kvitova – were upset on the new Louis Armstrong Stadium, which is now growing a reputation of being the “Graveyard of Champions.”
Only three of the top ten seeds emerged from week one unscathed: No.7-seed Elina Svitolina lost in the round of 16, while defending champion and No. 3-seed Sloane Stephens lost in the quarterfinals along with No. 8-seed Karolina Pliskova. These surprising results paved the way for a final between No.17-seed Serena Williams – who is far from being an outsider – and No.20-seed Naomi Osaka. Serena is climbing back to the top of the game after risking her life while giving birth to her daughter in September last year. After a C-section was necessary to deliver her baby, Serena underwent four surgeries to prevent an embolism.
Williams returned to competition in March this year and faced Osaka in Miami in only her second tournament back, a few days after the Japanese rising star captured the biggest trophy of her career in Indian Wells. Due to her pregnancy and consequent 13-month absence from the tour, Serena was ranked No. 491 and fell to Osaka in straight sets. That match was clearly irrelevant in terms of preparation for today’s final, even if psychologically it might help Osaka, who grew up idolizing Serena and might not be fazed by the aura of her opponent since they have already played once. The overall atmosphere that surrounds a Grand Slam final will probably be a more intimidating factor for the young Japanese.
One of the biggest storylines of this year’s tournament was the heat that forced the players to compete in brutal conditions and prompted the organizers to implement a new heat policy. The extreme conditions disrupted the quality of many matches and the most notable victim was 37-year-old Roger Federer, who was certainly affected by the heat and humidity in his shocking fourth-round defeat to John Millman of Australia.
Millman came back down to Earth in his quarterfinal match against Novak Djokovic, with the Serb convincingly winning in straight sets. Djokovic, who was also affected by the heat in his early four-set wins against Fucsovics and Sandgren, started to elevate his game in his easy round of 16 victory against Gasquet and yesterday absolutely dominated Nishikori in the semifinals.
The heat certainly affected the entertainment as many players couldn’t perform at their best. The most memorable matches were Cilic-De Minaur with the Croat coming back from two sets down to win 7-5 in the fifth, Nadal-Khachanov with the Russian failing to capitalizing on a lead that would have given him a two-set advantage and finally Nadal-Thiem, which was decided by a fifth set tie-breaker.
We had even fewer high quality matches among the women, with most of the seeds shockingly falling in very one-sided matches. Quite frankly, I can’t quite remember a tournament with so many poor performances from the players who are supposed to be the best in the world. The two most interesting matches were the battle of 20-year-olds won by Osaka against Sabalenka 6-4 in the third and the round of 16 three-setter between Serena and Kanepi.
It is interesting to mention the variety of nations that were represented in the latter stages of the tournament. In the round of 16, we had players from an astonishing 12 countries: Williams, Stephens and Keys from the United States, Pliskova and Vondrousova from the Czech Republic, Svitolina and Tsurenko from Ukraine, Kanepi from Estonia, Barty from Australia, Mertens from Belgium, Sevastova from Latvia, Suarez Navarro from Spain, Sharapova from Russia, Cibulkova from Slovakia, Sabalenka from Belarus and Osaka from Japan.
In the men’s tournament, the eight quarterfinalists were all from different countries: Nadal from Spain, Thiem from Austria, del Potro from Argentina, Isner from the United States, Cilic from Croatia, Nishikori from Japan, Djokovic from Serbia and Millman from Australia.
Japan’s story at this year’s tournament is truly remarkable. For the first time in history, two Japanese players – a man and a woman – simultaneously reached the semifinals in a Grand Slam event. In 1995, Kimiko Date and Shuzo Matsuoka both reached the quarters at Wimbledon but didn’t manage to go any further. With Nishikori reaching the semifinals and Osaka being the first Japanese woman to reach a Grand Slam final, I have never seen so many Japanese reporters in my long history at Flushing Meadows.
I hope that two high quality finals will save this year’s tournament. Tonight, Serena will play to equal Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam titles. Truth be told, Serena’s record is already much more relevant than Court’s as the Australian captured 11 titles in her home country between the 1960s and 1970s when many top players were not able to travel down under by sea. Serena is the clear favorite of tonight’s final, but Osaka could give her a close match by serving extremely well. If Osaka doesn’t serve at her best and take control of the rallies, it will be a blow-out in Serena’s favor.
Tomorrow, Novak Djokovic will compete in his eighth US Open final chasing a third title in New York. By winning this year’s US Open, Djokovic would also tie Pete Sampras with 14 Grand Slam titles.
Novak has a convincing 14-4 lead in the head-to-head against del Potro, but one of those four losses was extremely painful for the Serb: 76 76 in del Potro’s favor at the 2016 Rio Olympics with Novak leaving the court in tears.
Ubaldo Scanagatta
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )