Nuance: I am not talking only talking about “stepping forward” in the figurative sense in this piece I wrote for Tennis with an Accent on the upcoming US Open men’s competition. Can anyone get past the Big 3 and lift the trophy?
Click the link for my preview: US Open Men – Anyone Ready to Step Forward?
Although all the top players participated in the so-called warm-up tournaments to the first Major of the year, tennis fans came to the realization that they will have to wait for this Monday to satisfy their craving of some high-quality, exciting encounters. However, the draw that came out Friday did not do any favors to anyone looking for a thrilling narrative to carry the two weeks, starting Monday. By “thrilling narrative,” I mean an eye-opening one that will end up being one of the main stories of 2016. Sorry Novak Djokovic fans, but your man lifting the winner’s trophy would not qualify as one. Nor would seeing the Big Four members (and/or Stan Wawrinka) play each other for the umpteenth time again in the semis. Yet, one look at the draw and that seems to be the most probable outcome.
Sure, there is some potential for first-week match-ups that feature two players who would probably be more than happy to make it the second week. I will even entertain the idea that Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer, or both, may get knocked out before the semis (only to have their conquerors melt away in the next round). But I neither see an emerging name reach the finals à-la-Kei in New York, nor envision an unlikely winner lifting the trophy like Wawrinka did two years ago, or Marin Cilic did in New York later that same year.
That being said, ticket holders should get their money’s worth. The possibility that this Australian Open may not go down as a trend-setting tournament does not mean that matches will be boring or of low quality. Without further ado, here is how I see the draw fill out section by section. In order to increase the suspense, I will not reveal the player favored to win the tournament. Read and see if you can figure it out (hint: pay attention to titles).
TOP HALF OF THE DRAW
Djokovic’s “early” victims
Prior to eventually running into Djokovic in the third round, Andreas Seppi and Teymuraz Gabashvili will square off with the winner likely to battle Denis Kudla next. Although Gabashvili is down 1-3 in the head-to-head count against Seppi, he has a great chance to advance. He is enjoying his highest ranking of his 14-year career and Seppi, who is going through a dangerous slump, could see his ranking plummer in the first half of the season if he does not recover soon. Gabashvili is the only one from that top section who could challenge Novak in the third round, provided he can live up to his nickname “Tsunami” for three sets (which is almost like saying “provided that Ivo Karlovic finishes a match with less than 5 aces”). Otherwise, look for Djokovic to get to the 4th round being more challenged in practice sets than in the actual matches.
Djokovic’s “midway” victims
Speaking of “Dr. Ivo,” he finds himself as a possible opponent of Djokovic if he makes it to the fourth round. Stands in his way one of the biggest overachievers in today’s tennis by the name of Gilles Simon who, unfortunately for the French, matches up terribly with the big-serving Croate. Simon will still make Karlovic earn the victory if they both make it that far. Anyone knows by now that even when Simon is losing to you, he will make you suffer before doing so. I don’t see any other name from that section (sorry Vasek Pospisil, not in Australia) reaching the fourth round to be victimized by Djokovic.
In the quarters, Djokovic could face a number of players. The two highest seeds in that section are Kei Nishikori (7) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (9). I do not like the fact that I am writing this while the three qualifying spots in this section still display the word “Qualifier” instead of names. I am one of those who believe that careers are made in the Majors, and they are made when a player comes through qualifying and unexpectedly creates a sensation (or with an “s”) in the first week of a Major, and then, backs it up in the following months, before finally establishing himself as persona grata in the upper echelons of the ATP Tour.
Regardless of who the qualifiers are, Tsonga has a rocky road to the quarters. Even before a possible match against Nishikori or XYZ player in the 4th round, he will have to knock out Marcos Baghdatis, the in-form Ilya Marchenko, and his countryman Benoit Paire. In any case, unless Nishikori or Tsonga somehow catch fire, Djokovic could have an easier win in the quarters than in his previous round. I consider Kei’s chances of catching fire low, but still higher than that of Jo-W.
Djokovic’s “later” victims
Novak’s most serious opponent in 2015, the one that he faced 7 times in the finals, could line up on the other side of the net to challenge him, this time before the finals. His name is Federer, and as incredible as it sounds with the kind of season that Djokovic had, he managed to beat the world number one three times, all on hard courts. The reality: Federer has not beaten Djokovic in a Major since the 2012 Wimbledon. The irony: Federer has not lost to Djokovic (4-0) in their matches before the finals since 2013.
Federer’s quarter also happens to be loaded with loose cannons. While I don’t see his first-round opponent Nikoloz Basilashvili, who had his best year by a long mile in 2015, shock a top player any time soon, Federer’s potential opponents in the next rounds could cause him some headaches. Alexandr Dolgopolov, his likely opponent in the second round, and Grigor Dimitrov in the third round, are both respectable players who have proven their ability to beat top players on a given day. In the fourth round, Federer’s “on-paper” opponent is David Goffin, but the bigger dangers for Federer are Goffin’s first-round opponent Sergiy Stakhovsky and the Belgian Dominic Thiem. I have argued for two years now that Thiem is destined for greatness and I am not wavering from my position on him. He is one of the faces of the next generation, and I expect him to break through to the top 10 in 2016. That path could begin in Melbourne. Having said that, the reality remains that for anyone to reach the quarterfinals from that section, they would need some help from Roger who, dare I say, played well only sporadically in Brisbane.
Federer could eventually face an experienced top-10 player like Tomas Berdych, or another young talent like Nick Kyrgios. I am not as sold on Kyrgios as everyone else is, and it is not because I don’t believe in his talent. It’s a cliché, but for some reason, it’s one that takes time to dawn on people: champions are made in practice. Kyrgios’ level of intensity and focus in practice is nowhere near that of the elite champions in our sport. Kyrgios may not make it that far anyway. Cilic, Tomas Berdych, and Roberto Bautista-Agut are nearby in the draw, as well as Borna Coric, another name that represents the future face of men’s tennis. The young Croat would need to beat Cilic, Bautista-Agut, Kyrgios or Berdych, in a row, just to get to the quarters. Can he do it? Yes! This section will be my favorite one to watch during the first week.
BOTTOM HALF OF THE DRAW
(i.e. Djokovic’s “final” victim)
Some are intrigued by the first-round clash between Fernando Verdasco and Nadal. We are quickly reminded of the five-set semifinal in the 2009 Australian Open, in which Verdasco pushed Rafa very hard. He also defeated Rafa as recent as nine months ago, in Miami. Despite that win, Verdasco is nowhere near his 2009 level, and Rafa is playing a lot better than in March 2015. I don’t see an upset happening, and with all due respect to Benjamin Becker and Dudi Sela, I expect them to challenge the world number 5 even less in the second round. Rafa’s road will get rockier starting with the third round. He should face the Frenchman Jérémy Chardy who is known to put out his best tennis in the Majors. Chardy can hang with Nadal from the baseline, and even overpower him, like Fabio Fognini did at the US Open. However, whether Chardy himself believes that he can do that or not, is a rather large question mark.
Nadal would then have to get past either Kevin Anderson or Gaël Monfils. I must again point out that, Anderson and Monfils have three qualifiers yet to be named in their little eight-man section. Despite his 0-3 record against Nadal, Anderson is the only name with a legitimate chance to beat the Spaniard, simply because he has improved in 2015 and added to his experience of facing the elite players in the Majors. He also has a big serve which has been a trade mark of most of the players who have upset Nadal in the Majors. It does not help either that Rafa has been unable to erased the question marks surrounding his game. But this is different. Two weeks ago in Doha, he played some of his best tennis in a long time and the fact that he got floored by Djokovic in the finals should not change that. If anyone can overcome a steep challenge, Rafa is that man. This Australian Open represents a golden chance for the 14-Major winner to reestablish himself as the top player, along with Djokovic, Murray, Federer, and Wawrinka.
In the quarters, Nadal will no doubt face a tough opponent. There are again four qualifiers in this section. Unless one of them pulls a stunner or two, and/or Viktor Troicki’s form soars even higher than it did this week in Sydney, I don’t see who can stop Raonic and Wawrinka (sorry Jack Sock fans, not yet) from battling each other to earn the right to face Rafa.
I have long maintained (since 2010 exactly) that Raonic would be one of our sport’s top players and I believe he is on the right track. Despite injuries hampering his progress over the last three years, he has steadily improved. He arrives to Melbourne healthy and confident. He has a legitimate chance to go far, even if it means going through Wawrinka and Nadal just to reach the semifinals. The success of Nadal, Wawrinka, or Raonic, when one of them reaches the “final four” stage, will largely depend on how much they have labored in the previous rounds. I dare anyone to predict this early how they will do in the semis where they would likely face Murray.
So what of Murray’s quarter of the draw? Big-serving Sam Groth could frustrate him – it does not take much to do that – in the second round, but can he do it for three sets? Fognini and Tomic, the two major head-cases of our sport, could play against each other in the third round, which may possibly make that encounter the highest-rated third-round match in the history of Majors. But can either one challenge Andy? The section with John Isner and David Ferrer is wide open and should provide someone with a golden opportunity to reach the quarterfinal. But, can that quarterfinalist, whomever it may be, surprise Murray? I believe the answer to all the questions in this paragraph is a “No.” Meanwhile, squeezed in-there-somewhere in this section is Brian Baker who has managed more comebacks than Aaron Krickstein has come back from two sets down in his days.
I see some sections of the draw that fascinate me for the first few days. I see others that should be exciting when we get to the third and fourth rounds. Then, from the quarterfinals on, I expect great tennis. What I do NOT expect, is to find names in the semifinals that are different than the ones we have seen in the last several Majors.
The show begins in 48 hours!
Here is a brief summary of Monday, and I mean “brief” because the rain delay forced a late finish, with the last match between Irina-Camelia Begu and Alize Cornet just finishing moments ago, little before 1 AM. The talented Romanian took out Cornet in straight sets, 6-4 6-4.
While there were a couple of close matches, in general, Monday’s action was lackluster, with only a few matches that went to distance or provided high-quality tennis. It almost seemed like the spectators on the ground were more interested in what was happening outside the matches. Let me travel into the terrain of exaggeration and claim that more people watched Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Nick Kyrgios practice than the tournament matches (first two for obvious reasons, the third for the infamous comment directed at Wawrinka during their match last week). See below the crowds at the Nadal and Federer practices, and keep in mind that people on top are watching them practice rather than the matches on the Grandstand. During Nadal’s practice (on top), Gilles Simon and Ivo Karlovic were playing, and during Federer’s (bottom), Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza was busy getting upset by Yaroslava Shvedova.
And here is a panoramic clip view of the crowd for Federer’s practice.
That was not all. There was a man who had everything planned to propose to his companion (named Michele according to the large banner he had made that said: “Michele, will you marry me?”) during Federer’s practice! She did say “Yes,” and he insisted that Roger hears about it!
Federer finished his practice. Fabio Fognini arrived on the court (with a clean cut and shave) and began his preparation for his encounter vs. Thanasi Kokkinakis later.
Fognini practiced for about 5 minutes in front a full crowd, because Federer was still on the court chatting with a youngster and Severin Luthi while getting his stuff together. When Roger left through the door on the other side, the crowd evacuated the stands so abruptly that 3 minutes later, Fabio found himself hitting in front of about 20 people. His clean look did not change his on-court personality much, as he argued with the umpire and gave fans grief during his three-set loss to Kokkinakis in the evening.
As the night settled, Roberto Bautista-Agut who is currently ranked 22, and has been within the top 20 for most of the past 12 months, walked through the grounds and the crowds to the furthest court possible (Ct. 4) to play his match, without anybody noticing him. He played a great match against Pablo Cuevas, another regular top-30 player (currently 36) who is also “anonymous” to most fans. Bautista-Agut won in straight sets, 6-3 6-4, advancing to meet Federer next, in what is guaranteed to be a more “visible” encounter on his part.
Later, Alison Riske and Elina Svitolina played on Stadium 3. The first two tightly contested sets were a pleasure to watch. At the end of 1 hour and 37 minutes (and past 11:30 PM), the score was even at one set all. The promise of a thrilling third set quickly disappeared as Svitolina ran away with the third set (6-0) in less than 30 minutes.
Begu and Cornet were the only ones left playing well past midnight. Tuesday has some explosive matches on the schedule. At 11 AM, there will already be three matches that promise some fireworks. On the Grandstand, two youngsters that are deemed to be an important part of the ATP’s future, Borna Coric and Alexander Zverev (both 18 years old), will battle for a spot in the second round against Stan Wawrinka. On Stadium 3, Nick Kyrgios and Richard Gasquet (remember their epic battles at Wimbledon?) will face each other. On Center Court, the in-form Sloan Stephens will do everything she can to keep the 10th seed Carla Suarez-Navarro out-of-form. Roger Federer vs. Bautista-Agut, Ana Ivanovic vs. Venus Williams, Angelique Kerber vs. Belinda Bencic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs. Fernando Verdasco, Alexandr Dolgopolov vs. Bernard Tomic, Kevin Anderson vs. Leonardo Mayer, and Daria Gavrilova vs. Sara Errani, are some of the other notable matches scheduled for Tuesday. Bring it on!
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Prior to the start of Sunday, most tennis fans had high expectations of the fourth-round matches on the men’s side. But it was not until the end of the third set of the Nick Kyrgios vs. Andres Seppi that the excitement finally surfaced. The first two matches, Bernard Tomic vs. Tomas Berdych and Rafael Nadal vs. Kevin Anderson finished in anti-climactic fashion. You could almost write the scenario of Nadal vs. Anderson match prior to its beginning, and it remained loyal to that scenario. Anderson’s strengths played into Nadal’s hands, and baseline rallies ensued in which Rafa did everything better than his opponent, and won convincingly as expected. However, Tomic vs. Berdych could have been – should have been – handled more astutely by Tomic.
The young Aussie came into the match playing perhaps the best tennis of his career, and had the necessary skills to startle Berdych. He possesses the ability to flatten out his forehand, push his opponent around, approach the net, as well as win a slew of free points with his awkward-looking-yet-effective serve. What Tomic seems to have forgotten to do, quite stunningly for a player at his level, was to come out with a game plan. The Tomic camp overlooked one of the most underrated areas of tennis tactics: how to come out of the gates.
The match began with Tomic’s serve. From the first point on, for some odd reason, Tomic stayed at the baseline, rallied and obeyed Berydch’s plan A. The result is that Tomic made three unforced errors on the forehand, Berdych pushed him around on another rally, and broke Tomic’s serve to start the match. When the Czech followed that game with three aces of his own to go up 2-0, Tomic, again oddly, stayed the course with the same tactic of rallying at the baseline. Consequently, Berdych took a 4-0 lead in fifteen minutes. By that time, Berdych beamed with confidence, worked his monster ground strokes and served aces and service winners left and right. Tennis coaches often say “It’s better to have a bad game plan than no plan at all.” That cliché could not have been more accurate in this case. Tomic seemed to have spent the entire first set figuring out what to do next. In 27 minutes, Berdych won the set 6-2 having committed three more unforced errors (11) than Tomic (8). On paper it may raise an eyebrow, but Tomic committing less unforced errors than Berdych is a bad sign for Tomic, not for Berdych. It showed how passive Tomic played throughout the set.
The first game of the second set was indicative of what Tomic needed to do from the beginning of the match. At 15-30 serving, Tomic served a big serve and earned a short return from Berdych. Instead of rushing Berdych and coming to the net, he inexplicably contented with putting the ball back in play. Three points later at deuce, he got the same type of short ball, and this time, hit his forehand with a purpose, forcing Berdych into an error. When he held that game to go up 1-0, it looked like he finally figured out that he could not rally with the Czech from the baseline, that he needed to keep the points short and not let Berdych have the first shot at target practice during rallies. Tomic did just that in the ensuing games with renewed confidence, and Berdych began to feel the pressure. The Czech forced some shots to keep Tomic from unleashing shot after shot. It resulted in him making a number of “forced” errors, and eventually, the match leveled. Again, it was the early games of that set that established the tone.
The problem remained that Tomic now had to play catch-up, down a set. And when you play catch-up against an experienced top-10 player, there is no room for blunders and every point becomes crucial because that second set is vital to having a chance to win. Despite a much better set by Tomic, Berdych played an impeccable tiebreaker to take a 6-2 7-6 lead, effectively shutting the door on Tomic. Third set was just the countdown to the inevitable.
The lesson from this match: you must come out with a game plan. The underlying message: do not underestimate the underrated importance of the first games in any set. Regular readers and my friends have heard me say this numerous times before: sets are won or lost in the first few games. Nobody remembers the 15-30 1-0 point, or the deuce point in the first game (à la Ivan Lendl did with his computer brain), and often focus on a set point at 6-5 or the 5-5 point in the tiebreaker. Then the clichés resurface: “A point here and there on big points at late stages, and the outcome would have been different!” First question should rather be “How did it get there?” The answer often lies in the first couple of games where momentum swings occur and set the tone for the later games in the set.
The Kyrgios vs. Seppi match provided an emblematic example of this underrated aspect, for anyone that cares to remember the early points of the third set.
This match was the featured event of the night. What it lacked in quality of tennis, it made up for in excitement. The score line was dramatic, and it pitted the player who upset Roger Federer against the most exciting youngster in the ATP in front of his home crowd at the Hisense Arena. I will refrain from doing a lengthy analysis of the match (there are plenty around the web) and center on the first two games of the third set which, in my opinion, played a paramount role in the improbable comeback of Kyrgios. Once again, people will remember, the match point in the fourth set, the crucial point or two at 6-5 and 6-6 in the fifth, and talk about them. But none of that would have taken place if Seppi did not serve the first two games of the third set on a golden platter to Kyrgios.
At 7-5 6-4, Seppi had complete control of the match, and generated more winners from both sides and served more aces than Kyrgios (who would have guessed that?!?!). More importantly, his performance had quietened the crowd and seemed to sap Kyrgios’ spirit. Uncharacteristically, the Italian veteran had a let-down. Either he felt that he had the match in his pocket and relaxed, or simply lost his concentration. In any case, he played the two loosest games of his Australian Open adventure, did not move well, and lacked intensity and determination. He spat out seven unforced errors in two games, four of them coming in the second game where he got broken to give – and I don‘t use the verb ‘give’ lightly here – Kyrgios the 2-0 lead. Just like that, Kyrgios held to go up 3-0. Seppi gave Kyrgios a shot of renewed belief and energy that he masterfully sucked out of him for two sets. But Kyrgios was not the only energized. The break also galvanized the Hisense Arena fans that were desperately looking for something to cheer. They began to feed Kyrgios a steady stream of loud cheers and banging noises on the walls, seats, and anything else they could find on which to tap their hands. It is no secret that any player can feed off the crowd support. But Kyrgios is a different horse in this category. He savors the crowd; he communicates and teams up with them. He pumps them up, they pump him up! All of a sudden, Kyrgios looked determined in his demeanor. He began to pierce his groundstrokes, pressuring Seppi, and serving bigger and better. Doubts began to creep in Seppi’s mind and he began to falter on his ground strokes that have previously clicked on all cylinders.
When the first set was over, Seppi knew that this was now a much different match than the first two sets. Yes, not capitalizing on match point in the fourth set did not help. Yes, not daring to go for the short ball on Kyrgios’ return on the last point of the match did not help. Yes, Kyrgios’ improved serve in the last two sets did not help. However, none of those late “key” points were momentum changers. Everything that happened in the last three sets were the end-product of the momentum change from the first two games of the third set. Seppi had the match in his hands, did not put it away. I would argue that he had the match “in his hands” more at 7-5 6-4 than when he had the match point.
Coaches of today: spend time with your young pupils in front of the TV and make them watch professional matches from the first point to the last. More importantly, discuss and analyze as the match progresses, stimulate their minds to the importance of the early games. I see too often junior players beginning their matches with low intensity, playing the first games of the match, or even the early games of the next set, as if they were the continuation of the five-minute warm-up. They are not! Tomic and Seppi can tell you more if you run into them.
Yes, this point is important, but how did it get there? (Image: Movitec Electronics)
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We have reached the third round stage at the Australian Open, and although the surge in the number of surprise winners in the first days of competition emerged as a major topic of conversation, the title contenders on both women’s and men’s draws have moved forward. Only two of those players, Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal, have been in legitimate danger of being ousted by their “lesser” opponents, but both showed why they belong to the elite group of genii in our sport who rise above challenges in ways that others can only imagine. Down a match point twice, Sharapova hit two forehands winners that most other players would only dare to attempt if they were up 5-0 30-0. Nadal overcame violent stomach pains, vomiting on the court, and still found an extra supply of his interminable fighting spirit somewhere deep within him to come back from two-sets-to-one down to win in a battle that lasted over four hours.
This is how these genii operate and that is why they are likely to be there when late next week arrives instead of the emerging group of great players such as Madison Keys, Zarina Diyas, and Caroline Garcia on the women’s side, and Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic, and Nick Kyrgios on the men’s.
The gap between these players and the elite has narrowed, but is still far from disappearing. Even for Eugenie Bouchard and Kei Nishikori, both reaching the finals of one Major each in 2014, the road still seems long before they can step on the same pedestal as the elite few. But this article belongs to one player on the men’s draw who is neither a genius, nor a great up-and-comer. It is about Feliciano Lopez, the veteran who has been around the top 20 for a long time while remaining a nightmare for most top players, and why he is the most unlikely player to still be in the tournament.
First of all, let’s make it very clear: it is not just the four match points saved by Lopez in his first two rounds combined against Denis Kudla and Adrian Mannarino that make his presence in the third round spectacular. It is rather how poorly he has played in those matches and still managed to turn them into victories.
Against Kudla, his first serve, which is usually the driving force for the rest of his game, hovered around the 55% mark throughout the match. It was also only in the mid-portion of the fifth set that (10-8) that the numbers of his winners surpassed that of his unforced errors; and even then, he still had to save three match points in the final stages of the match to survive. He was constantly having to catch up with Kudla’s rhythm, getting outplayed from the baseline, and having to chase the American’s balls down and committing silly errors in his attempts to dig out of that pattern and take charge during the points. Nevertheless, he survived and it could not get any worse for Lopez right? Wrong!
The level of his play dropped even lower against Mannarino. His first serve percentage was this time well below 50% (46% and 43% in the first two sets, respectively) for most of the match. Despite an opponent who kept throwing in double faults at the most inopportune moments, and who did nothing more than return low and bunt the ball back in play, Lopez made mistake after mistake and constantly complained to his corner, in search of answers for the shockingly low quality of shots coming out of his racket. Yes, Lopez did save a match point at 4-6 4-6 4-5, but alone, that does not reflect how lop-sided the match was at times in Mannarino’s favor. The Frenchman was actually up 4-0 in that third set and serving, then 5-3 and 30-0, and finally 3-0 up in the tiebreaker before losing seven points successively to lose the third set, and melting away in the fourth due to illness (he retired down 0-4 in the fourth set, unable to move the last few games).
So how did Lopez do it? Blaming Mannarino’s illness for the Frenchman’s exit from the tournament would be nothing more than telling a tall tale, because he did everything possible in the third set when he had the match in his hands, short of rolling the red carpet for Lopez and inviting him back in the match, to not cross the finish line.
At 4-0 down in the third, Lopez looked like he was ready to get in the locker room and playing terrible, except that Mannarino served a succession of double faults and committed a number of errors on shots that challenged him no more than the five-minute warm-up balls coming from the opponent. To be clear, it is not as if Mannarino led Lopez 6-4 6-4 4-0 because he was outplaying his opponent. He was up because he could not lower the quality of his game as much as Lopez did during that period. This match did not feature a world-class level of tennis, both players serving so poorly that there were a number of consecutive breaks in three and a half sets of play. Although the first sentence of the paragraph asked for an explanation of how Lopez “did it,” the more appropriate question for this particular match would have been “how did Mannarino do it?”
Yet, there must be a reason why, in Majors, Lopez has a 16-8 record in five-setters (win against Mannarino does not count because technically, Lopez did not win in five sets) and has won his last seven five-setters, dating back to Wimbledon 2009.
The Spaniard never loses hope no matter the score, and he does not link the level of his play to his will to win. In Lopez’s world, “playing bad” or “sucking” does not equal a loss. A very common phrase in tennis players’ language, “I can’t win playing like this,” does not exist for Lopez. As far as Lopez is concerned, he can play “like this,” and still win playing “like this.” In this edition of the Australian Open, he is easily the worst performer to reach the third round.
Lopez will face Jerzy Janowicz next round. In order to win, Lopez will desperately need to raise the level of his play against an opponent who has more power and shot-making capability than him. But wait! That is probably not how Lopez thinks. He probably thinks “I can win, but what can I do anyway in order to raise the level of my play?”
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Experts say that skin renews itself approximately every 28 days. In terms of tennis chronology, assuming that the period of dominance by a few elite players counts as a cycle, and looking at the pattern since the turn of the century, 28-day cycle of skin renewal in men’s tennis terms translates to… well, we do not know yet! The fact that there is nobody called Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, or Roger Federer in the finals of a Slam tournament for the first time since the 2005 Australian Open does not necessarily point to the end of an era. In fact, one could argue that even in a tournament in which Nadal did not show up due to an injury, Djokovic looked like he has yet to recover from a dismal hard court summer, Federer played his worst tennis of the 2014 campaign, and Andy Murray ran into one of the other three in the quarterfinals, two of the big 4 names were still in the semi-finals.
That being said, the trend has arrived. In my last entry prior to the US Open, I predicted that this US Open was a great opportunity for an outsider to have a career tournament due to the lack of quality performance that the top-10 players have displayed through the tournaments prior to the Major in New York. At first glance, it looks like my prediction was spot on. We did have two outsiders battle in the men’s finals on Monday night, and in fact, I even counted Cilic’s name amongst the possible outsiders in the comments below. However, my premise was flawed. I assumed that it would happen because it was a ‘low’ period for the stars and that represented a window of opportunity for the newcomers. What I did not realize was to what point the transformation of the ATP’s composition of top players has begun. When I looked at 2014 as a season so far, it all became evident.
Yes, the skin is changing! When Stan Wawrinka won the Australian Open, most believed it was an anomaly. By the time Novak Djokovic won the two Masters Series tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami, people believed so much in the flash-in-the-pan nature of Wawrinka’s accomplishment that they have all but overlooked Kei Nishikori outplaying an in-form Federer in Miami. But the players did apparently take notice. Milos Raonic at Wimbledon, and Marin Cilic few days ago, have both pointed to Wawrinka’s victory as the day where they came to the realization that the “others” had a chance. They explicitly credited the Swiss for opening the door for them, at least mentally. When the clay-court season arrived, the so-called anomaly Wawrinka showed that he is not an anomaly, as he took the clay-court specialist and long-time top-6 player David Ferrer out in Monte Carlo, and then won the title against his good friend Federer in the finals. One week later, tennis fans were stunned for an hour and a half when they watched Nishikori ‘school’ (yes, that is the only term that comes to mind if you watched that segment) Nadal on clay in Madrid until a 6-2 4-2 lead, only to see his hopes of winning the title slip away due to an injury that forced him to withdraw from the match 0-3 down in the third after losing a painful seven games in a row.
Marin Cilic practicing during the Cincinnati ATP tournament
After Roland Garros showed that the big 4 were still able to dominate, Wimbledon confirmed the coming-of-age of few new faces. Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov who have been knocking on the door of the top 10 reached the semi-finals, only to be reminded by Federer and Djokovic that they are not quite there, but very close. Wawrinka was anything but missing in action as some predicted, reaching the quarterfinals, only to lose to Federer in a tough four-setter. As to Nadal, he was knocked out early in the second week by another flashy newcomer, the Australian Nick Kyrgios. Now, the change of skin was becoming a reality. Wawrinka, Raonic, Dimitrov, Nishikori (the latter’s injury slowed his year down, but only temporarily) were here to stay. The change of skin was no longer an anomaly. Ernests Gulbis was one of those. An anomaly, an exception, highly unlikely to appear again in a semi-final or a final, even if the Big 4 put down their rackets today and never picked them up again. He has been around, operating below his potential for many years. Gulbis was one single anomaly; the rest represented the renewal of the faces of the ATP.
This U.S. Open confirmed the trend, stamped it, officialized it. Federer and Djokovic looked under-matched against two of the new faces, Nishikori and the big-serving Cilic. On the one hand, the next couple of years will make us appreciate how important Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are to men’s tennis and to its explosion as a popular sport around the world over the last decade. ATP should forever be thankful to these great champions who will deservedly take their places in the historiography of the sport as the main representatives of second golden age of tennis, following the first during the late 70s and the early 80s. I doubt we will ever see such a dominant group of individuals whose equivalent of “28-day skin-renewal” in men’s tennis has yet to be determined, even after a decade. Yet, the end-of-the-year ATP Championships, as well as the Majors next year, will become bigger sources of anticipation as the fascinated tennis fan will now look forward to discussing who will get to the semis, which player will enter top 5, or who will win their first Major title, rather than guessing who out of the big 4 will win the next Major title. This is not to say that one option is less entertaining than the other. It’s just that the latter question has thrilled us for so long that I now predict tennis fans will embrace with open arms the emergence of the former types of questions.