US Open 2010: The Signature Match

There are four Grand Slams in one year, and forty in a decade. Despite the importance we attach to these major events, the tennis world is lucky to have so many major tournaments in a year, unlike Cricket or Football where the pinnacle of the sport hits once every four years in a World Cup. This abundance also means that it becomes very difficult for one major to stand out among the crowd of its competitors. And hence, one major often becomes more important than the other, more memorable than the other. People would remember the 2008 Wimbledon more clearly than, say, the one in 2006, because of the remarkable final it had.

A Grand Slam needs to have a signature moment. A moment which the fans will remember for a long time, the story of which will sometimes eclipse all other events. At Wimbledon this year, it was the Isner-Mahut saga that stole the story than the fact that Rafael Nadal completed his second Euro Slam. Last year, the Cinderella story of Melanie Oudin stole the show ahead of Juan Martin del Potro and Roger Federer (in fact, Federer’s tweener became much more discussed too).

Already four days into the Open, the final major at the Flushing Meadows was missing such a story. An event which not only displays high quality of the sport, but is backed up with lots of emotions and drama to compel even the most neutral fans of the game to vehemently take sies.

And when we talk of the Open, two things come to mind. An upcoming American player and a fifth set tiebreaker. And this was exactly what happened when I was half yawning as Andy Murray was steamrolling past his second round opponent (not that Murray was not playing good—in fact, I like Murray’s game a lot. Just that it is no fun watching a one sided affair. Which is why I usually skip Federer’s first week matches at a major). I saw the IBM Slam Tracker where the match between Ryan Harrison and Sergiy Stakhovsky (I assure you the spelling is correct—I looked it up at Google) just reached into the deciding set.

Sergiy Stakovsky fought the local hero Ryan Harrison in a fifth set tie-breaker

True to the American hype, Harrison was among the news after his first round win, and I decided to look up a bit on him during the changeover. To my surprise, I found the word “Nick Bollettieri” in his wikipedia entry. A surprise, because this kid looked anything but a product from that Academy. First, he looked small and less powerful—even though the ATP listed him as 6-feet-one—than most from the NB industry (think Andre Agassi, Jim Courier or Maria Sharapova).

The second surprise was the way he played. He had lots of flexibility, for one, which was even apparent even during his serve as he sufficiently bent his knees and spine, and even attempted some Clijsters’ type splits. Next, he never seemed like the hard hitting baseline ball basher as the former NBians. He possessed a good, smooth slice, made good, intelligent approaches and was never afraid to serve and volley even on the second serve.

For all the goods that the boy has, it sometimes become irritating to watch the crowd go totally against a perfectly normal player, even when he had done seemingly nothing wrong than competing well against the local hero. While crowd cheering on for the apparent villain’s unforced errors is nothing new (the French Open QF between Nadal and Robin Soderling comes to mind), it was the commentators’ total obsession with Harrison (who were being streamed live at usopen.org) to the point of even forgetting that the court contains two players is what adds to the emotions.

Sergiy understood it perfectly well too, which is why he tried nothing silly to start an uncontrollable crowd uproar. In fact, he mostly seemed visibly uninterested in the contest, to the point of looking rather amused at the whole situation as he let out some dry smiles in between the points. This is no way affected the way he played, though, as he himself showed thorough fighting spirits (perhaps the crowd turned him on) included with some courage as well.

With a beautiful all-court play of his own too, is it somewhat over rated that modern tennis has primarily become a baseline bashing game? Sure, most of the top ten have succeeded with such a style, but we do have players like Sergiy (and now Harrison), Michael Llorda, and the likes who keep the beauty of the touch game alive. And watching these players, there is hope that some day or the other a kid with such a style will come along with a mental strength of Nadal (both players committed double faults at 5-5 and 6-6 in the fifth set tie-breaker respectively) and will dominate the circuit.

18 year old Ryan Harrison impressed everybody with his athleticism

Will that kid be Ryan Harrison? He did not come out the better man today—it was Sergiy who fell to the court in relief, much to the ecstasy of me, if only to see the rude NY crowd and disillusioned broadcasters disappointed—but it would be great to see this all-court player become successful in the future. Today, though, it was about irrational emotions and beautiful all-court play. And with this, I have got my signature event for the 2010 US Open …… so far.