Friday, September 10th, 2010 | Posted in Tennis.com Blog | Feed Source |

Overload

The U.S. Open is a memory machine: Every court, every corner turned, calls one up. But they tumble in with no context attached; I can’t identify the year when they happened. As I’ve said before, my two weeks here blend into my two weeks here last year, which had already blended into the two weeks from the year before that. Tennis pushes everything else to the side: politics, books, movies, Mad Men, the Phillies, even money. The lowliest press member can eat pulled pork and Indian food for two weeks without forking over a dime.

My trip from my office in Manhattan to my desk under Arthur Ashe Stadium alone was enough to bring the following moments vividly back to life:

—The excitement I felt, on an early family trip to New York for the Open, when I saw a McDonald’s in midtown. It had two floors. It was was something on the order of the Taj Mahal in my 10-year-old mind.

—Arriving too early for our first Open and waiting for an hour outside the front gates, an aggravation made worthwhile by the sight of a very small Chris Evert passing through the crowd nearby, protected by what looked like a phalanx of bodyguards, though I seem to remember that they allowed her to carry her dozen wooden Wilson racquets herself. I don’t think I’d ever seen a celebrity in civilian clothes before. Seeing Chris in a T-shirt, sunglasses and jeans, rather than her customary Ellesse was shocking and weird. She looked like a movie star: cocky.

—A couple years later, passing by a court where Jimmy Connors was practicing and feeling the energy coming even before I knew who it was. Connors was electric even in practice, bobbing, weaving, his hair flying side to side with every move. Like a boxer, he had all kinds of people on the court with him, bodyguards, coaches, buddies, assorted hangers-on. It’s been said that Jimbo was a master as making his own fight the audience’s fight, too. He did that in practice, hammering everything with gusto. And then, all of a sudden, he was done. He sat down, talking all the time, drained a bottle of Coke in one long gulp, and left.

—Coming around toward the player’s lounge today, I saw the usual mass of kids jammed together waiting for autographs. I remembered this same scene from 10 years ago. Roger Federer, owner of no Grand Slam titles, ambled onto the grounds, alone, carrying nothing, his hands in his pockets. When the kids started to scream, he flashed that little bemused smile of his and waded in to start signing. When he was done, he put his hands back in his pockets and ambled away, not seeming to be going anywhere in particular, unnoticed.

—I can never pass Court 13 without thinking of two particular matches that I watched there. One was a senior doubles job featuring Ilie Nastase. Hat backwards, hair white, hobbling—not running, not walking, hobbling—through points, he could still carve up a drop shot as magical as any current pro’s. The aging process is especially tragic and frustrating for tennis players. The skills largely remain; there’s just no way to use them.

The second match featured a young Jelena Jankovic. Late in the third set, the chair umpire overruled a call against her. Jankovic bent forward in agony, held out her hand toward the umpire, and said, in that furry, pleading voice we all know, “Why do you change that one? There have been thousands and thousands of terrible calls in this match, and you change that one.”

—Another side court was the sight of the coldest match I ever watched: five sets between Tomas Berdych and Dmitry Tursunov, something like three years ago. Every ball was poleaxed; the sound of the racquets was frightening. Neither of these two blond Europeans showed the slightest hint of emotion, or even interest—not once. After three hours, the final was ball was smashed, they walked expressionlessly to the net, shook hands without a smile or a nod, and walked off.

—The lower bowl of Ashe Stadium makes me think of staying late, or what we thought was late at the time—like past midnight—to watch Todd Martin come back to beat Greg Rusedski. A friend and I sat in the front row and chanted for Martin as he came back from two sets down. Why? Who knows—mostly because I wanted to see Rusedski blow it, to be honest. Afterward, after four or five Heinekens, I have a dim memory of high-fiving a few guys as I walked out of the men’s room. The buzz lasted through the long, wee-hour subway ride into Manhattan and back to Brooklyn.

***

What will I remember from 2010? It’s tough to tell. It just took me a second to remember whether I went to the qualifiers this time, or whether that was last year. By the second week of the Open, when the cold wind makes its appearance, the first humid, breezeless days can seem to come from a previous lifetime. Like I said, Open memories bubble up at random; there are too many of them to keep straight or even attach much importance to—after a while, it’s just one damn thing after another, one post after another, one emotionally exhausting five-set marathon after another, one perfect shot after another.

I’ll start with something I hope I don’t remember: Stan Wawrinka’s player’s box—please let me block it out. Ditto for Donald Young’s unhappy first-round loss.

Here’s a tiny fraction of what I hope does stay in my mind:

—The pretty fierceness of a Pennetta/Dulko doubles match on the Grandstand.

—Fernando Verdasco’s fall to the court after his match-ending, side-winding forehand against Ferrer.

—The annoyance and restraint on Sam Querrey’s face when he was pummeled with questions about the state of U.S. tennis.

—Ditto for Andy Murray’s face when he was pummeled with questions about whether he’ll ever win a Slam. Murray was pale and exhausted and morose after his loss, and it only got worse in the press room. He finally snapped when he was asked, “Does this accelerate the need to get a coach?” Murray shook his head in disgust—you really see the players do that—and said something like, “After the last match that I won, I was asked whether I ever needed to get a coach. Now I need to get a coach right away?”

—Djokovic’s dad’s shirt. Djokovic’s shirt. Djokovic’s hat. Djokovic’s post-match interviews. All of it: gold.

—Francesca Schiavone snarling and snapping and hopping her way to a defeat at the hands of Venus Williams.

—Roger Federer in the tunnel before his quarterfinal, looking quietly pleased to get another crack at Robin Soderling.

—The last two sets of Nadal-Istomin, and the happy disbelief in Istomin’s box at the way he was playing.

—The victory salute of Mikhail Youzhny, whimsical warrior.

—Caroline Wozniacki letting out a scream of relief when she reached match point against Maria Sharapova. She knew then finally, that it was going to happen.

—The awesome and heartening sight of thousands of people waiting at the gates, eyes raised to the TV screen above, to enter Ashe Stadium for the night session. Tennis is an exotic circus; the international cast of players rolls into your town, and after a week or so it disappears for another year. For fans of the sport in New York, all of 2010 is packed into these two weeks. It’s an overdose of perfectly struck shots. It’s too bad you can’t fully appreciate them all.

For most of us, like I’ve said, it’s a lot to remember. But that’s not true for everyone. One day last week I got to the site in the late afternoon. On the way in the gate, I passed two guys walking quickly in the other direction, toward the subway. They were quintessential New Yorkers, short guys in white sneakers and black T-shirts, moving fast and talking fast, with high-pitched Sopranos-esque accents.

“So whadja see?” one guy asked the other.

“Ahhh, nothin’ much.”

Overload

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