4:35 PM
Congrats to my home team the Redskins for beating the Dolphins in Overtime. But as a result, we're starting half and hour late. Ah well.
Prior to the game is a little video montage of the US Open that features no foreign players until we get to Federer I mean, you have to with Federer because he's playing and he's the best. American exceptionalism is often kind of surreal and hilarious when it shows up in unexpected places.
First thing that's really truly odd... Instead of singing the Star Spangled Abmmer, they're singin God Bless America. I've often worried seriously that some idiot is going to try to make this terrible, sentimental bit of religious claptrap our national anthem. After all, after 9.11, we saw the Senate and Congress sing it, not the national anthem. And it comes up a lot.
This worries me for all sorts of reasons. Chief amongst them is that seeing our elected representatives sing it on the eve of a war against Islamic peoples in Asia seemed an odd, crusader-y image to strike (bad PR). But it also worries me because the song is (a) terrible (but that's okay because so are most national anthems) and (b) overtly religious in a freaky way. The same way that our national slogan (which used to be the uncharictaristically collectivist e unibus plurum) being replaced with the craptacular In God We Trust or Under God being crowbarred into the Pledge of Allegiance makes me worry.
Anyway, what makes this odd on a second level is that it is sung by Liza Minelli. I think the oddity (and hilarity) of that is self explanatory.
4:50
Baba O'Reilly? Really? That's the song they play when Federer and Djokovic (can we call them "Fed" and Dok" for now? okay, good) enter Arthur Ashe stadium. Teenage wasteland, eh?
The contrasting personalities of these two players make for a good matchup. Dok is mischevious, passionate, a little bratty, maybe. After all, he stormed way farther up in Wimbledon than anyone thought, and then actually forfeited the match because he was losing and his foot hurt. This seemed pathetic and immature next to Serena Williams barely-able-to-walk victory. They're asking "is he the class clown"? And I think that sort of sums it up.
Except Dok just got finished demolishing (in a row) Roddick, Nadal and Federer in Montreal, something which hasn't been done (beating sequentially #s 3, 2 and 1 in a tournament) since the 1960's, and something which rocketed Dok to the #3 rank in the world.
And Federer. What can be said about him that David Foster Wallace hasn't already written and better? Probably nothing. But the odd thing about Federer, sensibility-wise, is that he's gotten so unwaveringly good that some have started criticizing him for a somewhat robotic attitude towards the game. In other words, he doesn't seem to really be so enthused when he wins or upset when he loses.
Federer is never going to go down in history as a great Sports Character. And I think that's disappointing to some, especially since the US is famous for its Great Sportss Characters (McEnroe and Agassi come to mind). Federer appears to just be a nice guy who is also able to pummel just about anyone fool enough to get on a court with him so long as their name isn't Nadal and they aren't on clay. But now Federer has lost to Dok previously, which means that there's a style other than Nadal's that he's going to have to adjust to, a more impish style, perhaps.
Dok has the potential to be a Great Sports Character. If he keeps doing playfully mocking impressions of other players on the Court, he will be.
5:05PM
Not even a break point so far. This does make it a lot duller. The first set of Fed vs. Dok last time was an action packed extravaganze which ended in a tiebreak that Fed lost and that basically one truly unbelievable volley after another supplemented with a lot of unforced Fed errors. Not this time. So far, anyway.
So imagine for a moment that you're the son of a taxi-cab driver. You're from Lithuania, your family has next to no money, and you're a bit of a tennis prodigy doing well in the majors. And then suddenly, the agent of the greatest player in the history of the game calls you up and says How would you like us to pay you to fly to Dubai and practice with Roger Federer? Apparently, this actually happened. I guess that would be like a poor theater student in eastern europe getting a call from Peter Brook and him going Hey, Novak, want to come assist me?
5:30PM
And Dok breaks Fed. Like in Montreal (where Dok beat Fed the only time he has in the 4 times they've met before) a lot of his win of this game came from 2 unforced errors on Feds part. In Montreal, Fed gave up a truly astonishing 48 unforced errors.
So now it's 6-5. Much of the commentary from John McEnroe et al has to do with Tennis as a psychological and strategic game. Which, given the speed all this stuff happens at (frequently the ball is flying at 115-125 MPH) is hard to believe. But , according to all of those who've played the game seriously, is accurate. A lot of the game has to do with getting under the skin of your oponent and letting htem defeat themselves. Or using the energy of the crowd to your advantage. Or lulling your opponent and then confusing them etc.
But if it is that strategic, you wonder why Fed doesn't just try to constantly bring Dok to the net, where he doesn't seem to have much of a game.
And now we're at triple set point. The score is 40-15 Djokovic. Now 40-30, thanks to Dok hitting the thing out. Man can that kid wallop a ball. The crowd is going now, because either way this match will be a little bit of history. Either Dok wins, at which point the truly unstoppable Fed has been taken down twice in a year at a Grand Slam and once by a 20 year old kid who is the first male Serbian to make it to a final, or Fed wins and he comes very very close to beating Sampras' record for # of Grand Slam titles.
It's Ad-Djokovic now in the midst of Deuce. The two men fighting it out for the first set. Fed seems to have woken up a little bit-- McEnroe complained that he wasn't bringing his A-Game, and he's still not, but the slumbering beast seems to be somewhat annoyed at the mortal poking him wtih a stick.
We're at Deuce 3. All fo the Deuces so far go like this-- Djok gets advantage, and then hits it about a foot over the baseline to bring it back to Deuce. This seems to be happening because Federer can return unreturnable serves. Djok hits a 128MPH fireball, and Federer just blocks it casually straight back. In an effort to hit it even harder Djok hits it out.
Ad-Fed. If he gets this, we go to tiebreak. This match has gone from snoresville to spellbinding in roughly ten minutes, which is part of what is amazing about Tennis (and has to do with its particular scoring system).
And we go to tiebreak. Well done, Roger.
5:45PM
After screaming something in Serbian (in an odd uncomfortably emotional moment) Djok takes a point from Fed on the tiebreak, to bring it to 2-3. Then hits the ball into the net. It's 3-3 now. Djok looks more frustrated that he should, considering he's tied for the set right now. On his face, he's already lost. And then he loses his second service point to a double-fault. 4-3, Fed. A 21 shot rally. 5-3 Fed. McEnroe is talking about how Djok is choking, and it certainly seems that way. IT's gotta be psychologically jarring to go from triple set point to a tiebreak. 6-3 Fed. Triple set point.
The last 14 men who won the opening set of the USOpen championship won the match. We get attached to random voodoo and trinkets, rules that don't really exist to govern the Universe. If we avoid saying MacBeth in the theater, the show will go well. If I have a personal belonging in my pocket, I'll feel a connection to my character. If I lost the first set, I'm done for. By this logic, Djok is done for, as he double-faults away the first set to Fed.
I think Djokovic is dealing with something I've seen a few times. Call it the Federer Effect. Which is to say, Federer has this amazing ability to come back in situations where it seems like he's totally and completely fucked. And his opponent's optimism and confidence gets crushed as a result. Djokovic just went from triple set point to losing a tiebreak by three points.
With any luck, Djok won't be too psychologically broken by the experience and we'll still have at least a couple of sets of good Tennis.
6:00PM
Djokovic has recovered. He's forcing Federer to play through some complicated volleys and winning a couple. Federer is the first man ever to reach the finals of all of the Grand Slam matches for two consecutive years. He has won the last three US Opens in a row. But right now, Djokovic is inches away from breaking his serve, the score is 15-40. And now Federer is keeping the ball away from Djokovic's absolutely insane forehand and so we go to 30-40. And hits it out. D'oh! Djok breaks Federer. Set II is now 1-3 Djokovic.
6:10
Djokovic has a little secret weapon. It's called the backhand drop. He hits the ball with his backhand, racket angled up. The ball goes on a fairly high parabola and drops almost straight down, very close to the net. He's deployed it three times against Federer. Once, it hit the net and bounced back no good. Once it nearly cost Federer a second break, and this third time, Federer has just started to catch on. He manages to get it over the net and then runs back faster than any human should be able to to catch Djokovic's return.
Fed is now up three break points. If he can get this, the score goes to 3-4, with Fed about to serve. And he does. We're on serve.
6:30
And I look away for a moment and look up and Djokovic is up 2 set points. To do this, he'll have to break Federer, who in this situation has a habit of hitting aces. Which he does to bring the score up to 30-40. And then Djokovic hits it out and we're back at Deuce for the set.
If this works out the way it looks like it will, we'll be back to a Deuce and then a tiebreak. Again. Crazy.
Federer is still not playing great (for him). But Djokovic doesn't seem to quite be able to take advantage of this fact. We're Ad-Federer now on an easy point. And the Fed gets another one. As one of the commentators said Four massive serves to get himself out of trouble. Which is exactly what happened.
Tiebreak time again. Federer's service has been kicked into high gear. He faulted a lot in set one, and now he is seriously walloping the ball-- 123-126 MPH on the first serve. He's had 7 straight first serves, all strong. It's now 5-2 at the tiebreak, and I'm beginning to understand why some have issues with Federer. In this match, he's only really exerting himself when threatened and that makes the game less interesting. You want to see the master at his best, firing on all six burners at once. Only Nadal can really bring that out of him.
Djokovic has lost the second set. As McEnroe put it, he's gonna have to deal with the fact that that he should be up two sets, and he's instead down two sets. Mainly because he's choked at the end of both of them. Of course, who's to say? Maybe if he hadn't, Federer would've brought more of his A-game and he's still be screwed.
6:45
And things start to look a little cake-walky. Federer has gotten relaxed and comfortable which is, oddly, when his really monstrous game comes out (according to the color commentators, anyway). The last time someone went from 2 sets down to win the US open was a man named Pancho Gonzales in (wait for it) nineteen forty fucking nine so the odds are definitely not in Djokovic's favor at this point.
7:00
Djok has gotten really quite good at getting balls past Fed or out of his range. Which is a really really hard thing to do. It's not enough to win the match-- which it seems almost certain that Dok isn't going to do-- for that he'll need to figure out how to finish Fed off and follow thru on his leads.
After a busy couple of games, including one deuce-a-thon, Federer holds his serve. This might go to a three set, each set a tiebreak win. That'd be strange. In fact, it'd apparently been unprecedented. No match at the US Open has been decided solely through tiebreaks.
7:15
Federer wallops his way through the third set, winning it handily 6-4. He decides to bring his really impossible-to-beat game at th emoment when his opponent no longer really had any chance of beating him. Not the most exciting strategy, but the match had its moments. Federer falls to the ground with joy. Djokovic has a big smile on his face when they shake hands. One of the commentators talks about a special 60 Minutes on Pavorotti. John McEnroe says he did a TV special with Pavorotti. Pavorotti insisted on jumping the net and fell on his face. Federer shakes the judges hands, as does Djokovic. The match is over.
Recent Comments