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September 10, 2022,
It has been a tale of two roads.
All roads lead to the 2022 US Open Finals but the first week of play compared to the second is incredibly different.
Why the difference? We only need to say one name.
Serena.
When the legendary Serena Williams announced that this would be her last US Open, ticket sales went through the Louis Armstrong and Arthur Ashe roof. The announcers kept saying they had never seen anything like this before.
Since Serena had not played many matches in the last year, and she only won one, the expectations for her competition in the first round was extremely low.
The crowd was just ecstatic to see her.
When she defeated Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic 6-3, 6-3, in the first round in front of an electric New York audience that cheered her every movement, we thought, what a wonderful way to go out. Especially since her next opponent was ranked number two in the world.
Then it happened again.
In the second round against Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit, before a delirious crowd, Serena had a tougher fight, but still dispatched the number two player in the world 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 6-2.
What was equally impressive was not only did she win, it was how she played, getting 64 percent of her first serves in and winning 73 percent of them.
Now, there was really a buzz.
Even we wondered the unthinkable.
Can Serena go all the way? Can she win the elusive 24th Grand Slam title?
The way she had been playing, it was not out of the question.
The buzz and energy at the US Open was like none we, nor the announcers Patrick McEnroe and Chris Everett, have ever seen.
Last year’s 2021 US Open was spectacular and unique when two unseeded players battled it out in the finals but even that unique storyline was nothing like this.
History could be made by arguably the best female tennis player to ever play the game and we all could be witnesses to it.
Then the dream came to a crashing halt when Serena, ahead in the first set, let it slip away and lost to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in three grueling sets.
At 40 years old, she absolutely needed to win that first set, but couldn’t.
Her first serve percentage dropped down to 57 percent.
And you know what?
As soon as Serena was gone, it was though the wind in the sails of the most important tournament of the year collapsed and went with her.
What was once electric, dynamic, energetic, globally talked about and historic became, well, ordinary.
Almost perfunctory. The tournament must go on, even without the magic.
You could feel it in the audience.
Even though three top seeded Americans in Coco Gauff, Danielle Collins and Jessica Pegula were still there, the electricity in the crowd absolutely wasn’t.
When those three played and eventually lost, the crowd was barely into it.
Now, you have a field of players from other countries that many seem to not really know, nor care about.
The second week in 2022, compared to 2021 or the previous Open’s where Naomi Osaka made her blistering runs, was very pedestrian.
We begin with Coco Gauff.
When France’s Caroline Garcia soundly defeated Ms. Gauff, 6-3, 6-4, Coco tried to get the crowd into it but a player’s play has to back that up. Coco could not.
The odd thing was, Coco got 78 percent of her first serves in but it was on the ground where she lost with Caroline hitting 74 points won to Coco’s 65.
Danielle Collins appeared to be streaking until she ran into Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka who not only defeated her but demoralized her 6-3, 3-6, 2-6. You could see it on Danielle’s face and the crowd wasn’t really into it.
They could have been if she competed better but Danielle was clearly out gunned.
Jessica Pegula is the greatest curiosity.
At 28 years old, she is a late bloomer, but better late than never.
This was her biggest opportunity ever.
The good news is that in 2022, Jessica has competed into the quarterfinals of three major Grand Slams.
That is not easy.
But she seems to have hit a wall.
She lost here to the number one player in Poland’s Iga Swiatek.
It wasn’t just that she lost, it was how she lost.
Iga Swiatek was not having a good day, being broken several times and not playing a dominant game at all. This match was absolutely not high level tennis. She gave Jessica plenty of chances to play well and take control of the match yet Jessica couldn’t.
Part of the problem for Jessica appears to be that she has no real weapons to hurt the top players.
The announcers acknowledged that Jessica is aware her serve needs to get better.
To us, it is more than that.
She doesn’t appear to have hard line drive ground strokes that can put a dagger in her opponents.
Jessica is very consistent and that is why she often is more consistent than the average player but once she gets to the elite, at least at this point, she just cannot over power them.
Too, she is so quiet on the courts.
Extremely quiet.
That is wonderful for the public library and the south wing reading room, but not the US Open.
Few fist pumps and come on chants. If any.
Even though she is from Buffalo, New York, a New York crowd barely had a pulse.
So, as you see, once Serena exited, it was almost as though the energy of the tournament exited with her.
So, in the finals we have Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur and Poland’s Iga Swiatek.
The interesting aspect to Iga’s game is that even when she plays poorly in the first set, as she did against Sabalenka and Germany’s Jule Niemeier, she has the steely determination to come back and up the level and intensity of her game.
Coming into the 2022 US Open, after a 37 match win streak, Iga had cooled down.
We’re beginning to see that with great champions, they win even when they are not playing their best.
Iga appears to be that kind of player. There is an incredible window of opportunity for her now.
Ons Jabeur has been playing some very solid tennis and she does how the power to hurt elite players as Caroline Garcia found out in the semi-finals.
So, Ons and Iga have finally made their journey to a Grand Slam final.
They will show up.
However, we wonder how much the crowd will.
~ ~ ~
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