The caliber of play at the US Open confirms suspicions that a new era has arrived in tennis.
The clock on the wall says 1:10am. The third set has just started. M.J. went to bed at 10pm, and said she wasn’t happy about being a tennis widow. But she was kidding on the square…I think.
I told my friends Phil and Susie that there was no way I was going to be able to stay up for the entire match and was hoping someone would run away with it. Silly me! Then I would have missed this! Oh, did I mention that Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer just started the fourth set, with Ferrer leading 6-7, 6-4, 7-6? And these guys look as though they’ve just warmed up.
I can barely go two hard sets. Points I play last maybe five, six shots, and there’s only all out running on one or two of those shots. And here I sit, looking at a brand of tennis being played in the Open unlike anything I have seen in the 33 years I’ve been involved in the sport.
The players of this game are so fast, so powerful, can hit such incredible angles with pace, and recover so quickly after multiple sprints during a point, that I am certain that this game has never been played before. I watched Laver, Sampras, Borg, Agassi, McEnroe, and none of them played this brand of tennis.
I am not questioning whether the greats of yesteryear could have competed in a similar fashion if they had the same equipment, if they had similar training methods, etc. I am merely saying that regardless of the reasons, the brand of tennis on both the men and women’s professional tours has not been played before. I’m losing some sleep, but gaining an incredible experience. Game, set, and match…
