← Served with Andy Roddick
Served with Andy Roddick
QUICK SERVED: US Open Day 7 - Zverev Falls, Sinner Dominates, Gauff/Osaka Collision Course, & more
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Hey everyone, John Wertheim Here it is, today's quick serve from the Serve Podcast. Andy's out celebrating his birthday. We will happily fill in and tell you what's going on from Saturday. We are officially in the business phase of this this tournament. We're now in the fourth round, round of 16. Saturday was sort of a tale of two sessions, day and night. It sort of turned into a party and things got exciting once the sun went down. Day session started out with familiar face. Coco G played first on Arthur Ash and you know what, she looked a lot like Coco Gauff. The kind of player who can win majors. All of sort of the drama and the melodrama and the emotions that had accompanied her first two matches really fell by the wayside. She had a pretty straightforward straight set win. Spoke to her after the match. I always feel like what players interview their interview schedule in the middle of a major often gives you some set into some sense of their mindset and the fact that she was sort of going through the car wash and doing interviews after the match I took was a good sign. Four double faults. That's sort of stat. Everyone is watching. But also look at her miles per hour on the serve. She served aggressively, really wasn't pushed and she's got to be thrilled with that. She plays Naomi Osaka next. Osaka, who of course has won this event twice. Be Daria Kazakina in three sets. People will remember their match here. I think it was six years ago when it was a very different Osaka and a very different Coco G and it wasn't particularly competitive. Expect a competitive match in the round of 16. We talked about this match on our draw show. We all had that circled. Now it is coming to Bear on. On Labor Day and I. It's an interesting matchup because when Osaka is at her best, she might be the better tennis player, the better pure striker. Coco Gauff is the better competitor right now. She is the better mover. She has more looks. It'll really be interesting. It'll see sort of what these. These biomechanics. I don't know how much of the biomechanical changes we can read into six sets of tennis that Coco is now played under her new coach, Gavin McMillan. They've obviously been working on the off days as well, but I think the way Coco manages this match will be the key. But this is a good Labor Day match. Jannik Sinner, the defending champion, the winner of the previous major, the number one seed, the player a lot of people think is going to win this event, he struggled. He did not have a great day against Denis Shapovalov, Lost the first set and was down a break in the third set. This could have been a really interesting match. And then Denis Shapovalov sort of retreated. In many ways, this is a metaphor for his career. A lot of flash, a lot of show, making a lot of shot, making a lot of style, but not a lot of great sort of, I guess, what I'd call match generalship. Some questionable shot selection. He got upset for silly reasons at his camp. He actually had a point to go up a double break in the third set. Imagine that you have the defending champion up two sets to one. Potentially. The opportunity slipped. Jannik Sinner was not broken. He then broke back, reeled off seven on the next eight games, and Jannik Sinner ends up with a victory afterwards. In the. In the transcript in the press, Yannick Sinner said he. He played well, which. Which I'm not sure if that's sort of protesting too much or. Or trying to convince himself or maybe he saw a different match than the rest of us. I mean, he was barely dropping games in his first two matches. Was tested more than three hours, four sets over Dennis Shapovala. But Yannick Sinner advances. So does the other Wimbledon singles champion, IGA Chante. She really struggled. She was down five sets. She was down five. One in the first set against Anna Kalinskaya. Dangerous player. And then IGA sort of locked in and Kalinskaya retreated. We've seen this movie before, and IGA survives. Remember, she lost a set in her second round match. And you figured, okay, this is sort of the loose match. You're not playing eight plus 10 is for seven rounds. This is that one match where she sort of survives and advances. But IGA looked a little shaky yesterday, especially in the early going, but ends up prevailing. Sometimes that can be a disguised blessing. Other winners yesterday, before we get to the crazy night session, sort of one of these sub stories and this is what always happens in these tournaments. The singles draw is what it is. But we have off court controversy. We have Yelena Ostapenko, we have a guy stealing a hat. We also have more happily, Venus Williams, age 45. She entered the mix, she entered singles and acquitted herself quite well. And now here she is with Layla Fernandez, her second favorite doubles partner after her sister. They won another round. So Venus Williams, who actually looks really good on the double score, stands to reason, right? I mean, you're 45 years old, cover half the court. You are with a. It's sort of an interesting lefty righty combo with Layla Fernandez. But they advance yet again to the delight of the crowd and also honestly the delight of the schedule makers. With Ben Shelton and Francis both going out. The USTA is probably quite pleased that Venus Williams is sort of a bonus session. Other results. BIA had Toad Maya of Brazil, who's a fine player who really struggles in majors. Well, not this one because she beat Sakkari 1 and 2 to advance. We talked about Osaka, Lorenzo Musetti. We had three retirements on the men's side and I should add it's really been gorgeous weather out here. I mean I met. Usually this is sort of the last gasp of summer before we bleed into fall. But you know, we're accustomed to seeing long lines at drinking fountains and where sunblock and this sort of sticky Labor Day weekend New York humidity, none of that. I mean, it's been. The weather's been absolutely gorgeous. So it's not as though we're playing in 100 degree days, but we had three retirements yesterday. One of them was was Flavio Caboli, who's played a lot of tennis. He had played five centers in both of his first two matches. Andy talked about that win over Jensen Brooksby and Caboli just didn't have much for Lorenzo Musetti who suddenly, for a guy who's really struggled once he's come off the clay, has now made the second week of this major. Colton Wong, the first player from Hong Kong to win a main draw match. A guy who trains at the Nadal Academy gave Andre Rublev all he could handle. Colton Wong was just walking around with this perma smile on his face. I sort of asked him what he's doing in New York and he asked him trying to go to as many Asian restaurants as he could. Sort of this absolute. Just happy to be here, folks, for the qualifier. His run though, ended yesterday in five sets. Keep an eye on Colson Wong, though. Just a delightful kid. Also trains at the Nadal Academy. Discussion for another time, but the Nagal Academy had a great, sort of had a great tournament here. Joao Munar, also from the Nagal Academy, won yesterday. Rublev, by the way, is the one who beat Colson Wong. Nice to see Rublev back in the second week of a major. It's been a rough year for him. Amanda Anna Samova, coming off her Wimbledon final, is still alive. She gets through in three sets. I'm not sure she's played her best tennis here, but she is surviving. She is advancing. Carolina Mujava, who's been to the semifinals twice two years running, gets through in three sets over Naskova and then two. Two of the injured matches we were talking about, one of them was Musetti. The other one was Alex Diminore, who lost the first set against Daniel Altmeyer, the German with the one handed backhand. But then Diminore sort of had him right where he wanted him and Altmeyer faded. Diminour now into week two, all he does is win. Marta Kostc advances over Dion Perry. So there are no one handed backhands on the women's draw either. Alexandrova Owen, one over Laura Sigmund, 37 years old. My who remember he's probably best known as the guy who threw the hat that the Polish executive now ran, ran off with. He didn't have much against Riedel, the Swiss qualifier. So we have a Swiss qualifier into the round of 16. My shack. Let's take a little detour from tennis for a few minutes. Mike, how do we feel about this public shaming and this complete reputational overhaul? One day you're going about your life. You're at the US Open, you're wearing Gucci, life's good, you're stealing hats from kids and 24 hours later you're, you're the villain of the world. And the Internet spanking machine has got you. On the one hand, I'm glad people doing bad things are held accountable. At the same time, this guy's life is like going to be pretty, pretty destabilized for the foreseeable future. How do we feel about that?
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Yeah, I mean, when my wife saw it, my wife is quite the Internet sleuth herself and she was like, the Internet's gonna find this guy in like 25 minutes and, and they quite frankly did. I I think the sad part is is it's just a hat, right? It it from his perspective he's stealing just a hat from a kid. From my perspective this dude just made a bad decision in the moment. But I mean at the end of the day like you're down there with a bunch of kids holding giant tennis balls and you're acting like a, like a petty 8 year old, you know, I mean sometimes things happen for a reason, you know. So hopefully it's just short lived and hopefully there's a lesson from it for all of us in it.
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What does a Camille My Shack hat go for on on ebay, I wonder? You're kind of like dude, if you're going to trash your reputation, you're doing over a sweaty ball cap. The guy's probably got an extra one if you'd ask for him. Anyway, you know who loved that instance I think was Yelena Ostapenko. Sort of the, you know the, the villain, the villain of the tournament meter then PIV guy. Anyway, back to tennis night match is when things really got cooking. We had Alexander Zver who served for the title here five years ago. We've all agreed best player not to have win a major, not just active perhaps of all time but you know what, he holds on to that title because he went down to Felix O.J. alasim I, you know we, we could take either angle of this. One of them is just the window closing on Zverev. And for guy who came in here seated third, I don't think too many people thought that was an accurate reflection. I don't think he's necessarily anyone's bronze medal winner but yeah, I mean just, just a rough year for a guy who should notionally be in his prime. Sort of the, the same thing from Zev, right Passive play, positioned on his back foot, picked on the forehand and just did not have it. Another early round defeat at a slam. I you know the one of the beauties of tennis is you can you turn things around in 14 days and it only takes 21 sets to break the spell. But boy, the prospects of Alexander Zverev winning a major just seem sort of dimmer and dimmer and Felix really took the match to him. I mean Felix Olaj Aliasim is a just as lovely a guy as you will find out here. I'm not sure that's always consistent with playing great tennis. I mean we talk about sort of bully mindsets and being hyper competitive and Intensity. Those are not adjectives that come to mind when you talk about Felix personally. The backhand can be picked. I'm not, you know, he's only 25 years old, but he's really faded from conversation. I mean this, this was a matchup of two Tony Nadal proteges. That was sort of a thin storyline. I mean, this should have been two guys who've spent time in the top 10 competing for a title and they've both sort of Zverev and Felix sort of become, I don't want to say afterthoughts, but they've really faded from, from prime conversation. They've really faded from the Alcaraz center, who's going to attack them. And Felix all of a sudden, really from nowhere. I mean, again, this is the guy we barely mentioned in a, in a draw show or top 10 player, only 25 years old. You know, remember he pushed Rafa the five sets at the Roland Garros not long ago. And he's really sort of not in the conversation. But boy, that was a master class last night. That was sort of everything that's been missing, which is just aggressive tennis, good serving, the athleticism he brings to bear, staying in control. This is a self possessed guy. But there also was a level intensity. We don't always see him. And he played Jannik Sinner on Tennessee, a match Tennis Channel had in Cincinnati like three weeks ago. And it was, it was embarrassing. I mean, it was not remotely competitive. Even when they shook hands at the net, Felix sort of wore this expression of like, boy, we played two different sports today. For him to come back at the very next event, take out the number three seed and do it with this kind of authoritative tenets. This is one of the great wins of his career. And you say, you know, we know about this guy, he's from our neighbor to the north. I think everybody was sort of cheering for him just because of what a sort of lovely self possessed guy he is. It just the results haven't been there. Keep an eye on Felix. This really could, I mean, whatever, this could be one great, great night when everything worked. But this also, you have a feeling this could have unlocked something. So that the, the only, the last night match was Alexander Bublek against Tommy Paul. Bublek gets through in five sets. Bublek doing Buickian things. I watched a little full disclosure. Got out here, got out last night early. Did not stay for this. It ended in the, in the wee hours. But Bublek would sort of, you know, he, he'd be up 5:2 in the, in the breaker, double fault, miss a serve and then hit 119 mile an hour. Barely untouchable second serve. Sort of Buble doing Bublekian things. Coupled with Tommy Paul who clearly is physically compromised. Hasn't talked about it much but he was in a boot four weeks ago. But Bublek gets through. So it's sort of a. Seemed like a calm day. We had three injury retirements. Probably a function of, you know, just people playing a lot of tennis. Fourth major of the year. It certainly is not because it was 110 degrees out there. And then sort of things, things got interesting at night. What do we have on the docket for today? Let's quickly click the scheduling app. August 31st, Jesse Pegula back on Ash. That seems to be her starting point. We have sort of an interesting case. We've got Alcaraz and Djokovic both playing on the same day. Right. So we, we have two former champions, two of the great, sort of two of the great stars of our the USA this year has put two date matches on Ash, two night matches on Ash. They're really not deviating from that. What is that? And switching men, women, men, women. What does that mean? That means Taylor Fritz, the number one American, the guy who reached the finals last year once again is not playing Ash because Alcaraz and Djokovic are Taylor Fritz. You know, he may get to the quarterfinals and not play on the big stadium. But the day session kicks off with Jesse Pula. Then we've got Alcaraz against Arthur Rindernesh, former college player Djokovic against John Leonard Strouf, 38 vs. 35 in the age category. And then Rabakina Vondroseva is the night match. That's, that's a late match. Adrian Manarino, our 37 year old, 22 pound racket strong guy who beat Ben Shelton when Shelton had to retire. He gets Yuri Laheska. Barbara Krijikova against Taylor Townsend is a tennis purist delight. That is a great match that you know, if you're a tennis connoisseur, you can't do much better than Kurjikova against Taylor Townsend. I'll throw one out for you. Just as a side note, I was looking at the stats. Serving and volleying, not particularly popular technique and yet two great doubles players, Taylor Townsend and Barbara Kudrikova can both do it. Only 2% of the points so far played this tournament have been serve in volley points. And yet serve and volley as a strategy is successful. 68% of the time this tournament. So can you imagine that you. I'm, I'm, you know, someone says to you I'm going to give you a strategy. It's going to work more than two out of three times. You only need to win like 52% of the points and you're win this tournament. So two out of three points can be one serving and volume. And you say, well I'm only going to do that one out of 50 times. Make of that what you will. But we will see more than 2% serving volume when Taylor Townsend plays Barbara Kova. It's been great too that Taylor Townsend. If you heard her, you guys hear her explanation likening herself to a Phoenix.
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No, I, I didn't hear it.
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I encourage everyone to check that out. It is a, a wonderful metaphor that you really, I mean first of all the, the notion that this is, you know, this is a person lacking in education. This answer single handedly dispels that. But one of the great monologues of this tournament. I encourage everyone to find a Taylor Townsend likening yourself to, to. To a Phoenix. Uh, Taylor France again is an action against Mahats. That's a match he should be able to win fairly handily. Just does everything better. Mahacha could be entertaining and hits forehand a million miles an hour but it's not particularly durable. Is the kind of player Taylor Fritz should get through pretty easily. And arena Sabalenka is in action as well. We are firmly in Labor Day weekend. We are firmly in the guts of this tournament. We are again making that mid tournament pivot from fun chaos to all business. But the fourth round kicks off today. What I miss? Any question guys? Anything? We. We should be talking about that. We didn't.
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No, you. You covered it all. You covered it all.
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We'll be back tomorrow with another quick serve. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend tennis everyone. I'm John Wertheim. This is Quick Serve on the Served Media Network.
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