Notable Results:
- New Haven QF: Camila Giorgi d. Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-2
- New Haven SF: Magdelena Rybarikova d. Camila Giorgi 6-2, 6-4
- Winston-Salem QF: Jerzy Janowicz d. David Goffin 6-4, 6-2
- Winston-Salem QF: Sam Querrey d. Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7(3), 6-2, 6-4
- US Open Qualifying 2R: Maria Sanchez d. Yulia Putintseva, 6-2, 6-4
- US Open Qualifying 2R: Borna Coric d. Stefan Kozlov, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2
- US Open Qualifying 2R: Marsel Ilhan d. Alexander Zverev, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(5)
- US Open Qualifying 2R: Yoshihito Nishioka d. Thanasi Kokkinakis 7-5, 4-6, 6-4
News and Analysis:
The New York Times took a closer look at the USTA’s finances. What they found was … unsurprising:
Jeff Williams, the longtime publisher of Tennis Media Company, sits on the board of directors of the United States Tennis Association, the sport’s governing body and the organizer of the star-studded United States Open.
Williams’s company is also the U.S.T.A.’s single largest contractor, having received $2,782,700 in 2012, a relationship that the U.S.T.A. has not clearly disclosed in its public filings.
Tom Perrotta wrote a great piece on female coaches in tennis, focusing on the Murray-Mauresmo relationship:
Signing up Mauresmo shouldn’t be seen as bold or newsworthy, especially in tennis, the most successful women’s pro sport in the world. Yet despite all the female talent in tennis, women coaches are few. On the men’s tour, only two other top-50 players work with women—one with his wife and one with his mother. Coaches on the women’s tour, too, are rare. But Murray moved quickly to hire Mauresmo, and they plan to work together long-term.
“Once I started to grow up and think for myself and know what I want, it was a lot easier for me to think, ‘Actually, there’s absolutely no reason why I couldn’t work with a female coach,'” said Murray, who learned the game as a child in Scotland from his mother, Judy. “Maybe it doesn’t cross many players’ minds. Maybe it will now.”
I enjoyed this New York Times piece on Sascha Bajin, Serena Williams’ hitting partner:
Bajin sometimes mimics the playing styles of Williams’s opponents to get her ready for matches. When he and I spoke, he was about to warm her up for a match against Samantha Stosur of Australia. “So I already know that I have to slice a lot of backhands, hit forehands with a little more topspin and come to the net,” he said. He has helped Williams prepare for matches against her sister, but mimicking Venus’s style, he says, is pretty straightforward: “You just have to hit the living crap out of the ball.”
Eugenie Bouchard eats baby food, apparently:
As Bouchard starts inching her way into adulthood, she might be expected to start making her own decisions, but the stakes are high, the money big. Facing responsibilities beyond her years, she has resisted some of the usual mileposts along the way. She has refused to learn to drive — “It’s too scary” — which means that her mother still must accompany her almost everywhere. For someone so sophisticated in so many regards, she has a most unsophisticated crush on Justin Bieber, which she admitted at the Australian Open, to loud booing from the Genie Army. For a snack, she often eats baby food, small jars of pears and even creamy rice cereals. She started eating them, like everyone else, as an infant, but never stopped. Elle Quebec asked her to name her biggest fear. “Getting older,” she said. “I swear, I’m really afraid of it.”
The New York Times is doing an amazing job with their coverage. Here’s a wonderful piece about the 1984 US Open final, with Martina Navratilova and Chrissie Evert looking back on the match:
JAMES KAPLAN: Coming into the ’84 U.S. Open final, Martina, you had beaten Chris 12 times in a row. It must have been a tense afternoon — especially since the match couldn’t even start until the conclusion of Ivan Lendl and Pat Cash’s semifinal, which turned out to be a five-set marathon.
CHRIS EVERT: Very often at tournaments, Martina and I were in the locker room together on the last day. Early on I noticed that we had different ways of preparing. Martina always seemed to have a little restless energy; she was a little more hyper than I was. I had to empty my mind; I kind of went into a state of nothingness — maybe it was a form of meditation. That afternoon, we were ready to play about three or four different times when we thought the Lendl-Cash match was going to be over. I was almost afraid to watch that semifinal; meanwhile Martina was eating all the time and saying, “Oh, Lendl won the set; we’re not going to be on for another hour.”
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA: I am much more oblivious to the emotional ebbs and flows. Chris is much more attuned to that stuff — before the match she knew what she needed to do. I was kind of in my own world. After Chris retired, she told me, “I always knew before the match whether you were going to play well or not, because if you were nervous and peppy and talkative, you were confident, and if you were quiet, you were just nervous.”
Radek Stepanek’s shirts for the US Open have to be seen to be believed:
Jeff has some great US Open pages on Tennis Abstract that you should bookmark: US Open men’s forecast, US Open women’s forecast, ATP players’ US Open history, WTA players’ US Open history, and a US Open men’s event history page, with every record you could ever want related to the tournament.
Tennis on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/PPolansky/status/502887806889644032
She gave me this look this morning pic.twitter.com/pJ6ncQotFv
— victoria azarenka (@vika7) August 22, 2014
Look who came to take a #selfie ! #awesome #cute #NYC pic.twitter.com/5bHglz65lw
— Alla Kudryavtseva (@AllaK11) August 22, 2014
@NickKyrgios I usually get called bossy instead of boss so consider yourself followed back haha
— Alison Riske-Amritraj🇺🇸🇮🇳 (@Riske4rewards) August 22, 2014
Poison Stepanek now!