Bill Simons
On Friday, 20-year-old Jenson Brooksby hit one of his astonishing two-handed backhand drop shots. No. 42 Taylor Fritz countered with a superb drop shot of his own for an apparent winner. But Brooksby took off on a mad, eight-step diagonal dash. He stretched out and let loose with an around-the-net flick that was just a foot off the ground and was one of the most incredible strokes in US Open memory.
His winner brought to mind Jimmy Connors’ around-the-net winner against Italian Adriano Panatta. And Brooksby’s nasty slice forehand reminds us of the former German pro, Florian Mayer. In the tradition of Seles, Sharapova and Azarenka, Jenson’s grunts rattle the rafters.
As much as anything, Brooksby is the ATP’s young answer to Ash Barty. He’s broad-chested and strong. But he isn’t your standard American power player. He doesn’t blow you off the court. He does a little bit of everything. His creativity and patience, guile and backhand are weapons. Sometimes his rally balls seem slow. But beware – he knows when to pounce. His serve is hardly a blur – but it’s effective. Most of all, he knows how to win. He soared this summer in Newport and Washington DC, and has had wins over Tomas Berdych, Kevin Anderson, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe.
Here is a unique young craftsman with tools few others can call on. His sounds have as much variety as his shots, and sometimes they seem as imposing. His baby face lingers. Still, he has a big-boy swagger – “Don’t tread on me.” A star seems to be in the making. He’s not a secret any more, and the rest of the tour is trying to figure out how to take this new guy down a peg or two. Saturday night he took on Russia’s secret weapon, Aslan Karatsev, on intimate Court 17. Brooksby had lost to the No. 21 seed at the French Open. He found himself down two sets to one here in New York. But the 6’ 4” battler rode the wave of the Labor Day weekend crowd, that roared, “Let’s go, Brooksby! Let’s go, Brooksby!”
After Jenson scored a stunning 6-2, 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 win, we’re certain that’s one chant that will be reverberating in tennis arenas for years. The kid’s for real. He’s the youngest American to reach the fourth round of the Open since Andy Roddick in 2002.
In the meantime, all Sacramento’s piano-playing pro has to do is face the No. 1 player in the world, Novak Djokovic, on the biggest tennis arena in the world, Ashe Stadium, on Labor Day. But no worries. The kid has a quiet self-assurance. He told us, “I believe I have the confidence to go all the way.”
LET’S GET LITERARY: We’re fond of placing the headline, “The Great Brooksby” on our stories about Jenson Brooksby. It’s a word play on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby. And here’s the tennis connection. In his storied novel, Fitzgerald talks about Flushing Meadows, the site of the current US Open, which he characterized as the Corona Dump, or the Valley of the Ashes. For decades there was a huge pile of ash some 90 feet high on the site. Amazingly, the ash pile that drew the attention of one of America’s great authors would become Ashe Stadium.
NO ROGER, NO PROBLEM! ROGERS’ SHOCK UPSET: Roger’s not here at the US Open. Federer is recovering from surgery. But Rogers won – that would be the popular American veteran Shelby Rogers, 28, who came back from two breaks down in the final set to end the Barty party 6-2, 1-6, 7-6. Broadcaster Cliff Drysdale gushed, “I’ve never seen such hustle as I saw from her at the end of the match.” The last American woman left in the draw will now face Britain’s teen sensation, Emma Raducanu.
HE’S GOT HIS NUMBER: Djokovic had a 17-2 record against Kei Nishikori before they met in the third round. So a reporter asked Novak before the match, “Do you have Kei’s number?” Nole replied, “Yes, I’ve got his number. It’s right here in my phone.”
THE MOST ELUSIVE STAT: THE LENGTH OF THE AVERAGE DUMP: So your first thought is that there’s never been such a ridiculous, tangential issue as bathroom breaks in tennis. It seems that tennis has dumped a load of attention on the topic. But then you think, “Hold on – these breaks in the flow of matches greatly impact the outcome of matches.” Momentum in sports is critical. Can you just interrupt the entire flow of a match? Three-time Slam champ Andy Murray said Tsitsipas’ nine-minute foray off court influenced the match.
Then you think, “This ain’t rocket science, guys. Come up with a rule for this, rather than the current vague one that says a player can take a break for a ‘reasonable time.’” In this tennis world of clocks and limits, make it simple. “Guys, you have six minutes for a break, women have more – but don’t dawdle.” Then Sloane Stephens’ immortal words come to mind. She told a male sportswriter, “If you’ve ever changed out of a wet sports bra, which I don’t think you have, you would know how difficult that is.”
Worse yet, veteran tennis official Richard Ings told writer Mike Dickson, “As someone who has written toilet break rules, it is a challenge to set a time limit on how long someone needs to take a dump. I tried statistical analysis of average dump times but there are outliers…”
Right. Tournament conditions vary greatly, men and women have different dynamics – and let’s not even talk about menstrual cycles. In fact, at least for now, maybe it’s time to cycle out of this curious topic.
THE SHANK KING: The Shank King is not the most popular lamb joint in Queens. Rather it’s Stefanos Tsitsipas. Brad Gilbert said he knows no other top player who hits more wild shanks that careen far beyond the lines.
QUOTEBOOK
“That was the most incredible match I think I’ve ever seen.” – Jan-Michael Gambill on Friday’s Carlos Alcaraz vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas epic match
“That’s the best five days I’ve seen at the Open.” – Brad Gilbert
“Frances Tiafoe might want to bottle this fifth set.” – John McEnroe after Tiafoe kicked butt in the deciding set against No. 5 seed Andrey Rublev.
“I still stick to the fact that Gael Monfils is the fastest player ever in tennis.” – James Blake
“You don’t find too many French players without good hands.” – James Blake
“Your life is your own and you shouldn’t value yourself on other people’s standards.” – Naomi Osaka
“Being able to continually self-improve, not just as an athlete but as a person as well. That’s still my biggest focus and priority.” – Ash Barty
“I’m glad Wayne Ferreira can’t hear you, because he’d come over and clock you.” – Cliff Drysdale, to his broadcast partner, who suggested that Frances Tiafoe change his forehand, mid-career
AND A CHILD SHALL LEAD US: First, 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz scored a shock upset over No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. Then 18-year-old Leylah Fernandez, ranked No. 73, downed defending champion and No. 3 seed Naomi Osaka. And today a third 18-year-old, Wimbledon sensation Emma Raducanu, downed the formidable Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo to reach the fourth round. The Brit said she plays better when she’s joyous. She told Inside Tennis, “To have so many young players coming through is just really great for the game, because it shows how strong this next generation is…I think we all inspire each other to play better…Today, I wanted to join them in the second week as well, so that was an extra bit of motivation. Both of them [Alcaraz and Fernandez] are very, very nice people.”
ALL OUT FOR PAT: Patrick Mouratoglou’s three glorious students, Serena, Coco Gauff and Stefanos Tsitsipas, are either out of the tournament or never arrived.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: When you think of New York, you think grit and grime, ample garbage and curious smells. But on a bright, post-Ida morning, it gleams.
NO COACHING RULE? WHAT NO COACHING RULE? After her win over Amanda Anisimova, Karolina Pliskova was asked why she was barking at her box. She replied, “I don’t think they were giving me any good advice.”
GOOD JOB, MOMMA! Victoria Azarenka no longer takes her son to the court. It’s too distracting to have her four-year-old nearby. She told Inside Tennis that during one doubles match he kept on saying, “Go, momma!” Then he points: “Good job, momma!” BTW: Vika sent out a whimsical tweet before last spring’s Miami Open, saying Leo has decided to skip this year’s Miami Open in order to prepare for the upcoming clay season.
WHAT NAOMI LEARNED: Before Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the US Open by Leylah Fernandez, Inside Tennis asked Naomi what she learned from her tumultuous experience of boycotting press conferences and drawing attention to the importance of mental health, she replied, “I feel like there’s a lot of things that I did wrong in that moment, but I’m also the type of person that’s very in the moment. Like whatever I feel, I’ll say it or do it…There’s a lot of things that I learned to do better. Of course, I don’t feel the same situation will happen again…I would say maybe I’ll think it through a bit more…[But] I didn’t know how big of a deal it would become.”
Just before the Open, Naomi visited her old neighborhood in Queens, where she lived from age three to eight after leaving Japan. She said, “It was definitely an incredible feeling. I hadn’t gone back there since I moved to Florida…The most awesome part about it is that all of the people that I remembered from when I was a kid were still there. They all came out…Honestly, it felt like a big family. Everyone there used to take care of me as a kid. Just to see them all being healthy and happy was an incredible feeling.”
AMERICAN SCOREBOARD: America started with 21 women in the Open. Shelby Rogers is the last standing. Three American men remain: Brooksby, Frances Tiafoe and Reilly Opelka.
