COVER STORY: OCTOBER 2007

By Matthew Cronin

When the lights went out at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on the final Sunday, the two top seeds, Roger Federer and Justine Henin, had coolly walked away with the trophies.

But four of America’s five most popular players — Andy Roddick, James Blake, Serena Williams and Russian and L.A. resident Maria Sharapova — left angry and disappointed. Only Venus Williams — who notched terrific wins over Serbs Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic before falling to Henin in a well-played match — could walk away with her head held high.

Read more … First Serve Federer as Houdini Henin as champion

Defending champion Sharapova went out first, in a shocking 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 loss to ambitious Polish teen Agnieszka Radwanska. She lost six straight games to let go of the contest. She was confused, had lost her feel for the ball,  and couldn’t contend with the wind. She had lost all faith in her game, and it no longer mattered how hard she was fighting. She no longer had a go-to shot, as her serve had deserted her, and she had lost accuracy with both her backhand and forehand. There was no point in just cutting loose on the ball, because nearly every time she did, she yanked one wide or flew it long.

Her normally steely self-confidence had disappeared into the sunny haze of the New York sky and she didn’t look at all the part of the woman who had bullied her way to two Slam titles.

It was arguably the worst six- game stretch that Sharapova ever played.   “I don’t feel like I had that belief that I usually do,” Sharapova said. “I don’t know whether I put a lot of pressure on myself coming into this event, because I felt like I was starting to play a lot better.  I felt really good physically.  I felt healthy. It just wasn’t there. I don’t know if it was a combination of the circumstance or the wind or the opponent playing well.  I don’t know what it was.  I just didn’t quite feel like me out there.”

There is very little that Sharapova can take out this season, especially at the Slams, where she has underperformed in all her losses.  She was never in her matches against Serena in the Aussie Open final, against Ivanovic in Paris, or against Venus Williams at Wimbledon. Then she handed Radwanska, an 18-year-old rookie who keeps rats for pets, a delicious piece of cheese to snack on. “Clearly, it hasn’t been my best year,” Sharapova said.  “But that’s the way things go.  I got to take the good and I got to take the bad and I got to move on. It’s disappointment. There’s no happiness, I’ll tell you that.  But  I have a whole future ahead of me.  I’m not going throw myself a pity party.”

Blake went out next and he may never have a better quarter then he had at the ‘07 U.S. Open. He was placed away from the top three favorites: Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. His task: outlast No. 10 Tommy Haas in the fourth round and beat down No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko in the quarters. Even if Blake  ended up losing to Federer in the semis, he would have improved upon his best Slam result, which now stand at two quarters.

But the most popular man at the U.S. Open couldn’t pull it off, when Haas seriously upped his level at crucial moments, and Blake failed to do so, en route to losing  4-6, 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 7-6(4).

Blake is always entertaining in NYC and has a load of talent, but he has yet to prove that he’s mentally tough enough to win a critical five-setter against another elite player. He’s now 1-10 in five setters, with his only win coming in the second round over the 34-year-old Fabrice Santoro.

Blake is 27 and likely has three decent years left at the Open, but until he shows that he can maintain his composure when the going gets super-tough, he won’t have a major breakthrough. He came back from a 2-4 deficit and was fortunate that he didn’t go down two breaks to 2-5, as Haas just missed a backhand return of serve winner.

But no matter, Haas grew a little nervous, Blake’s whizzing groundstrokes began to find their range again and he jumped out to  a 5-4 lead and held three match points. But Haas nutted up, and nailed three winners.

The tiebreaker should have been Blake’s because the crowd was willing to lift him on their collective shoulders. After he crushed a backhand-down-the-line return winner to knot the breaker at 3-3, there was hope. Then came the point of the tiebreak, when Haas put together an incredible two-topspin-lob combo to grab a 4-3 lead. Then the collapse came. Blake double faulted and dumped an easy inside out forehand to give Haas three match points. Blake grabbed one in a challenge when his backhand winner was called good, but on the second challenge, it was Haas who was able to smile when he hit an ace out wide that was ruled in.

“ Felt like I was playing great,” Blake said. “He came up big.  I feel like I just pushed a couple of balls and ended up playing a little tentative in that tiebreaker. But I’m not going to make as big a deal out of it as a lot of other people will.”

Next to go was Roddick, who came with everything he had against Federer in the quarters.  He bombed first and second serves. He scorched his forehand, whipped his backhand, rushed the net and stared the Swiss down. But it didn’t matter a lick in the results department because in the end, Federer came away with a 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory.

Make that 13 victories in 14 tries for the world No. 1 over America’s top male. Make that a thoroughly emotionally devastating defeat for Roddick, the fast-talking American who was so upset after the defeat that he could barely string a few sentences together when he wasn’t spitting out counter-arguments, and who allegedly went nuts dropping f-bombs on himself in the locker room.

“ I’m not walking off with any questions in my head this time,” Roddick said. “ I’m not walking with my head down.  I played my ass off.  I played the right way.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed off.”

Bewildered is more appropriate. Roddick nailed 42 winners to only 24 unforced errors. He didn’t face any break points in the first two sets. He had Federer on his heels during numerous points on his own service games. But when crunch time came in the tiebreakers, he was a mere mortal while Federer was a stone-faced deity.

At 4-4 in the first-set tiebreaker, Roddick came into net and Federer whipped a forehand crosscourt passing shot by him. On the next point, he pulled off the same shot from the backhand side. Roddick then hit a crisp backhand volley winner on Federer’s first set point, but then the Swiss stepped up to the service line and, of course, banged an ace.

The second set was just as competitive and Roddick kept swinging hard, just like his coach, Jimmy Connors, told him to do. They entered another tiebreaker. They went to 4-4 again and this time Federer pulled off one of those shots they will play again and again on a highlight reel. Roddick came down the tee with a 140-mph bomb and Federer reflexed a backhand return that soared within an inch of Roddick’s toes and nearly burned off his shoelaces.  “I didn’t make mistakes,” Roddick said. “ If he hits a 140, hits the back of the line, whatever. I’ve seen it done too many times.”

Roddick may be a lesser player than the Swiss and without the same athleticism and innate ability to see all the acute angles on the court, but bloodied and beaten, he’s willing to keep lifting himself off the canvas. “If I feel sorry for myself, I’m a real asshole,” Roddick said. “I get to play in atmospheres like that and get a lot of opportunities.  I’m very lucky.  If I start feeling sorry for myself, I need a serious sense of perspective.”

Serena was the last to go down and, although she lasted longer than Sharapova, her defeat was more calamitous. Her flights of overconfident fancy came home to roost when she was completely out-classed by Henin, 7-6 (3), 6-1 in the quarters.

Let the discussion as to who has had a better ‘07 die on Serena’s head wrap, as the eight-time Slam champ was beaten badly in every department by a woman who not only doesn’t fear her, but thinks she’s better than she is and, at least for this summer, has proved it.

There can be no excuses for Serena this time and she only made one — that Henin — “made a lot of lucky shots,” but she credited the Belgian with playing more aggressively and said that she was physically fit. But even though Henin played a heroic and clean contest and designed a perfect strategy, Serena was below her level.

Her normally reliable big serve was sporadic, her net game was an embarrassment (5 for 14 at the cords, no, thank you), her backhand was little more than consistent and Henin kicked the strings out of her forehand. After the first set, she stopped moving her feet and the little and lethal Belgian took it straight to her.

After Serena lost the match on her 28th unforced error, she left the court in tears, briefly stopped in the locker room and then didn’t bother to recompose herself before coming into the press conference and then put on a worse performance there than she did on court. She was sullen, combative and unwilling to say anything revealing as to why her level dropped so much.

When asked whether her lack of matches coming into the tournament might have affected her, she replied: “No....I mean, I don’t think it did.  Maybe it did.  I don’t think so.”

Serena was clearly more disappointed than she was in Paris or London, but didn’t want to speak to the level of depression. “ I really don’t feel like talking about it, to be honest,” she said. “It’s like I don’t want to get fined.  That’s the only reason I came.  I can’t afford to pay the fines because I keep losing.

Who knows where Serena goes from here? She obviously needs matches, but if history is any kind of teacher, she’ll hardly play during the fall, if it all. If she doesn’t, she might not qualify for the Sony Ericsson WTA Championships.

All credit to Henin though, because not only did she and coach, Carlos Rodriguez, design an excellent strategy as to how to beat Serena, she executed when she had to. Henin not only has a great sense of what her foes’ weaknesses are, she exploits them. Unlike so many other players, she plays Serena the right way. She’s stands back far enough to return her first serve and doesn’t try to do more than get it back except when it’s soft, and then always attacks her second serve. She hammers away at Serena’s forehand until she can break it down, and most importantly, she almost never serves out wide with her second serves, taking away Serena’s much favored down the line returns. Sharapova, who has a world of trouble returning Serena’s serve, should take note.

“ If I’m too far from my baseline, if I don’t move forward, I have no chance to win this kind of match,” said Henin, who beat Serena for the first time on hardcourts in a rivalry that now stands at 6-6.  “But it’s true that tactically it was very clear in my head what I had to do.  It’s very important to do it from the first point to the end.  She loves to have the control of the rallies.  She loves to be in the court.  She doesn’t like to be under pressure, especially on the forehand side.”

Henin was then asked if this win is in some ways more satisfying than her French Open and Wimbledon victories over Serena, given that clay is almost conceded to Henin and Serena was hurt at Wimbledon.

“Yeah, there’s nothing to say about my win today,” Henin said.  “I was playing good.  She’s at home.  She expected a lot of things here.  She had a lot of motivation, like I had.  So that gives satisfaction.”

If there’s one positive that can be taken out of the loss, it’s that Serena appears to be ready to chase Henin towards the end the earth.

“ I got to go back and study and figure out how to beat her,” Serena said. “ That’s it. Bottom line.”

 

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