Bill Simons
HARD TO BRUSH ASIDE THE EVIDENCE: Jon Wertheim said all the talk of Federer’s retirement is like climate change. “It was lurking for years. We all knew some basics about time and science and physics – and in this case, biophysics. We knew the happy status quo was unsustainable. But we brushed it aside. Now, the irrefutable evidence is confronting us.”
HAVOC BEYOND THE BASELINE: It’s the American hardcourt season, and chaos beyond the baseline again disrupted the run of a favorite to a seemingly certain victory. At last year’s US Open, Rafa and Roger were nowhere to be seen and Novak Djokovic was methodically mowing down everyone in sight. Then he hit a lineswoman with a ball and was booted out of the Open. This year in Cincy, No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev was cruising in the semis. He’d never lost to Andrey Rublev and was dominating. Then, during one of his fleet sprints beyond the baseline, he collided with a courtside camera. Amidst the chaos, he kicked the camera, said he almost broke his hand, couldn’t play and would sue. Daniil’s game soon went awry. He dropped 11 of the next 16 games and for the first time in six matches lost to his fellow Russian.
TENNIS CAMERA MOMENTS: In addition to Medvedev’s mishap, other memorable camera moments come to mind:
- John McEnroe’s best hope for the 1984 French title vanished after he got distracted by an NBC cameraman and launched into a rant.
- The clever theme of Andre Agassi’s “Image is Everything” Canon camera ad campaign drew wide attention. Unfortunately, as TV cameras focused on his new celebrity girlfriend, Brooke Shields, as she was taking photos from the sidelines, it was hard to ignore that she was using a Nikon.
- Rafa Nadal bowled over a TV camera as he sprinted to the back court after the coin toss at one of his Canadian Open matches.
- Arthur Ashe married the superb photographer Jeanne Moutoussamy. They named their daughter Camera.
- Venus Williams joined a cadre of French Open photographers to take pictures of her sister right after Serena won the Roland Garros title.
- Stefanos Tsitsipas quoted photographer Ted Grant: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. When you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls.”
- This year, after Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon, he clamored up to the Friends Box. Then, as he returned to the court, he took a selfie with a fan.
- On his wedding day to Tatum O’Neal in Carmel, CA, McEnroe was pleased it was cloudy because it meant photographers would have bad light.
- The 1970 photo of the Original 9 pioneers holding up dollar bills is the most iconic picture in tennis history.
QUOTEBOOK
“I never met her, but I love her.” – Andy Roddick on Ash Barty
“Roger [Federer] is irreplaceable for aesthetics, game style and personality. We will not see a player like him again.” – Richard Gasquet
“Tsitsipas is a player without borders.” – Mark Petchey
“Daniil Medvedev takes your legs, then he takes your soul.” – Andy Roddick
“Stop crying, for God’s sake!” – Cincy winner Alexander Zverev to his dad
“If you can survive junior tennis you can survive anything…Anything goes. You can’t expect an 11-year-old to agree on a call.” – Genie Bouchard
“Karolina Pliskova can find a dark place very quickly.” – Jason Goodall
“Benoit Paire is just the evolutionary Ernests Gulbis.” – Alex Gruskin
“Strength isn’t about how much you can handle before you break. It’s about how much you can endure after you are broken.” – Coach Tim Siegal, whose son Luke passed away due to pneumonia caused by COVID
MY DADDY THE BANK: In the Montreal awards ceremony, Tournament Director Eugene LaPierre said his sponsors were a family. “This year it is with daddy National Bank, mommy Rogers and kid IGA.”
ZVEREV ZOOMS: While Wimbledon and Cincy winner Ash Barty was the leading WTA player of the summer, Alexander Zverev was the hottest ATP player. He not only beat Djokovic en route to Olympic gold, he beat Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev to win Cincinnati, his fifth Masters. Previously, the 24-year-old had never won a match in Cincy. He’s on an 11-match winning streak.
COACH-GATE: Zverev had just won the first set of his Cincy semi against Tsitsipas, yet he was howling. After all, Stef is an emphatic proponent of legalized coaching, and he had a long history of being illegally coached by his dad Apostolos. Now he’d left the court with a bag that could have had his cell phone. Zverev shouted to the ump, “Do something, go check!…His dad is on the frigging phone now the whole time. He did the same thing in Paris and it is going to be the same thing every other tournament!”
Immediately cameras showed his dad intently texting. Stef was gone for over nine minutes and immediately tried to implement new serve and volley tactics.
You might think that after Zverev won their epic battle there would have been a testy exchange at the net. Instead, the two were chummy as Zverev told the Greek, “We have unbelievable matches.” Amazingly, in his press conference, Zverev wasn’t asked about the incident. (Inside Tennis was not called on.)
In his Tennis Channel interview the German, who later won the Cincinnati title, said he is “someone who likes to play by the rules…I never take a medical or a bathroom break when I don’t have to. But the rules are very bendable…It’s a little frustrating – but it’s all good.”
For his part, Tsitsipas said, “I don’t think it would be very nice if I changed shorts on the court in front of everybody…I’m a person that sweats a bit more than others…People have to understand. I’m not going to stop doing it [going into the locker room], because it makes me feel better when I step out on the court… [to] begin the new set.”
A RUDE COMMENTARY: As the rising Norwegian Casper Rudd swept through yet another opponent in Cincinnati, Andy Murray quipped, “Casper, why do you have to be so Rudd?”
REPORTED RAFA INSURRECTION: Jon Wertheim noted that Nadal’s foot “is in a state of insurrection and, at 35 – married, with a plot of land ready for a family – you wonder how much more rehab and testing and ‘went to a specialist’ he is willing to endure.”
NICK’S NO-SHOW: Withdrawals are becoming a way of life in tennis. And when it was announced that Nick Kyrgios had withdrawn from his much anticipated opening round match against Andy Murray in Winston-Salem, fans showered the arena with boos. Kyrgios was not happy how it was handled and said on Instagram, “I love the facility, it’s really great. To play Andy Murray, one of my good friends and a tennis icon, would have been amazing, but obviously I have to look after my body. I just didn’t feel as if the risk was worth [playing] today. I’ve got to be more cautious with it, keep rehabbing, keep training.”
ACCESSORIES MATTER: While reflecting on all the gold necklaces Alexander Zverev wears, Andy Roddick quipped, “I was actually hoping Zverev would wear his gold medal along with the Mr. T starter set he usually wears.”
GO FIGURE: In the semis and finals in Toronto, Daniil Medvedev beat almost 14 feet of players – 6’ 10” John Isner and 7’ Reilly Opelka…For the first time in history all four top seeds made the Cincy semis and in the first 5 ATP Masters 1000 of the season, there were 10 different finalists…Camilla Giorgi was ranked No. 71 when she beat Karolina Pliskova for the Canadian Open title.
FROM TEARS TO TRIUMPH: Injury-plagued Jil Teichmann, ranked No. 75, had been navigating the worst months of her life. Tears flowed. Then she got a wildcard into Cincy. There she scored a shock three-set win over Naomi Osaka, beat the Olympic champion and her fellow Swiss Belinda Bencic and downed Pliskova. But she quickly fell to Ash Barty in the finals. Barty has been on quite a road trip this year. She’s won five titles in 2021.
NAOMI OSAKA – ‘I WAS UNGRATEFUL:’ During her first WTA circuit press conference in months, Naomi Osaka looked down. She teared up for no apparent reason and then, for a while, left the podium. But in her next presser she was calm, expressive and interesting. She let us into her thinking with this provocative reflection: “I was wondering…what made me not want to do media in the first place. Then I was…wondering if I was scared because sometimes I would see players losing and then the headline the next day would be like a collapse or they’re not that great anymore.
“So then I was thinking every day I should feel like I’m winning…To go out there and play, to see that people come out and watch me play – that itself is an accomplishment. I’m not sure when…I started desensitizing that. It started not being like an accomplishment.
“So I felt like I was very ungrateful…This whole COVID thing was really stressful with the bubbles and not seeing people, not having interactions. I guess seeing the state of the world, how everything is in Haiti, how everything is in Afghanistan, is definitely really crazy. And for me to just be hitting a tennis ball in the United States right now and have people come and watch me play is…like I would want to be myself in this situation rather than anyone else in the world.”
BRING IN THE CLOWNS: Gael Monfils was struggling in his Toronto match against John Isner. So he began to wildly jump and gesture as John was about to serve. His antics prompted Roddick to tell his fellow broadcaster Lindsay Davenport, “You act like you never have heard of [the tactic] confuse and conquer…It was as if he wanted to start a circus and if that didn’t work, it was ‘Head for the exits.’” All this brought to mind the most imaginative Davis Cup cheerleader ever, Jojo, the Zimbabwean clown, and this lovely old ramble by Yannick Noah: “All the court is a stage and players are characters…There is the serious one, the one who always screams at the umpire, the one who never says a word, the one who is a clown. I am the clown.”
POPPING UP: Aslan Karatsev, who was ranked No. 113 and making his Slam debut, came out of nowhere to reach the 2021 Aussie Open semis. Genie Bouchard interrupted the rehabilitation of her shoulder to pop up on Tennis Channel for a sometimes dazzling week as a guest commentator.
