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Monday, August 26, 2019

US.1 - Has Karma, but Will It Travel?

Sascha Bajin has been here before. A year ago, he helped guide Naomi Osaka to the major result that changed everything. This year he's watching from the stands as Kristina Mladenovic tries to re-climb the mountain she never quite made it to the peak of a few seasons ago.

After today... so far, so good.



Mladenovic, a recent doubles #1 and not-that-long-ago-no-matter-how-far-back-it-seems-now former Top 10 singles player, has seen something of a resurgence in 2019 as she's re-assumed some of her more encouraging Fed Cup duties (helping the Pastries reach this fall's final) and turned back much of her nasty recent karma by acting, you know, more like a less judgmental internet troll and personal scold to any and every fellow player who doesn't bow to her every whim. She immediately saw an uptick in results when she brought aboard Bajin in the spring, but came into Flushing Meadows on a three match losing streak and 6-7 skid in her last thirteen matches.

Meanwhile, Mladenovic's 1st Round opponent, 2016 Open champ Angelique Kerber (#14 seed) had been headed in the opposite direction in recent months. Since reaching the Eastbourne final, the German had gone 1-4 heading into the Open and was yet to win a summer match on hard court. Without a title since winning Wimbledon last year, Kerber has dropped from #2 to outside the Top 10 this season, and recently sent coach Rainer Schuettler off into permanent exile from her team.

One wasn't sure what to expect in this one, but what we got was a nice battle on Grandstand that lasted three sets. Mladenovic's break for 6-5 in the 1st gave her a chance to serve out the set, which she did by gutting out a long, six-deuce game on set point #4 despite feeling a twinge in her back down the stretch.



The French woman was treated for a lower back injury (a spasm, maybe, she said afterward) after taking the opening set, and immediately dropped the 2nd at love.

She rebounded well in the 3rd, grabbing an early break lead and holding a 3-1 edge. Kerber got the score back to 3-3, but Mladenovic broke for 5-4. Serving for the 2nd Round, she went up 40/love, only to double-fault on her first match point. It didn't spark any drama, though, as the '15 U.S. Open quarterfinalist put Kerber away with a forehand winner.



After posting a Round of 16 result in Melbourne in January, Kerber's 2019 slam season has de-evolved into a 1r-2r-1r finish. Meanwhile, Mladenovic's next match vs. countrywoman Fiona Ferro will see her try to reach the 3rd Round of a major for the first time since last year's Wimbledon, and just the second time in the last ten slams.

Has Karmic Kiki turned a corner? If so, her draw is friendly enough to entertain a Round of 16 run, and maybe even something greater. Could Big Sascha, after laying the foundation at the Australian Open (w/ Naomi), be putting up the decorative wallpaper (w/ Kiki) for *another* Coach of the Year award?



Stay tuned.




=DAY 1 NOTES=
...as usual, the first order of business at any major is to move the very first name from one line to the next in the draw tree, and at this U.S. Open that player was a qualifier. Romanian Ana Bogdan raced to a 6-3/5-0 lead on fellow qualifier Harriet Dart today, and led love/30 on the Brit's serve, soon holding a MP. But Dart extended things a bit, holding serve and giving a slight chance to a few other players who were leading in the 2nd set of *their* matches to be the first into the 2nd Round. But Bogdan finally served out the win, converting on MP #3 to take the 6-3/6-1 victory.



Next up was for the First Seed Out to go by the wayside, and that turned out to be one #27 Caroline Garcia. After three consecutive 3rd Round results in New York, the Pastry was ousted in the 1st at a second straight major as Ons Jabeur won in straights. Garcia had battled back from a break down in the 1st set, saving SP and forcing a TB as she broke the Tunisian when she served for the set at 6-5. But Jabeur also saved a set point, and won 10-8 on SP #4 of her own, as a frustrated Garcia slammed her racket several times into her tennis bag in the changeover area in the aftermath.



Things went a bit more smoothly in the 2nd for Jabeur, as she took the set at 6-2.



...meanwhile, the match-up between #12 Anastasija Sevastova and Genie Bouchard was a continuation of recent trends. Sevastova's 6-3/6-3 victory was an important start for the (once again, as Aryna Sabalenka slipped out in the new rankings) world #11, should she truly want to join Alona Ostapenko as the second Latvian woman to reach the Top 10. She enters the week just 22 points behind #10 Sloane Stephens (also back in the Top 10 after a one week absence, and defending QF points from a year ago), but must back up her 2018 semifinal run. An early loss in Flushing Meadows could prove to be a big setback. But at least Sevastova has history on her side, having posted QF-QF-SF results the last three years in New York.

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#teamseva #usopen ?????????

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Bouchard is on the other side of the glass.

The player who in 2014-15 strung together consecutive SF-SF-F-4r-QF slam results has seen the Open become her personal hall of horrors in recent years, not coincidentally starting with her late night slip and concussion (and resulting long court battle with the USTA over it all) after a 2015 3rd Round win that seemed to show that the Canadian was back in fine form after back-to-back 1st Round exits at RG and SW19 following her aforementioned run of great results at majors.

Bouchard has gone 1-4 in New York since the incident, as her faltering overall results have seen her struggle to even stay in the Top 100 in recent years (she's currently #119). In her last ten MD appearances in majors, she's failed to once advance beyond the 2nd Round. Today's loss is Bouchard's 12th consecutive this season, and 14th in 15 matches. Oddly enough, this devastating stretch began with a loss to countrywoman Bianca Andreescu, whose defeat of Kiki Mladenovic also kicked off *her* 15-match losing streak two summers ago.

...#2 Ash Barty got off to a nervous start against Zarina Diyas, dropping an error-strewn five games to begin the match. But the Roland Garros champ pulled things together as the match wore on, ultimately winning 1-6/6-3/6-2. The Aussie has reached at least the Round of 16 at the last four majors.

...well, Dimitri Zavialoff can sleep well. For now.

In a match-up between his former pupil (Dasha Kasatkina) and his current charge (#16 Johanna Konta), the Brit outlasted the former Top 10 Russian in three sets, notching her first match win since Wimbledon and (maybe) calming down any inner agitation for sudden change that might have occurred had her summer hard court swoon included ZERO wins in North America.

The 2019 season has seen the two switch places, as Kasatkina will have to put something together in the 4Q to avoid falling out of the Top 50 this year after finishing '18 at #10, while Konta (who fell to #39 last year after back-to-back Top 10 campaigns) finally reasserted herself after a great clay court run (followed by an"okay" grass season, by her previous standards) led to her reaching the RG semis and returning to the Top 20 before her recent slip in results. While Konta had been 0-2 on hard courts in recent weeks, Kasatkina had gone 3-3, which was actually an encouraging stretch after she'd finally started to at least somewhat look like her "old self" again in recent weeks.

While the Russian's mid-set break in the 2nd had allowed her to take today's match to three, Konta rode out early breaks in both the 1st and 3rd to handily win the match 6-1/4-6/6-2.



A year after posting two QF and a Round of 16 in the majors, Kasatkina's 2019 slam 1r-2r-1r-1r results are going to have to lead to some serious questions to be answered come the offseason (if not before then), as she's gotten off to slow, almost underwater starts in recent seasons -- 2-2 in '16, 2-3 in '17, 1-3 in '18 and 0-4 in '19 -- even in what turned out to be good years. Unlike in the past, though, so far in '19 Kasatkina hasn't yet to find her way out back to the surface.

...in one of the early matches on Monday, Bernarda Pera (Bronx QF) battled back from a set down vs. Georgian qualifier Mariam Bolkvadze, who'd had a BP while up 4-3 in the 2nd, to knot the match by winning a 7-5 set, then took a 2-0 lead in the 3rd. But Bolkvadze, looking very Andreescu-like as she played with a wrapped right calf and left thigh, pulled out a 6-4 win in her debut grand slam MD appearance.



...elsewhere, playing without former coach Kamau Murray (who suddenly dropped her to head back to Sloane Stephens), Monica Puig fell to Rebecca Peterson. And while 2016 champ Angelique Kerber was ousted, so was 2011 winner Samantha Stosur (in the MD via a WC) at the hands of Russia's Ekaterina Alexandrova.

Two-time champ Venus Williams, in her 21st U.S. Open (tying Martina Navratilova's record) had no such problem with San Jose champ Zheng Saisai, destroying the world #38 in a match in which she dropped just one game.



Naturally, one of the 1st Round matches that looked promising -- #30 Maria Sakkari vs. this weekend's Bronx finalist Camila Giorgi -- turned into a destruction of the highest order as the Italian (who really knows?) may have still been simmering over losing a 3rd set break advantage over Magda Linette in Saturday's final. Sakkari won 6-1/6-0 in 56 minutes. Oh, and then there was this...




Here it is...



...of course, the headline grabber on Day 1 won't occur until the evening session, as Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova are set to meet for the first time ever at the U.S. Open, and at the earliest stage in any event ever. Their previous earliest meetings came in 4th Round matches in Miami (in their first head-to-head match-up in '04, then again in '07), while they were to have met in the Round of 16 in Paris last year had Williams not pulled out with an injury.

Serena's winning streak in the series stands at 18 in a row over a course of fifteen years, while she holds a 19-2 overall edge vs. the Russian.




"SCREW-OFF" ON DAY 1: (i.e. the standard response to the crowd -- who always pop their head out of their cat feces-strewn sandbox every year ending in a "9" -- who predictably jumped into this WTA Insider thread and took their place at the lectern to educate everyone about how "Well, the Gregorian calendar begins with year AD 1, therefore the first decade is from AD 1 to AD 10" and we are *supposed* to count 2020 as part of the current "decade"... you know, the same jerk-offs who also tried to scold everyone for celebrating the new millennium on December 31, 1999 rather the the "correct" moment a year later)



It's a collection of a series of sports results over a ten-season stretch in which every year ends in "201*," not determining the precise time and angle from which to launch the missle that will intercept the incoming asteroid that will otherwise wipe out all life on earth in 2035.

And, we'll probably do the asteroid's work all by ourselves by then, anyway. So, you know, let everyone else have their fun while you go and solve an equation or something.

via GIPHY



LIKE ON DAY 1:

Proof that some people do get some things right on occasion...




LINGERING RESERVATIONS ON DAY 1:

I still don't like the idea of fan voting for the Hall of Fame, as it seems patently unfair on many levels for an honor that should have nothing to do with "popularity" (even though the votes only serve to add a 3, 2 or 1 percent bonus -- for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place -- to the players' overall HoF voting total, where a 75% total gets the player into the Hall). I mean, I think it's pretty clear which player is going to get the 3% boost from this year's group (and he *is* the current leader). It doesn't help when the very first direction on the voting page is to "Select as many candidates as you feel are deserving of induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame" when, really, *all* four are.

If this is going to happen every year, then make it a 7 or 10 candidate ballot to promote a larger conversation (maybe that way the Italian FC team of 4 would have a shot at a group entry nomination, too) while having a, say, three-vote limit per ballot.




LIKE ON DAY 1:

Alexandra Stevenson has joined the ESPN crew, while Bethanie Mattek-Sands is around once again, as well. A former Wimbledon semifinalist, Stevenson seems to be a good addition. We'll see how long it takes the rest of them to ruin her.

(Thankfully, BMS might be immune to such a thing... well, crossing fingers.)


*THIS* ON DAY 1:

Umm...





...in recent years during the U.S. Open, this space has often taken on a musical bent, including a listing of songs about New York City to, last year, a string of videos from a grab bag of artists featured in an old unearthed box of cassette singles (remember those? Or not.). Over the course of the tournament, it all ended up evolving into a collection of facts and memories centered around songs from the likes of U2, Prince, k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett, and ultimately concluded with my personal Top 10 Madonna songs.

So, here we go again.

One of the ongoing topics of discussion around here (at least from my end) has been the WTA’s singular inability to put together an effective, satisfying and entertaining promotional campaign that takes advantage of the personalities and overall interesting nature of the Most Interesting Tour in the World. As I've noted, black-and-white and/or artistic photos only go so far, and are essentially just an act of "repainting the walls" every couple of years with another immediately forgettable campaign just a shade different from the last. What was this year’s, umm, *greeeeeaaat* attempt again? You know, the one that had absolutely zero chance of breaking through beyond the audience already paying attention to the WTA, and generally even boring *them* in record time.

Oh, yeah. The "#ItTakes (a nice but close-to-stock image with an accompanying word grabbed from a dictionary or thesaurus that can be applied to any number of players and didn't really do much to promote anything other than the tour marketing arm's thudding lack of creativity)" campaign. You know, *that* one. As predicted, it was pretty much out of sight, out of mind by sunrise (while Twitter users instantly put a better, more pointed twist on the idea than the tour ever could or would).

Now, I'm not going to dive into marketing ideas here once again, but it *is* true that promotional campaigns often come with music attached that acts as a Pavlovian trigger causing one to think about whatever pitch it was used with. So -- yes, as something of an excuse to search for old music videos and live performances again -- I thought I’d take this moment each day to step into a fantasy world where the WTA has the use of a series of famous “theme songs” with which to promote the tour.

Granted, the songs that’ll be spotlighted here are part of an unholy incomplete list of possibilities that fit this year's "And finally..." theme, but hopefully it’ll be fun, at least (and, of course, offer another chance to complain about WTA's promotional abilities).

As in the past, while I’ll try to make some sort of connection to the tour and/or its personalities to explain the choices, I’ll likely end up discussing a bit of the history of the song or artist, too, since that sort of thing generally pops up in the process of rooting out which songs and videos to use. In fact, by about Day 8 (or maybe 2) I’ll probably lose track of why I was doing this in the first place and just go off on some tangent about a particular performance or memory associated with a song (such as, upon rewatching one video I remembered that at its mesmerizing center was maybe the greatest single performance in a music video ever).

Anyway, that countdown officially begins today...

In something of a follow-up to the U.S. Open's Pride Day panel last Friday, I'll start by featuring songs from a pair of female musical icons, both with a distinctive stage presence, as well as a history of activism (often for issues such as LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS awareness) that has led them to be embraced not only by the gay community for their words and actions, but by music fans as a whole because, well, quite simply, they are awesome performers.

Since I got lost down a bit of a YouTube wormhole while looking for just one video (and instead found a few I wanted to use), I'll feature one of those "WTA Theme Song" artists today, and the other on Day 2. First up...

["Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Eurythmics, 1983]
...I figure this one could be the unofficial " WTA Social Media Theme" (listen closely to the lyrics and you'll understand):


"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" comes courtesy of the (mostly) 1980s British duo of Annie Lennox and David Stewart. Formed in 1980 from the remnants of the band The Tourists, Eurythmics were reliable hit makers until their initial (though unofficial) breakup in 1990, followed by brief reunions at the end of the nineties and in 2005.

At the heart of their success was the intoxicating image of the Scottish-born Lennox on stage and before the camera, with her close-cropped hair, androgynous looks and memorable performance style, she was almost immediately elevated to iconic status in the minds of anyone who saw or heard her perform just once. That "Sweet Dreams" was their first single released in the U.S., and promptly went to #1 and is still likely the song that instantly pops into one's head when any image of Lennox appears in the mind's eye, I think, pretty much backs up that notion.

Their success as a duo spun both off into successful post-Eurythmics enterprises, with Lennox as a solo singer and Stewart as a producer. Somehow they've not yet been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, though they've been nominated more than once.

["Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Annie Lennox, Live in Central Park (1995)]


["Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Eurythmics 1999 Peacetour Live]


["Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - Annie Lennox, An Evening With Nostalgia (2015)]

YouTube Research Find:

David Bowie and Lennox rehearsing (and then performing) "Under Pressure" before the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert in 1992. The rehearsal is really cool, with George Michael singing along in the background, Brian May playing guitar... and Bowie flawlessly working around smoking a cigarette while also handling a microphone), while the on stage performance gets really good in the closing moments at around 3:30.



To be continued...




One year after Kim Clijsters' comeback had kicked off with a U.S. Open title run, the Belgian returned to New York in 2010 and answered all questions about whether her second career stint was going to be as frustrating on the slam stage as her first had been. In truth, she was in the process of completely rewriting the opening paragraph of her career biography.

2010 Recap





City Sights...

















**U.S. OPEN "FIRST VICTORY"**
2009 Vania King, USA (def. Yakimova)
2010 Francesca Schiavone, ITA (def. Morita)
2011 Monica Niculescu, ROU (def. Mayr-Achleitner)
2012 Anna Tatishvili, GEO (def. Foretz-Gacon)
2013 Carla Suarez-Navarro, ESP (def. Davis)
2014 Aga Radwanska, POL (def. Fichman)
2015 Mariana Duque, COL (def. Kenin)
2016 Cagla Buyukakcay, TUR (def. Falconi)
2017 Kristyna Pliskova, USA (def. Eguchi)
2018 Jil Teichmann, SUI (def. Jakupovic)
2019 Ana Bogdan, ROU (def. Dart)
[2019]
AO: Rebecca Peterson, SWE (def. Cirstea)
RG: Petra Martic, CRO (def. Jabeur)
WI: Madison Keys, USA (def. Kumkhum)
US: Ana Bogdan, ROU (def. Dart)

**U.S. OPEN "FIRST SEED OUT"**
2005 #28 Flavia Pennetta, ITA (Schruff)
2006 #15 Anna-Lena Groenefeld, GER (Rezai)
2007 #29 Samantha Stosur, AUS (Cornet)
2008 #24 Shahar Peer, ISR (Li)
2009 #25 Kaia Kanepi, EST (K.Chang)
2010 #8 Li Na, CHN (K.Bondarenko)
2011 #5 Petra Kvitova, CZE (Dulgheru)
2012 #27 Anabel Medina-Garrigues, ESP (Hradecka)
2013 #29 Magdalena Rybarikova, SVK (Mayr-A.)
2014 #25 Garbine Muguruza, ESP (Lucic-Baroni)
2015 #7 Ana Ivanovic, SRB (Cibulkova)
2016 #30 Misaki Doi, JPN (Witthoeft)
2017 #32 Lauren Davis, USA (Kenin)
2018 #31 Magdalena Rybarikova, SVK (Q.Wang)
2019 #27 Caroline Garcia, FRA (Jabeur)
[2019]
AO: #14 Julia Goerges, GER (Collins)
RG: #5 Angelique Kerber, GER (Potapova)
WI: #10 Aryna Sabalenka, BLR (Rybarikova)
US: #27 Caroline Garcia, FRA (Jabeur)

**BACKSPIN 2019 WTA PLAYER-OF-THE-MONTH WINNERS**
JAN: Petra Kvitova, CZE
AO: Naomi Osaka, JPN
FEB/MAR: Belinda Bencic, SUI
I.W./MIAMI: Bianca Andreescu, CAN
APR: Petra Kvitova, CZE
MAY: Kiki Bertens, NED
RG: Ash Barty, AUS
JUN: Ash Barty, AUS
WI: Simona Halep, ROU
JUL/AUG: Jil Teichmann, SUI
AUG (pre-U.S.): Bianca Andreescu, CAN
[2019 Weekly POW Award Wins]
3 - Ash Barty, AUS
2 - Bianca Andreescu, CAN
2 - Kiki Bertens, NED
2 - Madison Keys, USA
2 - Petra Kvitova, CZE
2 - Karolina Pliskova, CZE

**BACKSPIN 2019 WHEELCHAIR PLAYER-OF-THE-MONTH WINNERS**
JAN: Yui Kamiji, JPN
AO: Diede de Groot, NED
FEB: Jordanne Whiley, GBR
MAR: Diede de Groot, NED
APR: Jordanne Whiley, GBR
MAY: NED World Cup Team
RG: Diede de Groot, NED
JUN: Zhu Zhenzhen, CHN
WI: Aniek Van Koot, NED
JUL/AUG: Diede de Groot, NED
AUG (pre-U.S.): Zhu Zhenzhen, CHN
[2019 Weekly WC POW Award Wins]
6 - Diede de Groot, NED
5 - Jordanne Whiley, GBR
5 - Zhu Zhenzhen, CHN
4 - Yui Kamiji, JPN
2 - Aniek Van Koot, NED





TOP QUALIFIER: Peng Shuai/CHN
TOP EARLY-ROUND (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: Q2: Isabella Shinikova/BUL def. Sachia Vickery/USA 6-1/4-6/7-6(6) - Shinikova MTO down MP at 6-5 in 3rd set TB, then comes back and wins 3 con. pts. to advance. Shinikova limps to net for her handshake, then Vickery airs out her frustrations on Twitter after the leaves the court.
TOP EARLY-RD. MATCH (1r-2r): xx
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr.): xx
TOP NIGHT SESSION WOMEN'S MATCH: xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: Ana Bogdan/ROU (def. Dart/GBR)
FIRST SEED OUT: #27 Caroline Garcia, FRA (1st Rd. - lost to Jabeur/TUN)
UPSET QUEENS: xx
REVELATION LADIES: xx
NATION OF POOR SOULS: xx
CRASH & BURN: xx
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEW YORK: xx
IT ("??"): xx
Ms.OPPORTUNITY: xx
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: Bogdan, Bolkvadze, Peng
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: x
LAST BANNERETTE STANDING: 1st Rd. wins: Davis, V.Williams
COMEBACK PLAYER: xx
VETERAN PLAYER (KIMIKO CUP): xx
DOUBLES STAR: xx
BIG APPLE BANNERETTE BREAKTHROUGH: xx
BROADWAY-BOUND: Nominee: Serena vs. Maria (Opening Night)
LADY OF THE EVENING: xx
JUNIOR BREAKOUT: xx




All for Day 1. More tomorrow (unless Serena-Maria DEMANDS attention tonight).
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