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Saturday, September 5, 2020

US.6 - State of Shock

ex*pec*ta*tion /ˌekspekˈtāSH(ə)n/
noun
plural noun: expectations
* a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future
"reality had not lived up to expectations"
* a belief that someone will or should achieve something


Even at 38, after all that she's accomplished in a two-decade long career, Serena Williams' tennis existence in 2020 seems to center around whether or not she will win her 24th (then maybe her 25th) major title to tie (and possibly soon surpass) Margaret Court's all-time mark. But at this point, does it *really* matter if she ever does? While it would officially put her atop a statistical list, whether or not she ever gets there, will it in any way alter how her career is viewed?

That's simple. Nah.

For quite a while Sloane Stephens was viewed as an underachiever who'd never quite lived up to her abilities or the promise she'd shown early in her career. In 2016, she suffered a foot injury that required surgery in early '17. She was out of the game for eleven months, finally returning in the summer of that year. In one of the most remarkable multi-month stretches ever seen, she climbed from as low as #957 in early August to U.S. Open champion in September. After that title, she jumped from #83, the lowest-ranked Open winner ever, to #17. She eventually climbed as high as #3, winning her second biggest title in Miami in '18 and reaching another slam final (Roland Garros) soon afterward.

The belief that success might finally spark Stephens -- "the future is now," remember? -- to even *greater* things has never really panned out. She's still just 27 years old, but the thought that she's going to become a dominant force in the game drifted a away a while ago. In the end, she might end up being viewed as something of an "underachiever" again if her results never reach those great heights ever again. But does it matter?

"Future Shock" from Stephens would be a good thing if it came, but she'll retire a grand slam winner if it doesn't. She'll be around the sport long after she's finished playing, likely as a winning TV personality who may or may not eventually crossover into non-sports hosting (if JJ Watt and his brothers can host a reality competition show...). She'll always be Sloane, and one gets the feeling that that's probably going to be enough for her, and if it isn't she might reach for something *bigger* to fill her time than simply playing tennis matches.

All that said, the 3rd Round match-up of Williams and Stephens today stood as a litmus test for both women. Serena had entered this Open having played five straight three-setters, and lost twice; while Stephens was 1-8 in 2020. A win today would send one woman into the second week of this major, reigniting the talk of "expectations" that would serve to govern the discussions about their journey through the rest of this tournament.

As it turned out, Stephens, after a fast start, ended up experiencing a bit of "Serena Shock."

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The Queen of Flushing Meadows ??

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With Williams slow out of the gate and Stephens' game in rhythm, Sloane built up a 3-1 lead, and held two BP for a 4-1, double-break advantage. Williams held for 3-2, and quickly jumped to a 15/40 lead on Stephens' serve a game later. But Stephens dug in and held, outplaying Williams in longer rallies and maintaining a clean game. She finally got the double-break in game #7, then easily held to take the 1st set 6-2.



But as the match wore on, Williams seized control of the momentum with her serve, as Stephens' game slowly slipped away. After finally notching her maiden break of serve for a 4-2 lead, Serena soon claimed the 2nd set 6-2. When she took a 3-1 in the 3rd, all those three-setters before this U.S. Open finally began to play into Serena's favor. She sailed into the Round of 16 with a 2-6/6-2/6-2 win, taking ten of the final twelve games.

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Serena shines in a 3??-set win ??

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The win puts Williams in the U.S. Open 4th Round for the third straight year, but for the 19th time in her last nineteen appearances at Flushing Meadows. Her only failure to advance so far came in her debut season, at age 16, in 1998. She won her first of six titles a year later. Serena's 62nd Round of 16 in a major came with her 43rd win in a slam after having dropped the 1st set. A runner-up in the final the last two years in New York, falling to Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu, respectively, Williams is now one round closer to claiming #24 nearly four years after she grabbed her most recent major crown.

Olympia was *inside* Serena at the time... now she's in the stands.



If Williams is the last woman standing next weekend, it'll surely produce a scene -- and family album cover shot -- for the ages on Ashe Court. It's really fairly close to *all* she has left to accomplish in her career. This could very well be her last best chance. So here we go, win or lose.

Of course, the biggest news surrounding this match wasn't that Serena won, (at least at Backspin HQ) it was that ESPN finally debuted the at this Open the usual graphic displaying the top women's slam winners of all time. You know, the one which has for years identified California's Helen Wills Moody as a Brit. This one:


Well, today we got *this*:


I was struck speechless.

2020 strikes again, I guess. (This CANNOT be a good thing, right?)



=DAY 6 NOTES=
...the first player to advance to the Round of 16 on Saturday was #15 Maria Sakkari, some twelve hours after her countryman Stefanos Tsitsipas has failed to do so last night despite holding a 5-1 set advantage and holding six MP in the 4th against Borna Coric in the early morning hours on Armstrong.

Against #22 Amanda Anisimova, Sakkari also grabbed a big lead, going up 6-3/5-1, but *she* didn't falter (or scream and/or rant and rave at a parent in the stands, or in the direction of her opponent as her Open experience drifted away). She closed out the win without dropping another game, reaching her second consecutive slam 4th Round. And good for her, by the way, for noting in her on-court interview that she wasn't going to lament the fans not being in the stands because, let's be honest, they're all in New York for a reason -- to play and try to win a title, fans or no fans.



In her three previous big results in 2020, Sakkari has knocked off a Top 11 player en route: Madison Keys on the way to the AO Round of 16, Belinda Bencic when she reached the Saint Petersburg SF, and last week in the Cincy-at-NYC event when she knocked off Serena Williams and got to the QF.

She'll get another Top 10 shot against Serena (again) in the next round.

#16 Elise Mertens ended the run of Bannerette teen Caty McNally in straight sets. It probably shouldn't have gone quite that way, though. McNally held a 3-0 lead in the 1st, and two SP at 5-4. After she failed to convert, and two racket tosses (and a set and change) later, Mertens had won nine of ten games to end the match, winning 7-5/6-1 to reach her third straight U.S. Open Round of 16 (and fourth straight at a major).



Romanian Sorana Cirstea has always tended to underperform in big situations, and today unfortunately turned out to be another item to place in her unwanted career lockbox.

Against #20-seed Karolina Muchova, Cirstea seemed to take control of the match multiple times. She raced to a 4-0 lead in the 2nd and leveled the match by taking the set. In the 3rd, she led 4-2 and served for the match at 5-4. Broken, she still managed to push the Czech into a deciding tie-break, where Cirstea opened with a mini-break and then held her serves to lead 3-0. Another win on Muchova's serve gave her a 4-0 edge. But she then immediately dropped both her service points.

Still, a forehand pass down the line gave Cirstea a 5-3 edge, and her vigorous fist shakes in the direction of her inner circle off the court seemed to signal that this time she *wouldn't* succumb to an inability to fully reverse an in-match slide. She reached triple MP at 6-3. And then it all fell apart. After taking the first two MP, Muchova followed a deep forehand shot into the net and put away a volley to tie the breaker at 6-6. After being unable to claim her own first MP, Muchova got another at 8-7. That was when Cirstea couldn't handle the Czech's big serve, giving Muchova at 6-3/2-6/7-6(7) win to put her into her first U.S. Open Round of 16. With back-to-back 3rd Rounds at Flushing Meadows before this year, she's now 7-3 in her Open career. Muchova's only slam QF came at Wimbledon last year.

This is Cirstea's third loss in a U.S. Open 3rd Round over a twelve-year stretch (2009-20), and her second straight. Her last slam Round of 16 came in Melbourne three years ago. *That* result has been her only slam 4th Round-or-better finish at a major since her QF run at Roland Garros in 2009.

(Overlook the fact that this point IS NOT actually a serve-and-volley, and instead smile at the offensive aggression of the Czech on MP #3.)



...well, Tsvetana Pironkova was at it again on Day 6.



Two days after making #10 Garbine Muguruza her twelfth career seeded victim at a slam, the 32-year old Bulgarian made #18 Donna Vekic her thirteenth. Up a break early in the 1st, Pironkova saw Vekic break back to level things at 4-4. But Pironkova immediately broke serve yet again, then held to take the set. An early break in the 2nd soon had the Croat screaming at her errors, and then tripping over her own feet (literally) in the back court. Pironkova likely had nothing to do with that last part... but, really, who's to know?

NOTE: I considered holding this post until the end of the Vika Azarenka/Iga Swiatek match. But, you know, *not* fully covering Vika's matches at this Open has been working out pretty well so far... so I think I'll stick with that.

Also, I'll have an additional "Day 6.5" post later tonight with the usual Lists-a-Palooza stats, so it'll likely be mentioned there.

...well, at this Open, you are who you *don't* social distance from (and they are what their test says, even it conflicts with a different test... and the rules are, well, doesn anyone *really* know?). Hence:



Babos/Mladenovic were the #1 doubles seeds, and Riske/Dabrowksi advance to the quarterfinals. Let the controversy commence.

via GIPHY


The #2 women's seeds, defending champs Mertens/Sabalenka were taken to a 2nd set tie-break today by the all-Bannerette duo of Pegula/Rogers, winning it 7-5 to avoided a super TB and advance to the QF.

...meanwhile, in the WTA 125 in Prague, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Kristina Kucova have advanced to the singles final. 19-year old Cocciaretto might be someone to keep an eye on in Paris, as she's burst out of the Restart gate by winning eight of nine matches, including previously reaching her maiden tour-level QF in Palermo in the first week back in Europe.



Cocciaretto, by the way, was *second* on the Backspin "Players Whose Names You'll Know..." list behind Varvara Gracheva back at the start of 2020.

...tonight, in a somewhat surprising turn (what with Serena/Sloane also on the docket), #7 Madison Keys gets the night match on Ashe against Alize Cornet. But, then again, the USTA schedulers have *always* been partial to Keys, who has often then contributed some nice "Late Night with Madison" shows for their entertainment. That won't happen on Saturday, though, since her match will be first-up on the evening.



In another early evening match, #2 Sonia Kenin faces #27 Ons Jabeur seven months after the Bannerette defeated the Tunisian in the Australian Open QF en route to her maiden slam title in Melbourne.




=WOMEN'S SINGLES ROUND OF 16=
#28 Jennifer Brady/USA v. #17 Angelique Kerber/GER
#23 Yulia Putintseva/KAZ v. #8 Petra Martic/CRO
#4 Naomi Osaka/JPN v. #14 Anett Kontaveit/EST
Shelby Rogers/USA v. #6 Petra Kvitova/CZE
x v. (PR) Tsvetana Pironkova/BUL
#15 Maria Sakkari/GRE v. #3 Serena Williams/USA
x v. #20 Karolina Muchova/CZE
#16 Elise Mertens/BEL v. x

=WOMEN'S DOUBLES QF=
Riske/Dabrowski (USA/CAN) v. Muhammad/Townsend (USA/USA)
#3 Melichar/Xu (USA/CHN) v. Carter/Stefani (USA/BRA)
Blinkova/V.Kudermetova v. #4 Peschke/Schuurs (CZE/NED)
(PR) Siegemund/Zvonareva (GER/RUS) v. #2 Mertens/Sabalenka (BEL/BLR)




WHAT FINALLY GOT ME TO ACTUALLY WATCH SOME MEN'S TENNIS AT THIS SLAM ON DAY 6:

I mean, who doesn't like a good meltdown? This one was after midnight, and it didn't involve Kiki... though it was another 5-1 up situation, but with *6* MP instead of 4.







SAME HERE ON DAY 6:




KEEP IT UP, BECAUSE DEMS OFTEN HAVE AN UNFORTUNATE PROPENSITY TO PULL PUNCHES (and that's the last thing that can be done this year) ON DAY 6:




Yeah, what he said.


HISTORY & FASHION ON DAY 6:




HISTORY & BROKEN STRINGS ON DAY 6:




Hmmm... ON DAY 6:

Is the WTA Instagram feed *really* re-posting video, during a major, of the world #172 simply hitting a few tennis balls?

(checks)

Nope, it's actually the world #272. My bad.

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?? #Repost @geniebouchard ··· ??

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Genie Bouchard is currently the fourth-ranked Canadian. Behind Bianca Andreescu, Leylah Fernandez... and Katherine Sebov.


WTF? ON DAY 6:

I really like Wanda Sykes, but *why* was she being interviewed on ESPN by Chris Fowler and Chris Evert in the *middle* of the 1st set in a Serena/Sloane match? Right after Serena had saved BP a game earlier, and then held BP on Sloane's serve.

Just not the time, nor the place.




ESPN has a history of trying to do celebrity interviews during Sunday Night Baseball and Monday Night Football games, totally ignoring the actual action for no good reason, and whoever makes those decisions in a total lunatic.


A REMINDER ON DAY 6:




FOR THE MAN WHO NEVER MET A COMPLIMENT HE DIDN'T BRAG ABOUT ON DAY 6:





Did you know the Rolling Stones released a new song during the pandemic, *about* the pandemic, *set in* the pandemic? Well, they did. It was called "Living in a Ghost Town," and one gets the feeling that it might eventually play in the background of many of the future movies that will be made about this past spring/summer over the next few years.

"You can look for me
But I can't be found
You can search for me
I had to go underground
Life was so beautiful
Then we all got locked down
Feel a like ghost
Living in a ghost town, yeah"


Of course, there's another Stones song (first recorded 51 years ago now) that also seems perfectly suited to 2020. "Gimme Shelter" might have literally been written about sheltering from a storm, but the metaphors for "bigger" and more complicated things have always been easy to conger up.

"Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Ooh yeah, I'm gonna fade away"

Here's a 2009 performance, featuring Mick Jagger with Bono, Will.i.am and Fergie (the latter's performance really makes this version sing):


I seem to say it this every year at this time, but I've really come to appreciate the Rolling Stones and Jagger over the past decade. I used to consider myself more of a "Beatles person" when it came to British music from that era. I guess I *still* do, but the gap has closed quite a bit. They've now been together for FIFTY years beyond the Beatles' break-up, and forty years beyond the death of John Lennon. (!!)

(U2 is still my band of choice from their era, which isn't yet over, I guess... hmmm, I wonder if Bono will end up doing it as long as Jagger? He's *already* been fronting a version of that band since he was a teenager in 1976.)










kosova-font










kosova-font

*CAREER SLAM ROUND OF 16's - active*
62...SERENA WILLIAMS, USA
50...Venus Williams, USA
32...Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
25...Kim Clijsters, BEL
23...Victoria Azarenka, BLR [to play 3r]
22...Jelena Jankovic, SRB
21...ANGELIQUE KERBER, GER
20...PETRA KVITOVA, CZE
17...Simona Halep, ROU
16...Carla Suarez-Navarro, ESP
16...Vera Zvonareva, RUS
14...Madison Keys, USA [to play 3r]
14...Garbine Muguruza, ESP
13...Sloane Stephens, USA
12...Samantha Stosur, AUS



TOP QUALIFIER: DNP
TOP EARLY-ROUND (1r-2r): Victoria Azarenka/BLR (winning streak to 7 matches)
TOP MIDDLE-ROUND (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-ROUND (SF-F): xx
TOP QUALIFYING MATCH: DNP
TOP EARLY-RD. MATCH (1r-2r): 2nd Rd. - Varvara Gracheva/RUS def. #30 Kristina Mladenovic/FRA 1-6/7-6(2)/6-0 (trailed 6-1/5-1, 4 MP)
TOP MIDDLE-RD. MATCH (3r-QF): xx
TOP LATE-RD. MATCH (SF-F/Jr.): xx
TOP NIGHT SESSION WOMEN'S MATCH: xx
=============================
FIRST VICTORY: #12 Marketa Vondrousova/CZE (def. Minnen/BEL)
FIRST SEED OUT: #32 Rebecca Peterson/SWE (1st Rd.-lost to Flipkens/BEL)
FIRST SLAM MD WINS: Bonaventure/BEL, Fernandez/CAN, Gracheva/RUS, Scott/USA, Tig/ROU
UPSET QUEENS: United States
REVELATION LADIES: Belarus (5-0 in 1st Rd.)
NATION OF POOR SOULS: Australia (0-5 1st Rd.; #1 Barty and former U.S. champ Stosur DNP)
CRASH & BURN: #1 Karolina Pliskova/CZE (2nd Rd.-Garcia; tied for second earliest exit by U.S. Open #1 seed)
ZOMBIE QUEEN OF NEW YORK: Varvara Gracheva, RUS (2nd Rd.: down 6-1/5-1, 4 MP at 5-2 vs. Mladenovic)
IT ("TBD"): Nominees: Swiatek, Jabeur, Sakkari, Kontaveit
Ms.OPPORTUNITY: xx
LAST QUALIFIER STANDING: DNP Q
LAST WILD CARD STANDING: CiCi Bellis/USA, Katrina Scott/USA and Sachia Vickery/USA (all 2nd Rd.)
LAST BANNERETTE STANDING: in 3r: Anisimova(L), Brady(W), Brengle(L), Kenin, Keys, Li(L), McNally(L), Pegula(L), Rogers(W), Stephens, S.Williams
COMEBACK PLAYER: Tsvetana Pironkova/BUL (first event since '17 Wimb; def. #10 Muguruza in 2nd Rd.)
VETERAN PLAYER (KIMIKO CUP): Nominees: Kerber, S.Williams, Azarenka, Kvitova, Martic
DOUBLES STAR: xx
BIG APPLE BANNERETTE BREAKTHROUGH: Nominees: Brady, Rogers, Muhammad/Townsend, H.Carter
BROADWAY-BOUND: Nominee: S.Williams, Azarenka, Osaka
LADY OF THE EVENING: Nominee: Osaka (2-0 in night sessions), S.Williams, Azarenka
JUNIOR UNDER 18 BREAKOUT: Katrina Scott/USA (16; slam debut as wild card, 1st Rd. win)
RG "Légion de Lenglen" HONOREE: U.S. OPEN SPECIAL: Madison Brengle/USA (chugs wine after 2nd Rd. victory)




Be Safe. All for Day 6. More tomorrow.
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