NEW YORK—How do press people know they’re in the middle of a major? It’s the OOPs. Everywhere I go right now, everywhere I look, every newspaper or book or dish I pick up or turn over, I find a sheet of paper with an old Order of Play printed on it. Some are folded in half, to fit into a bag; others are folded in sixths, to fit into a shirt pocket; a couple of them are stained with coffee. It’s an odd experience to look back at the match-ups, all of which were decided days ago.
When I first picked up these plain white sheets in the press room, each offered a small world of possibility. What would we see tomorrow? Who was facing whom? Now we know what went on between John Isner and Gael Monfils, and that Camila Giorgi was a player to watch. For some reason, though, it takes me until the end of the tournament to gather them up and throw them all out.
Maybe it’s because the OOPs are the perfect residue for a Grand Slam. These two-week tournaments are, at bottom, a parade of seemingly earth-shattering, but ultimately ephemeral events. The important drama of one day is immediately replaced by something new the next. Every afternoon, there’s new white sheet of paper waiting for you, with tomorrow’s OOP on it.
As we reach the halfway point of this year’s final major, I’ll pause to review a few of the first week’s daily dramas, before they slip down the collective tennis memory hole.