Day 13: Setting the Table

Note: This post has been simulcast over at Pete Bodo's blog.

By this time at the Open I’m usually a little—OK, more than a little—burned out after two weeks in Queens. In the past, I’ve been tempted to phone in a post from the couch on Super Saturday. But that will not do for Tennis World and Concrete Elbow! This morning I hiked across the city through a buzzing humidity to Penn Station; it felt like some kind of all-sports American holiday was going on there. Gangs of young people barreled by me, looking ready for that ancient rite of fall: beer and college football. I confess that I had to fight a strong urge to join them.

The train to Flushing was packed with fathers and sons in Mets jerseys. Golfers toting their clubs to suburban courses jammed in next to them. Tennis was represented here as well, and its fans stood out in a positive way, I must say. The three good-looking blondes in the row in front of me? They were talking about Novak Djokovic. Unfortunately, I was seated next to a different type of tennis fan, a man named Igor, who was with his family. He decided that he wanted to read my New York Times along with me. He pretty much stuck his face in front of mine. To combat him, I had to fold the paper in half—didn’t work—then in half again—he kept reading—then down to postage-stamp size. Finally, he turned away with a muffled grunt of annoyance.

A humid gust of air hit me getting off the train. Up ahead were two groups, Mets fans turning to their left, to Shea Stadium, tennis fans going right, toward Ashe. Today there was a professional wit standing at the crossroards between the two and directing traffic: “Rich people this way,” he yelled, pointing to Ashe, “poor people the other way!” He was getting laughs.

As I said, you could feel the heat off the concrete in the station; as you might imagine, the towering hunk of concrete that is Ashe Stadium was significantly hotter. Novak Djokovic was certainly feeling it by the time I got out to the court, early in the second set. He had stormed off with the last five games of the first set, but now he looked ready to call it a day. He went to the drop shot early, drank water even when it wasn’t a changeover, got his baseball hat out and then chucked it on the ground for a ball boy to fetch, and tanked one of David Ferrer’s service games. The reporter behind me said, “If this goes five, they better call an ambulance.”

What’s notable about Djokovic’s health situations, which he experiences in nearly every match, is how little they bother him over the long term. As someone who has wilted in heat and humidity during a match, I can attest that it is pretty frightening—you feel like your losing control, and the thing that you must do, play tennis, is only going to make it worse. But Djokovic never looks panicked, even in the middle of a meltdown. He’s always one cool breeze away from getting back on track, and that happened today at 3-3, when he came back to break Ferrer from 40-0 down. Today his exhaustion seemed like an extension of his nerves, and a result of how tightly wound he gets as a match progresses. The same way most players are up and down mentally over the course of a match, Djokovic is up and down physically.

Otherwise, it was vintage Djokovic, right down to his love for color coordination. Just as they had at the French Open, his family and friends came out in matching colors, this time the red, white, and blue of the Serbian flag. And he continued with a dark blue wristband on his left arm and a white one on his right—the man is unique even in the smallest ways. He was also clearly in command during the rallies; he just needed to be patient enough to pick his spots.

From up close, Djokovic is a more imposing presence than he appears to be on TV. He’s got a perfect modern tennis build. He’s bulkier than Federer, who has the traditional tennis frame, long and lanky. In most other ways, Djokovic is a throwback, and it’s his old-fashioned technique—no open-stance on the backhand, no slugging at the lines from a defensive position—that elevates him above his fellow baseliners. It also allows him to continue playing the exact same way, whether it’s a meaningless point in the first set or a crucial one late in the fifth. Djokovic's one area for improvement is his transition game—he simply does not like to go to the net, even when he has his opponent in an utterly hopeless position.

Is there anything more to say about the imitations, now that they’ve become the “best thing that could ever happen to tennis”? Djokovic himself seems a little sick of them. After the second question about his Federer imitation in his presser today, he asked the guy running the press conference if they could end the whole thing right then.

When I went into the Djokovic presser, Federer was down 1-4 in the first set. By the time I came out and got to the court, he was up a set and a break and was in full toy mode. The match was only an hour old, but it was over. Federer was trying drop shots, drilling forehands from way back in the court, sidespinning his backhand, watching his points on the big screen above, and holding serve whenever it caught his fancy.

Federer was full of weird energy out there today; he was more demonstrative than usual, but it didn’t seem all that serious. He spent much of this match deep behind the baseline, in Nadal country. From there, he could wait for Davydenko to miss, which was what usually happened, or wind his racquet speed up and take control of a point when he needed it, the way he did with a brilliant series of transition forehands to break for 3-4 in the third. Here was a full house on Super Saturday at the U.S. Open, and it looked to me like the guy winning the match was a little bored (not that he would ever admit that).

OK, we have our dream final, and Federer now has a second arch-rival to contend with, a hard-court version this time. Two of the first three questions in his presser were about Djokovic. How will the match unfold? After losing to him in Montreal last month, Federer will be out to teach the whippersnapper a lesson—he seems to have grown fonder of Nadal now that Djokovic has taken his place as the cocky tour upstart, don’t you think? But revenge doesn’t always work for Federer. He has never been able to throttle Nadal the way he might have liked, and he couldn’t get any payback against Guillermo Cañas in Key Biscayne after he lost to him in Indian Wells.

For Djokovic’s part, he’ll be nervous to start because of the occasion, but he has the benefit of having nothing to lose—even Federer said today that it will be easier for Djokovic to be the underdog in his first major final. It’s Fed who has a lot to lose, more so than he did against, say, Fernando Gonzalez in the Aussie final. Djokovic has announced himself as a real challenger, and Federer got tight at both the beginning and the end of their match in Montreal.

As far as the points, games, and set themselves, Djokovic will have to serve well to start and anticipate well after that, which he usually does. There have been two Djokovics during this tournament, the passive baseliner who almost went down to Radek Stepanek, and the explosive, forward-moving baseliner who took the iniative away from Juan-Martin Del Potro and blitzed him in record time. It’s pretty clear the explosive version of Djokovic is going to have to show up against Federer. The world No. 1 is the more lethal player once a rally gets started, and Djokovic plays his best tennis wheh he takes a first-strike mentality. He'll need to do that early in the match to pressure Federer and keep him from digging in and dictating. Federer is deadly once he gets a break or a set and relaxes; Djokovic can’t let him relax for a second.

That kind of willful risk-taking is lot to ask on this stage and against this opponent, especially for a Slam final rookie. It’s too much to ask, in fact. Federer may take his time, but if his past at the Open is any indication, he'll get a grip on this match at some point in the third set and let loose with a flurry of insane winners from every possible angle. After that, the inevitable will ensue.

Federer: 6-4, 6-7, 7-5, 6-2

PS: If all else fails, Djokovic could put one of his imitations to use. As Federer is about to serve, go into the Nadal return position and pick your butt—it might remind Federer of bad times and put him in a negative frame of mind.

Finally, with the Fed-Davydenko match lacking much tension or rhythm or anything else, I headed for the back courts to see the wheelchair tournament’s doubles final. As anyone who has ever seen wheelchair tennis, you know it’s a tribute to dogged perseverance—to put it simply, it looks really hard. One player, who didn’t have the use of his right hand, tossed the ball with his foot to serve. But the pros have nothing on these guys (and girls—this match featured three men and woman, Sara Hunter of Canada, who had the best forehand on the court) when it comes to touch volleys. The signature move in wheelchair is to roll toward the net, take the ball on the rise, and cut a little sidespin half-volley that kicks toward the side fence and out of reach of the other team. It’s a crafty and deft play, like the best tennis plays, and it’s the one shot I won’t forget from this year’s Open.

Enjoy the women’s final. I’ll have a report tomorrow morning.