Your Call: 9.10

Mornin', everyone. For the first time in over two weeks, I got more than five hours sleep last night; the batteries are re-charged and I'm ready to go. First things first: I asked Madame Highpockets, TW's poet laureate, to hold off posting her verse tribute to the US Open as a comment, because I wanted it to get proper exposure, so here you go:

Boys to Men

*by Highpockets*

*The past champions stood there, assembled on Ashe,
Some understated, some long on panache.
They were honored for what they have done in this place,
And most have achieved it with style and grace.

This Slam is a tough one … make no mistake,
Ask the Davis Cup heroes, Roddick and Blake.
Like peanuts, New Yorkers will bite through your shell,
Devour your essence, then bid you farewell.

They will cheer you and push you and call you a bum,
Then welcome you back to see what you’ve become.
Once they like you, they love you, and it can’t be reversed
You can even act stupid and show them your worst.

Most times they forgive you in spite of your sins;
They’ll share in your losses and value your wins.
As long as you give them your best on the court,
You can be who you are and they’ll show you support.

Some will walk out to Armstrong, their confidence high,
Then it gets really windy and their serve goes awry.
The humidity stifles … the court seems to sizzle,
And just when you’re cooking, down comes the drizzle.

There are things we expect here, like fist pumps and strutting,
Barkan’s brown-nosing and the Bryans head-butting.
But none can predict those sweet moments of glory,
Like the match with Ferrer and Kei Nishikori.

A few of the young guns have games that are scary,
And a new star was born by the name of Sam Querry.
Then Novak beat A-Rod and angered the crowd,
But next year Mr. Roddick won’t be talkin’ so loud.

I don’t have any Fish jokes … Mardy gave it his best,
As did Rafa Nadal, who deserves a long rest.
There won’t be a “Grapple” … we can put that to bed;
We were gifted a final with Murray and Fed.

Once again, Roger showed us why he is the greatest.
All the boys are lined up and Murray’s the latest
Andy’s clever and smart and his shots are diverse,
But Roger just opened the door to his hearse.

Five trophies for Federer … isn’t that sweet?
He’s got one slam to go and he’s up there with Pete.
You see, at The Open, it’s all part of the Zen. . .
To the top the cream rises and boys become men.*

Hear, hear

It's funny, but at the end of every Grand Slam, I plan to write a number of posts I never did get the chance to crank out, but by the time I can get to it they seem dated and too backward-looking.

Those of you who regularly read my ESPN posts may already know my feelings about what we can take from this US Open, but let me amplify some of my comments here. On the "Federer is just fine" issue, I'd like to add something that I didn't get into with adequate depth in my post on the men's final here. One of the big changes I sensed in Federer's game is his own greater interest in the attacking game. During the final, I kept thinking of The Mighty Fed's response to Pete Sampras's question about why he hasn't played much serve-and-volley at Wimbledon in recent years - a question drive by Sampras's own conviction that the style can still succeed on grass. Federer's simple reply was, Because I don't have to. . .

This is, of course, the best reply of all. But I think his attitude is changing. I don't think Federer attacked more often during this tournament because he needed to in order to win, but as he enters the late stage of his athletic peak, I suspect that he has a new appreciation for winning as swiftly and efficiently as possible. He's also utterly comfortable with his own virtuosity, and therefore willing to take more risks.

Up until this year, TMF could comfortably stand at the baseline and more or less declare, Bring it on!, confident that he simply wouldn't be beaten in a baseline-based battle. Now, he's discovered a short-cut, and - perhaps - lost a bit of that bravado. There's another, simpler way to put this: He's become a shrewd veteran, as evidenced by the way he took note of Andy Murray's committment from playing from way behind the baseline and responded to it with a strategic decision to attack more frequently.

I also think TMF fans will save themselves a lot of unnecessary anguish if they stop expecting him to win everything, all the time. In a way, Federer is just now learning to lose, and figuring out how to be okay with it. Months ago, I wrote an ESPN post in which I coined the acronym SDTS (Seven-Day Tournament Syndrome), which is a disease that sometimes affects top players late in their careers. It can be summed up in the rhetorical question that increasingly pops up in their minds: How many danged times do I need to win Los Angeles (substitute one-week tournament of your choice)?"

There's an additional sub-text here, which is the way the all-around game, if not in it's most severe, serve-and-volley manifestation, is on the verge of a comeback. Murray and Marin Cilic, the newcomer who most impresses me, are both big servers who are more than happy to attack the net. That's why, in the long-term, I rate Cilic a better prospect then either Ernest Gulbis (I love that name; it sounds like it should belong to a James Bond movie-villan who wants to blow up the world), or the already-arrived Juan Martin del Potro. And, like I wrote over at ESPN, David Nalbandian ought to be afraid - very afraid.

That's it for now; tomorrow, Rosangel will field a report on her trip to New York in the Your Call thread. Remember, Your Call is the place to discuss tournaments going on this week (Bucharest, Bali, Fed Cup final), but you can go Off-Topic here as well. Our next Crisis Center posts will appear during the Davis Cup week. Rosangel will be covering DC for us, too, so you can expect some on the spot reportage, although she'll mostly be taking picture.

-- Pete