Day 8 Recap - Monday 9/3/07

Things really start getting condensed on the three main courts each Labor Day, as we're into the second week of the U.S. Open and there just aren't as many feature matches that have to be played.

This is when the outer courts are filled up exclusively by juniors, and because the 11:00 matches did not jump off the page (although in hindsight I'm kind of upset I didn't sprint to the front row of the Grandstand for Bethanie Mattek and Sania Mirza's doubles match against Stosur and Raymond; if you've seen what Mattek has been wearing this week, you know what I mean), so I started on the outer courts. I bounced around quickly from court to court to get a brief look at all the juniors, including boys' #1 seed Uladzimir Ignatik of Belarus and girls' #1 seed Anastasia Pavylyuchenkova of you-don't-need-me-to-tell-you.  They both dominated their opponents but I didn't really stick around long enough at either match to get any feeling of whether or not they're going to be big at the next level.

Next it was off to the practice courts, aka The Search For Ernests Gulbis. My dad had declared half-jokingly that finding Gulbis on the practice courts was his top priority of the day since he had missed it all last night. Well Gulbis of course was not going to be found anytime soon since his match ended at 11:30 on Sunday, but Nadal was out the far court, Haas was practicing one court over, and Henin was doing some work with her long-time coach Carlos Ruiz on the middle court.

After about 15 minutes of mainly watching Nadal, it was time for some match action. I headed over to Armstrong for a brief moment just to get a look from the front row at the Agnes Szavay-Julia Vakulenko. I'm pretty sure I had never heard of either one before this U.S. Open so I wanted to see how each woman (or girl more like it) had made it this far. It wasn't exactly thrilling tennis, but as I said in the Sunday recap, I never complain about watching tennis pro tennis from the front row regardless of the quality.

That said, I didn't hesitate to bolt over to Arthur Ashe when the first match ended and gave the choice to watch Roddick-Berdych from the stratosphere or Szavay-Vakulenko from a few feet away. Not a hard decision.

Actually it wasn't the stratosphere. My brother and I and a few friends did the good ol', never-failing ticket funnel system because we had three Arthur Ashe tickets and two simple grounds tickets among five of us and they were actually checking tickets at the ground entrance into Arthur Ashe - probably the first or second time I've ever seen that. Anyway, funneling worked to perfection as usual, and once in the stadium, we moved down into that middle level which is actually a pretty good seat. So we watched the first set of Roddick-Berydch from there and it was high quality. I'm glad I didn't stick around any longer though, because Berdych was through two games later.

In fact by the time I made it back to the front row of Armstrong for Sharar Peer's singles match, Berdych had already called it quits. While the Arthur Ashe crowd was deprived of tennis, the Armstrong faithful had a decent match on their hands and with a strong Jewish contingent in the house, they were really into this contest and obviously backing Peer. My dad - who became a big Peer fan over the weekend having watched (on TV) her third-set tiebreaker win and then talked to her briefly about it the next day - and I watched till the end of the match and saw Peer roll with relative ease of Agnieszka Raswakska of Poland, the 18-year-old who had shocked Maria Sharapova on Saturday.

In between that match and Qurrey-Kendrick vs. Benneteau-Mahut, we decided to head out to the juniors and practice courts. Unfortunately our decision to stop by juniors prior to practice courts proved to be the wrong one - at least in terms of The Search For Ernests Gulbis. After a few painful games of junior tennis, I'd seen enough and headed to the practice courts, while my dad stopped by some other junior matches probably in a different kind of search - for up-and-coming Russians with long legs. Well, sure enough when I arrived at the practice courts, Gulbis was there on the third court down sitting on the bench and talking with his coach and hitting partner. I got my dad on the cell phone immediately and he high-tailed it over. Too bad for us, Gulbis was in fact done with his practice rather than just taking a break.

We were ready to see some men's doubles anyway, so we headed back to the front row of Armstrong where Querrey and Kendrick were giving the Frenchmen a good battle. After the Americans dropped a tight first set, we scooted over to the Grandstand to see our man Max Mirnyi take on his former doubles partner and another one of our favorites, Mahesh Bhupathi, play against each other in mixed doubles.  It didn't take long to see some serious domination by Max and his partner (the girl who beat Hingis in singles on Saturday), so after Querrey and Kendrick got put away in the second set on Armstrong, we headed back over there for the start of Nikolay Davydenko vs. Hyung-Taik Lee.

During all of this hopping from court to court we doing some intense scoreboard watching, keeping a close eye on Blake-Haas developments inside Arthur Ashe. About five games into Lee-Davydenko, we saw Blake was about to get bageled in the fourth and head into the fifth, so we left the front row of Armstrong one last time to scourge for a decent seat in Ashe.

We reconvened with my brother at the start of the fifth set, and he was still in those same seats from which we had watched Roddick-Berdych. I wish I had seen the whole match up to that point because then it's easier to really get into it as a fan, but it didn't take long for the intensity of the fifth set to make me feel like I'd been there the whole time. Haas got out to a quick break, and with Blake having already dropped the fourth set 6-0, it looked like he was down for the count. But Blake stormed back and pulled off an absolutely EPIC break of serve with Haas serving at 4-3. Blake then held to take a 5-4 lead and put Haas on the ropes with not one, not two, but three match points on the German's next service game. On those three points Haas hit two service winners and finished off the one rally with a perfect approach shot that Blake just barely got a racket on.

Two games later it was on to the decisive fifth-set tiebreaker, a scene unique to the U.S. Open. The point at 3-3 in the 'breaker was, I think, the best point of tennis I've ever seen in person, especially when you consider the situation in which it came. I could describe it in words, but that would take an extremely long time, so I'll just post a video of the whole tiebreaker and you can watch and re-watch the 3-3 point as many times as you like.
Anyway, Haas came up with the goods on that classic exchange of strokes and ultimately took the set and the match 7-4 in the tiebreaker.

It was a disappointing end to our U.S. Open visit in terms of the outcome, but it was an appropriate end in terms of the drama of the fifth-set tiebreaker.

Both the quality and the quantity of tennis we saw this weekend were unbelievable. Last year Hurricane Ernesto wiped out all of Saturday, and while it usually rains at least a little bit over Labor Day weekend, not one drop even considered falling in 2007. From 11:00 AM until 1:15 AM the first day, 11:30 PM the second day, and 6:15 PM the third day, it was non-stop tennis, tennis, and more tennis.

The trip is over. It was, and always will be, the best weekend of the year.

Day 7 Recap - Sunday 9/2/07

***Well I lost my camera today, and in the immediate aftermath of losing it I'll admit the devastation made me consider ending the live from the U.S. Open blog, but alas, I guess the job of a writer after all is to describe in words what can't be described in pictures. Plus it would be an injustice to what I witnessed today posting photos with just a few comments; this day needs many, many words just to even begin painting a clear picture of all the tennis I saw. That said, in a few days I will have pictures from various friends and probably from various tennis message board frequenters as well.***

Today started with one of the trademarks of every U.S. Open visit - a good opening match on the Grandstand, necessitating an early arrival at the gate (before it opens at 10:00) and an all-out sprint from the gate to the corner box behind the far baseline. The goal -- front row -- was accomplished, and with me, my brother, my dad, and several friends rotating in and out of the Grandstand, it was not relinquished until Ernests Gulbis struck one final backhand blow to finish off Tommy Robredo and end play for the day at the USTA National Tennis Center.

After my dad finally crawled through the bag line entrance (since he had food, camera, etc.) and made his way to the Grandstand, I was rewarded for my sprinting efforts; he saved the front row while I headed out to the practice courts. It was a swarm there so I knew it had to be good; it was, but I still weaseled my way right up to the fence. On the nearest court were Max Mirnyi and Jonas Bjorkman, warming up for their afternoon doubles match. They ended with the best part: short volley drill. It's ridiculous how fast they hit the ball back and forth and how quick their hands are. Then Max, Jonas, and Max's dad came over to the bench right in front of all of us and they plopped down and watched / talked about the guy practicing on the second court: Rafael Nadal. He was hitting with some junior from Italy and talking to Uncle Toni in between rallies. Shortly before 11:00 it was time to head back to the Grandstand, although Bjorkman and Mirnyi were still showing no signs of leaving their free tennis lesson from Nadal. Of course judging from their recent results and what happened to them later in the day, they should have kept working on their short volleys and other aspects of their game rather than gawk over fellow pros.

First up on the Grandstand was Juan Ignacio Chela vs. Ivan Ljubicic. Although both seeded, neither player has had stellar 2007 campaigns, so it was not entirely surprising that play in the first set put fans to sleep (although not us on the front row; even if the quality of play is sub-par, tennis is always amazing from that close). Anyway, Chela was less bad in the first and took the set, but Ljubicic started getting it together and won the second to even things up.

Knowing that no less than two sets were still in store, I took a break and headed to the outer courts. Bjorkman and Mirnyi were on Court 11, the primary outer court, playing Brazilians Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa, who I'm pretty sure made the finals of Wimbledon this year. I went over to the side opposite the stands because you don't have to wait for a changeover to get in and you can still get close to a perfect view. Bjorkman and Mirnyi were already down a set and a break, but they quickly broke Sa to get back on serve. Unfortunately Max gave it right back with plenty of help from Bjorkman at the net and big-serving Melo served out the match. Really frustrating. I just don't understand how they are so bad now (relatively speaking of course) considering that both Max and Jonas are still doing just fine in singles despite being in their 30s. And both of them are better at doubles! Granted Melo was completely on fire the whole time I was there, but still....

After seeing Bjorkman and Mirnyi get finished off, I stopped by Court 13 (also a big outer court) to see Americans Justin Gimelstob and Amer Delic take on #2 seed Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestory. I saw a few games of the second set, which went into a tiebreaker before the inevitable happened and Knowles-Nestor put Gimelstob another step closer to being officially off the tennis court for good and into the TV booth.

Back on the Grandstand, Chela was about to level things up at 2-all, so I saw the end of the fourth and all the fifth from the second row. Ljubicic could not hit a forehand the entire set and looked lifeless until 5-0 Chela in the fifth. By then any comeback effort was too little, too late. He got two of the breaks back but then lost serve at 3-5 and therefore did not put the prssure of attempting to serve out the match for a third time on Chela.

Then it was back to Court 11, where Juan Monaco found himself playing because Agustin Calleri had shocked Llyeton Hewitt two days earlier. Monaco would most likely have been on Ashe had Hewitt been his opponent, but instead the schedulers booted him to Court 11. This was a complete blowout; Calleri had rib-cage problems and Monaco is not who you want to be playing when you're injured because he is a traditional clay-courter who is relentless from the baseline, gets to everything, and makes you hit tons of shots. Anyway, the match wasn't any good, but you can do a lot worse than being right up on the fence for a 3rd round of the U.S. Open men's singles match featuring a guy who just destroyed Lleyton Hewitt and another guy who's won three titles this year.

Next I made an appearance on Louis Armstrong for the first time all day and stayed there for the next five hours. I picked up the Bryan Brothers midway through the first set of their match with Jeff Coetzee and Rogier Wassen. The Bryans are obviously are huge draw at the Open, so I was stuck fairly high up in the stadium rather than in one of the usual boxes behind the baseline. Of course that's better than it was yesterday, when the Bryans were sent out to Court 11 and the crowd on the opposite the stands was about seven rows deep and I could barely see the court. The Bryan Brothers dominated from the middle of the first through the middle of the second, so I ducked out to the Grandstand.

I don't watch much women's doubles - or women's tennis period - but my dad was front row for Hantuchova and Hingis (irrelevant who they were playing against) and was going crazy on the cell phone about how awesome Hantuchova looked. So I checked that out for a few games but the scenery is not as good from much higher up.

It was time to go see my man Robby Ginepri over on Armstrong, anyway. As bad as GInepri has been outside of the U.S. Open, this is now the third straight here he's hung around long enough at the Open to still be playing tennis over Labor Day weekend. Two years ago we saw him beat Tommy Haas in five sets in a night match from the third row in Arthur Ashe. Last year I saw him lose to Haas in a fifth set tiebreaker from the second row in Louis Armstrong. This time my brother and I were second row for every point, again in Armstrong. And again Ginepri went the distance; five sets with Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland. I still can't believe Ginepri lost this one after being up two sets to one. It's not like he choked, Wawrinka really stepped it up in the fifth and started pummeling his one-handed backhand. It just seemed like another deep run at the Open was in store for Ginepri as he had picked up his game this week and his section of the draw was wide open.

Although that one went five sets, thank goodness it at least ended in time for us to race next door to the Grandstand in time for the start of the fifth set of Carlos Moya vs. Philipp Kohlschreiber. There's no such thing as a bad seat in the Grandstand, but we actually found two pretty good ones even by Grandstand standards - right in the middle of the baseline about 10 rows from the top. Good, but nothing compared to my dad's spot. He was still in the same front row seats I had secured at 10:00 in the morning (this proved to be crucial for him during this match, and even more crucial for my brother and I one match later).

He saw every single point of Moya-Kohlschreiber from there and judging from what I saw in the fifth set, he was probably the craziest Moya fan (other than maybe some Spanish folks) in the Grandstand. He was out of his seat pretty much every time Moya won a point doing wild fist-pumps. He was also on TV just about every point because the camera angle on the server or returner (depending on who's on that side of the court) shows those seats in the background. Anyway, this match certainly warranted fans getting out of their seats to celebrate the play going on. After four hours, Moya finally prevailed and you could tell how much it meant to him based on the emotion he showed after match point. I still can't believe I didn't get one of the three autographed game balls he hit into the crowd after the match because it came right next to us. Oh well, at least my dad got one of the game balls that flew over the wall - the Open lets you keep those now.

At this point just three - yes three - matches had been completed on the Grandstand and it was already almost 10:00. We had been planning on going over to Ashe to see some of the night session with Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro, but Djokovic was already blowing Del Potro out so my brother and I decided to take those two front row seats and watch Tommy Robredo vs. the soon-to-be-legendary Ernests Gulbis. It was the best decision we ever made....

....The following is what I posted on an ATP message board when I got back from the U.S. Open on Monday night, regarding the Gulbis-Robredo match:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I witnessed every stroke of this match from the FRONT ROW right behind the baseline.

It was the most shocking display of tennis I have EVER witnessed and I am not kidding.

I had heard of him a little bit, and my brother I dont think ever had. We were watching warmups and were already like "wow, this could be a good match." Then we saw serving warmups and were like "good lord, this could REALLY be a match."

The first set was nothing short of complete shock and awe. All we could do was just laugh at how ridiculous Gulbis was. I literally had to bury my head in my hat during some points because I was just laughing. Completely and utterly ridiculous.

And it never changed. Whole entire match was complete and utter domination. Several times Robredo looked at Gulbis and smirked in disbelief. Other times he resorted to banging rackets against the wall and kicking trash-cans.

Robredo was completely SHELL SHOCKED, as was I, as was the entire Grandstand crowd.

At changeovers during the 3rd set almost the entire crowd stood up and chanted "ERNESTS ERNESTS ERNESTS" or "GULBIS, GULBIS, GULBIS."

Gulbis 1st serve: unbelievable
Gulbis 2nd serve: better than most players' first
Forehand: one of biggest in the game
Backhand: solid, hits it one inch from the opponents' baseline every single time
Volley: unbelievably solid
Return of serve: flawless, blocks it deep with backhand, punishes it with forehand
Drop shot: by far the best on the pro tour
Style of play: Everything. Everything flawless. Has more variety than anyone other than Federer. He can destroy you from the baseline, comes into net a decent amount and does so at ALL the right times. Uses drop shot to perfection and comes in behind it.


I'm certain I will never see anything like this match ever again. I MIGHT see tennis as good, but absolutely never anything like that again from a 19-year old who I've barely ever heard of.

Actually I'm still in shock - and showing no signs of coming out of it.

I've started my descent back to earth since posting that, but it really was just about that out-of-control.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to declare Gulbis the second coming of Roger Federer, but he does have all the talent in the world and then some.

Perhaps I'll see another display of tennis as good as what I saw out Gulbis for 90 glorious minutes on Sunday night, but I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that I'll never be as shocked watching a tennis match - or probably any sporting event period - as I was during this one. This came completely out of nowhere. Like I said, most of the Grandstand crowd had ever seen or heard of Gulbis when he walked onto the court, and two sets later almost everyone there stood up during changeovers and chanted the guy's name. Craziness!