the 2011 us open men’s wrap-up
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The US Open Men’s Wrap-Up breaks down the tournament’s most compelling storylines, including Rafael Nadal’s quest for a repeat, the return of Serena Williams after having missed last year's US Open, and whether top-ranked Novak Djokovic can keep his magical season going.TRANSCRIPT
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The 2011 US Open Men’s Wrap-Up
A DAY-BY-DAY ACCOUNT OF HOW NOVAK DJOKOVIC WON HIS THIRD GRAND SLAM TITLE TO PUNCTUATE HIS AMAZING 2011 SEASON
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Day 1Ryan Harrison’s second US Open main-draw experience wasn’t nearly as memorable as his first.
Day 2While showing signs of the creativity that garnered Donald Young so much early praise, it was his defense that ruled Day 2.
Day 3Andy Murray overcame a slow start before coming back to beat Somdev Devvarman.
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Day 4Gael Monfils’ five-set loss to Juan Carlos Ferrero on Day 4 was classic La Monf in every conceivable way.
Day 5David Ferrer showed off the skills and mindset that have made him a Top 10 mainstay.
Day 6Mardy Fish adopted a deceptively passive approach in his third-round contest against Kevin Anderson.
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Day 7David Nalbandian played a strong, clean first set but then faltered when it mattered most in his loss to Rafael Nadal.
QuarterfinalsHobbled by a strained right quadriceps he apparently sustained in his four-set victory over David Ferrer, Roddick had no legs and little hope against Rafael Nadal, who needed less then two hours to extend America’s male major title drought to 32 Grand Slams.
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SemifinalsNovak Djokovic’s blistering return of serve when facing double match point at 3-5 in the fifth left everyone, including his opponent Roger Federer, shaking their heads.
FinalNovak Djokovic plunged a dagger into the heart of Rafael Nadal in the first set of their US Open final, but the victim being Rafa, it’s hardly surprising that it took him an additional three-plus hours to expire.
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2011US Open
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The sequel is rarely as good as the original, and that was the case with Ryan Harrison’s second main-draw experience at the US Open. Last year, the American—just 18 at the time—won three qualifying matches, upset No. 15 Ivan Ljubicic in the opening round and lost a dramatic five-setter to Sergiy Stakhovsky (Harrison had three match points) inside an electric Grandstand. But Harrison was unable to oust a seeded Croat this time, losing in straight sets to 27th-seeded Marin Cilic, 6-2, 7-5, 7-6 (6).
Playing inside Louis Armstrong Stadium, Harrison had plenty of sup-port, augmented by the delayed start times at Arthur Ashe Stadium and the Grandstand. The Bollettieri Academy product was looking to continue a strong summer in which he reached the semifinals of Atlanta and Los Angeles, both hard-court tourna-ments. But the sizable, partisan crowd had little to cheer about; Harrison’s serve abandoned him early on and was never discovered. He was thrice broken in the opening set, double-faulting five times and making a paltry 35 percent of first serves.
Day 1
2011US Open
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This is already Donald Young’s sev-enth entry into his home Slam despite the fact that he’s still only 22. He had advanced out of the first round in only once, but on Day 2 drew lucky loser and 162nd-ranked Lukas Lacko. It was a good matchup for Young—all he had to do was play within himself and allow Lacko to self-destruct. Young jumped out to an early two-break lead in the first set and held on to win 6-4. Early in the second set, Lacko had a break point to go up 3-1, but Young came up with well-constructed points to hold. He immediately broke Lacko in the next game and the Slovak essentially tapped out. The final two sets were a relatively routine, 6-2 and 6-4.
While showing signs of the cre-ativity and soft hands that garnered Young so much early praise, it was his defense and head that ruled the day. There were a few extended rallies, but most points ended with Lacko spray-ing a ball from the mid-court. Young let loose on some forehands when the opportunity presented itself, but con-servatism was the best course. Credit Young for recognizing the situation and not playing down to it.
Day 2
2011US Open
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Arthur Ashe Stadium was less than half full at the start of Andy Murray’s first-round clash, and the fourth- seeded Scot wasn’t fully engaged until four games into the match. Murray surrendered serve in the first game to Somdev Devvarman and fell into a 1-3 hole, but he overcame it to advance to the second round with a 7-6 (5), 6-2, 6-3 win.
As men’s tennis has become almost exclusively a baseline game, the forehand has become one of the most important shots. Murray can get a bit predictable on his forehand—he nearly always plays the forehand pass cross-court, which we saw again today—and often looks more com-fortable generating racquet-head speed by hitting the shot on the run rather than setting his feet and hitting through it. But the larger issue is: Does Murray have a go-to shot he can play when he needs a point, and can he amp up the aggression and drop the hammer on early-round opponents? He did it on Day 3, but it took a bit of effort: The three-time major runner-up finished with 41 winners against 44 unforced errors.
Day 3
2011US Open
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Gael Monfils’ five-set loss to Juan Carlos Ferrero on Day 4 was classic La Monf in every conceivable way. Here’s a few of them:
• Up 4-3 in the first set, but down game point, Monfils dives for an easy volley when he could have stood still and reached it. He misses the volley, loses the game, and loses the set.
• Down a break in the second set, Monfils lets loose with a series rifled forehands that Ferrero can only stare at. Monfils wins the second.
• In the third-set tiebreaker, Monfils plays measured but creative tennis and watches as Ferrero implodes at the end. Instead of keeping the heat on his opponent, though, Monfils moves farther back in the court and rallies passively. He loses the fourth set.
• Down 0-2 in the fifth set, Monfils stops trying. He hits his serve without bending his knees and goes for all-out winners on every shot. He wins four straight points to hold.
• Monfils plays an excellent game to get to 4-5 in the fifth, then makes two errors and concedes the match’s final game at love. After nearly five hours, he has played just well enough to lose.
Day 4
2011US Open
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In defeating James Blake on Day 5 on the Grandstand, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, David Ferrer,the tournament’s fifth seed, showed off the skills and mindset that have made him a Top 10 mainstay. The Spaniard might not hit an especially big ball, or be an arrestingly creative player, but he’s smart, industrious, fleet of foot and—perhaps most important—unfailingly consistent. One doesn’t outlast
Ferrer in rallies; ones takes points from him, or dies trying.
As Blake said in his post-match press con-ference, Ferrer gives his opponents nothing. Blake also pointed out that Ferrer can make players look worse than they are. Both traits were on full display as Ferrer tenaciously engaged in punishing, side-to-side rallies with Blake, patiently shaking off winners,
drawing errors, or waiting for precisely the right moment to come in on an approach—or throw every ounce of his 5-foot-9 body into a winner. The man is a consummate professional, and though it’s hard to imagine Ferrer’s game ever netting him a Slam title, that only increases one’s admiration for the effort he puts into going as deep as he possibly can, time after time.
Day 52011US Open
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Mardy Fish adopted a deceptively passive, tactically canny approach in winning his third-round contest against South Africa’s Kevin Anderson, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3). Playing extremely patient, Fish didn’t do—or try to do—anything spectacular until he had to. Down 0-30 in his first three service games, Fish cranked up some huge serves, saving himself from facing a break point in the entire set. Serving out the set, he upped the surprise factor further, mixing in his first drop shot of the day—which Anderson pushed into the net.
Fish followed the same game plan in the second set, and it worked just as well. The third set wasn’t especially pretty, though Anderson seemed to finally catch on to Fish’s ways, and began taking it to the American, producing some breathtaking down-the-line winners. He went up a break in the set’s seventh game, but when the time came to serve out the set, it was a mirror image of set two’s denoue-ment: He handed the break right back to Fish, who pulled it together for long enough to claim a 7-3 breaker, and the match along with it.
Day 6
2011US Open
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David Nalbandian played a strong, clean first set on Day 7, stepping into the court and taking Rafael Nadal’s spin early. But he faltered when it mattered most, when he was serv-ing at 5-4. At 15-15, he missed a foolish drop shot, and he double-faulted at break point. Nadal, meanwhile, chose that game to play his best tennis to that point. He snapped off two superb forehand passes that took some of the wind out of Nalbandian’s sails.
Fast forward to the third set and we can see the same pattern develop, with Nalbandian serving at 5-6. On the first point, he took an early forehand and followed it forward, but it turned out to be one shot too soon in the rally, and Nadal was there for the pass. On the next point, Nadal moved inside the baseline for a forehand return for what was likely the first time all match. Unlike Nalbandian, his timing was right; he sent it up the line for a winner. A minute later, at match point, Nal-bandian double faulted. It’s a fine line between knowing when to throw in a surprise and when to hold off. Nadal lives on one side of that line; Nalban-dian lives on the other.
Day 7
2011US Open
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Rafael Nadal broke twice in succession to take a commanding 4-0 lead 18 min-utes into his quarterfinal match with Andy Roddick. Nadal then navigated his way out of a 0-30 hole for a 5-1 lead. Hobbled by a strained right quadriceps he apparently sustained in his four-set victory over David Ferrer, Roddick had no legs and little hope. When Nadal fired a forehand down the line, a lunging Roddick waved at the ball, then leaned on his blue Babolat racquet as if it were a cane keeping him upright. Nadal won 16 of the final 17 points in the second set to seize a two-set stronghold.
Even if completely healthy, Roddick would have faced an enormous com-petitive quandary as Nadal’s best shot, his hellacious topspin forehand, dive bombs directly into Roddick’s weaker backhand wing. When Roddick tried to lean to his left to cover that shot, Nadal repeatedly ripped his forehand down the line. He finished with 22 forehand winners compared to one for Roddick. Hooking another forehand winner down the line to hold for 5-2, Nadal closed the one hour, 53-minute match to extend America’s male major title drought to 32 Grand Slams.
Quarterfinals
2011US Open
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By the time Novak Djokovic stood to serve for the match at 6-5 in the fifth set, it felt like the final chapter in a trilogy. In one sense, this see-saw five-setter had been a mirror image of last year’s US Open semifinal. On that day, Djokovic had taken big cuts when he was down match points and twice found the corners, and he’d done the same this time, with a blistering return of serve when he was facing double match point at 3-5 in the fifth.
But there had also been echoes of their last Grand Slam semifinal, in Paris. Federer was in control for two sets. The last chapter, however, would end like the first, with everyone in the stadium, including Federer, shaking their heads at Djokovic’s soon-to-be-legendary forehand return. With the match seem-ingly in hand, Federer had hit a swing-ing serve wide into the deuce court, only to see Djokovic haul off. “I don’t understand going for a shot like that on match point,” Federer said afterward, and even Djokovic admitted that he had “gotten lucky today.” He was right, but he was also being modest: When you’re 63-2 for a season, you’re entitled to say you’ve made your own luck.
Semifinals
2011US Open
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2011US Open
Novak Djokovic plunged a dagger into the heart of Rafael Nadal in the first set of their battle in the US Open fi-nal, but the victim being Rafa, it’s hardly surprising that it took him an additional three-plus hours to expire. When it was all over, after Djokovic finally prevailed, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1, in a final that lasted four hours and 10 minutes, the 23,000-plus spectators in Arthur Ashe stadium and the worldwide television audience had experienced a match of unparalleled quality—the dazzling and borderline incredible off-spring of an unlikely marriage between spectacular shotmaking and abso-lutely brutal physicality. No two men in recent memory have ever played so positively, for so long, with such bone-jarring and muscle-ruining abandon.
It was only fitting that the match ended on yet another atomic, inside-out forehand blast by Djokovic, for it was his persistent willingness to take risks—to paint lines, to challenge Nadal’s biggest weapons, and to keep forcing his opponent back off the baseline—that won him the match and his third major title of this remarkable 2011 season.
Final
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