Let's just get this out of the way.
Remember when Maria Sharapova acted like playing through qualifying was no problem for her? When she didn't get a wild card at Wimbledon, she put on a very stoic face and vowed to fight. And then backed out of Wimbledon. And now she's got a U.S. Open wild card and she is ready to go all of a sudden. OK! And then she draws the No. 2 seed and a night tennis slot at MY HOME SLAM.
OK. Deep breath. I'm fine.
Here's the women's draw:
Part of me is disappointed, wishing that Serena Williams or Victoria Azarenka were here just to establish some type of pecking order. But most of me thinks this tournament is going to play a part in establishing a new pecking order. Most of the seeds here are not exactly coming into the U.S. Open with a head of steam. Except Elina Svitolina. Somehow.
So who do we have? We have top seed Karolina Pliskova who was killing it this time last year, but who lately has not been playing to her ranking. She picked it up a bit in Cincinnati, but ended up losing to Garbine Muguruza in the semis. And then there's Angelique Kerber who I honestly don't even trust to make it out of round one, or past Francesca Schiavone in the third round. Venus Williams hasn't done much this summer. Nor has Johanna Konta. Still, of all the players who really didn't need to see Sharapova's name next to hers in the first round, though, it would have to be Halep. Her ego must be just tissue-thin right now. This summer, she has:
* taken defeat out of the jaws of victory at the French Open final
* lost a close one at Wimbledon against Johanna Konta
* had a chance to become the world No. 1 and lost pretty badly instead
* got the Venus treatment from Muguruza in the Cincinnati final
Can we let Darren Cahill coach from the sideline, for just this one match?
Gah.
Anyway, I also have Svetlana Kuznetsova as a dark horse. There's a lot of youth in her quarter, and if she's healthy, she's probably got enough guile to handle the CoCo Vandeweghes of the world. And yes, Pliskova, too, if it came down to it.
First round matches to watch: Kerber v. Osaka Jelena Jankovic v. Petra Kvitova: Bring an Oscar, because you know there will be drama. Drinking game: Take a shot every time Jankovic throws her arms towards the line judge as though it's her job to call an in ball out. Heather Watson v. Alize Cornet: Take a shot every time Cornet stops to stare in shock at the umpire for calling an in ball in. Garbine Muguruza v. Vavara Lepchenko Sloane Stephens v. Roberta Vinci: Yes, Vinci is still here and yes, Sloane has been rounding into form since her return at Wimbledon. Could be fun.
Let's not talk about how Stevie Wonder must have pulled together the men's draw, with three of the traditional Big Four on one side of the draw. Let's also not point out that the one guy who had a whole half of a draw to himself lost in the first round, while the other guys are still playing. (COME ON RAFA.) Let's not even go there about how Venus Williams is playing the smartest, and by extension, the best tennis of her career. The other thing we've got to hold off on is that all the big boys are playing doubles and drawing crowds, and veterans are playing with hotheads and if it's a strategy, it's a beautiful one and it just might work to loosen the dour temperaments of the young Aussies.
And of course, we can't talk about the big controversy of whether a player serving a drug ban should be getting wild cards into tournaments. (no. Not her and not for a tournament that starts while she's still banned and hold a spot for her that someone who presumably hasn't been banned for drugs now can't have. But we're not talking about that now. Just ... just focus, OK?) We can't talk about all the great things about Indian Wells because of the one thing that's really got me freaking pissed right now. It's not a topic that's gone uncovered here at TWA, and we are gonna talk about it again now. This friggin' on-court coaching that only the women have access to. Instead of me just going on about this, let's just talk about all the "good" that's come of it here at the "Fifth Slam."
Kayla Day. Day is a 17-year-old American who I just saw for the first time this week, and she has got some serious lefty GAME. Last week, she was beating the tar out of Garbine Muguruza. Day really had her on the ropes, too -- up a set and a break in the second. But then it seemed as though Muguruza woke up and realized that she did indeed have a match this day and that in fact it was happening at that point in time. So she stepped up her game, which threw the teenager for a bit of a loop.
COACH CONFAB!
Day: "She's hitting great first serves now. I can't even touch them!"
Coach: "Yeah, you have to give her that. but focus on the serves you can hit and do what you can."
I'm paraphrasing. But isn't this information that Day, if pressed, could have told herself? Yeah, sure, Naf, but the real question is did it work?
Later in the third set, as Day finds herself in the process of getting wiped off the court, she summons her coach again.
Coach: "It's never over until it's over."
Day: ... (looking dejected. she's pretty sure it's over)
Coach: "blah blah blah blah"
Oh, wait, sorry. That's just what Day heard just before she went and double-faulted the match away.
So, no, it didn't help. It's also not his fault. But what's burning me up is that these women are getting advice that they should already know.
Speaking of "blah blah blah," let's move on to Madison Keys, who called Lindsay Davenport out when she was having trouble closing out her first-round match. Later, Keys acknowledged that she couldn't remember what it was Davenport had said. "I just needed to calm down."
OK. So we have a pro player who can't settle herself down during a match, even at the risk of choking at least the set, and maybe the match away? Funny, if she were a dude, Madison would just have to go ahead and lose that match ... or figure it out on her own. What. A. Concept.
This alone should disqualify Indian Wells from any premier status as a tournament. Allowing on-court coaching a) gives one half of the tournament's participants an advantage based on gender b) advances the idea that women are mentally weak and c) does absolutely nothing to make Kayla Day a better tennis player. If tennis is really 99.9207 percent mental, why offer a crutch? The ability to deal with stress and pressure is literally at the heart of the game of tennis.
In fact, if you're a coach, you should not support this concept or participate in it, unless your endgame is feeding mental enablement. (That's probably not a word. It is today.) Let's just put this in the most basic of terms. Let's say I'm 4 years old. My mom really would like me to clean up the table after dinner. But she really only makes me do it about half the time. Am I going to clean up after myself every time, knowing that there's a decent chance I can get away with her doing it for me? See what I'm saying? If you're a coach, don't you want to get to the point where you don't have to tell your charge what to do? Like, say, at the French Open, where you can't call Mommy or Daddy down for a quick talk?
Fifth Slam my
This week, I read Serena Williams' open letter to women, published in The Guardian. It resonates particularly now because of Hillary Clinton's loss in the U.S. presidential election, I think, although she doesn't address the race. In it, she does encourage women to "dream big" and wonders why she is considered one of the greatest "female" athletes of all time, while Roger Federer, say, isn't identified by gender. She also raises the fact that women are paid less for doing the same work that men do -- even her.
Her letter is an important one, and she does raise a strong point: Why can't we throw gender out of the window when discussing achievement? It's a good question, and the answer is the same when you replace the word "gender" with "race." It's because we're not there yet. We are not equal, and there is actually importance now, still, in using those distinguishing identification factors. What Serena Williams has done in her career is still so unusual, so deep into uncharted territory that it needs to be noted that her accomplishments were done by a woman. Not as a way to minimize her work, but more as a way to inspire. I think one day, Williams' accomplishments will stand alone with no gender asterisks necessary. Right now, in a world where a woman who was far more qualified to lead lost an election to a man who, it could be argued, was the least qualified to lead, we need to remember who Williams is, because the same girls who saw the way the election went down are bearing witness to the unprecedented career of Serena Williams. So, for now, I'm OK with her accomplishments being linked to her gender. For now.
This week, I also took the time to do something I had been meaning to do for some time. I watched the annual State of the Tour "fireside chat" (no fireside present) with Steve Simon and some of the other leaders of the WTA to discuss their plans for the year. A lot of it is exciting stuff -- expanding its reach throughout Asia and Europe, raising its digital game, announcing an agreement to stream tour matches starting in 2017 (although this part is apparently on hold) and a dramatic rebranding of the WTA, along with a commitment to quality in the tour's content. Simon also spoke in vague terms of easing the tournament schedule. All of this sounds great, and really should have been happening some years ago.
The room was full of journalists, and they asked a lot of questions. Some of them were kind of ridiculous, such as the idea that focusing on going digital would leave print readers behind. It was sort of like listening to someone ask, "Well, Steve, I've been a caveman all my life. I don't really want to use electricity ..." But when pressed about the schedule situation, Simon kept his language vague and hinted that there were many moving parts involved in shortening the calendar.
That was going to be the closest anyone got to pushing Simon on comments he's made previously regarding his ideas on keeping players healthy, including this idea of going to no-ad scoring in matches, to make them go faster.
Steve Simon, meet Serena Williams. Serena, Simon. Because what Simon has suggested is not equality at all. It is the very acceptance of inferiority. Well, that is, until I hear the ATP Tour CEO start talking about men shortening matches. Or, when men start getting on-court coaching. I've discussed my disgust with both of these ideas already. But with this open letter she's written, I wonder if Serena's taken it to Simon. I wonder if, when considering gender inequality, if she weighs this on-court coaching idea that's available to women only for reasons that have never been clarified. Would she really play a no-ad match on one court in the Miami Open while Rafael Nadal is playing a standard three-setter one court over?
Serena's speaking to a larger point, I know, when it comes to gender. And I know that women in the workplace literally go pound-for-pound in duties and workload and are paid less for it. Is that happening in women's tennis? No. When you bring no-ad scoring and coaching rules that are different for men and women, that is the essence of inequality. It's giving in to the idea that no, we're not the same. Is that what Steve Simon means to imply? Is Serena Williams OK with that?
Serena, meet Simon. Simon, Serena.
It's been a nutty week. Last Tuesday, our country elected a Cheeto Satan to be president. I have more to say on that, but I need to breathe first before I hit send on that post.
Let me tell you something. When you find that you are basically in hysterics for an entire week and find it difficult to hold it together, there's really only one cure for that. Well, playing tennis, yes. But if you can't play tennis, it's better to watch pissed-off individuals play at least.
Which brings me to the Fed Cup. OK. I don't think I've done this yet, but it's time to officially induct Barbora Strycova into the TWA Hall of Fame. I already told you guys that Strycova does NOT CARE. She will fight you, as Kristina Mladenovitch now knows.
Strycova really didn't have a reason to be mad here -- it was the right play. But still. And then she basically strapped Karolina Plishkova onto her back and carried her to victory. This is why I want Barbora Strycova to be my doubles partner.
The bottom line: Fed Cup had some great matches and it came down to the doubles, so that was great to watch. I want to really love Fed Cup, but they need to fix it so that everyone can realize how great women's tennis is. Well, except Steve Simon, who runs women's tennis. But I guess he's going to need convincing.
***
Now, you know that I hate to brag. Actually, I love to brag. It's my superpower. But I remember mentioning on this blog a little bit ago that Andy Murray was going to win majors and be a top-tier player. Of course, at that point, he was having a little trouble keeping the whole package together, as it were.
But I was right. Despite the buzzsaw that Novak Djokovic was for much of this year, Andy Murray has emerged as the world's No. 1. Before I talk about how screwed he got for the round-robin portion of this event, we need to pause and appreciate this. Murray is not Roger Federer. He does not have the grace about the court. You don't look at Murray and get the sense that he is a natural. He has had to work hard to be this good. Yeah, yeah, everyone works hard. But at this time in men's tennis history to emerge as a No. 1, with the Djokovics, Federers, Nadals, Stan Wawrinkas -- and the young guns -- nipping at your heels? This is huge for Murray and it's well-deserved and I told you so.
Now let's talk about how Murray got screwed in the round robin.
Even though Djokovic is having a hard time in these matches, his draw is easily the best. The most anyone else in his section has done is a Grand Slam final. One. Poor Murray draws Stan Wawrinka, Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori? It's a running theme here in the States, but I think you have to consider the idea the system is rigged.
Well, the WTA Tour Finals went down exactly the way I expected it.
Said no one. Like, no one.
Dominika Cibulkova won the WTA Tour Finals on Sunday. OK? You got it? No? Me neither! This one's gonna take a while.
This year-end tournament was Threat Level Insanity. It was like the U.S. presidential election 2016 shenani-aster. Except in all good ways. Let us count those ways:
Dominika Freakin' Cibulkova: First of all, there can't be too many other players at this tournament who lose twice, yet still advance to the sudden-death stage only to win the whole thing. Let's just get that hat-tip out of the way. Now, I called Cibulkova a Minion-sized player on Twitter, but she has always been one of my favorite players because she gives tiny tennis players like myself a lot of hope. Except she has to work really hard, which is kind of a bummer. Not only does she have to be fit, she has to have impeccable timing to get the drop on almost anyone else on the court. It is not easy to hit the ball at the top of the bounce every. single. time, or at least every time she successfully executes a shot. A big part of her game is taking time away, and it's just a second or two, but it's part of what had Kerber (and the rest of her opponents this week) scrambling all over the place. It's maddening.
Anddd, the loser, but still champion ...: I know a lot of people like Angelique Kerber. I like her. She's got grit, she works hard and she is the legit World No. 1 right now. But even as she earned that title, I always considered her a stopgap No. 1 at best. This tournament proved that, and the final match really shined a spotlight on this. Cibulkova played great defense and served well, too, but she offered up enough short balls that Kerber should have been able to step in and apply pressure. Instead, she's the one being pulled around the court. In her 20-minute offseason, she needs to develop the kill shot.
Svetlana Kuznetsova goes full Alize Cornet: Kuznetsova has always been my favorite Russian from that first post-Kournikova batch. She's not flashy, no drama, just a meat-and-potatoes tennis player. She's had periods of wild inconsistency, but at her best, she is a threat. She was a real threat to Johanna Konta last week and took her spot in the finals at the last minute. I thought she'd have nothing left to make a real run, but that was, to put it mildly, not accurate. She made a semifinal run to the tour finals, but not without a little sacrifice.
There are a couple of things to love about this. First, the theories bandied about by the female commentator. "She's feeling heavy on the court?" Pardon? Like, what?!!
It turned out that Kuznetsova's explanation about this moment was that her hair kept getting in her face and distracted her. OK. Makes sense. I guess my first inclination would have been to ... I don't know, ... tuck the problematic hair into my ponytail holder? But that's just me. There are about four other ways to solve the problem, and Sveta goes to the most time-consuming and permanent one. Oh-kay!
On the next changeover, Kuznetsova was sobbing like Vera Zvonareva. This is really all the evidence you need that the season is too long. We've got players having mini-episodes and losing critical thinking skills during matches, guys!
The return of Santina: Even though Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza did not defend their championship, they are still a very entertaining team to watch. The reason they ended their partnership in the first place was because they weren't getting the wins they were used to, and I guess losing here is just confirmation. But big-ups to Mirza, who was not really much of a doubles player when she started out, but has developed pretty well, learning a lot from Hingis and is now the best doubles player in the world. And she's getting the cream of the crop for partners so far, too. Barbora Strycova is not the friendiest person on tour, but she doesn't come for friends. She comes to clean up on the court. Hingis? Hingis is drawing Coco Vandeveghe. I would just submit she is not exactly battle-tested.
Anyway, the rest of the doubles tournament was also great to watch. Elena Vesnina is another one of those "clean up on aisle D" types and she and Ekaterina Makarova came away with the title, which again, was a bit of a surprise. Which fits in perfectly with the rest of the tournament.
What the Halep?: I have this feeling that the Simona Halep/Darren Cahill breakup is coming soon. Sure, I could be wrong, but perhaps the person most poised to pose a real challenge in this post-Serena season was the one behind her in the rankings most of the season -- Halep. And yet? Lackluster Slam appearances, barely registers a blip in Singapore. I'm far from an insider, but Cahill is a high-quality coach. People under his tutelage tend to get consistently better, or poof! Done! Has Halep maxxed out her potential? Maybe it's just that the long season took its toll. But she clearly needs to assess how badly she wants to challenge for No. 1, because right now? Yeah, this is the time.
Singapore: You know, since I've gotten the Tennis Channel back, I've been watching a lot more tennis. Duh. I know, but one other thing I've noticed is that I might be the only one watching the tennis. The stands at these late-season tournaments have been almost completely empty. That's questionable to me. Everyone's sitting around debating what we should do about the long season. Should we shorten matches? Replace tiebreakers with riveting rounds of rock-paper-scissors? Maybe we just have fewer tournaments. I have to think some of these events are operating at a loss. The money they pay in electricity just to get the party started must be exorbitant compared to the spectators. They might just consider having people bring candles to the matches if they're going to keep having tournaments that 10 people attend in person.
OK, with that off my chest, man, that crowd in Singapore loves themselves some tennis! Every match had enthusiastic fans. They didn't appear to be sellout numbers, but there was some life in the place. You want to fix tennis, Steve Simon? Maybe just give tennis to the people who want it?
I've been wondering lately if I'm actually becoming a curmudgeon. Is this what happens to people when they get old? Do they get more conservative about subjects they used to think they were flexible about? When they see change coming down the street, do they yell, "Get off my lawn!" when two years ago, they might have just jumped up and joined in? Maybe.
I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility, but I really think that if I had heard some of the talk I'm hearing from tennis officials five years ago, I'd have the same reaction. The first problem I have that needs to be addressed: What the hell, Steve Simon? What the actual hell.
This guy is the new CEO of the WTA and he doesn't appear to like tennis. That is a deduction I think I can back up, so hold on.
The WTA already irritates me with this coach-on-court thing that the men don't do. I've railed on this already, so I won't dwell again. Now the man running women's tennis is talking about no-ad scoring and other ways to shorten the match, like super tiebreakers. The average women's match is already, like, an hour. Simon's thought process is that people have short attention spans, and tennis needs to accommodate that.
This is so ridiculous and unreasonable that I just can't even. It locks up my brain when I try to even with this. When I read these comments from a person running a professional tennis organization, I have to wonder if he is just not that smart, or if he doesn't like tennis.
Because there is one small detail that this man is missing, and that is that not everyone will like tennis. I hate baseball. If you made baseball last just an hour, I would still turn on tennis. So why on earth would you try to change the bones of your sport to attract people who don't care about your sport? That would be like me going out and getting plastic surgery so I could look like Beyonce in the hopes that it would draw the eye of Jay-Z. Jay-Z couldn't give a crap about me, and I'm OK with that. Why is tennis, as a sport, so insecure?
It is also similar to having a test group with non-tennis fans about what might make them like tennis. It would go something like this with Simon at the helm:
Simon: So what would it take for you to like tennis?
Test group person: Well, the court is a nice size. But maybe if it were, I don't know, a wood surface?
Simon: OK, OK, go on.
Test group person: And what if the net in the middle became two nets -- one on each side of the court, and also on a pole.
Simon: I like it. Keep going!
Test group person: And then you could make the ball bigger, and more orange and take off the fuzz
Simon: OK. We've got a good foundation here!
No.
At least tennis players have enough sense to think this is stupid. Rafael Nadal nailed it perfectly when he said that matches that are shorter are not as memorable. Can you imagine that Venus Williams/Karolina Pliskova match at the U.S. Open going to a super tiebreaker?! "Yes, ladies, great tennis, but come on, can you wrap it up, please? We've got Andy Murray waiting to come out." Are you kidding me?
Apparently, no. Peter Bodo over at Tennis magazine wrote another interesting story that highlights this very issue. Apparently tennis officials all over the place are freaking out about millennials. You know what? Seriously, screw millennials and screw changing a truly excellent sport to please them. I want to know why everyone is trying to figure out millennials. A good chunk of millennials are literally still living with their parents and I don't care what an entire generation of maybe 30-somethings have to say about anything yet.
Tennis should not hate itself as much as it does. Simon should realize what he's inherited with the WTA. Right now, you have who is going to turn out to be the best women's tennis player in the world and SHE'S PLAYING RIGHT NOW. You have young talent from several continents who are shaping up to form some great rivalries and there are still veterans (Venus Williams, Angelique Kerber, Petra Kvitova, Agz Radwanska just off the top of my head) still competing at high levels. One of them is currently No. 1 in the world. Simon has a winning deck and he doesn't know how to play his cards. He's looking ahead at people who don't know he exists instead of looking at the tools he has to build the future. If he thinks the future of women's tennis is a damn super-tiebreaker, he's either not very smart or he hates tennis. He is trying to get the attention of a potential fan base at the risk of alienating what he has.
I know this isn't a popular opinion, but is anyone as surprised as I am that Angelique Kerber had a shot at being the No. 1 player in the world this weekend?
Kerber is a fine player, no doubt. But her lack of one fallback weapon was her downfall in Cincinnati on Sunday. *Time out: Yes, I also recognize that she just won the silver medal in Brazil and might be a tad tired, and I recognize that she played that match under the weight of knowing that all she had to do was win it and she would be the best player in the world. What I am about to note is still true regardless of all of that. Time in.* It's clear that Karolina Pliskova, at least this week, had some huge groundstrokes that Kerber was literally fighting off on her knees. A valiant effort, but when Kerber faces off against power players who are hitting their targets, it totally takes away her game, which is the ball-machine approach -- get everything back. She's very good at that. It's why she beat Serena Williams in Australia. Serena wasn't ready to work that hard, but when your opponent plays the way Plishkova did, and you don't have a backup plan, well, you get handled pretty efficiently.
Having said all of that, big-ups to Kerber for showing up after the Olympics and advancing to the final. Same to Andy Murray. There are times in pro tennis when the dominant player of the time stumbles, even briefly, and leaves a small window of opportunity. Many times, there isn't anyone able to step in and take advantage. With Novak Djokovic on the sidelines right now, the opportunist is Murray. He has made himself the player to beat right now, and although he also lost in the Cincinnati final Sunday, to Marin Cilic, he should feel very good about his chances at the U.S. Open (in less than a week!).
Another major development in Cincinnati was the first tournament for Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza -- with new partners. Hingis had Coco Vandeweghe and Mirza's new partner is Barbora Strycova. (Now, sizing up these new partners is a push. Both Coco and Strycova have huge chips on their backs, but due to sheer age, I'll say Strycova's is bigger.) Naturally, they both ended up in the final, and if you were lucky enough to be in Cincinnati, you saw what seemed to be a tight match with Mirza/Strycova taking the title. If you weren't, you had to follow some live-score website to find out who won.
Which is going to bring me head-on into my rant-o-the-week. Again. Most tennis fans who play play doubles. Why is it so hard to get doubles on TV? I'd watch it. The folks on Twitter on Sunday moaning about not being able to see this match anywhere would watch it. What's it going to take to get doubles the love it deserves. Rafael Nadal just won Olympic gold, if your answer is "big names." Martina Hingis is one of the best doubles players around, if your answer is "dubs is boring." If you're reading this, I am about to embark on a crusade to get doubles on TV more often. All I need is a good hashtag, because everyone knows that nothing gets done anymore without a good hashtag. So let's brainstorm bombard the networks with some pressure, all right?! Seriously, though, I'm gonna need some help because all I got right now is #makedoublesgreatagain, which is obviously a nonstarter.
