A Not Too Brief US Open Preview

Daniil Medvedev is a Russian tennis player making his third appearance in a Grand Slam final today.  He lost the first two so he's hoping to get off the schneid.  Medvedev is a long lanky guy with my hairline from five years ago and a funny grasp of the English language.  Here he is daring Stefanos Tsitsipas to step to him, more or less.

"Man you better shut your fuck up ok?!" and "He's a small kid he doesn't know how to fight!" are not things you often hear on a tennis court.  He's famously dooshy.

I'm working on a post about the sudden explosion of over-sized string-bean chicken-legged hard-hitting male baseliners in the ATP and the evolution of what I call bigman tennis.  He's one of those guys.

The other guy is Novak Djokovic.  You've heard of him.  I've written about him before.  He's really good at tennis.

It's hard to say whether he's the best of all time--as I get older I think those arguments are futile.  Could any fighter from any single point in time have beaten Mike Tyson the night he fought Michael Spinks (Trump was involved?!)?  Could Djokovic beat Pete Sampras at the height of Sampras's powers if they played on Centre Court circa 1992 before they changed the grass to make it slower?  Could he beat Bjorn Borg at Borg's peak at Roland Garros if they both had to use wooden racquets?  Who knows.

I can, however, say with great confidence that if Djokovic wins today he will have the best resume of all time.

via GIPHY

A win today gives him 21 major titles, the most of any man (but behind Margaret Court's 24, Serena Williams's 23 and Steffi Graf's 22 majors).  It would also give him a calendar Grand Slam which has only been done by Don Budge and Rod Laver (twice), and Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, and Steffi Graf.  This would be a companion to his non-calendar Grand Slam that spanned Wimbledon in 2015 through the French in 2016.  Only Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, and Serena Williams (twice) have done that.

He has winning records against almost every other man who won a major since he turned pro in 2005. 

He's 27-23 against Roger Federer, including a 3-1 record at Wimbledon (all three wins were in the Finals).

He's 30-28 against Rafael Nadal, including a 2-7 record at the French.  That French stat might not sound too impressive, but he's 98-1 against everyone else in the world combined at Roland Garros so Djokovic's two wins are meaningful.  He is the only person to ever win the French Open by going through Nadal and he did it twice.

He's 25-11 against Andy Murray (including 5-2 in major finals), 19-6 against Stan Wawrinka (but 0-2 in major finals), 16-4 against Juan Martin del Potro, 7-5 against Dominic Thiem, and 17-2 against Marin Cilic.  Only Marat Safin retired with a winning record against Djokovic, they played twice and Safin won both matches.

He owns the Australian Open.  He's 82-8 there, including 9-0 in the finals.  No man has more Australian titles--Federer and Roy Emerson are in second place with 6 each.  His 6 Wimbledon titles is fourth-most (Federer has 8, Sampras and Willie Renshaw have 7).

He reached the semis or better 12 times at the US Open, including 9 finals and at least 3 titles (today would make 4).

He holds a bunch of oddball records too, like holder of all four Major titles on all three different surfaces at once, 4 streaks of 3+ consecutive Grand Slam titles, 6+ finals at each Grand Slam, 3+ consecutive finals at each Grand Slam, 79+ match wins at each Grand Slam, and 2 Major titles after saving one or more match points.

I could go on but that would be less fun for you than watching the match.

Djokovic is playing insanely good defensive tennis right now.  He keeps losing first sets, possibly because his opponents come out guns blazing, super hyped to topple the best, so he holds back and lets them tire themselves out.  Sort of a tennis rope-a-dope.  After that he turns up his game at the end of the second and the start of the third to get some breaks, then dials it back until a convenient time in the fourth.  This almost didn't work against Zverev (and I didn't see it all because I fell asleep putting zdaughter to bed) and I don't think he's going to fuck around against Medvedev (he's too good and there's no next match for which Djokovic needs to save a reserve of energy).  I also think he wants to slam the door with authority on this Grand Slam.  I'm taking the Djoker in straight sets.

via GIPHY

Oh, and the Bills will beat the Steelers too.

Tiger and Me

At the last US Open held in Pinehurst way back when in 2005, my wife and I were locals with me having lived there for 6 years at the time. We weren't even married yet, blissfully living in sin. It was a good home and a place we will get back to permanently before it's all said and done. Yeah, we love us some Pinehurst and miss it dearly. The entire Danimal clan will be piling into the Honda and head up I-95 early Wednesday morning to reunite with some peeps and watch some gawf, but mostly reunite with peeps.

At the last US Open, I was able to get my then 16-year old nephew a standard bearer gig. When he wasn't walking the fairways he was with me and fogtb, Corey P. partaking in the festivities. Watching golf on TV is something I rarely do unless it's a major or if Tiger is contention. Shocking, I know. But watching live, especially a major like the Masters or the US Open is just riveting to me. Getting to spots where you are up close and just feet away from insert any pro's name here is just awesome. It's not being next to the guy, it's seeing what he does and how he does it. The "these guys are good" campaign is such an understatement. If you've never stood close to a Professional golfer and seen a tricky shot, or a yawner of a 100-yard sand wedge, executed up close and personal, you're missing out.

So back in '05, my pal and I are imbibing along the 18th fairway, right side, near the landing area of the drive. We had spent a good 90 minutes there, strategically situated next to a beer tent and in the shade. My nephew is there too after having beared his standard for some young up and comers. A ball lands way right and we see it immediately and head on over. From where we were, we couldn't see who hit the drive but we knew there was a 33% chance it was Tiger.

Sure enough....'twas Tiger. So having done this a few times before, I knew where we had to position ourselves before the masses arrived and we did. My nephew sent this pic to me today on Twitter....

"The photographer must have been standing right beside us when he took this pic. Remember this @RealDanimal?" pic.twitter.com/JwdpJRjxXg

A large portion of that dirt landed on my and my nephew's shirt, which was a Jeff Spiccoli kind of awesome. But to watch Tiger get to his ball, assess the situation as he did while not hearing or seeing one other person around him other than his caddie, talk it out with him for minutes, then to execute the shot which was hard times 10 (you can't see the tree and branches he has to navigate around/through/under) EXACTLY as they'd discussed WHILE hitting it so square in this god awful lie, and then  proceed to the next shot as if he just finished tying his shoes....it just doesn't get old people.

It's unfortunate that Tiger won't be in the Sandhills this weekend, but we will.