So the first week of the 2014 US Open drew to a close last night in noteworthy fashion. The weather was dramatic and the scorelines unexpected. With Federer and Dimitrov playing frankly poor first sets – though both managed to rectify the situation – and Ferrer, Jankovic and Sharapova, the latter in one of the most enjoyable matches I’ve seen this year, all departing the scene, the board is set in somewhat unexpected fashion for the coming week. Yesterday provided the tournament’s first major episode of meteorological drama, but not of disruption on the courts: the last 7 days have prompted me to further musings as to whether I prefer the first or the second week of a Slam.
I don’t have the opportunity to watch nearly as much tennis as I’d like – my flat is not equipped with a television – and therefore I’m limited to following mostly via twitter and the various available apps. They’re great resources, particularly during Slams when I can listen to the radio commentary, but I’m restricted to watching, say, one or two early round matches, semis, and the finals if I can manage it. So here’s the question: for a largely non-visual tennis fanatic, which week of a Slam is more interesting?
Week One – The Pros:
– There are SO MANY matches. The tennis is constant, and there is always something happening; if you follow more than a handful of players, there’s little to no time spent hopelessly refreshing pages with no new information. It’s almost more exciting during Australia or the USO – I wake daily up to a barrage of results from my selected favourites.
– There are new players to become aware of. Short of something pretty extraordinary, for example Nick Kyrgios’ run to the Wimbledon QFs a few weeks back, people who only tune in to the later stages of a tournament miss things. I spent a dull seminar in January following Kyrgios’ match against Benoit Paire, and then kept an eye on his results: come the summer, I anticipated a potential R32 upset, and my glee in being proved right took the edge off the sting of yet another weak campaign from Nadal. Or look at CiCi Bellis – while there’s no making certain predictions in sport, those who noted her surprising first round victory now have something to keep an eye on over the next, who knows, even 15 years.
– Combining these two previous points, here’s the best thing: the more you follow, the more there is to see. Over the last few years, my interest in tennis has snowballed from a slightly obsessive devotion to Nadal and Federer – and an interest in the wider ATP tour insofar as it affected them – into a fascination which frankly bores the majority of my acquaintances. Naturally, the highlights come 4 times a year: all the best players, men and women, are playing the same tournament and the wider world takes interest.
Week One – The Cons:
– The top seeds are rarely forced to really bring it, and there’s a pretty strong argument that watching Djokovic roll over yet another player for the loss of 7 games or fewer is not showcasing the sport at its best.
– There are scheduling clashes. Trying to keep track of 3 or 4 matches at once, when two are getting scarcely any coverage as they’re on an outside court or neither player is ranked in the Top 10 or there are obvious cases of the Big Stars handing out a pasting on a show court, can be pretty frustrating. But – thanks to IBM SlamTracker and the apps – it’s doable.
There’s more quirk, and I’m pretty sure that’s what I like. By the final, even of the strangest tournaments, they’ve usually evened out a fair bit. Take the men’s Wimbledon draw this year: Nadal upset (though was it?) in the first week, Murray losing earlier than at least the British media had anticipated, young players excelling, and then at the end, we find ourselves watching Djokovic-Federer: one or other of them has been in the final every year since 2003. That was a fantastic match, and that’s what you expect – or hope – to see when two of the best players to have ever played the game play for the title of what’s probably still tennis’ most prestigious championship.
Of course I want to see the blockbuster games. They’re what got me and probably most of the population who care about tennis into the sport. But there’s so much more to be seen in the game, and the first week of a Grand Slam seems to me to be the best place to see it.
When Rain Stops Play 