Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…Oi, Oi, Oy?
Jerry Balsam
Technically, Australia Day is celebrated on January 26, but for me it took place on August 29, the first Thursday of the US Open. It was an overcast day, often windy, but not hot. The grounds seemed more crowded than they had on Tuesday, and it was even more difficult to move around when a player was being escorted by security from a match to the locker room.
Although I did not enter Louis Armstrong Stadium, I learned that the USTA is slicing the bologna ever thinner. This year, not only is the entire lower tier of Armstrong reserved (and, thus, often thinly populated), but so are the first six rows of the upper tier. And this year there are also grounds passes specifically for the night session. How long will it be until the USTA charges admission for qualifying? That won’t even seem outrageous, considering that Wimbledon charges for the qualies. All this is to say nothing of the most popular alcoholic beverage at the Open, the ubiquitous Honey Deuce, which clocked in this year at $23, the sixth price increase since 2012. Exorbitant prices aside, the drink is associated with romantic mishaps.
My first match of the day took place on Stadium 17, where the seventh seed, Hubi Hurkacz, faced Jordan Thompson, last seen in July winning a Wimbledon men’s doubles quarterfinal with Max Purcell against Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni. There were substantial contingents of Polish and Australian fans for this match, the Polish fans more visible with their flags and shirts in the national colors. (Italicized hyperlinks denote photographs.) This was the first meeting between the players, and Hurkacz was coming back from July 15 surgery for a meniscus torn in a fall at Wimbledon. Surprisingly, Hurkacz had never been past the second round at the US Open (compared to reaching a semifinal at Wimbledon, a quarterfinal at the Australian Open, and two fourth rounds at Roland Garros) – and this was a second-round match.
Continuing with my daughter’s theme of what is or is not normal attire for a tennis tournament, Hurkacz wore long pants – or, at least, compression tights – while Thompson wore long sleeves, which he pulled on before the start of the match. Despite Hurkacz’s big serve, Thompson did not retreat, in the modern style, toward the back fence to return. He stood close to the baseline and took his medicine, and eventually he made inroads on Hurkacz’s serve. At first, however, he did not: Hurkacz went up an early break and served for the first set at 5-3. Behind 15-30 in that game, Hurkacz got the serve-plus-one that he wanted, but pulled the forehand wide. Thompson clinched the break with a forehand passing shot, and eventually the set went to a tiebreak. With Hurkacz serving at 2-2, Thompson hit a squash forehand to retrieve a forcing shot, and then Hurkacz sprayed his approach shot long. At 2-5, Hurkacz got a serve-plus-one opportunity, but his inside-out forehand went wide. On quadruple set point, Hurkacz double-faulted.
In the second set, Hurkacz suffered a fate that might have been a first in his professional career: he failed to hold serve even once. The one game he pocketed was the fifth, with Thompson netted an easy forehand on break point. After the set was gone, 6-1, Hurkacz strolled over for a chat with his coach, Craig Boynton. This was to be their last match together, as Boynton announced their split the following day.
Hurkacz showed signs of life in the third set, with his fans shouting “Hubi, Hubi” when he earned two break points in the eighth game – both saved by Thompson. Thompson staved those off, plus another in the tenth game. In the eleventh game, Hurkacz fell behind 0-40. He saved two break points but pulled a forehand wide on the third, and now Thompson would serve for the match. A bit of sun peeked through the clouds, shining in Thompson’s face, leading him to turn the bill of his baseball cap forward after it had faced backward for the bulk of the match. Thompson, who made only 49% of his first serves on the day, recovered from 15-30 with three straight points to close out the match.
I tried to visit the troika of Courts 4, 5, and 6 for some doubles, as I had promised myself I would. It didn’t hurt that Andrea Petkovic, the coolest kid in school, had recommended Court 5, to say nothing of discoursing on the notorious Honey Deuce. The hordes on the grounds made it impractical to try for a seat on these courts, and I doubled back to the Grandstand, where I caught the very end of Ashlyn Krueger’s upset of the future (and, arguably, current) star Mirra Andreeva.
The next match featured Alex De Minaur and Otto Virtanen, whose name, if not his 6’3” frame, suggests a Formula One driver. De Minaur took the court after his girlfriend, Katie Boulter, whom I had seen on Tuesday, had been knocked out of the tournament earlier in the day.
Virtanen has a big serve, often topping 130 mph, and he came out flying, opening up a 3-0 lead and later serving for the set at 5-3. De Minaur dug in his heels and earned two break points, cashing in the second when Virtanen put a forehand into the net. Minutes later, serving at 5-5 deuce, Virtanen donated a double fault and then pushed an inside-out forehand long for the break. De Minaur served out the set, 7-5, despite making only 33% of his first serves in his six service games.
De Minaur broke serve in the first game of the second set. After the third game, Virtanen took a medical timeout, and the trainer appeared to work on his back. Afterward, Virtanen continued to serve at full pace, but De Minaur ran away with the set, 6-1, and it appeared that Virtanen’s resistance had cracked.
Not so. In the third set, De Minaur got to break point in the sixth game with a magnificent running one-handed backhand passing shot, but Virtanen got back to deuce with a combination of a drop shot and a backhand pass. At 5-6, a Virtanen double fault gave De Minaur a match point, but a 133 mph ace wide to the backhand erased it.
The tiebreak, however, separated the tenth seed from the pretender. De Minaur raced to a 6-1 lead before dropping two match points on his serve. On De Minaur’s third try, his fourth match point overall, Virtanen netted a backhand, enabling the Australian to advance, 7-5 6-1 7-6(3).
My next Aussie was Max Purcell (also last seen at Wimbledon, as mentioned above), facing Tommy Paul (most recently seen losing a Wimbledon quarterfinal to Carlos Alcaraz). The matchup was unfavorable to Purcell. If he stayed on the baseline, his groundstrokes were not as good as Paul’s. If he came forward, as he is wont to do, he was passed all too often. Purcell saved four break points in the third game, but at 5-5 he dropped three consecutive points from 40-30, and Paul had pocketed a break. From the time Purcell had a 5-4 lead, with the two players on serve, the Aussie dropped ten consecutive games. The last of those games placed Paul – who, it must be said, was playing like a man possessed – in front by 7-5 6-0 1-0, and then Purcell removed his baseball cap, shook hands with Paul and the umpire, and called it a day. We still don’t know why Purcell retired, unless getting pulverized is a reason to do so. (This was not the approach taken by Dan Evans in the third round, when he stayed on court until the end, although physically compromised, and absorbed a 6-3 6-7(4) 6-0 6-0 defeat at the hands of De Minaur.) Oy, indeed. Whatever ailed Purcell, it could not have been too bad, as he and Thompson are, at this writing, slated to play a doubles quarterfinal.
I returned to the Grandstand for a doubles match between the third-seeded team, the defending champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury, and a last-minute addition to the draw, the alternates Luciano Darderi and Fernando Romboli. (Ram and Salisbury had been scheduled to face Facundo Diaz Acosta and Tomas Martin Etcheverry on Court 5.) It is unusual to find a top-fifty singles player like Darderi in the doubles draw, but perhaps he signed up as an alternate after losing his first-round singles match. The other three players on the court were all doubles specialists. Not coincidentally, Darderi was the only player with a two-handed backhand. In this era, when the net is often treated as kryptonite, Romboli often followed even his second serve to net. More power to him for that! But it is a mystery why he finds it necessary to grunt after he hits a volley.
Slice the bologna though it may, the USTA allowed fans to enter the lower tier of the Grandstand for this match. I snagged a seat about ten rows up, facing the chair umpire, a perspective I don’t often enjoy – or struggle with. When the net exchanges come fast, they are difficult to follow from there. I did notice things that I hadn’t focused on before, such as the ballkids’ sneakers having one blue sole and one green one.
Darderi and Romboli went up 2-1 when they broke Salisbury at 15. A Salisbury forehand volley broke Darderi in the sixth game to level the set. The favorites earned a set point on Romboli’s serve in the twelfth game, but Ram’s lob went long and Romboli went on to hold and force a tiebreak.
With Darderi serving at 4-5, Salisbury hit a winning volley off a poach to give his team two set points. Darderi saved one on his serve, and then Salisbury double faulted, so we went on. At 6-6, Salisbury missed an overhead, giving the underdogs a chance to serve for the set, but Romboli punched a half-volley wide. The alternates earned another set point after a great exchange that ended with a Salisbury lob going long, but Ram held his two service points to give the favorites another set point. Darderi then held his two service points: first, Romboli put away a volley; then, another great point ended when Salisbury missed a volley. Now Salisbury served at 9-10, and Darderi clobbered a forehand return of his second serve past Ram at the net to clinch the set.
Ram and Salisbury picked up the pace and ran away with the second set, 6-1. The deciding set was competitive. Romboli saved double break point in the fourth game, followed by Ram saving triple break point in the fifth. With Romboli serving at 5-6, Salisbury cracked two winners to open the game before the underdogs got to 30-30. From there, Darderi saved a match point at 30-40, but Salisbury set up a second match point with an inside-out backhand return winner. With the clock about to strike 10:00 p.m., Darderi punched a backhand volley long, and the defending champions survived a tighter match than might have been expected, 6-7(9) 6-1 7-5. I recommend the video highlights, which can be seen here. If nothing else, the 9-9 point in the tiebreak, starting at the 57-second mark, is worth the price of admission – and the USTA won’t charge you anything extra.