While It Rains in New York

It’s Raining in New York and All Matches Are Suspended. I’ll Use the Moment to Look Back.

The semifinal pairings in the singles are known:

 

Novak Djokovic – Marin Čilić

and

Stan Wawrinka – Roger Federer

 

 

Serena Williams – Roberta Vinci

and

Flavia Pennetta – Simona Halep

 

Among the women I’ll note the two Italians; among the men, the absence of Britain’s Andy Murray, though there is a worthy pair in his half of the draw. Had Andy lost to Stan, fine — but that no longer matters.

Before that, as is the way at a Grand Slam, a whole lifetime has passed. I’ll dwell on a couple of moments.

The first is last season’s star, Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard. She is going through a bad spell this year, but here she managed a serious turnaround, beating Dominika Cibulková in three sets in the third round (7:6(9) 4:6 6:3). True, much has gone wrong for the Slovak this year, but she always stands out for her great fighting spirit and has made life bitter for many top players — this time, too, she knocked out Ana Ivanovic in the very first round. The score says a lot: Eugenie fought, and for the first time this year she reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam.

After losing to Maria Sharapova in this year’s Australian Open quarterfinal, she went out in the first round of the next two majors, and this success should have been the start of her comeback, but she could not play her fourth-round match. As it turned out, on Friday, after winning a mixed doubles match, she slipped and fell on entering the locker room. She hit her head in the fall and suffered a concussion, with symptoms such as headaches, sensitivity to noise and light, and impaired coordination; naturally, she could not continue. So her comeback attempt ended right at the start — all the more frustrating since inviting the legendary Jimmy Connors himself as a new consulting coach had made us optimistic. Hopefully this accident will only temporarily halt Eugenie’s return to form.

We can’t consider the comeback topic closed without mentioning two-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one, Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka.

In the first half of the year she was clearly not in proper condition, but she showed a great hunger to return to her usual heights. Luck wasn’t on her side either: suffice it to recall that at the French and British Grand Slams she landed in Serena’s half of the draw and lost to Serena at both tournaments — though she gave up those two matches, and a third at the Madrid Masters, only in three sets — and here too she reached the quarterfinals. True, Vika lost here as well, in a tense battle with the tournament’s second seed, Romania’s Simona Halep, but her level of play has improved sharply, and in the rest of the season we should expect from her the title she hasn’t won yet this year.

And finally, another two-time Grand Slam champion — Wimbledon champion, this time — the Czech Petra Kvitová. Before the tournament Petra was given a serious diagnosis, mononucleosis, but the doctors allowed her to play, and she played as befits the world’s number five racket, losing only in the quarterfinals.

As an example, let me remind you that Roger Federer overcame this illness in his time, while Robin Söderling had to give up top-level tennis because of it. I wish Petra a quick recovery, like Roger, and much success!

Meanwhile, the rain in New York has stopped!

First you have to remove the layer of water from the court surface — it’s perfectly flat, after all!

And then dry it!

 

Historic footage! This is the last US Grand Slam where rain can halt matches completely; next year a retractable roof will be waiting for us over the main stadium!

 

Featured image: USTA (the women’s and men’s trophies, Brooklyn Bridge)

Inside post thumbnail image: USTA/Pete Staples (an amazing atmosphere at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in dry weather)

Translated from Georgian with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), reviewed by the Velorbola editors.