This year's US Open was all about Serena Williams. How much so? Instead of the tournament logo or some sort of artwork as is usually the case, the cover of the US Open program was a picture of Serena Williams. She was also on the cover of the draw sheet on opening night. And why not? Serena was attempting to make history.
Well, the story of the tournament turned out NOT to be her finishing off the first Grand Slam in 27 years. And it wasn't that Serena lost, either. It was when she lost and who she lost to. She was two wins away. She had just beaten Venus in the quarters, with unseeded Italian Roberta Vinci awaiting in the semis. She was going to cruise into the finals. Until she didn't. Vinci pulled off the massive upset, 6-4 in the third, ending the Grand Slam quest.
Vinci's win will go down as one of the biggest upsets in tennis history. The immediate conversation put it in Miracle On Ice or Giants-Patriots territory. While we're always prone to hyperbole in the moment, I'm not sure Roberta Vinci over Serena Williams in the US Open semifinals will automatically go in that same category. Tennis fans will remember it, sure, and it will certainly go down in the narrative of 2015: The Year In Sports. But five years from now, will it immediately come to mind in the same breath as those epic upsets of the past? I doubt it.
By its very nature, tennis is a sport prone to upsets. It's one-on-one and a bad day against a hot opponent can lead to unexpected results. Take last year's US Open, for example. Everyone expected the men's final to be Federer-Djokovic. Instead they both lost in the semis and the final was Marin Cilic vs. Kei Nishikori. Rafael Nadal has become notorious for losing early in Grand Slams. At the US Open it was Fabio Fognini. At Wimbledon it was Dustin Brown. Last year it was Nick Kyrgios. In 2013, Nadal lost to Steve Darcis in the 1st round before Federer lost to Sergiy Stakhovsky in the 2nd round. And the year before that, it was Lukas Rosol that beat Nadal at Wimbledon! My point is, tennis upsets happen a lot. This one just seems bigger because of the historical context.
In fact, Serena's losses in Grand Slams usually come to lower-ranked players. Her last loss at a Grand Slam came to France's Alize Cornet in the 3rd round at Wimbledon last year. At the 2013 Australian Open, she lost to Sloane Stephens in the quarterfinals. Then there's her most infamous Grand Slam loss of all. The 1st round of the 2012 French Open against Virginie Razzano. She also has Grand Slam losses to Ekaterina Makarova, Marion Bartoli and Sam Stosur (twice, including the 2011 US Open final), to name just a few. Not exactly a who's who of women's tennis. (The crazy thing is that she never loses to the other top players at Grand Slams. Just ask Maria Sharapova.)
All credit to Vinci and all credit to her countrywoman Flavia Pennetta on her first (and last) Grand Slam title. She's the latest in a long line of unexpected champions. Francesca Schiavone, Marion Bartoli, Anastasia Myskina, Samantha Stosur. Those are just some of the women who've won Grand Slams in the last 10 years. And don't forget Iva Majoli, who beat Martina Hingis, who won the other three Slams that year, in the 1997 French Open final.
Sports fans being sports fans, though, everyone immediately started looking for parallels after Serena's loss to Vinci. The one I heard most often was the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas fight in 1990, when Douglas, the 42-1 underdog, knocked out the previously undefeated Iron Mike in the 10th round to win the heavyweight championship. I think that's an excellent parallel. One of the key elements of an upset is that the result is unexpected, and this fight certainly fits the bill. Everyone expected Tyson to win the same way everyone expected Serena to beat Vinci on the way to the Grand Slam. Neither happened.
It just wasn't meant to be for Serena Williams this year. Or maybe we were just getting greedy. After all, American Pharoah already gave us a moment for the ages by becoming horse racing's first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. There's been plenty of near-misses at the Belmont Stakes in the years between Affirmed and American Pharoah, usually with an unheralded longshot ending the Triple Crown chances. Like in 2002, when 70-1 shot Sarava stunned War Emblem. Or 38-1 Da'Tara ending Big Brown's quest in 2008.
The magnitude of Serena's loss make it seem bigger than it is. Everyone wanted to see a Grand Slam. And we got so close. But the loss won't define Serena's career. That I think is another element that comes in to make an upset truly historic. The Giants beat the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl. The American collegians beat the Soviet "amateurs" at the height of the Cold War. Villanova beat top-ranked, defending champion Georgetown.
Serena Williams will still go down as one of the greatest women's tennis players in history, if not THE greatest. She's an 18-time Grand Slam champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist (one in singles, three in doubles). And while she's never won the "Grand Slam," she's completed the "Serena Slam" twice, winning all four titles in 2002-03 and again more than a decade later! We're all disappointed she didn't author another chapter in her illustrious career by clinching the 2015 calendar-year Grand Slam.
But I guess that just gives her motivation to try it again next year, when she also has a chance to defend her Olympic gold and equal Steffi's 1988 Golden Slam. After all, who's gonna stop her?
No comments:
Post a Comment