USTA league tennis has some of the same characteristics as big-time professional tennis. After all, both are real tennis.
Of course, the league tennis players aren’t getting rich while playing on several different teams at the same time. In fact, there are no financial rewards for the league players. Well, the USTA is a different situation. The USTA and different tennis organizations get a tidy sum of money from the millions of players’ registration fees.
SOME OF THE SAME SEMBLANCES
The tennis matches themselves have some of the same semblances. Just because a USTA league team wins the first set of a match doesn’t mean it can take its foot off the gas pedal. There is an avalanche of players/teams who dominate their opponents in the first set, then get dominated in the second set. Then comes the tie-breaker. And anything can happen because the first-set winner has lost much of its confidence and is no longer sharp for the decisive tiebreaker
That’s about what happened to Rafa Nadal in Friday’s French Open semifinals. He looked unbeatable the first five games. Rafa then appeared to take his foot off the pedal, and he was lucky enough to survive Novak Djokovic’s late charge in the first set. But that was about it for Nadal in a 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 loss.
NADAL WENT AWAY TOO EARLY
Nadal just wasn’t there for the second set. Serving became a problem and Nadal was broken in three of his four service games in the set. Nadal just simply hit too many first serves into the net. That allowed Djokovic to tee off too many times on Rafa’s second serves.
Then came the tiebreaker. Not the 10-point match tiebreaker the USTA leaguers use to decide matches that split the first two sets.
This one was the one the pros use when a set other than the fifth set goes to 6-6. Rafa put up a good fight in the third set. He even had a set point in the 12th game. But basically the tiebreaker practically sealed the verdict when Djokovic got to Nadal’s drop shot on the 11th point and placed a return where Nadal couldn’t put the ball into play.
RAFA SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS FOOT ON THE PEDAL
The 35-year-old Spanish legend wasted too much energy in holding off Djokovic late in the first set, playing too loosely in the second set and even while getting to the third-set tiebreaker. Nadal should have kept his foot on the gas pedal the way he normally does in beating everyone he faced in Paris for 13 years.
Rafa wasn’t back on his game in the third set. He had a chance to deadlock the tiebreaker at 4-4, but put an open-face racket on a sitting-duck volley, and the ball went up in the air a bit while sailing off the court. That left Djokovic with a 5-3 advantage.
Nadal didn’t recover. He won only one of the last three points in the tiebreaker, dropping the breaker and set on a 7-4 verdict for Novak. That might as well have been the match.
A TIRED NADAL WORE A HEAVY GRIMACE
Rafa broke Djokovic in the first game of the fourth set and then held service for the last time in the match for a 2-0 lead. The damage was already done.
Nadal wore a heavy grimace on his face the rest of the way when he went to the service line. He appeared to be very tired of chasing Djokovic’s barrage of drop shots. After all, Rafa hasn’t faced many long matches the last couple of years, and maybe he wasn’t prepared to go five sets this time.
Rafa went out meekly, very un-Nadal like as he won a total of only six points in the last six games of the match.
Nadal hasn’t committed so many unforced errors in a long time. Of course, Djokovic played brilliantly the last three sets. He simply forced Nadal to hit too many backhands and chase too many drop shots.
DJOKOVIC MIGHT NOT HAVE A PICNIC ON SUNDAY
Perhaps it was time for Nadal to experience an off day. Of course, he’s still tied with Roger Federer at 20 for the most Grand Slam singles titles, with Djokovic trying to sneak up to No. 18 in Sunday’s final against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
But that one might not be a picnic for Djokovic. Tsitsipas will apply tremendous depth and power from start to finish, the way the talented Greek did in a 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 win over Alexander Zverev in Friday’s other men’s semifinal.
Tsitsipas appeared to be fit enough to battle Djokovic for five sets. This final should be another barnburner.
WILL NADAL PLAY WIMBLEDON AND U.S. OPEN?
As for Nadal, hopefully he will play Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He could pick up the title in either event with a little luck, and maybe help from the likes of Tsitsipas, Zverev, Daniil Medvedev, a few of the other young guns and old-timer Roger Federer.
Nadal may have made a major mistake in strategy by not attacking Djokovic relentlessly with sizzling forehands. He played Novak’s cat-and-mouse game too often.
Nadal is fully capable of winning on grass and hard courts as his seven Grand Slam titles on those courts might indicate, including five on hard courts at the U.S. Open and Australian Open. He also has a hard-court title from the Olympics.
If not, it’s been a grand time for tennis fans to follow the exploits of Federer and Nadal for most of the last two decades.
See James Beck’s Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier columns at postandcourier.com (search on James Beck column). James Beck can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com
