Instead of a clear number one pick, my picks for the men's champion come in tiers. The first consists of the first, second, and fourth (yes, I skipped third) ranked players: Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray.
Nadal has not had the best summer since winning his second Wimbledon, a fast moving hard court is by far his worst surface, and he has traditionally not been at his physical best this late in the season. But Nadal WANTS this title, he wants to finish his Career Slam and prove to everyone (especially himself) that he's the best player in the world on any surface. The last time Nadal was this determined to win a title, he ended up winning Wimbledon, so don't count him out.
Andy Murray has had a slightly better summer season than Rafa since losing to Nadal at Wimbledon, but has looked sluggish and tired in his latest matches. He has also failed to bring his best game in his past matches against Nadal or Federer at the Slams. But if he could overcome whatever stops him from playing his best against either of these two when it really counts, he could finally pull off his first Slam.
Roger Federer is Roger Federer. He hadn't looked great this year since winning the Australian Open, then won in Cinncinati last week, looking like the dominant champion that he once was. his game might not be as flawless as it used to be, and his first serve percentage might still go down more than it did, but he has the constant mental advantage of simply being Roger Federer and being driven to retake his number one ranking.
My second tier is varied, to say the least: Novak Djokovic is the third seed but hasn't had the best results lately, and plays poorly in warm weather; if Andy Roddick gets his energy back after a recent fight with mono, he would have the crowd support, and he still has a great hard court game; but the American crowd could be divided if Roddick meets fellow American Mardy Fish, who has completely revamed his game after losing 20 pounds, and has numerous wins against top opponents (including Nadal, Murray, and Roddick) to help his confidence. The biggest problem for all these men is that they share the same quarter. Rounding them off is Robin Soderling, who could meet Federer in the quarters, and if he pulls off that upset, he and his giant forehand would be moving on with confidence into the semis.
There are plenty more men who might make a good showing, but it would be a genuine surprise if anyone other than my seven top picks comes away from New York with a trophy.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
US Open Women: Who Outlasts Who?
Serena Williams is out for another month with a cut on her foot. Justine Henin is out until October with an elbow injury that ended her run at Wimbledon. This leaves all the focus, and possibly too much pressure, on the defending champion Kim Clijsters.
Last year, Clijsters was playing slightly under the radar, not expected to go that far, and so had almost no pressure, helping her mentally in overcoming the rest of the field and winning her second Slam. This year, minus Serena, everyone is looking at Kim and expecting great things. This could be a problem, since mentally tightening up was always Kim's biggest issues on tennis's biggest stages, and she is now the biggest female star on tennis's largest stage. Also, she is carrying a possible hip injury, that clearly affected her game last week, when she played a horrible match to lose to Vera Zvonareva for the second straight time. While Zvonareva is a mentally inconsistent player who can be brilliant, Clijsters should have won these matches. The fact that she didn't, along with her mysterious hip problem, worries me for Clijsters' chances to repeat as champion.
However, I am still going with Clijsters as my safe bet for potential winner at Flushing Meadows. She plays a great hard court game and she does it with much more consistency than anyone else currently in the field. She could have an early round challenge with either Ana Ivanovic or Marion Bartoli in the fourth round, but, if she overcomes either of them, she has a good draw.
Coming in a close second, Maria Sharapova has finally been looking good on a regular basis again. Stymied by a shoulder injury and then wracked with double faults and unforced errors, Sharapova has dropped out of the top ten, but has recently started rising again. She tightened up during a rain delay of her recent loss to Clijsters, and seemed to surrender in a straight set loss to Victoria Azarenka, but she has been looking much better throughout a whole match within the last few weeks. She also has experience winning the big ones, and has a stubborn tenacity when it comes to winning.
But, she still insists on going for too much on second serves (in my opinion, anyway, it did work for a set and half against Clijsters), and when the errors creep in she starts to look like a different player. She also has a bad draw, possibly meeting top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round. Since Wozniacki is my third choice, I'll move on to her.
The Great Dane, Caroline (nicknamed "Sunshine" due to her sunny disposition) Wozniacki succeeds through others' failures. She has a good ground game, plays a wide variety of shots, and has a great defense. She's also successfully been more aggressive this season, and has continued to remain mentally strong despite dropping in the ranks due to an ankle injury early in the season. Wozniacki still lacks a power shot to make her threat to the power players (like Sharapova), but in a tournament plagued by injuries and where even the top players might just implode at any moment, an opponent who just returns more balls than you expect and refuses to go away could go all the way.
As for the rest of field, I don't even know where to begin. There are so many potentially dangerous players among the lower seeds, and so many potential upsets brewing from top seeds, it's impossible to cover them all. Here's a sample: Ana Ivanovic has some of her big forehand/ big serve game back, but was injured two weeks ago and has a hard draw; Venus Williams has an easy draw, but hasn't played since her horrible loss at Wimbledon, and is as inconsistent as much of the rest of the field; Svetlana Kuznetsova has been looking better, but she has a history of bailing out when it matters most; Victoria Avarenka (Brad Gilbert's choice to win it all) has power but not always control, and little experience, though she's still so young that she might not think about it too much, which could be the decider when the going gets tight.
On that last note, early upsets are likely to run rampant among the women, which is why it would not be all that shocking to see some young/ no name/ where the hell did she come from? player going deep into the tournament, and potentially shocking everyone by winning it all, while we all still struggle with correctly pronouncing her name. And if she's young, and doesn't know any better, and no one's looking her way until she's suddenly in the semis, it increases her chances of just floating in under the radar while the bigger names suffer under expectations and physical problems from playing a long hard season.
So this could be a very interesting U.S. Open. Or it could be filled with horrible play and matches between two players who played good to make it that far only to crumble when they started feeling the pressure.
This is Women's Tennis, welcome to it.
Last year, Clijsters was playing slightly under the radar, not expected to go that far, and so had almost no pressure, helping her mentally in overcoming the rest of the field and winning her second Slam. This year, minus Serena, everyone is looking at Kim and expecting great things. This could be a problem, since mentally tightening up was always Kim's biggest issues on tennis's biggest stages, and she is now the biggest female star on tennis's largest stage. Also, she is carrying a possible hip injury, that clearly affected her game last week, when she played a horrible match to lose to Vera Zvonareva for the second straight time. While Zvonareva is a mentally inconsistent player who can be brilliant, Clijsters should have won these matches. The fact that she didn't, along with her mysterious hip problem, worries me for Clijsters' chances to repeat as champion.
However, I am still going with Clijsters as my safe bet for potential winner at Flushing Meadows. She plays a great hard court game and she does it with much more consistency than anyone else currently in the field. She could have an early round challenge with either Ana Ivanovic or Marion Bartoli in the fourth round, but, if she overcomes either of them, she has a good draw.
Coming in a close second, Maria Sharapova has finally been looking good on a regular basis again. Stymied by a shoulder injury and then wracked with double faults and unforced errors, Sharapova has dropped out of the top ten, but has recently started rising again. She tightened up during a rain delay of her recent loss to Clijsters, and seemed to surrender in a straight set loss to Victoria Azarenka, but she has been looking much better throughout a whole match within the last few weeks. She also has experience winning the big ones, and has a stubborn tenacity when it comes to winning.
But, she still insists on going for too much on second serves (in my opinion, anyway, it did work for a set and half against Clijsters), and when the errors creep in she starts to look like a different player. She also has a bad draw, possibly meeting top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round. Since Wozniacki is my third choice, I'll move on to her.
The Great Dane, Caroline (nicknamed "Sunshine" due to her sunny disposition) Wozniacki succeeds through others' failures. She has a good ground game, plays a wide variety of shots, and has a great defense. She's also successfully been more aggressive this season, and has continued to remain mentally strong despite dropping in the ranks due to an ankle injury early in the season. Wozniacki still lacks a power shot to make her threat to the power players (like Sharapova), but in a tournament plagued by injuries and where even the top players might just implode at any moment, an opponent who just returns more balls than you expect and refuses to go away could go all the way.
As for the rest of field, I don't even know where to begin. There are so many potentially dangerous players among the lower seeds, and so many potential upsets brewing from top seeds, it's impossible to cover them all. Here's a sample: Ana Ivanovic has some of her big forehand/ big serve game back, but was injured two weeks ago and has a hard draw; Venus Williams has an easy draw, but hasn't played since her horrible loss at Wimbledon, and is as inconsistent as much of the rest of the field; Svetlana Kuznetsova has been looking better, but she has a history of bailing out when it matters most; Victoria Avarenka (Brad Gilbert's choice to win it all) has power but not always control, and little experience, though she's still so young that she might not think about it too much, which could be the decider when the going gets tight.
On that last note, early upsets are likely to run rampant among the women, which is why it would not be all that shocking to see some young/ no name/ where the hell did she come from? player going deep into the tournament, and potentially shocking everyone by winning it all, while we all still struggle with correctly pronouncing her name. And if she's young, and doesn't know any better, and no one's looking her way until she's suddenly in the semis, it increases her chances of just floating in under the radar while the bigger names suffer under expectations and physical problems from playing a long hard season.
So this could be a very interesting U.S. Open. Or it could be filled with horrible play and matches between two players who played good to make it that far only to crumble when they started feeling the pressure.
This is Women's Tennis, welcome to it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
X-Games Overview: Attack of Travis Pastrana
Freestyle Moto-X: Travis Pastrana won another Gold in this competition, but was it completely deserved? The judges loved that he used the course in unique ways, and he was hitting some unbelievable tricks. BUT X-Games rookie Levi Sherwood was also going huge on hits that were staring straight into the setting sun, and he altered his run throughout the competition. And yeah, Levi only lost to Pastrana by one point, but I thought my sister had a point when she said that it just seemed that the judges were favoring Pastrana a bit too much.
Keep in mind, Travis did hit the first ever double flip in freestyle competition, and if he had added that to his run he would have definitely won anyway, but it turned out he didn't need to. Travis did it anyway, but that's just Travis.
Finally, I have to say, the judges just didn't seem to have much love for Nate Adams' 360, especially considering he's still the only person doing it consistently.
Women's Super X (that's racing, FYI): Ashley Fiolek repeated her Gold Medal performance in one of the best stories to come out of X-Games in years. Besides only being 19, Ashley is also completely deaf, and has learned to ride and race using only the vibrations of the bike to tell where her opponents are. That nearly cost her the gold this year, when another racer got close to passing her, but she just didn't have enough, and ended up crashing when she pushed it too hard on the next lap.
It was also nice to see that the sideline reporter did not stick the microphone in Ashley's face, which is what happened last year.
Skateboard Vert: For the first ten minutes, this was a boring final. Shawn White got his first two big runs in, leading the pack by a distance while no one else either got anywhere near, or could stay on their board log enough to match his scores. Finally, reigning champion (and lone Canadian skater) Pierre Luc Gagnon got a huge run in, and then another, forcing White to push it for one last chance, which he fell on.
So those last five minutes were well worth the wait.
Skateboard Street: Ramos, Ryan Sheckler, and Chaz Ortiz all owned the course in the elimination rounds, then none of them were as good in the semifinals. Finally, Sheckler and Ortiz started hitting their jumps in the final, while Ramos hadn't got past the semis. Sheckler won, and was easily the best skater out there, proving what he could do all the time if he'd stop trying to act and stay healthy.
Rally and Super Rally: For reasons passing all logical understanding, the organizers changed the Rally course four times: one for warm-ups, one for qualifying, one for eliminations, and one for the finals. This led directly to numerous races being decided by a rider going off-course, which could have been eliminated had they been more intelligent when setting up the course, or by adding co-drivers to use as navigators, which is a staple in many rally competitions.
As it was this year, Rally was upstaged by Super Rally, in which four (street legal) cars had to race at once on a course so tight, it often seemed insane to attempt a pass, but they did anyway, (and even jumped nearly at the same time once), because who said rally car racers were sane? This was just awesome to watch.
Final Thought: Nice to see that Action Sports coverage and X-Games specifically continues to be the epitome when it comes to using a very attractive woman with questionable skills as a "sideline reporter" for the sake of ratings. This year, they tried out bikini model Jenn Brown, who at least got people's names right.
Keep in mind, Travis did hit the first ever double flip in freestyle competition, and if he had added that to his run he would have definitely won anyway, but it turned out he didn't need to. Travis did it anyway, but that's just Travis.
Finally, I have to say, the judges just didn't seem to have much love for Nate Adams' 360, especially considering he's still the only person doing it consistently.
Women's Super X (that's racing, FYI): Ashley Fiolek repeated her Gold Medal performance in one of the best stories to come out of X-Games in years. Besides only being 19, Ashley is also completely deaf, and has learned to ride and race using only the vibrations of the bike to tell where her opponents are. That nearly cost her the gold this year, when another racer got close to passing her, but she just didn't have enough, and ended up crashing when she pushed it too hard on the next lap.
It was also nice to see that the sideline reporter did not stick the microphone in Ashley's face, which is what happened last year.
Skateboard Vert: For the first ten minutes, this was a boring final. Shawn White got his first two big runs in, leading the pack by a distance while no one else either got anywhere near, or could stay on their board log enough to match his scores. Finally, reigning champion (and lone Canadian skater) Pierre Luc Gagnon got a huge run in, and then another, forcing White to push it for one last chance, which he fell on.
So those last five minutes were well worth the wait.
Skateboard Street: Ramos, Ryan Sheckler, and Chaz Ortiz all owned the course in the elimination rounds, then none of them were as good in the semifinals. Finally, Sheckler and Ortiz started hitting their jumps in the final, while Ramos hadn't got past the semis. Sheckler won, and was easily the best skater out there, proving what he could do all the time if he'd stop trying to act and stay healthy.
Rally and Super Rally: For reasons passing all logical understanding, the organizers changed the Rally course four times: one for warm-ups, one for qualifying, one for eliminations, and one for the finals. This led directly to numerous races being decided by a rider going off-course, which could have been eliminated had they been more intelligent when setting up the course, or by adding co-drivers to use as navigators, which is a staple in many rally competitions.
As it was this year, Rally was upstaged by Super Rally, in which four (street legal) cars had to race at once on a course so tight, it often seemed insane to attempt a pass, but they did anyway, (and even jumped nearly at the same time once), because who said rally car racers were sane? This was just awesome to watch.
Final Thought: Nice to see that Action Sports coverage and X-Games specifically continues to be the epitome when it comes to using a very attractive woman with questionable skills as a "sideline reporter" for the sake of ratings. This year, they tried out bikini model Jenn Brown, who at least got people's names right.
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