US Open Journal

Day 5

A.J. Chabria

What a day! The grounds were abuzz from 11 am to just past midnight with a US Open record crowd of 55,212 people. And that does not include the metropolis under the stadium that makes it all happen for us.

Let’s start off with something I promised the pop crowd: a people magazine moment or two.

Spotted on the grounds,...

The Donald. Trump is a fixture here every year. The breeze was not the greatest thing for his hair, but he looked happy.

Robin Givens, she just loves tennis and is friendly with lots of players.

Robert Plant, the legendary Led Zeppelin front man performed outside for the fans.

Meredith Vieira of ABC’s The View had a great seat for the Guga/Safin showdown. She’d cringe at Safin’s miscues, but judging from her Portuguese last name and her husband’s reactions, he delighted in Guga’s victory.

Liev Schrieber, NY indie film darling was hanging around the outside courts. He’s doing bigger films now and went with the dark shades and black bucket hat on this cloudy day. He was with a few friends of Ivo Heuberger, the Swiss journeyman, most famous for having dated Martina Hingis pre-Sergio (Garcia, not Tacchini). Ivo was swamped by Corretja in straights tonight.

Gustavo Kuerten checked out some WNBA hoops last night at the garden. The NY Liberty lost to the LA Buzz.

Roddick was mobbed after his win over Sluiter and it almost turned ugly.

Serena Williams is single-handedly bringing back the miniature pom-poms on the back of tennis socks; pink, to go with her headband and tank tonight. This is a familiar look to anyone’s mom who played in the mid-seventies.

For the second day in a row, Roddick got a pre-match hit in with Pat Mac. The birthday boy stepped it up a notch in his straight set win over Raemon Sluiter of the Netherlands. Andy exposed the limitations of the two handed style in a way Moya could not muster against Jan-Mike Gambill.

After the match, Andy was mobbed and it almost got ugly. The throngs of teenage girls complained that there were just too many young kids in their way. One such kid, Chaz Nagy, an 8 year old from Lawrenceville, New Jersey was getting crushed. I caught up with him after the ordeal. “I couldn’t breathe”, he said, recanting the disorienting scene. He explained how Roddick noticed him and ordered everyone to stop the stampede. “Then he made a security guard, like, lift me out of there and get me some water”, Chaz said.
After making sure the boy was okay, Roddick raced over to his bag and pulled out the racquet he’d just won with and presented it to Chaz, putting his arm around the little guy.

Chaz’ dad, Charlie Nagy was impressed with the way Roddick handled the situation. He gushed, “Andy went above and beyond…he really did the right thing. Later on, when we went to thank him, he posed with us for a family picture (mother Mary Joe and sister Erica joined the party) and signed the grip of his racquet for Chaz.”

Neat story, and a cute family full of athletes. Charlie’s got bum knees now, but used to play tennis. Mary Joe plays regularly in a league, Erica’s a swimmer and Chaz plays all the sports. He thinks he may start playing tennis more seriously now. This by the way was a TennisONE exclusive.

Local girl, Bea Bielik gave a good account of herself but in the end, Justine Henin had too much experience and fire power.

So if you’re a tennis geek like me here’s the answer to your question:
Babolat Pure Drive. 4 and a half grip with Tourna-grip. Mainstrings- Babolat Ballistic polymono at 70#. Crosses- VS gut at 70 as well. Inside the throat, one sticker said the tension and the stringers (Jay Schweid’s company) and the other simply read, “Andy Roddick #17”. The balance was more head light than a stock PD. Andy must have had some lead under the grip.

My featured matches of the day were both on Arthur Ashe stadium, so maybe you saw them on the tube. Local girl, Bea Bielik gave a good account of herself against the 8th seed, Justine Henin. At 5-all in the first set, she even had two break chances. Experience paid off for Henin and she never looked back. She took it 7-5, 6-1 showing greater variety than her underrated opponent. Bielik will learn from the loss and hopefully emerge as a big-time player in the coming months. Her ranking just jumped about 750 spaces.

The next match was pretty much all Guga. He opened with a break , played consistently and served big when he needed to for a 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 win over the world number two, Safin. After the first set, Guga took a bathroom break to apply some analgesic to his hip, indicating that he has not recovered from surgery completely. As he laughed in the press conference, “If I don’t have pain, it’s when I’m gonna die. The level we play, if you wake up and you have no pain, you have to try to breathe, that maybe you’re not feeling yourself.”

Late in the second set, Marat basically handed Guga a break. All it took was two loose volleys and a long forehand or two. At one point, Marat made the 3.0’s in the crowd feel good when he whiffed an overhead on a weak lob. In the press conference, he acted very defensive about it.

Running into unseeded Guga in the 2nd round was a bad break for number 2 seed Marat Safin. He went down 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.

After that second set, the family next to us left, suspecting a tank job in the third. They missed some good stuff, Safin hung in there until 5-all. He was just outslugged and outmaneuvered in those last two games. Safin called the tennis Guga played, “inspired”. Next, Guga plays Nicolas Massu of Chile.

Speaking of which, Massu’s good buddy Fernando Gonzales had a great night against Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark. “Chi-Chi-Chi, Lay, Lay, Lay – Viva Chile!” was the soundtrack on changeovers as he topped the aggressive Dane 7-6, 6-4, 7-6. Gonzalez won 70% of his first serve points, which we’ve come to expect. But here’s the stat I like: he won 64% of his second serve points and 59% of Carlsen’s second serve points. Not only does he serve and return big, the kid can back it all up, too.

Another good match I saw was the battle of France. Same height, same shirt, same frame, same game. Sebastien Grosjean and Arnaud Clement dueled like Musketeers for five sets. Just when Grosjean looked the stronger and went up a break, Clement came back scored the dramatic upset 6-3, 3-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Who says dubs doesn’t get butts in the seats?

Martina Navratilova and Leander Paes drew the top seeds, Rennae Stubbs and Todd Woodbridge. This was mixed doubles at it’s finest and the grandstand was chock full of tennis purists. We’re talking about four players who can do it all, and each of them has been ranked number one in the world in doubles.

45 year old Martina Navratilova is still a crowd favorite. They love her in NY.

Leander, like Hingis, is one of the few player on either tour to still use leather grips with no overgrip, even in the heat. He’s also the only one who tucks in his shirt tails. He plays an all-out attacking style, but he’s got lots of feel and imagination, too. Sounds like his partner.

The Aussies struck first and picked on Martina early and often. The Indo/Czech-American duo got it in gear and barely held their own in the first set. There were four breaks in all, and quickly it was time for a tiebreaker.

Martina was warmed up at this point and her amazing eyes and hands were in full cry. Paes and Navratilova took the breaker 7-4. Just two breaks in the second set, until 5-all, when Leander’s run-around forehands took effect. He actually pegged Stubbsy with a return, right in the hip. That was pretty much it. Martina (playing the ad court) broke Stubbs and served out the match at love. Paes ruled the net from the ‘I’ formation for those last four points. The crowd erupted and a new favorite was born.

The last match on the grounds…what is with Greg Rusedski and five setters at the Open? He’s lost the last three (remember Todd Martin’s amazing comeback against him a couple of years ago?). The tempestuous British Davis Cupper showed the full range of emotions in a very personal triumph over the gracious and talented Paradorn Srichaphan. The match could have gone either way for the first four sets. Rusedski dominated the first half of the 5th set for a 4-0 and 5-1 lead, but was distracted, well, actually enraged by some foot fault calls against him. The sharp Thai took the cue and mounted a comeback, but ultimately went down 6-4.

They will meet again in Davis Cup in September. Greg will meet Pete Sampras next in the third round this Sunday. His 1-8 career record against the legend bodes well for the American, but something tells me this is going to be yet another five setter.

Enjoy the tennis. I’ll be back tomorrow night.

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