The 2015 US Open was a highly entertaining two weeks of tennis even though nothing that I was rooting for came to pass. These are just some quick thoughts I had about the fortnight (I don’t know why, but tennis seems to be the only place where the word fortnight has survived into the 21st century).
Serena Williams is still the greatest of all time. I really wanted her to win the tournament, the grand slam, and tie Steffi Graf’s career wins in majors, but the fact that she lost in the semi-finals doesn’t change her status at all.
The Venus against Serena match was way more fun than it had any business being. It was so overhyped that I almost didn’t want to watch. But it delivered.
Roberta Vinci (the woman who beat Serena in the semi-final) was totally endearing in her interview after the match and after her loss in the final. It’s too bad doubles doesn’t get more attention because I would have liked to have known about her earlier.
The women’s final was a lot of fun. Vinci actually plays the net, which you just don’t see in women’s tennis since Martina Navratilova retired. Flavia Pennetta played a great match and deserved the win. Her acceptance of the trophy was great, especially the bombshell of announcing her retirement right there.
ESPN needs to learn more about tennis if they are going to be the main source of TV coverage.
A Grand Slam is when a person wins all four majors in one year. Calling it a “Calendar Slam” or “Calendar Grand Slam” is redundant and makes it sound like you know nothing about tennis.
The commercials were a better mix than usual for tennis. While there were still plenty of Mercedes and IBM commercials, there were also some ads for things that normal people can buy, like New Balance sneakers.
I still think Rafa Nadal is done as a great player. But, I don’t want to take anything away from Fabio Fognini (the guy who beat him). Fabio was a fun player to watch.
I was completely fascinated by Murray against Anderson and Federer against Isner. Both matches featured one player with a huge serve and one player with a fantastic all around game. In Murray vs. Anderson, the huge serve won and in Federer vs. Isner, the all around game won. But it was like watching the same match twice with different results. They also showed why tie breaks are stupid. Both matches would probably still be going on without tie breaks.
It is completely unbelievable that Federer can still be this good at 34 years old.
It’s kind of unfair how much better Djokovic is than everyone else right now.
