The US Open may not be considered the toughest Grand Slam to win, but it has certainly been the toughest to defend in recent times. No man has defended the singles title in the last eight years and there have been seven different champions in the last decade – a marked difference from the other three Slams.
The last Grand Slam of the year has been the first to break the hegemony at the top of men’s tennis. It was at Flushing Meadows that five-times champion Roger Federer was beaten by the young then-upcoming Juan Martin del Potro in 2009. It was here that Andy Murray finally broke his runner-up streak and become a Slam champion. It was here that Kei Nishikori and Marin Cilic met in the final – the only one between two members of the “lost generation” so far.
The often-missing unpredictability element on the ATP tour has been the highest at US Open in the last few years with five different men winning in the last five years – the current longest streak of all different male winners. And with the casualty-ridden run-up to this year’s US Open, it is quite likely that this streak could well extend to six.
Why so unpredictable?
From Wimbledon 2003, a staggering 52 out of 57 Majors have been shared among five men – Roger Federer (19), Rafael Nadal (15), Novak Djokovic (12) and Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka (3 each). Only five other men – Andy Roddick, Gaston Gaudio, Marat Safin, Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic – have broken the spell. Of these five outliers, three have been US Open champions – Roddick in 2003, del Potro in 2009 and Cilic in 2014.
Why the anomaly? One of the primary reasons could be fatigue. The last Major of the year is played about 40 days after Wimbledon. Although this window is shorter than between Roland Garros and Wimbledon, the large chunk of the season is has been played and players have travelled all over the world across courts by the time they are in New York. The month in between the two Slams feature several events but mainly two, back-to-back Masters. Nobody likes missing Masters before a Slam and the strenuous fortnight at Canada and Cincinnati can be exhausting. Ask Federer, who skipped his favourite Cincinnati to recuperate from an injury sustained in Montreal.
This graph below showing how many matches the Top 10 players have played through the season since they turned pro. Most of them play between 80 to 90 matches a year. By default, 80% of them would be before the US Open, meaning many of the top guys, the ones who reach the final four often, are spent and the middle-ranked players, who compete in a lot more tournaments, fail to keep up with the demands of three sets and two weeks.
With tennis increasingly becoming a power-game, the impact of the physical exertion before the US Open is becoming even more evident. Take Djokovic, the most athletic returner of recent times, for example. He has been a runner-up five times, with two trophies. One of them came in his miracle season of 2011 and the other when he overpowered a strangely erratic Federer in 2015. He just hasn’t been able to maintain his level of the physical game at Flushing Meadows, going down to Wawrinka last year in a slowly unravelling match. This year, he has already ended his season after an debilitating injury caught up with his intense game.
In fact, the injury list this year is unprecedented. Five out of the erstwhile Top 10 – defending champion Wawrinka, last year’s finalist Djokovic, World No 2 Murray, Milos Roanic and Nishikori – are missing. Two more – Federer and Cilic are playing with dodgy fitness. Ironically, Nadal – initially the least durable of the Big Five, is the fittest of the lot now.
Most open US Open
A look at the last two Masters tell you just how much of a toll this season has taken on the ATP’s elite. A set of completely different players made it to the last eight at Cincinnati and Montreal. Federer was beaten by Alexander Zverev in a final this year and Grigor Dimitrov finally won a Masters title, validating a bit of the high billing he has often got.
While this should mean more and massive opportunities for youngsters, there still remains big question of succession, the one that men’s tennis has been debating for almost half a decade now.
The “lost generation” – players in their 20s who were supposed to make the jump from “next big thing” to “Grand Slam winner” but fell short (with the exception of Cilic’s one Major) – is still lost. The “next generation” has shown similar signs of the jump, but are still on the threshold. And then there is Alexander Zverev, who is balancing between the two.
Consider this: The 20-year-old German is now the highest ranked player under 30. He has won two Masters this season – joining the very elite club of Federer and Nadal. He goes into the US Open seeded as high as four. But for all his prodigious talent, he is yet to show conclusive proof of making the Slam jump: lasting two weeks, playing gruelling five-setters.
After beating Federer for the Montreal Masters title, he lost to Frances Tiafoe in Cincinnati first round. After beating Djokovic in May’s Rome Masters final, he slumped to a first round loss to Fernando Verdasco. At Wimbledon, he capitulated in the fifth set losing it 1-6 to Raonic.
Could Dimitrov be any different, now that he has a confidence-boosting Masters? Or Nick Kyrgios, the runner-up at Cincinnati, break through? Or Dominic Thiem, who has made Slam semis twice but has stumbled after running into the top players? Or will it be the those two poster boys of resurgence again, Federer and Nadal, who have shared the first three Slams between them and scripted fairy-tales already?
Veteran or outlier, lost or next generation, one thing is for sure: it’ll be a win-win situation the tennis fans who look forward to an open, unpredictable at exciting men’s singles challenge at US Open.
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