It’s the end of the year and you’re missing tennis, right?
Well, we couldn’t have that, so my editor made me answer some questions about tennis in 2023.
Please tell me why I’m wrong in the comments. So much happened that, sometimes, it’s hard to pick favorites.
Best men’s match you saw
Novak Djokovic vs Carlos Alcaraz on Centre Court at Wimbledon. This one had it all. The two best players in the world on the sport’s most hallowed court playing for its most important championship. It was five sets filled with wild swings of momentum and plot changes.
To this day, as I’m nodding off to sleep, I sometimes see the two rally-ball backhands in the second-set tiebreaker that Djokovic somehow missed and the muffed forehand floater that would have given him the break in the fifth set. Make either of those shots and he probably wins the calendar Grand Slam. I imagine he sees those balls as he is nodding off some nights as well.
Best women’s match you saw
For pure quality, I would go with Elena Rybakina vs Aryna Sabalenka in the Australian Open final. Three sets. Two women, banging away and whistling winners all the way to the end. But for pure drama and atmospherics, I’m going with Coco Gauff’s win in the U.S. Open final.
Watching Gauff fight to wrest control of the match from Sabalenka with all that grit and guile, knowing that if she could get Sabalenka to bend she could probably get her to break, especially with the help of 23,000 screaming fans willing her across the finish line. The tear-filled three-way embrace with her parents turned me into a blubbering mess on deadline. You win, Coco.
Player that surprised you most
A tie between Ben Shelton and Elina Svitolina.
Shelton didn’t have a passport and had never been out of the U.S. before his venture to Australia in January. He was the definition of ‘green’. But his run to the quarter-finals in Melbourne, which was impressive but aided by an incredibly friendly draw, isn’t what surprised me most. What caught me off guard was how much Shelton had improved by the time the U.S. Open rolled around.
Tommy Paul made Shelton look like a child in Australia. At the U.S. Open, Shelton not only overpowered but also outplayed Paul, then did the same to Frances Tiafoe, moving like a midfielder and mixing in drop shots, slices and spin serves to go along with the 150mph blasts.
Maybe the world will be patient with the 2021 U.S. Open champion as she begins her comeback in Auckland in January. Sadly, probably not.
The most ridiculous thing you saw
Given that this is one of the most mismanaged sports in the world, there is plenty to choose from, but the disaster of the WTA Finals has to take it. How does the marquee event in women’s tennis end up in Cancun, Mexico, during hurricane season, being played on a court filled with dead spots, unpredictable bounces and winds perfect for kite-surfing but terrible for tennis? The stands were mostly empty, of course. The WTA Tour had five months to come up with a better solution and failed miserably.
The funniest thing you saw
Daniil Medvedev’s extemporaneous proclamations will dominate this category as long as he plays. Two favorites from this year:
At Indian Wells, expressing his frustration with what he and most others deem the slowest hard courts in the sport. Before heading off for a bathroom break, Medvedev declared: “I’m gonna pee as slow as this court is. So you can take 25 minutes. The court is slow so I go slow, I take my time.”
At the U.S. Open, on an absurdly hot and humid day when he had to face his good friend Andrey Rublev. After one particularly rough exchange, Medvedev turned to an on-court camera and said: “One player is gonna die. And they’re gonna see.”
The best press conference quote
The moments when Rafael Nadal turns philosophical are always my favorites, especially because Nadal’s stilted version of English makes him sound like something of a Zen master. This quote was after his latest season-ending injury in the second round of the Australian Open, when he was asked why he keeps going after all the years and all the physical setbacks.
“It’s a very simple thing: I like what I do. I like playing tennis. I know it’s not forever. I like to feel myself competitive. I like to fight for the things that I have been fighting for almost half of my life or even more.
“And that’s it. It’s not that complicated to understand, no? When you like to do one thing, at the end, sacrifices always make sense, because the sacrifice word is not like this. When you do things that you like to do, at the end of the day, it’s not a sacrifice. You are doing the things that you want to do. Sacrifice is when you are doing things that you don’t want to do.”
