World Tennis Magazine

Unique Tennis Perspectives

Charles Bricker

Easy Azarenka Victory Begs Question, When Will We Get An Exciting Grand Slam Women’s Final?

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I’m happy enough for Victoria Azarenka, who won her first Grand Slam singles titles, who became probably the best known player from Belarus (apologies to Max Mirnyi) and who has supplanted Caroline Wozniacki and finally given the WTA a No. 1-ranked player who also has a major title.

But when the final photo shoot was cleared away and there was time to look with a broader perspective at women’s tennis, we were left with yet another uncompetitive and unexciting women’s Grand Slam final.

This 6-3, 6-0 win over Maria Sharapova took all of one hour and 22 minutes in front of an audience that didn’t look exactly rapt with the drama of it all.

And what made this women’s final even more glaring in its lack of suspense were the two men’s semifinals played before it.

In one, Novak Djokovic had to go five sets and four hours and 50 minutes to beat Andy Murray, who played perhaps his greatest match against an elite competitor. In the other, Rafa Nadal came from a set down to beat Roger Federer in four — a match that took three hours and 42 minutes.

If this Azarenka pasting was an isolated episode in the recent history of women’s Slam finals, we wouldn’t be discussing how tedious it was. But it’s not, and there’s really no cogent explanation for it.

It’s just happening, and it’s too bad, because you have the feeling the WTA is going through a transition period right now while men’s tennis is becoming as exciting as it was when John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg were at the top of their games.

How bad have these women’s finals been? Actually, we have had two better-than-average years at the Aussie Open finals before this crushing Sharapova loss.

But at the U.S. Open, there hasn’t been a split-set women’s final in 16 years — not since Steffi Graf beat Monica Seles 7-6, 0-6, 6-3 in 1995.

At the French Open, we’ve gone 10 consecutive years without a split-set women’s final. At Wimbledon, five years in a row.

At Melbourne, this makes five of the last seven years without any real drama in the final, and even Serena Williams’ split-set win in 2010 and Kim Clijsters’ split-setter a year ago didn’t roll to a nail-biting conclusion. Both women put the third set away 6-2.

But that’s OK. At least it went three set and those who attended could go home feeling good about having spent more time watching tennis than parking their cars. And at least they had some tension in the air for awhile, as the finalists steeled themselves for a third set.

Contrast that with the 2007 Australian final, where Serena Williams blew away Sharapova 6-1, 6-2. Or 2006, when Justine Henin said “no mas” and retired to Amelie Mauresmo 6-1, 2-0.

In this long list of uninspiring U.S. Open finals, not only has there not been a split-setter sicne 1995, but of the 32 sets played during that streak, only one went to a tiebreak.

I have no explanation. Perhaps you could surmise that after two weeks of Grand Slam tennis it’s hard to find two women who are physically strong or fit enough to put on a tight, gripping performance. Maybe it speaks to a general lack of competitiveness at the top of the game. I don’t know. All I do know is that men’s tennis right now is far and away more compelling than the women when you get to the Grand Slam end game.

Certainly, the women have put on some dramatic matches during the tournaments, but when you get to the final you want the kind of stuff Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and Murray have been putting on. What you don’t want to see is another anti-climactic blowout.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

The Salient Distinction When Federer Plays Nadal

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Of all the 27 times Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer have played thrust-and-parry with each other — 10 times in Grand Slams — this one, in last night’s Australian Open semifinal, had a little different feel.

Nadal poured in more body-shot first serves at Federer than he normally does, especially on the ad side, and he wasn’t nearly as concentrated on Federer’s backhand as in previous matches. Federer, meanwhile, was more aggressive, particularly with his backhand, where he seems to have purged himself of all those useless slices and decided to hit more through the ball.

But for all the tactical changes, one thing in these Nadal-Federer matches remains the same, and that’s the little buzzer that goes off in Roger’s head somewhere in the vicinity of the seventh or eighth stroke, if the rally extends that long, telling him to hurry up and end the point.

And that, my friends, continues to be the salient distinction that almost always leaves Nadal a clear cut above the 30-year-old Swiss, and was once again a major factor in this 6-7 (5), 6-2, 7-6 (5), 6-4 triumph.

No doubt a succession of coaches, including the current counselor, Paul Annacone, have cautioned Federer about pulling the trigger on a risky shot from some cramped position on court, or from becoming completely frustrated by Nadal’s defense and retrievals.

But anyone who has played this game will tell you that in the heat of the moment, that little buzzer trumps all the coaching advice you may have gotten and, wham, even though you know this is losing tennis, your patience runs thin and you fall prey to some fantasy about hitting a spectacular shot.

That, among other things, is what is killing Federer in these matches — that and Nadal’s mental strength, which prevents him from panicking when Roger connects on a couple of low- to middle-percentage shots in a row. Nadal knows that if Federer is presented with 30 opportunities to squeeze the trigger on a questionable attempt at an outright winner, he’s going to win 10 of those and lose 20.

And Nadal’s attitude after Federer scores one of these winners is to just move on, play the next ball. How well does it work? Nadal now holds an overall 18-9 head-to-head edge on Fed, he’s 8-2 in Grand Slam matches and has won the last three times the two men met in a Grand Slam final — all on different surfaces.

You can crystallize Federer’s impatience with one statistical summary — 46 winners and 63 unforced errors, and, in the final three sets, much worse — 20 winners, 42 errors. Contrast that with Nadal’s 36 winners and 34 errors and, voila!, that’s the short of it.

To be sure, Federer is still one of the five best players in the world, but this semifinal loss makes eight Grand Slams since he won his last major title, at the 2010 Aussie Open. Pete Sampras had a drought that long, too, before winning the 2002 U.S. Open and retiring.

But it’s not clear at all, with Novak Djokovic, Nadal and Andy Murray all now fully matured players, that Federer will break this title-less streak at the French in June, or, for that matter, that he will ever add to his record list of 16 major championships.

At 30, he’s fit enough to reach the semis of a Slam, but is he fit enough to compete after nearly two weeks against the very best? In Roger’s last eight Grand Slam losses, he has failed to hold set leads in five matches, and he’s now yielded leads in his last three major losses — a one-set-to-love lead over Nadal is this semi and two-sets-to-love leads over Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the 2011 U.S. Open semis and the 2011 Wimbledon quarters.

As for this match, which sends Rafa into the final against either Djokovic or Murray, here are the important moments:

* Down a set and an immediate break in the second, Nadal broke back at love and rolled to a 6-2 win. With Federer serving at love-30 and 2-3 in the second, Nadal hit the shot of the match. On a full sprint from wide of his backhand sideline he tracked down a deft Federer high backhand, sharply-angled volley and crashed a forehand winner on the dead run. He was about one foot from the Lacoste box where the base linesman was sitting when he finished the point.

* Down a break in the third set, Nadal broke back at 15-40 with a pinpoint cross-court forehand pass, leaving a great number of people wondering why, if he was going to approach the net, didn’t he go to Nadal’s backhand side or down the middle instead, and it wasn’t the only time Federer exercised questionable judgment on his approach shots.

* In the third-set tiebreak, Nadal squandered a 6-1 lead but captured the set at 7-5 with yet another body-shot serve that left Federer cramped and unable to control the return.

* Finally, on the second match point, he induced a forehand long from Federer and went into one of his joyful on-court celebrations.

Later, he was asked on court by Jim Courier whether he wanted Djokovic, who was 6-0 against Rafa last year, or Murray in the final. “Whoever is playing poorer,” Nadal quipped, showing that he, too, can pull the trigger quickly to go for a winner.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

Tomas Berdych: You Big Wimp!

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Tomas Berdych, you big wimp. Come on. Or, in the trendy words of some of the more hard-boiled women politicians out there, “Man up.”

Tomas Berdych

Big Bird got slammed in the upper arm at close range by Nicolas Almagro during a four-set, three-tiebreak win over the Spaniard in the fourth round at the Australian Open on Sunday and, incredibly, fell to the ground. If this was soccer, he’d have been shown the yellow card for taking a dive.

Yes, yes, I know. I’m not walking in Berdych’s size 15 shoes, and the guy who hit me on the side of my head with a point-blank volley in a Florida USTA district team match in Daytona Beach a couple years ago doesn’t wing it with Almagro’s pace.

But Berdych’s got a few inches and pounds on me and I never hit the ground. Furthermore, when I had lost this doubles match, I extended my hand, which is more than Berdych did, and for his petulance, he was booed off the court by a crowd that seemed ready to throw him on the barbie.

This was hardly the first time a player had plastered an opponent with a shot, and watching this minor drama unfold took me back to the WCT Finals in Dallas in 1989, where Ivan Lendl left some yellow fuzz on John McEnroe’s shirt. I’ll get back to that memorable act in a moment, but first let’s replay Berdych vs. Almagro.

I’m not aware of any bad blood there and, while Almagro has the look of one tough guy, he’s actually muy simpatico, along with the rest of the Spanish players. Berdych had hit an approach shot and was now closing on the net, where he next hit a little touch backhand volley that came down short and near Nicolas’ right sideline.

Almagro, on the run, got there on schedule, a few inches behind the service line, and cracked one pretty hard at Berdych. Almagro then leaned on the net with hand up, which I interpreted as a genuine apology. Apparently, Berdych disagreed.

Tomas never got his racket up, and I’m not faulting him for that. But getting hit in that sort of situation is part of the game. I’m not recommending you deliberately try to hit your opponent, but if that’s the shot you think you have to hit to win the point, so be it. It ain’t Chinese checkers out there.

Now, 12 years ago, when Johnny Mac and Lendl were at the top of the game and there was a fair amount of grouchiness among the two of them and Jimmy Connors, Lendl hit a service return in the WCT championships that McEnroe, serving-and-volleying, had to half-volley, backhand side. The ball popped up and Ivan the Terrible, with one of those delicious buggy-whip forehands, drove the ball into McEnroe’s chest. No question there was malice aforethought.

As Lendl turned away to go back to the baseline, he lifted his racket for a contrived “sorry.” McEnroe, meanwhile, now on his knees, glowered at Lendl. Of course, the audience loved it. By comparison, this incident Sunday doesn’t even half-rise to the same angry level.

One final thought. When the Williams sisters were teenagers, and before they turned professional, father Richard had a drill which prepared them for anyone who wanted to hammer them with point-blank shots.

He would put one daughter, then the other, at the service line and order their latest hitting partner, who was male, to stand near the net and slam shots right at them. The message was simple. Get your racket up or get a mouthful of ball.

Are you listening, Tomas?

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com.

USA’s Performance At The Australian Open Is Gimpy

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Metaphorical, wasn’t it, as Andy Roddick limped off court, having waved the white flag after going down two sets to one to Lleyton Hewitt and grimacing through several games with a hamstring injury.

How gimpy was the overall U.S. performance at this opening Grand Slam of the season? When the day was done, John Isner was beaten as well, leaving no American men in the round of 16 since the beginning of the Open Era of tennis in 1968.

Gone: Roddick in the second round with yet another injury as he marches, or rather hobbles, toward his 30th birthday.

Gone: No. 8 ranked Mardy Fish, down in straights to Colombia’s Alejandro Falla in the second round.

Gone: Isner, beaten 6-1 in the fifth set by lefty ace-serving Feliciano Lopez in the third round.

And the rest of the U.S. cast of characters are gone as well: Ryan Sweeting, though he looks as if he might have a very good year, young Ryan Harrison, Michael Russell, Donald Young, Jesse Levine, and qualifiers Denis Kudla and Alex Kuznetsov.

On the women’s side, only two of 10 U.S. players remain in the draw — Serena Williams and, surprisingly, Vania King.

This was the start of what was hoped would be a breakthrough year for a number of young American women, and one might argue that 19-year-old Christina McHale, her ranking already at No. 43, had her breakthrough in 2011.

But she was thumped out of the Aussie Open in the third round by No. 13 seed Jelena Jankovic by 6-2, 6-0 with an extremely disappointing performance.

There are other young Americans from whom more is expected by the very heavily funded USTA development program — Madison Keys, 16; Sloane Stephens, 18, Irina Falconi and Alison Riske, both 21; and Jamie Hampton, 22. And for most of them their losses shouldn’t be seen as total failures. They are evolving players who should get better. Still, U.S. tennis fans can be impatient and the toe tapping is well under way for most of this young talent.

Let’s go back a week. The U.S. had just six men players in the Australian Open qualifying tournament, and that alone speaks to disappearing depth. Kudla and Kuznetsov qualified with Denis losing in five to the soon-to-be-retired Tommy Haas in the main draw while Alex drew No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal and went down quickly in three.

The other four in the qualifying produced just two wins, both by Tim Smyczek, who was beaten in the final round in a quest for a main draw spot. Robby Ginepri, Michael Yani and Rajeev Ram? All down in straight sets in the opening round.

On the women’s side, there were 12 in the qualifying with Riske, Hampton and Varvara Lepchenko going through. Only Hampton won a main draw round, beating career minor leaguer Mandy Minella of Luxembourg and then getting blasted 6-0, 6-1 by Maria Sharapova. No great shame in losing there, but the USTA had hoped for a lot more fight than she delivered.

Serena is doing what was expected and, though she’s a longshot to win the tournament because of her succession of injuries, she’ll almost certainly make the second week. King, who turns 23 on Feb. 3, has been a slow developer and, though she upset No. 15 seed Anastasia Pavlyochenkova in the second round, she won’t be favored to get by Ana Ivanovic in the third.

That would leave just one U.S. player out of a total of 22 entered in the main draws.

So what do you deduce? To begin with, it’s not a good start to the year. Last year, Roddick, because of injury, played the fewest matches since his first full-time season, and if this hamstring injury has indeed been lingering since December, that’s not a good signal of his recuperative abilities at age 29.

Mardy Fish? It has been a good year and a half since he became the svelte Mardy and he’s run up an excellent won-lost record and achieved top-10 status. But his performances in the Slams are largely disappointing. There was a quarterfinal finish at Wimbledon last year, where he beat Tomas Berdych and lost to Nadal, and who knows how far he might have gone with a cozier draw. But he was out in the second round of the 2011 Aussie Open (Tommy Robredo) and round of 16 at the U.S. Open (Jo-Wilfried Tsonga). Tough opponents, yes. But still . . . Big players score big results in big moments.

Isner? Two five-setters in a row was devastating. I think he can reach top-10.

Is there another top-10 talent out there on the U.S. women’s side? McHale is the best of the young Americans right now, but I still don’t see elite talent there. Keys is the X factor. She got slapped down pretty hard by Jie Zheng in the opening round (6-2, 6-1), scoring only 35 points in 15 games. But she’s only 16! We still have to see how she holds up physically with an intensified tournament schedule.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

After Nalbandian-Isner Disaster Chair Umpire Nouni Reviled

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This is going to be a tough tournament for French chair umpire Kader Nouni, who blew an enormous and embarrassing hole in John Isner’s second-round win over David Nalbandian match on Day 4 of the Aussie Open and who is not only getting booed by fans at the tournament but reviled on his own Facebook.

Kader Nouni

It wouldn’t be surprising if officials and the ATP decided to unseat him for the rest of the fortnight, but we’ll see how that plays out in the hours to come.

Meanwhile, before I get into a recap of how he singlehandedly crushed the life out of a great match with an utterly dumb refusal to allow a challenge, here’s a smattering of Facebook messages sent to his site:

* “I’m not fan of David Nalbandian, but . . . shame on you.”

* “You need to retire.”

* “Worst call ever.”

* “How much money do you get with your stupidity?”

Even his own countrymen got into it. “8/8 en balle de break dans un match de grand chelem. Service overrolle, et on accepte pas le challenge???? Are you serious?” asked Antoine Bronner with a lovely little English touch that put me in mind of John McEnroe.

Fabricio Villanueva simply wrote, “Burro,” which made me LMAO.

And on and on the messages went, with no one defending the 30-something umpire who has been described by others as “the French Barry White” and by himself as wanting to be “worshipped by adoring fans.”

Here’s the blow-by-blow at 8-8 in the fifth set, more than four hours into a tense match which Nalbandian looked close to winning as Isner began to suffer cramps in his right quadriceps muscle.

Big John was facing his third break point when he pounded a first serve down the T into the ad court. You could hear the immediate call of out, and then Nouni overruled and, because Nalbandian didn’t appear to have a play on the ball, awarded the point outright. No replay.

OK, no problem at this point, though Nalbandian looked surprised. And so did Isner, for that matter, which wasn’t surprising because John had a straight-line look at the serve. He could see it was out and several TV replays showed it was, indeed, wide of the center service line. It was, for starters, a bad overrule.

So, Nalby walked over to look for some tell-tale yellow fuzz on the hardcourt and decided that, yes, it was wide. He raised a finger, the sign indicating a challenge, and walked back to the baseline. When he turned around, Nouni announced “deuce,” and both players looked a bit stunned.

Nalbandian walked over to the umpire to make it clear that he was challenging, and that’s when he was told “you can’t challenge because you took too long.”

Too long? Huh? I’m looking at this and thinking, “This can’t be real.” This was not one of those deals where the player goes over to look for a mark on the court, circles around it, puts his fingers to his chin as if to contemplate and then challenges. It was like one-two-three. Walk over to the mark, instantly decide to challenge, raise your hand and bingo.

For the record, there is no hard and fast rule on the number of seconds players have to challenge. It’s purely umpire discretion, and most of these guys are savvy enough to know when a player is gaming the system and when a player is exercising sportsmanship under the rules.

And the umpire absolutely has to factor in some perspective. These men had been out there over four hours and it’s 8-8 in the fifth set. It’s a wonderful match with Isner’s big serve (43 aces) against Nalby’s super ground game (67 winners, 33 unforced errors).

There was no tension between the players whatever. In fact, a couple points earlier, Nalby had held up his racket, as if to say sorry on a cross-court return that luckily clipped the sideline for a point. Everything was beautiful. The weather. The match. The ambiance.

And then Nouni destroyed this match.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

Upset In Oz Begs The Question – Does Samantha Stosur Believe She Is a Major Champion

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As Sam Stosur’s 33rd and final unforced error touched down a few inches beyond the baseline, sealing the first upset of the Australian Open, I found myself wandering back to last year’s U.S. Open, where Stosur became the accidental Grand Slam champion of the year.

Oh yes, she played well that day. Maybe even very well, but who can say for sure in a New York final in which, at least in my mind, Serena Williams was about 50 percent fit to go on court.

If Serena had been at 75 percent, Stosur would not have won that match, and she wouldn’t be carrying around the debilitating weight of that victory, either.

Samantha Stosur
Samantha Stosur at the Australian Open

One can’t help but wonder if, despite her first and probably only major title, Stosur really believes she’s a Grand Slam champion. She certainly didn’t look it on Day 2 at Melbourne in a 7-6 (2), 6-3 loss to world No. 59 Sorana Cirstea.

Was Serena indeed playing on a still-unhealed foot that day at the Open? To her credit, she didn’t overtly plead any excuses after that loss. However, I’ve got one remark memorized from that post-match press conference.

“Well, I’m here,” she replied when asked directly about her lingering foot problems. “No athlete is ever 100 percent. I’ll just leave it at that.”

As you no doubt know, Williams didn’t play another match the rest of the season and, despite three months to regain at least a semblance of full fitness, she’s playing the Aussie Open hurt, giving a third-round walkover last week in a work-up event to Melbourne. Draw your own conclusions about Williams’ condition for that Open final.

Stosur, meanwhile, has played since her U.S. Open triumph, and had a couple of pretty good matches at the WTA Championships at the end of the 2011 season. But this embarrassing lost to Cirstea leaves her just 8-8 since she became the Accidental Grand Slam Champion.

I have a certain level of empathy with Stosur, as we both live in Tampa. But that wouldn’t keep me from pegging her as one of the great mysteries of women’s tennis.

No one on the WTA Tour, and I think I’ll include Serena here, looks as physically athletic as Stosur. The triceps . . . the biceps . . . the lean but muscled legs. . . It all looks particularly impressive, too, with a thin coat of Melbourne sweat emphasizing the cut lines.

Then there’s the technically perfect Stosur service motion. If you could win tennis matches on cosmetics alone, she’d be No. 1. The problem is that her game doesn’t often enough match how good she looks on court.

It’s easy to be seduced by Stosur’s fluidity, but while I admire fluidity, I’m less interested in that than in results, and as good as that serve looks, mechanically, she’s no ace machine, and her second serve lacks punch, depth and location.

Moreover, she has a very mediocre backhand that doesn’t complement a strong forehand.

Cirstea played this match the way you’d expect from someone 54 spots below in the rankings – going for the lines and playing risky ball. She had early success and Stosur apparently thought she could just push back defensively until Cirstea’s hot streak ran its course.

That’s not a bad strategy, but it needs to be combined with an appropriate amount of aggression, which Stosur did not bring to court. All the air Sam put under her forehands left Cirstea plenty of time to measure and crunch, and she did.

And Cirstea just fed on Stosur’s second serves.

Sam came in to do press after this match and was, as always, quite cordial. But you can see how she’s trying to grapple with the sort of results which are unacceptable for the No. 5 player.

“Part of it is just that heightened expectation of wanting to do well, all that kind of thing,” she said. “I struggled for a couple weeks after the U.S. Open and than finished well at The Championships, had a month off, then trained for a month.”

To what end, Sam? Where did you leave it? In the locker room?

And so, in front of an admiring Melbourne audience, Stosur is one-and-out for the second time in a row, having lost to Francesca Schiavone, a top-20 player, last week at Sydney.

It’s also the second time in her last three majors that she’s gone in the first round, or did you forget the loss at Wimbledon last year to No. 262 Melinda Czink.

Sam Stosur. It would be easy to excuse all this disappointment by suggesting she’s still getting used to success. But she’s closing in on 28 years of age. There is supposed to be a high level of maturity by this time.

Maybe she is just what the rankings say she is — a very fine player who is a clear cut below the best in the game, Grand Slam title or no Grand Slam title.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com

Borrowed Babolat Racket Serves Bobby Reynolds Fine

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Bobby Reynolds’ early-season odyssey with a borrowed stick came to an end today in Sydney, but not before he reached the quarterfinals of the Apia International, picking up 45 ranking points, about $13,000 and a large “you’re welcome” from fellow American Jesse Levine.

Reynolds was beaten 6-3, 6-3 by Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen.

This warmup to the Australian Open looked as if it might be a racket nightmare for the 29-year-old former Vanderbilt All American from Acworth, Ga.

“I came to Australia with six Dunlop rackets but quickly realized they were not right for me, so I left them in Brisbane with some kids and have been using one of Jesse’s rackets,” said Reynolds, whose good showing in Sydney will improve his current No. 126 ranking.

Good buddy Levine was more than happy to help, but changing rackets to something you’re not used to is not that simple. The weight and balance is different, affecting the way you stroke the ball. But, under the circumstances, there wasn’t a plethora of alternatives.

Reynolds had been using the Babolat Pure Drive for about five years, but tried to switch to a Dunlop in the off-season. Wrong move and, worse, he didn’t come to that conclusion until he had flown halfway around the world.

Slightly desperate, he went to Levine, who gave him one racket. “I put my own string in the racket, but I really had no choice with how Jesse’s rackets were balanced or weighted,” said Reynolds. “I practiced two or three days prior to playing here in Sydney.”

That was a pretty quick adjustment. Reynolds swept through three qualifying matches to make the main draw and upset No. 17 ranked John Isner in the second round — his first top-20 win in years.

Although Levine is lefthanded and Reynolds righthanded, the grip was no problem. “Jesse actually has his replacement grip done like a righty, and then puts his overgrip on lefty, so I had no problems with that.

Meanwhile, Reynolds has contacted Babolat and apologized for asking for a rush delivery of six more Pure Drives. “They sent me six unstrung and unweighted, so I continued using Jesse’s,” said Reynolds.

Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com.

Can names like Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka keep the WTA in forefront?

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With the WTA Championships settled in Petra Kvitova’s favor on Sunday afternoon, tour CEO Stacey Allaster delivered a comprehensive end-of-the-season message that made women’s tennis sound as exciting as the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals and the seventh game of the World Series all wrapped up in one thrilling package.

And going over Stacey’s checklist of WTA accomplishments, there is indeed a lot that looks good on paper about the women’s game right now.

So why am I sitting here feeling pretty pessimistic about where the WTA is headed in the next few years?

Petra Kvitova

You can start with the perplexing No. 1 status of Caroline Wozniacki, who for the second year in a row finishes the year as the top-ranked player, but who is yet to win a Grand Slam title.

That’s not Caroline’s fault, of course. She didn’t create the ranking system. Her job is to go on court and perform, which she does with enough consistency in everything but the Slams to reach No. 1 and stay there for two years in a row.

How could she be No. 1 for so long? Begin with the litany of injuries to Serena Williams, who should be No. 1. Next, understand that Kim Clijsters has played one match since June 16, retiring with a recurring injury at Toronto. She could have been No. 1. Now add in a lineup of top 10s who play great one week, then not nearly so great the next. What you’re left with is Wozniacki, almost by default.

Along with seven other top players, Caroline was in Istanbul this past week for the WTA Championships, and it was hardly shocking that she lost two of her three round-robin matches and failed to advance to the semifinals. It was the first time since the WTA went to a round-robin format in 2003 that the No. 1 player couldn’t get out of the round-robin phase.

What the WTA right now is lacking is that one player everyone shoots at. On the men’s side, it was Roger Federer for a few years, then Rafa Nadal, and now Novak Djokovic — all of them Grand Slam tournament winners.

But Wozniacki, despite her considerable talent, is not yet that player and, in fact, until someone steps forward with remarkable consistency, I think it’s reasonable to assume that there is only one player capable of being that focal-point player, and that’s Serena Williams.

The problem, as we all know, is that Williams’ future in tennis continues to be a mystery. She played only six tournaments this year because of injury and, though there has been no definitive explanation for her latest absence from the game, she hasn’t been on court since she was shockingly beaten in straight sets by Sam Stosur in the U.S. Open final.

One can only assume that after sweeping through six opponents in New York, Williams’ foot was reinjured. Who knows if she’ll be back in 2012. And who can say if she does return in 2012 how long it will be before she’s injured again.

No matter what you feel about Williams’ anger management problems, when she is fit and playing she gives women’s tennis more focus by far than any of her competitors. She is the one player who electrifies the women’s game.

When she’s not on court, the women’s game becomes much more of a crap shoot at the major tournaments, and there is something positive to be said about having four different Slam winners this year (Clijsters, Li Na, Kvitova and Stosur), but where are those charismatic players who expand the women’s tennis audience?

There is no overlooking what Allaster has accomplished since she was ascended to the tour’s No. 1 executive job, and she richly deserved the new contract she signed last week. Perhaps at the top of her personal list of accomplishments was shortening the season to 10 months (less than 10 for those players who don’t qualify for the WTA Championships).

“When we look at the athletes’ performance, it all comes down to this circuit structure, where we took five years to modify it after we knew we were burning out the athletes,” she told a roomful of Turkish media.

“The season was too long, and we ultimately couldn’t deliver it to fans and to sponsors. So in 2009, we launched our new circuit structure, the most comprehensive set of reforms in the history of the WTA. And the shortened season, this streamlined calendar, with more breaks with geographical flow around the Slams is working. Our top player participation is up 24 percent at our premier events. Our injuries are down 18 percent.”

Allaster went on to announce that attendance was up 12 percent in 2011 “at our premier events. We have more jobs. We had four new tournaments in 2011, and prize money next year will increase 8 percent. That’s kind of the ultimate litmus test.”

If attendance is up 12 percent, I’m happy for the WTA, though I’m not sure if she’s counting overall attendance at combined events like Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, where the men have had a big part in increasing attendance.

All I know is that at this point there is no dominant woman player, aside from the chronically injured Williams, and while I understand that it is inspiring for the women in the top 10 who really feel they have a chance at a big title with Serena out of the majors, I’m not sure the public right now wants to hang its hats on names like Kvitova or Azarenka.

Maybe a year from now Kvitova will be on the sort of streak that Djokovic has fashioned in 2011. If so, she can become a legitimate focal point for the game.

But with Clijsters retiring and Williams a continual question mark, I’m thinking Allaster has a very hard sell in 2012 to keep women’s tennis at the high level that it deserves.

Andy Roddick agent Ken Meyerson was one of a kind

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A few years ago, on a rare early night off at the U.S. Open and with my son in town, we cabbed down to Les Halles, a country French restaurant on Park Avenue, where in the middle of a pretty good dinner Kenny Meyerson stepped over to our table and began ripping off his usual series of one-liners.

Ken Meyerson

As always, I found myself laughing at just about everything Kenny said, while my son sat there staring silently at the performance, not quite believing what he was hearing. Afterward, in a semi-whisper, he asked: “Dad, who the hell was that?”

That, I told him, is the best agent in professional tennis.

The news hit me this morning with a jolt. Kenny, only 48 years old, had died overnight in his sleep. I sat there staring at the computer screen, delivering those sighs you heave when something unexpected and bad happens to someone you know and, more importantly, someone you really liked a great deal.

Ken Meyerson was not only the best agent in tennis, he was the best agent period that I’ve known in the 45 years I’ve been a reporter or columnist, and I mean the best in any sport. He was unwaveringly honest and loyal. He really would give you the shirt off his back, provided he was wearing an undershirt.

Andy Roddick has had some coaching changes in his long career, but he’s never changed agents because Kenny wasn’t just good for him professionally, but good for him personally. They were as close to being brothers as you can get without being actually related.

When you first met Kenny you weren’t quite sure what to make of him. He was one part Henny Youngman, one part Rodney Dangerfield and one very big part super-agent. He knew what he was talking about and he didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. When Roddick turned professional, he had so much talent and upside that he could have signed with anyone, including the mega-agency IMG. He signed with Meyerson, who was a rising star at SFX.

Kenny could be deadly serious, but it was a seriousness that was often punctuated with soft ribbing (“you’re going to wear those shorts to Roddick’s match?”) and conversations with him could end abruptly (“OK, I gotta go. We’ll finish this later.”).

He was a great agent because he not only got close enough to his clients to know what ice cream flavor that favored, and Ken’s was pistachio, by the way, but he understood how to deal with the media.

If you criticized one of his clients in print and you could back it up with the facts, you’d never have Meyerson leaning on you or subtly suggesting you might not get the next interview you want. He gave you his mobile number and his email and one way or the other you’d get him if you needed him and he’d give you the information you sought.

Sometimes the information was “not for attribution,” but he would never lie to you, which is something you can’t say about many agents. If he didn’t want to tell you something, he’d tell you, “I’m not going to talk about that.” But he would never B.S. you.

Greg Sharko, who works media relations for the ATP tour, remembers being invited to dinner one night by Meyerson at the Aussie Open, a small gathering of Shark, Kenny, Fernando Gonzalez and Gonzo’s then-coach, Larry Stefanki (who now coaches Roddick).

“Ken called Gonzo’s dad in the middle of dinner, whatever time it was in Chile, and was so pumped and proud of Gonzo reaching his first Grand Slam final,” Sharko recalled.

That was pure Meyerson. He wasn’t just your agent, he was your friend and your parents’ friend. He was family.

I’m going to heave another sigh, I think, and call it a night. Tennis has lost one hell of a good guy and I’m going to miss him a lot.

What we learned from the US Open

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What the U.S. Open taught us:

* We didn’t need this Grand Slam to alert us that Nole Djokovic is the best player on the planet, but the Open did tell us a few things about him that we didn’t know with absolute certainty. One: That along with all his physical talents, his mental strength is as good and maybe better than Rafa Nadal’s or Roger Federer’s in their best moments. That comeback from two sets down in the semis and his steely nerve facing double match point was extraordinary. Two: Watching him in the fourth and final set of the championship match with Rafa, fighting through back pain, separated him forever from the wimp who used to call for trainers when he had little more than a tummy ache.

Novak Djokovic

* Going into this final I thought Rafa had his best chance this year of beating Novak. He had been playing more aggressively than I have seen him on a hardcourt in a long time, he was ground stroking with far more consistency than he had displayed in Montreal and Cincinnati and his confidence was exceedingly high. Meanwhile, notwithstanding his fantastic finish against Federer, I thought Djokovic was a half-notch under the standard he set at Wimbledon. That combined for me to give Nadal his best opportunity to win. But it didn’t happen for the Majorcan and this defeat in some ways was the hardest for him to absorb emotionally because it showed that even when he’s playing his best tennis and his most aggressive tennis, Nole is capable of raising his game to whatever level it takes to keep his nose in front.

* What Rafa can do in 2012 to get closer: In the last three or four years, he’s improved his serve greatly, though aces didn’t have to be a high priority because he would usually be command with his first ground stroke. But that’s not good enough against Djokovic, who is the best returner in the game. How many times in this final did Nadal hit first serves in the 115-120 mph range without forcing Djokovic to take a step to return. One of my lasting images of this match, aside from the spectacular rallies, is seeing the Djoker camped just behind the baseline and, with nothing more than a shoulder turn, whack Nadal first serves back to immediately neutralize or take charge of the rallies. Nadal needs to spend an entire off-season getting his serve better. It doesn’t have to be faster, but he needs far more consistently in hitting spots in the box, the way Federer does.

* For the 16th year in a row, the women’s final was decided in straight sets. In marked contrast to the men, there has been little drama in the New York women’s final since Steffi Graf recovered from a second-set bagel to beat Monica Seles in three in 1995. How uncompetitive have the women’s finals been? In that 16-year straight-set span, only once did a set go to a tiebreak (Serena Williams 7-4 over Martina Hingis in 1999).

* Ah, yes. Serena Williams, who provided all the drama in this year’s final. She seems to be determined to turn herself into the most despised women’s athlete, with her hair-trigger temper.

* Is there anyone, including Open winner Sam Stosur, who believes Williams’ ailing foot was anywhere near 100 percent for this final or that Stosur on any other day would have lost this match?

* The WTA can spin-doctor how balanced its tour has become with four different winners of the Slams this year, but how much bounce is the tour getting out of these four winners. Kim Clijsters won the Aussie Open, has played one match since mid-June because of injury (she retired in that match) and probably will shortly announce her second and absolutely final retirement from the game. Li Na is 5-6 since winning the French Open and lost in the first round in New York to Simona Halep of Romania. Petra Kvitova is 2-3 since winning Wimbledon and lost in the first round of the U.S. Open to Alexandra Dulgheru. I’ve got a $20 bill that says seven out of 10 fans can’t remember who won the French or Wimbledon this year.

* Andy Roddick hopped back into the top-20 at No. 14, but I’ve got a bad feeling about his future. He’s played only 40 matches this year because of injury and he’s at an age, and probably always has been, when practice time is more critical for him than for many players. He’s not one of those guys who can put the rackets down for three months, walk on court and within two rounds be right back in a groove. He needs daily batting practice and when you’re hurt, you’re not just battling the injury, but you’re losing valuable training time. Roddick has played only 40 matches this year and, even if he’s fit enough to play four more tournaments this year, it will be his least activity since his rookie year of 2001. Yet, I don’t know what more he can do to stay on court. I know how much work he’s put in on and off the court the last few years.

* How far can Mardy Fish go? He’s just 30 points behind No. 7 Gael Monfils and playing the best sustained tennis of his life. It’s going to be very difficult to crack top-5, but Fish should be concentrating most heavily on staying in high fitness. When his body is right, he’s a threat against all but the most elite players.

* The tours now head for Europe and, unfortunately, that’s going to be a cue for a lot of American fans to put the game aside and concentrate on NFL and college football. I’d be perfectly happy if the season was over right now with the end of the Open. I know all about the money invested by people who run the European fall and winter circuit. But, for me, nine months is long enough. Schedule the World Tour Championships for late September and let these guys put the rackets down for three full months. You’ll see, overall, better tennis and fewer injuries.

Breaking down the Serena Williams temper tantrum: Did she violate her probation?

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Can’t you just hear it now, like it was this afternoon instead of two years ago? Can’t you just hear Serena Williams putting on her contrite face for assembled reporters the day after threatening to stuff a U.S. Open tennis ball down an Asian lineswoman’s throat.

Serena Williams

“I think the whole point of learning from your mistakes is not to do the same thing again,” she said in what sounded suspiciously like some well-rehearsed effort at damage control.

“I definitely would, I think, have a more professional way of voicing my opinion. I want to get another bad line call so I can get some more practice and see how I do. That would be awesome. OK?” She went on to apologize to anyone who was offended by her remarks in that 2009 U.S. Open final.

Uh huh. So, here we are, 24 months later, and Williams had her chance to be more professional. What was that The Who said? “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Same old hair-trigger Williams.

If you somehow missed the latest Serena-against-the-world brouhaha, here’s the summary.

Having lost the first set and having trashed a racket in doing so, Williams was now down 30-40 in the opening game of the second in a 6-2, 6-3 U.S. Open final loss to Sam Stosur. She got a short return off a serve and powered a forehand toward Stosur’s backhand corner, screaming “Come on!” just after striking the ball.

This is, in tennis rules jargon, “a hindrance,” since it has the effect of distracting your opponent as she tries to play her next shot.

Eva Azderaki, one of a very few gold card women chair umpires, had the option of making it an unintentional hindrance and calling a let or making it intentional and awarding the point outright to Stosur. She chose the latter and, from where I sit, that is the correct call.

“I’m not giving up that point,” Williams argued as she approached the chair, as if she had the final determination. Azderaki, looking and sounding quite civil, explained her decision, but Williams just had to raise the ante. “Aren’t you the one who screwed me over last time here?” she asked Azderaki, apparently confusing her with another chair umpire, Louise Engzell. “Do you have it out for me? That’s totally not cool.”

Serena then got real personal, telling Azderaki “You’re a hater and you’re just unattractive inside.” Willliams glowered at her: “If you ever see me walking down the hall, walk the other way.”

I’ll get into the nuances of the hindrance rule in a moment, but let’s first talk about Williams’ choice of language.

Clearly, nothing she said Sunday rose to the level of a direct physical threat, as did her astonishing beligerence in that match two years ago against Kim Clijsters.

“Aren’t you the one who screwed me over?” she said. That’s petty and small. Certainly worthy of the code violation warning she received in addition to losing the contested point, but nothing worse than the stuff John McEnroe used to routinely aim at chair umpires.

“You’re a hater and you’re just unattractive, etc.,” she said. Very adult, Serena. Still, it’s nothing but trash talk.

But now, “If you ever see me walking down the hall, walk the other way.” You can interpret that one a few ways, but to me it’s an implied physical threat, and that’s not merely childish. That’s over the line. Way over the line.

And why? Over what? The Williams sisters have been aware of the hindrance rules since they were dropping hair beads on the court — years ago. Those were unintentional hindrances, which called for a replay of the point. They weren’t trying to litter the court.

In the Stosur situation, the chair umpire had the discretion to call a let. In fact, she could have made no call at all if the ball Williams hit was clearly going to be unreachable. In which case she could have simply cautioned Serena not to distract her opponent while the point was still in play.

But Stosur had a shot at a return of the ball. Though she probably was going to be forced to play a defensive return, who can say what she would have done with the ball if there had been no distraction. The point is not that she was going to make a weak return. The point is you can’t have players screaming at opponents as they try to play a ball. No one could seriously think that Serena was trying to distract Stosur, but she did, and that’s the bottom line.

Yes, we all know people in the audience try to distract players, but there’s no way to regulate that. What can be regulated are the players themselves and this isn’t the first time Serena has bellowed some encouragement to herself while a point was live.

It is probably for that reason that the chair umpire decided to award the point outright to Stosur. It cost Serena the game and that’s tough. But Williams knew what the rule was and, I strongly suspect, she knew quite well she had commited a violation with her scream of “come on!” That’s why her beligerence is so hard to fathom here.

She was fined $92,000 and placed on a two-year probation period for the episode in the Clijsters match, and it may be determined that she’s now violated the terms of that probation.

She got off easy two years ago. How much of a hand slap do suppose the Grand Slam Committee will give her this time?

Novak Djokovic tops Roger Federer in unforgettable US Open semifinal

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Bounce, bounce, bounce and more bounce — 21 of them before Novak Djokovic stamped an emotional end to this unforgettable U.S. Open semifinal this afternoon, though it really didn’t matter if he had prepped his final serve with one bounce or 100.

He was in full flower and Roger Federer was in full choke mode. It was 40-15 at 6-5 in the fifth set, Federer having failed to convert two match points 20 minutes earlier and having gagged away a service break with a double fault. All that was left for Nole, really, was to just put the ball into play. No bounce needed.

Novak Djokovic

Which he did, and Federer, who lost 17 of the last 21 points of this epic, slapped a routine backhand return over the baseline and it was done.

That sent The Djokovic Show into the second act with both hands waving to the crowd. Then, victory-sign fingers raised to the sky. A couple of heart thumps. Finally, he jumped into a split-step, as if he was about to parry away one more volley, and gave a couple of fist pumps.

Hey! Dis is Noo Yawk. Da fans love brash, da fans love in your face.

Noles’ first act had unfolded, incredibly, when he was down double match point in the ninth game of the final set, and we’ll get to that very quickly. The final act comes Monday, in the U.S. Open final.

Federer disconsolate? That can’t begin to describe his utter disappointment, and there may be some residual friction between these two players, which won’t be a first time.

Federer likes his tennis poker-faced while Djokovic has learned the fine art of turning on the crowds, instead of turning them off with his petulance, and there he was in that turning-point ninth game, walking to the back curtain with his arms up to get the Arthur Ashe Stadium audience involved and, almost surrealistically, smiling at Federer as he set himself to receive the second of Fed’s wasted match points.

Yes, smiling, on what could have been his exit line from the U.S. Open! It was close to bizarre. No, wait. It WAS bizarre. This was Jimmy Connors stuff.

There was no overt protest from Federer, but, privately, he can’t have been too happy with Djokovic’s behavior — perhaps more unhappy than he was when he once had to turn to the Djoker’s player’s box a few years ago and tell them to “shut up.”

And so Federer’s no-title streak goes on. Sixteen isn’t a bad number of Slam trophies to be stuck at, but it increasingly appears that there won’t be any more. He was once a great front-runner, but no more. Whatever it takes to put your foot down on a wavering opponent, he didn’t have it. This is the second year in a row at the Open that he’s had match points against Djokovic.

How did it all go so wrong in this 6-7 (9), 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 loss?

Federer seemed in complete charge when he broke Djokovic at love to go up 5-3 in the final set. The audience rose, whistled, rained cheers down on the former No. 1, and when Federer went up 40-15 with double match point, people were on their feet.

Roger’s first serve was a curler into the deuce court, but Djokovic had decided to push all his chips into the pot. If he got a forehand, he was going to blast. Hang the risk. You’re No. 1. You go for it. He took one step to his right and, using the angle Federer had given him, crashed back a cross-court that was unplayable.

He then walked to the back of his court, pulling the crowd into the match while Federer cooled his heels waiting to serve the second match point. Finally, without any time warning from the chair umpire, Djokovic crouched just behind the baseline, that annoying grin/smirk on his face.

Federer had a very makeable inside-out forehand to put the match away, but his shot slapped the net and caromed wide. It was deuce.

Federer then fought off one break point with a 125 mph ace down the middle, but Djokovic picked up a second break point when Fed’s running forehand was intercepted by the net.

The five-time Open champion looked shaken. Maybe he was thinking back to his blown match points of last year. Maybe he was thinking of all the tight losses he had suffered in Slams the last two years. He stepped to the line and his first serve was low into the net. His second, meant to be a safe delivery down the middle of the ad box, was an inch, maybe two inches long, and Djokovic was back in the match.

The crowd now was sensing Federer’s shattered nerve. Nole held at 40-15 and, with Federer serving at 5-5 and 15-40, Djokovic maneuvered Roger into a backhand-to-backhand cross-court rally. Djokovic pounded six straight deep backhands at Federer until he got the short ball he wanted. He then stepped in and delivered the inside-out forehand winner to go up 6-5.

The final game went quickly. Federer didn’t hit one quality shot in the last five points.
Djokovic started 15-love when Federer’s backhand return down the line was wide — Roger trying desperately to coax Nole into hitting to his forehand side. It was 15-all when Djokovic missed an easy short ball into the net.

But he then went up 30-15 when Federer flat-footed a 90 mph backhand return into the net — a shot that looked more like a wave at the ball instead of a stroke. Djokovic forced an error for 40-15 and then finished it.

The word “choke” is vastly overused in sport, and certainly in tennis. But this was a choke, plain and simple, and in his most candid moments Roger will acknowledge that. At the same time, do not under-value the effort by Djokovic to come from two sets down and play steely tennis down the stretch.

He didn’t win this by urging the crowd to push him to the finish line. He won it because he’s young enough but now experienced enough to stay the course where Federer is 30 and having obvious difficulty maintaining a high physical standard through six or seven Grand Slam matches.

And now, after this disaster, one begins to wonder if he’s able to maintain even a high mental level.