At Grand Slams, Serena and Rafa often are like hurricanes, gaining strength and intensity as they advance. But I’m still hoping Medvedev can get past Dimitrov and pull off the upset. He has now bowed down before the almighty New York crowds – unfortunately, in my view, as it was fun to see somebody take them on, even though I didn’t like the way he treated that ball kid. In appearance he’s the opposite of Rafa – clothes hanging on his thin frame, long strands of hair accentuating his receding hairline. (Nadal’s balding too, but more aggressively on the top.) His head is large, his face intelligent; instead of Center Court at the U.S. Open, he looks like he should be in a Chekhov play.
Nick Kyrgios is a throwback to the volatile male players of old, which is quite an achievement considering he’s playing in the age of Hawk-Eye.
The U.S. Open starts today in Flushing Meadows, NY. In 1991, former champion Jimmy Connors entered as a wild card and made it all the way to the semifinals, a feat that people found remarkable considering the fact that he was 39. This year one of the favorites is 38-year-old Roger Federer.
Yesterday evening a text message arrived from my friend Greg: "Surely we are at the precipice. On ESPN2 right now is the world sign spinning championship."
This summer there has been a lot of basketball on television. Basketball is a winter game, invented so that young men could exercise indoors when the weather turned cold. And the sports pages, in the middle of baseball season, are full of stories about football (many of them, here in South Florida, having to do with quarterbacks). I'm looking forward to the start of football season in a few weeks because at least then these stories will make sense.
I try to watch the debates as I do baseball - while reading a book - but whenever there's cheering there's never a replay.