Until now, there really wasn't a lot to write about at the U.S. Open. Now I'm a little steamed.
I am happy to see that women's professional tennis has another player to add to the contender's list at the majors. Congratulations to Vera Zvonareva for making your second consecutive major final. I applauded your run at Wimbledon this year, and am happy to see that you are beginning to live up to all the potential many saw in you.
I am, however, quite upset with the semifinal match yesterday between Caroline Wozniacki and Zvonareva. Yes, I sort of picked Caroline to win the whole tournament, and she killed my draw (it's okay, I'm not out too much). And kudos to her for lighting up the U.S. Open Series this summer and coming in as the No. 1 seed.
During the second and final set, Zvonareva broke a string. She went to her chair to retrieve another racket, and again, very quickly broke another string. Afte that point, she again went to her chair to retrieve a racket, and found one of the unused ones to also have a broken string. Vera has a commanding 4-2 lead in the second set and it appeared that she had run out of rackets with good strings and that all of the frames she had brought with her to the court now had broken strings.
Here is where it gets tricky, and started me scrambling. As a former player and coach myself, I know the rules of tennis well. It is clear in the rules that a player is not granted extra time to retrieve a racket or to remedy a broken racket. That is a violation and the penalty system for match delays should go into effect.
Zvonareva took an extended time to speak with the chair umpire and to complain about her rackets. At one point, she complained, opened a new racket, walked back to the baseline, and then noticed a bad string and walked back to her chair and the umpire to show him. After discussion with the chair umpire, the umpire had some discussion with the ball persons and on-court USTA/WTA Tour personnel and two more rackets were brought in from off-court.
The rules are clear you get 20 seconds between points. This particular issue went well past 20 seconds. The chair umpire should have allowed her to get replacements, but she should have been assessed at least one violation. Would that have changed the match outcome? Maybe.
Zvonareva is one of the most temperamental players on the WTA Tour. For several years, the only thing standing in her way to this level of play was her lack of mental control. On numerous occasions over the years, she has had mental meltdowns on the court and I have witnessed at least two where tears flowed steadily. The smallest things can set Vera off and have upset her game enough in the past to take matches she was winning handily and allow her to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. She was beginning to show that here, too, as she argued and appealed to the umpire about the broken strings in her racket. I wonder what would have happened if he had assessed her a violation like the rules clearly state.
I'm also curious about the fact that equipment was brought into the court by a third party. I know that this is the USTA's crown jewel, and if it is at all possible to keep play "nice," they will. Here's where to me it also got sticky. Her coach at one point brought one of the rackets to the side of the court. Since coaching is specifically banned, and even under the rules adopted by the WTA when coaching was allowed, it was not allowed during games, is a coach bringing a racket to a player a coaching violation? In effect, the coach is assisting the player in play by doing so. So it's a violation according to the rules, at least the way I read them. The chair and tournament umpire missed that, too.
The proper thing to do in this case would have been to allow Zvonareva to leave the court herself with a tournament official, retrieve the racket from the tournament stringing booth, and return. Since she would have interrupted play, she would have been assessed code violations and point penalties. That might have allowed Caroline Wozniacki to regroup and turn this match around in her favor.
One thing I can say for sure is that the USTA in 2010 has really bent over backwards to try to not enforce any of the rules of tennis, especially if they upset a marquee player. After Serena Williams' tirade last year and all the ire the USTA received for doing the correct things, there was obviously large discussions going into the tournament and different instructions were given by the USTA to the chair umpires this year.
That was clear in Andy Roddick's second round loss when he was called for a foot fault. When Andy went on his usual tirade (because he was losing and Janko Tipsarevic had an answer for his serve and forehand) after having a foot fault called, the chair umpire had the line official removed from the court. Roddick asked the official which foot he had faulted and the official stated, "right."
Well, that was obviously incorrect, as it was clearly his left foot that had touched the line and was the cause of the foot fault call. But of course Andy went ballistic and to placate him, the chair umpire clearly made sure that that official was not around for the rest of the match. Roddick had another foot fault called a few games later and in watching the replays, I saw several that weren't called. So Andy was having a bad day, but the USTA didn't want to upset the apple cart.
So I'm wondering now did the USTA make a conscious decision during the women's semifinal to ignore the rules as they stand? In this case, and in my mind, that clearly would have changed the texture of the match and I might still have Wozniacki in my draw. I'll leave it up to the experts to discuss and decide. I'd love to know if I'm the only one who noticed this, too.
Okay, so on to Super Saturday. I'm hoping Kim Clijsters can repeat as champion. After dispatching Venus Williams in true champions style, I can't see it any other way. Then again, I didn't pick Zvonareva to be here.
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