Bandwagons Derailed at the U.S. Open

One of my favorite activities is to try to find articles or predictions made by tennis experts prior to a tournament and then compare them to the actual results once the tournament takes place. However, that activity would be more fun if those same experts made comments about the accuracy of their pick, take credit for the correct ones, and face the music for the bad ones. The first two happen quite often, change that to almost always, but the latter hardly ever takes place.

This U.S. Open is no exception. For example, you will not hear John McEnroe make a comment on how Ernest Gulbis, his pick to become a top-five player about three years ago, has once again bombed out in the first week of a Slam tournament. Don't get me wrong, it seems that Gulbis is on the right track, having changed coaching staff since the end of Roland Garros, and improving his results in the last several weeks.

Gulbis' showing at the U.S. Open was nothing to write home about — he lost in the second round to Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, whose claim to fame is beating Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open and Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, both in 2005 — but, it was still far more respectable than the all-out horrific display of tennis that took place on court seven of Roland Garros in the first round against Blaz Kavcic. Nevertheless, I find it astonishing that after so many times of going "poof" (read that as the air going out of a supposedly high quality tire!), Gulbis is still looked at as the next big thing by many tennis followers.

Unlike Gulbis, the next three guys mentioned are relatively new on the "wow, there is the next big star!" scene. So they still have some comfort room in terms of time to realize their alleged potential.

Everyone jumped on the Bernard Tomic bandwagon when the young Australian became the youngest player in the history of the game to win a round in the Australian Open in 2009 at the age of 16. Tomic has not fizzled out, either. He reached the second round of the Australian Open again a year later, losing in five sets to Marin Cilic, and in 2011, he took a giant step by reaching the third round of the Australian Open. He followed that in Wimbledon by winning seven matches in a row from the qualifying rounds to the quarterfinals of the main draw, only losing in a close four-set battle to the eventual champion Novak Djokovic.

It is thus understandable that when Tomic was supposed to play the 27th-seeded Marin Cilic in the second round of U.S. Open last week, there were many who picked him to beat Cilic this time around, after having lost to him in the close five-setter in the Australian Open in 2010.

It turned out to be a total bust. The match was over in one hour and 20 minutes; it was a straight sets 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 victory for Cilic. The best parts of the match were the first game of the match that was close, and what Tomic said in the press conference after the match about the result: "the scoreline was insane." This was the second bandwagon that Cilic derailed, more on the first one a bit later.

Next is Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. This is an interesting case, because despite having won both Wimbledon and U.S. Open junior titles in 2008 and being promoted as the next Federer — his style resembles that of Federer — Dimitrov has yet to accomplish anything grandiose in the Slams or big tournaments. The hype itself is not overrated, either. Until 2010, Dimitrov was coached by Peter Lundgren, Federer's ex-coach, who claimed that Dimitrov was better than Federer when the latter was at Dimitrov's age. Now he is coached by Peter McNamara, a much respected ex-player and current coach in the circuit. Yet again, Dimitrov has yet to go beyond the second round of any Slams or a Masters Series Tournament, since that promising year of junior circuit in 2008.

Perhaps more strangely, it is only this year that he is noticed by most tennis authorities, as if he only popped up this year out of nowhere. I got to watch him live in action in a small tournament in Tennessee, USA in 2009, and again a few months ago in Queen's Club ATP tournament in London; there is absolutely no doubt that his game has improved by leaps and bounds, and he is a fantastic player to watch with a big forehand, well-balanced one-handed backhand, and solid fundamentals on everything else. But again, when will the results come before the bandwagon begins to lose some of its steam?

Well, we know it is not happening in this edition of U.S. Open, either. His first round match against Gaël Monfils of France, the seventh seed, was billed to be one of the few intriguing matches of the first round, potentially a breakthrough match for the young Bulgarian player. Monfils won the match in three close but straight sets, and Dimitrov seemed to hit all the wrong shots on the critical points. Unless he has a miraculous fall season, Dimitrov hopefuls will have to wait until 2012 for the evasive breakthrough.

The last promising player who turned into a bust last week was Ryan Harrison. His case is different than Dimitrov, because Harrison did not have an outstanding junior career, never having won a junior Slam, nor ranked in the top five of juniors. However, his improvement has been fairly steady since turning professional, and this year he has played in the main draw of all four Slams, reaching the second round in Wimbledon, where he lost to David Ferrer in five sets. Once again, it setup the stage for this U.S. Open to be perhaps the big tournament of the American's young career so far. His first round opponent, Marin Cilic, had other ideas.

Tomic was not the first bandwagon that Cilic has knocked over (see above). In the first round, Ryan Harrison was his victim. Unlike Tomic, Harrison did not handle the defeat quietly, either. He smashed rackets and balls to the ground, threw fits, yelled at the umpire, and basically behaved out of control throughout the match. Mats Wilander said that he believes Harrison has top-20 potential if he learns to "shape up and behave himself." "Shape up?" Maybe. "Behave himself?" I don't think so. Mats is the ultimate optimist at times, and this is one of those times. Ironically, Harrison is coached by Jose Higueras, one of the mellowest personalities on the Tour, as a coach or as an ex-player back in the '80s.

Going back to my point in the beginning of the article, I wish I had some free time to look up pre-U.S. Open picks by the experts. I am willing to bet that many jumped on the bandwagons of these young and upcoming players. I must admit that I have been on the Dimitrov bandwagon myself and I am finding it hard to get off as of yet. But I am not that far away. At least, there it is: I said it. I don't see the pundits on the media do as much. They have already found their new horses to ride; all of a sudden, you can't hear anything else but footnotes about the young and "finally achieving" Donald Young, or an anecdote about the impressive run of the veteran Juan Carlos Ferrero coming out of their mouths (Ferrero is one set-all against Tipsarevic as I write these lines); two names that they probably considered "soon-to-be-history" for different reasons no more than 10 days ago.

I guess we know that everybody loves a winner, so we should not be surprised. Everybody seems to also drop the talk quickly when the winner turns out to be a bust — have you heard the four "bandwagon" names above mentioned at the U.S. Open since the weekend? Last, but not least, everyone sure has an obsessive inclination to erase from memory their bad picks.