It has been sooooo long since American men have been in the mix on the ATP Tour. While the USTA may have had some initial concerns with the early exits of Alcaraz and Djokovic, and the absence of Nadal at this year’s Open, the extended runs of Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe to the semi-finals have been great for American fans. Tiafoe, in particular, is very entertaining and an easy guy to get behind.
On the women’s side, Emma Navarro is another player who you can root for. 2 years at UVA and she has vaulted into the top 10 of the WTA rankings now. She plays a very clean game and at 23, has her head on straight. Coco Gauff needs a reset. A few SU observations:
- Allowing on-court coaching is a good idea. It is interesting to watch how players interact with their teams. In singles, the challenge as a player is to problem solve on your own – it’s an individual sport in singles. Alcaraz has a running conversation with his coach and team in every match, and you wonder if that hurts him in the end? Clearly, he is uber talented but you would think he could make some of these decisions on his own. Coco Gauff seems to have a lot of issues with her team and to the average fan, it has to be a net negative. I guess every player reacts differently but receiving constant direction and commentary would be annoying in my book.
- The USTA is allowing too many people in each day. The National Tennis Center footprint is just not big enough and it becomes challenging to physically move around without shuffling along behind a lot of people. Hope they re-evaluate that next year.
- The men’s game is definitely in transition now. Nadal will be gone next year most likely, and Djokovic is not playing many tournaments anymore. Plenty of talent in the pipeline and the game will be fine going forward – just different.
- The winner of Medvedev vs. Sinner tonight is the likely winner of the Open. SU will be rooting for Tiafoe but those are really tough match-ups for him.
Yankees’ closer, Clay Holmes, below his 11th save last night – just a killer for the Yankees. Boone has to remove him from the closer’s role now and either do it by committee or, SU says, put either Gill or Schmidt in there as they are both returning this weekend. Gill may be the better option as he has pitched a lot of innings. The offense has actually been a bit better of late. The bullpen will cost them in October for sure. Let’s see if Boone finally makes the move. There are many on Twitter who are ready.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
Saw an interesting fact that two American women remaining in tournament (Navarro and Pegula) are both daughters of billionaires. Not sure what to make of that. The sport has always been more upper class. But talent has tended to rise above class in recent decades. This is like a throwback to a much earlier time when only the wealthiest people even participated in competitive sports.
Seth, you are right that their fathers are billionaires but both seem to be very down to earth. Jess Pegula is taking the 7 train from midtown to the National Tennis Center every day. There are definitely more stories of players with more modest backgrounds. No doubt there are some similarities between golf and tennis in terms of who makes it and who does not.
Cashman really let the team down at the trade deadline this year. When you go all in you have to be willing to push all the chips to the center of the table. Not trading for an established closer was malpractice. You have a historic year from Judge plus Soto has met high expectations. Even Stanton has stayed relatively healthy and revitalized his career. Relief pitchers can be notoriously inconsistent but your closer needs to do the job at least 4 out of 5 tries.
Yankee fans must all be bald or gray! Holmes needs to be demoted. It is insanity to leave him in the closers role.
It’s not easy to make the transition but Gill seems like the logical choice. Maybe he will be the second coming of Mariano Rivera and the Yanks will reach the promised land.
Across town, GOOD VIBES in Queens for the Mets! The competition to get a wild card birth is tough and we will temper our expectations and just enjoy the ride. Lindor has stepped up and carried this team on his back, a serious MVP candidate and future captain. Starting pitching has been much better than expected and trade deadline reinforcements to the bullpen have helped alleviate the injury epidemic. The line up is solid and Iglesias is one of the best stories in the league this year, OMG!
If Alverez can get healthy and figure out his swing the Mets will have a real shot to make some noise in October.
We are all in for Tiafoe at the US Open. Being a billionaire’s kid helps but having your dad be the maintenance custodian at the tennis center is a much more inspiring story!
Jeff, always good to see that Met fans are just happy with the chase vs. Yankee fans who really want the results and they’d better mean a World Series appearance. I have to say this year’s Yankee season has been a slog at times – especially the last 80 games where they have played .500 ball.
I believe the USTA will re-evaluate the situation with the crowds, and their solution will be to figure out how to get MORE people there, not fewer. At some point they will add more seats to the grandstand and court 17, maybe even some of the other side courts. I don’t see any scenario where they will do what they can to make the crowds smaller.
I agree with you, Mark. The USTA really needs some additional acres from the surrounding park area but they will never get it. They just don’t have enough of a footprint to expand on the current land.