For the first time, on Sunday, an Italian will be in the final of the US Open. His name is Jannik Sinner, and we all know his story. Since Monday’s Net tells many stories, here are two very small ones. LL is sixty years old, she played tennis as a girl (“…in the summer of ’78 my parents sent me to summer school in Pievepelago”, she recalls with some residual anguish), then she never picked up a racket again. In January she was struck by lightning on the way to Melbourne, now she asks anyone to play with her, she has booked a teacher once a week for six months, she is thinking of joining a club. Obviously, when Sinner plays, “I always turn off my phone”, she smiles. PA is a seven-year-old boy who seemed refractory to any physical activity. His mother says that last month he was dazed in front of the TV watching Musetti, Paolini and Errani at the Olympics. He then got excited during Jannik’s final in Cincinnati. A few days ago he asked his parents if he could visit the small public facility in his town, a clay court, two concrete courts. We’ll see.
LL and PA are among the hundreds of thousands of Italians who have discovered tennis in recent months, enthused by the exploits of Jannik, Jasmine and the others. It is their fault, the new fan-players, if this summer booking a court has been very problematic, everywhere. In the ferociously humid afternoon in Queens, on the other side of the Atlantic all the LL and PA of Italy are glued to their TVs for the live broadcast on Sky and Supertennis: there is the big match between Sinner and Jack Draper, his English friend who has reached the semifinal of the US Open without giving up a set and accumulating fifteen consecutive wins. Until today, in fact, because the South Tyrolean forcefully takes (7-5) the first set after almost an hour of very tough exchanges with a few too many errors by both. Sinner needs two breaks and a good percentage of points won both on serve and return. The seven double faults committed by his opponent make his task easier. Above all, it is Jannik who almost always prevails at the end of the frequent prolonged exchanges.
The number 20 in the live ranking, born in 2001 like Jannik, plays a high-quality game based on the first serve, which, if it is not an ace, is still so conditioning that it allows him to try, on the return, to close the point. However, when it is Sinner’s turn to serve, he is more effective with the first serve. This also happens in the second set, which does not propose any tactical changes. While the balance remains constant, in the ninth game comes a shared democratic hint of drama: Draper, who is soaked in sweat, vomits liquids on the DecoTurf of the Arthur Ashe Stadium but signals that he wants to continue; two minutes later Jannik slips to the ground at the back of the court, places his left hand badly and immediately signals that the pain in his wrist is strong. At 4-5 comes the unprecedented double medical timeout, with the doctors and physiotherapists busy for more minutes. They are good, they both get back in shape for the tie break challenge, which in fact ends in a one-man-show by the Italian (7-3).
The final set has little more to show than what we have already seen. Draper is exhausted, yet he puts up some resistance. Sinner remains lucid thanks, at least apparently, to a consistent reserve of strength. At 2 all he accelerates and goes on to close at 7-5 7-6 6-2 after 3 hours and 4 minutes.
Jannik’s opponent in the final, on Sunday, will be Taylor Fritz, who in the cooler New York evening beats Frances Tiafoe in five sets, 4-6 7-5 4-6 6-4 6-1. The two American peers – Taylor, October 1997, Frances, January 1998 – play in less oppressive environmental conditions in terms of humidity but in the cauldron of the fans, opposed also for reasons – how to put it? – of class, half supporting the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, half in favor of the scion of the wealthy Fritz-May family, celebrated coach his father Guy, great tennis player (10 WTA in 1977) and heiress his mother Kathy. For almost three hours neither one nor the other takes a firm lead in the match: Tiafoe does something more – if tennis were like boxing, he would win at least three sets on points – and above all he often thinks back to the breaks suffered at the last minute in the second and, above all, in the fourth set. In the fifth set, however, it is he who collapses, leaving the way open to Fritz who, without overdoing it, punches his ticket to the final.
Speaking with his colleague Chris Eubanks, currently ATP 117 – perhaps the best post-match interviewer seen in this slam – the Californian gets emotional, admitting that he never really thought he could get to the final act of the US Open. In the meantime, Tiafoe leaves the court, distraught. Among the thousand thoughts, perhaps he is also thinking about having lost a chance to generously replenish the coffers of the Frances Tiafoe Fund, which collaborates with the USTA, the American federation, and with the NJTL, the National Junior Tennis and Learning founded in 1969 by Arthur Ashe, for programs to support children with fewer possibilities of becoming professional tennis players.
#Taylor #Fritz #Sinner #history
– 2024-09-14 13:39:16
