What If...? 2010s Edition (ATP)

The WTA had its time in the spotlight, and now it's the ATP's turn - here are five moments over the last decade that made me (and in at least one case, is still making me) think, "what if?"

THE ATP

5. What if...blue clay had caught on?

Technically, this is an item that could span across both tours - Madrid is a joint event, so one could ask this question of the WTA as well. It's Rafael Nadal's presence on the ATP that made me save this specifically for the men, though - a lot of skilled clay-court players on both tours, of course, but no one in tennis history has ever quite dominated the surface the way that he has. The blue clay experiment was an interesting idea from the mind of Ion Țiriac, the tournament director of Madrid, in which he attempted to switch the surface color from the traditional red clay that's traditionally used in the European swing. It's been noted that one of the tournament's main sponsors used blue in their advertisements; perhaps this played a part in the switch, but Țiriac insisted that it was merely for cosmetic reasons. The problem was, the surface didn't play like the red stuff - it turned out to be super fast and very slick, an issue that can apparently be attributed to the salt laid on top of the surface, which didn't blend, but stuck to the top instead. As a result, players struggled with footing all week, which led to a lot of unhappy campers; after relatively early losses, both Rafa and Novak Djokovic were among the loudest critics of the change. (The "King of Blue Clay," Roger Federer, went on to win the tournament.) Madrid would revert back to red clay the following year, and the experiment seems likely to be a one-and-done thing.

It's interesting to think about what might have come about had this experiment caught on. I highly doubt it would have led to anything drastic like Roland Garros changing its surface color, but the idea that the clay can be rendered in different shades is a worthy one, I think. Hard courts aren't only regulated to one color scheme, after all, and the ball is occasionally difficult to track on the red clay if you're watching in an area with glare or with less than optimal quality. It also makes me think about how it might've affected Rafa's dominance, as well; seeing as how fast this version of the surface apparently played, I wonder if it's something that was specific just to these courts, or of it's something that would've held true and forced him to have made some adjustments in his game. Be that as it may, this appears to be one of the many off-ramps tennis has taken in its history that, in this case, will indelibly linked to the 2010s. Who knows, maybe this is one of those things someone will try again in the future - I think there's some viability here, it just might need to be integrated a lot better than randomly attempting to slap it in the middle of the clay-court season with little to no prior consultation.

4. What if...Juan Martin del Potro hadn't been so damn unlucky?

An easy "what if?" question to suggest, no doubt, but what especially makes this one fascinating to ponder is the fact that Delpo and his injury issues began to crop up right at the beginning of the 2010s. He won the 2009 U.S. Open in memorable fashion, blowing out Nadal in the semis and then outlasting Federer in a five-set final. He turned 21 just days after this triumph, and at the turn of the decade, it seemed reasonable to believe that he'd continue this upwards trend. But the injury bug began to bite in earnest as soon as the next year started - first, a right wrist injury that had not fully healed by the time the 2010 Aussie Open started, which eventually required surgery and knocked him out for most of the rest of that year. He returned in 2011, and slowly made a climb back to the world's top 5, but then his left wrist began to bother him and wound up necessitating two surgeries of its own. No problem - he returns in 2016, with some adjustments to protect his left hand from further damage (necessitating a greater use of slice backhands as a result), and again finds his footing to make another climb up the rankings, this time as far as #3...before a fall in Shanghai in late 2018 caused him to fracture his right kneecap. Returning from that this year, he slips, falls, fractures the damn thing again, and misses the rest of the year as a result. 

Now, one could certainly make the argument that Andy Murray is similarly unlucky, and I'd be hard-pressed to argue that, especially considering what's ended up happening with Andy and his hip issues near the end of the 2010s. The difference between these two, though, is that Andy was at least able to get extended periods where he got his fair share of licks in - he's had his own fair share of injury struggles too, no doubt, but his periods of relative good health lasted for much longer than anything Delpo's been able to sustain. It's been one thing after another for the Argentine; all we can do is speculate on what might have been had he been able to remain healthy. I think it might be a stretch to suggest that we lost out on an all-time great - while he's landed some big blows against the Big Three/Four, I doubt he would have supplanted any of them - but I don't doubt that he likely could have captured at least one more major with a sustained run of good health. Alas, we will never know what a fully healthy Delpo could have done.

3. What if...Roger Federer had converted even one of those match points against Novak Djokovic at the U.S. Open?

The closing of the decade brought up another potential "what if?" moment for Roger - that being his near miss during this year's Wimbledon final, of course, having squandered two championship points. While that was an incredibly stakes-heavy, gut-wrenching experience in and of itself, though, it doesn't quite register for me the same way these back-to-back U.S. Open losses did. By 2019, both of these gentlemen are well established as two prime candidates among the battle for the so-called Greatest of All Time; there is nothing to doubt about either one of their legacies, and at this point, they're merely scrapping for their exact final places in the all-time record books. It was a different story at the beginning of the decade, though, certainly for Novak, who entered this decade with only one major to his name, the 2008 Australian Open. Remember, he'd gone into their 2010 U.S. Open match having lost in three consecutive years to Roger at that tournament - the finals in '07 and the semis the next two years. He'd clearly become the next-best challenger to Roger and Rafa's supremacy at that point, but a victory for him wasn't a guaranteed proposition. So when he fell down two match points while serving at 4-5 during the 2010 semi, the crowd seemed to rejoice - New York would finally get its first Roger/Rafa showdown after all, or so it would've seemed.

Except Novak had other ideas in mind - he saved them both and went on to win, snapping a streak of six straight U.S. Open finals for Roger. And the next year, somehow, some way, Novak did the exact same thing at the exact same stage of the tournament - this time with Roger serving, just to add insult to injury, including the Return Heard 'Round the World to save the first MP.

So what might have changed if Roger had taken even one of these opportunities? For one thing, as I mentioned up above, it would have guaranteed a Nadal/Federer match at the U.S. Open, something that's still never happened to date - they've played multiple times at every other major, but never there. I personally don't think this is all that big of a deal, but for the sake of history, it's worth mentioning, as Rafa and Roger have on several occasions been one round away from meeting at Flushing Meadows, only for one of the two to falter. But I digress - that's anecdotal, part of history, sure, but certainly not the main takeaway here.

Is it worth speculating on whether or not Novak would have dominated to the degree that he did in 2011 had he lost this first semifinal? It seems to be, along with his guiding of Serbia to their very first Davis Cup triumph later in the year, one of the galvanizing forces behind his absolutely dominant start to the following season. Had Roger won this match, beating Novak for a fourth straight year at a deep stage in this particular tournament...hmmm. I could see Novak recovering from such a thing fairly easily; he'd already had plenty of lessons in taking his lumps from Roger and Rafa at that point. But I do wonder if he'd still been able to triumph in the same manner had he lost this first match. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten off to such a sizzling 41-0 start? Then again, he went on to lose the final itself and still came out of the blocks on a tear in 2011, so it's likely to not have mattered either way. You never know, though...

The 2011 match is an even more fascinating case study, given the facts just mentioned - this time, Novak was the alpha dog, having gotten off to the aforementioned amazing start and coming into this tournament as the undisputed best player in the world. Roger, meanwhile, had slipped to #3 in the rankings, behind Novak and Rafa, but had the benefit of entering this match knowing that it was he who broke Novak's winning streak, at Roland Garros earlier in the year. When Roger went up two sets to love, as he'd done at RG, it may have seemed like history was destined to repeat itself; unfortunately for him, that's exactly what happened, though it sure as shit wasn't in the way he imagined it would. He was none too pleased after this loss, too - give his post-match press conference a whirl to see how palpable the salt was.

Taking the match points themselves into consideration, it's interesting to note that it's only the fourth and final one that Roger really even had any chance to make a mark with - the first two, from the 2010 semi, came on Novak's serve, and he dictated both of those points, moving Roger from side to side and going for broke with an inside-out winner on the first, then pulling the trigger on a down-the-line winner after Roger's service return on the second. The third, and first from 2011...well, no one, dead or alive, was returning THAT shot. It's only the final one where Roger even had a chance - a tough serve to the body which Novak fought off, setting up a relatively easy look at an inside-out forehand from Roger...which proceeded to clip the top of the tape, bounce high into the air and fall back on his side of the net.

But if even one of those points had gone the other way...

2. What if...Novak hadn't touched the net?

The most dominant men's player of this decade has also had his own fair share of missed opportunities and heartbreak, as is the case with any great athlete and their respective oeuvres; the sting of this one might be eased a bit nowadays by the fact that the gent finally triumphed at Roland Garros three years after this happened, but Lord, was it a long, agonizing climb for him to finally get over that hump. This is one of the many sources of anguish that occurred before that milestone was reached, and arguably the top of the heap; it's a legendary match in Roland Garros history, and one of only two times anyone has ever even pushed Rafa to a fifth set at that tournament (we won't mention the other instance). Novak was still on top of the game at this point, while Rafa was in the midst of returning from his latest set of knee problems which had knocked him out for the second half of 2012 and the start of 2013. It was a match worthy of a finale, but unfortunately, Rafa's comparatively lower ranking by this time thanks to his injury hiatus led to the contest happening in the semis instead. They battled back and forth for hours, with Novak breaking Rafa as he served for the match at the end of the fourth set, breaking early in the fifth, and maintaining that advantage until 4-3. Then...

This part of the battle has long remained one of my favorite stretches of points from any match, one that I can recall from memory without any need for outside consultation. Rafa, perhaps sensing that he needed to step it up now if he was gonna come back and have any chance to win, went all-out with his forehand in this game, smoking two pinpoint down-the-line winners to reach a break point at 30-40. He then goes on to butcher a relatively neutral, easy forehand, to bring up deuce. Novak then initiates a lengthy rally and runs Rafa ragged, pulling him wide to set up an easy forehand volley...but his momentum carries him forward and into the net. 

What has always been interesting to me about this sequence is that the break point Rafa earned by Novak's misfortune was not the break point that Rafa broke serve on - Novak actually saved that one with some punishing groundstrokes, but went on to lose the following two points after the second deuce. So did the net-touching thing really matter that much? Would we still remember it or call it a pivotal, momentum-swinging moment if Novak had simply dumped a groundstroke into the bottom of the net instead? Well, it obviously was something that might have broken his concentration a bit; the crowd got super riled up, and it led to a protracted discussion with the chair umpire in an attempt to plead his case for winning the point, to no avail. It's just always been interesting to me that it didn't immediately lead to the break, as you might assume it had.

If he hadn't touched the net, he clearly had that particular point won, and it would have set up a game point for 5-3 - still not quite over the hump, as there's no doubt that Rafa would have kept fighting, but boy, I bet Novak rued his anxiousness in putting away that shot for quite a while afterwards. It's a good thing he finally did win the damn thing in 2016, because this moment might loom even larger in his career had he not!

1. What if...Rafa hadn't missed THAT backhand?

Depending on which of the Big Three/Four is your primary rooting interest, the top 3 moments on this particular list are likely to be interchangeable in terms of gut-punches; being a Rafa fan naturally means that his various near-misses register with me more than any of the others. For me, the Australian Open has been the greatest source of that familiar stress and anxiety that comes along with rooting for your athletic favorites; since the 2013 U.S. Open, he's been another Aussie Open win away from becoming the only male player in the Open Era to win every major at least two times each. His fellow active Career Grand Slam mates on the men's side, Roger and Novak, each lack a second Roland Garros title, something which Rafa's dominance there over the years has prevented from happening several times now (and plays into the previous item on this list, in fact). But for Rafa, it is Australia that has proven to be the toughest finish line to cross; he won it once, in 2009, and has finished runner-up on four other occasions, including an injury-aided loss to Stan Wawrinka in the 2014 final (though I think he would have lost this match anyway - he was down a set and break when the injury occurred), and losing a 3-1 final set lead to Roger in the 2017 final.

For me, though, the biggest "what if?" surrounding Rafa and this tournament isn't any of the aforementioned finals, nor the never-in-doubt 2019 edition. It will always be 2012, the longest Grand Slam final to date, and that goddamn backhand. :(

This particular period of tennis ties into several aspects that have already been covered - Novak was the undisputed #1 at this point, and had beaten Rafa in the finals of the previous two Grand Slams. Rafa, meanwhile, was hoping to make some inroads against a rival against whom he'd been 16-7 against heading into 2011, but saw that whittled down in a hurry after going 0-6 against him in the Year of Novak. They both progressed to the final after defeating their fellow leaders in tennis supremacy in the semis - Rafa defeating Roger in four sets, Novak seeing off Andy in a lengthy five-setter (and with a day's less rest, to boot).

Midway through the fourth set, it appeared that things were set to go Novak's way yet again; he won sets two and three and had a love-40 advantage on Rafa's serve at 4-3 in the fourth set. Miraculously, Rafa dug out of this hole, saving all three break points, and when the set progressed to a tiebreaker, he won it - marking the first time these longtime rivals had ever reached a fifth set. When Rafa broke for a 4-2 lead in the finale, it seemed for a moment that maybe, just maybe, he was about to reverse his losing streak. He reached a 30-15 advantage, and then...

In hindsight, it seems like the 30-15 point is one of those moments where Rafa had way too much time to think about what he needed to do - forcing Novak to cover the net and shooting a backhand straight down a wide-open line. Seems like a simple task, the kind of shot a professional player is likely make in practice 99 times out of a hundred. It just so happens that this one time, in a high-stakes Grand Slam final, is the one goddamn time he misses this shot. I remember watching this live and I could sense it, the commentators could sense it, and the crowd likely sensed it as well - that's exactly what you don't need, against the worst possible opponent to miss such a thing. Had he made it, it would have been 40-15 - much like Novak's net gaffe up above, not completely out of the woods, but you've gotta like the odds with two game points for 5-2 a lot better than you would with a 30-30 point and the world's most dangerous opponent on the other side of the net.

But, he blew it. And Novak went on to sweep five of the last six games of the match. Le sigh.

What's interesting about this missed chance too is that it occurred before the opportunity to win every major twice each was even on the table - Rafa only had one U.S. Open at this point. While he has had several chances to accomplish this feat since, of course, this one still stings the most for me, not because I have any particular disdain against Novak or anything, but because, well, wouldn't you want your favorite to say that they won the longest GS final ever? Ah well. But that's part of why this exercise turned out to be so fun to me, as I stated in the last entry - it helps me to cope much more in imagining the alternative as opposed to sitting around and stewing about it endlessly.

Anyone else have any moments from the ATP's last decade that are still stuck in their craw after all this time?

What If...? 2010s Edition (WTA)

I just might be able to get two blog posts done in one year, after all. It's a holiday miracle. :o

The conclusion of the 2019 tennis season has brought on a twofold of summations: in memory of the twists and turns of the year itself, naturally, but also because 2019 marks the always-notable historical marker of closing out yet another decade. As a result, you're likely to have already encountered a great number of these summaries - players of the decade, matches of the decade, moments, importance, defining, essential, insert your weasel word of choice here, etc.

All of these things are well and good, and I'm not one to begrudge anyone their fun; I've certainly consumed a fair amount of these summaries myself, and it's always fun to take a trip down memory lane. As someone who has grown quite weary of ranking stuff, however, it's been a bit difficult for me to get as worked up over these lists; my usual reaction is usually more of, "oh, that's interesting" rather than feeling any boiling rage about any perceived injustices or slights. Again, it isn't that I don't necessarily appreciate the significance of these things - someone's gotta do it, after all, and heaven knows that we all enjoy our neatly categorized criteria and value sets to argue and debate endlessly.

As I did my own contemplating upon this past decade and where I stand as a tennis fan, however, I began to carefully consider what it was that I found myself thinking about, exactly what type of content I enjoy pondering over and what it is that gets me to reminisce. It is never my aim to sound holier than thou or above the fray, certainly not, it's just that I ultimately realized that my preferred method of memorializing usually occurs in a much different format. Rather than continue to get on my old man high horse about what it is I don't like and don't find myself as worked up about, it seemed far more reasonable to try and actually coalesce these thoughts into something productive, as someone who (surprise surprise!) still struggles with self-esteem and motivation when it comes to this whole writing thing.

What am I blabbering about? None other than good ol' hypotheticals, of course!

This, this, has always been one of the key parts of cherishing sporting memories for me. Merely glancing at the scorelines of a great sporting match could never in a million years hope to summarize the singularly unique experience of seeing such a thing in real time; the individual plots each contest takes all have their own tales of the tape.There are so many moments in the annals of sport where one point, one moment, could've altered the historical ledger to a significant degree - these are the things I inevitably recall in addition to the victories and defeats themselves. As a result, in deciding to make my own modest contribution to the ocean of "end of decade" synopses, I didn't want to make this yet another "top 10 players/matches" list or the like. Instead, I decided to select some of the moments from each tour over this past decade that made me chew on a question that is one of my favorites in sports:

What if?

THE WTA

5. What if...Elena Dementieva hadn't gotten injured during the 2010 Roland Garros tournament?

I'll admit that this is likely to be something that isn't at the forefront of many people's minds - Elena retired at the conclusion of the 2010 season, and so much has happened in the intervening nine years that it's understandable for this to be one of the many events that may have gotten lost in the shuffle. I will cop to this being a personal shoutout to one of my dearest friends in the world, who gravitated toward Elena most when he first began to be introduced to the sport by yours truly. This one is for you, my friend!

Personal connection aside, I do think this is something that is worth remembering, especially considering what I already mentioned and what no one knew at the time of this match - Elena had decided before the 2010 season that it would be her last on tour. This certainly explains her emotional reaction once she knew she had to quit her semifinal match - not only would she not be able to get a chance to compete for Slam glory, but she knew that she would never be coming back to Paris. :(

So what of this missed opportunity, then? Elena had been one of the stalwart players of the previous decade, spending most of it in the top 10 and reaching two Grand Slam finals, both in 2004 (Roland Garros and the U.S. Open) - the first Russian woman to make it to more than one, in fact. She also won a gold medal during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and managed to carve out quite a niche for herself despite her well-documented struggles with serving. Even then, this aspect of her game improved enough to where she went as far as holding a match point against Serena Williams at Wimbledon in a classic 2009 semifinal. Clearly, the talent and potential were always there; it was just a matter of having a chance to break through, and this tournament seemed like a golden opportunity.

On the other side of the draw, Samantha Stosur awaited in the final, having already taken down three former number ones and prohibitive favorites for the title - Justine Henin (more on her in a bit), Serena, and Jelena Jankovic, and appeared on paper to be in prime form to take the trophy home. She played a somewhat nervous, tentative final, though, so it seems like a huge opportunity missed for Elena, who injured herself early in the tournament and decided that she just couldn't go on after losing the first set of her semi. It does makes me wonder if she would have followed through with her retirement plans had she capitalized on this chance, too - breaking through at a major might have inspired her to keep going. Then again, we saw Flavia Pennetta essentially do something similar just a few years later after she finally took home a major, so who knows? When you're done, you're done.

I also can't help but recall the fact that Elena taking home this title would have deprived us of one of the feel-good stories of the decade - that being Francesca Schiavone's eventual victory, of course. I suppose I'll call this one a wash. But I wanted to mention this story, not only for my dear friend, as I said, but in honor of a player worth remembering, regardless of whether or not she was able to taste Grand Slam glory. It's yet another one of those things that serves as an excellent reminder of checking my sporting fan privilege - my favorites on either tour have 23 and 19 Grand Slams, respectively. Not everyone's rooting interests are as lucky, and some weren't able to make that elusive breakthrough at all.

4. What if...Justine Henin hadn't gotten injured during her comeback?

Once more, this is something that happened at the very beginning of the decade and might not be an item that springs to mind for a lot of people. I'll say that this is one of the first things *I* happened to think of, however, not just in the interest of generating discussion, of course, but also because we've seen any number of comeback stories and attempts on both tours in the last decade that this one in particular seemed worth revisiting, given how well it was going prior to her injury.

For context: Justine, of course, was one of the best players of the previous decade, having captured three out of the four majors at least once each but especially having notable success at Roland Garros, which she won four times and was riding a streak of three consecutive titles at the time of her surprise retirement. Shockingly, just weeks before the 2008 edition of RG, less than a month before her 26th birthday, and being ranked #1, to boot, she did just that - she surprised everyone by calling it quits, citing burnout and a desire to think about the future. She had been in a bit of a slump at that point, granted, but I don't think anyone expected this to be the end result.

That would have been that, or so it would have seemed...until Justine announced a return to the tour at the beginning of the 2010 season. She felt inspired by the successes of her fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters' successful return after her own retirement and journey into motherhood, and Roger Federer finally getting the Roland Garros monkey off his back (similarly, Justine's resume only lacked a Wimbledon title). Here's where it gets interesting: she experienced almost immediate success, finishing runner-up to Kim in a warmup tournament ahead of the Australian Open, losing in a tough final set tiebreaker, and navigated a potentially tricky draw to make it all the way to the finals of the Aussie, only to fall in three sets against none other than Serena Williams. This match marks the first and only time that this storied rivalry was ever contested in a Grand Slam final, as fate would have it, so it's interesting that it happened to occur post-return on Justine's part.

Ultimately, her reentry into the sport initially seemed as if it was worth pursuing - she was successful enough that she won two titles in the early part of the season, and quickly shot back up to the top 20-30 range of the world rankings, very impressive for half a year's work. Then, disaster struck: early on in a fourth-round tussle against Kim during the fourth round at Wimbledon, Justine slipped and hurt her elbow. She went on to win the first set but eventually fell in three, and received treatment for what was believed to be a hyper-extended elbow. This was later revealed to be a ligament fracture, and she didn't play for the rest of the year. She attempted to give it another go at the start of 2011, but re-aggravated the injury in the Australian Open, which proved to be the final straw of her short-lived comeback.

Considering how well she was playing up to that point - her final ranking in 2010 was #12, which is obviously pretty damn good for being unranked at the start of the year and only having results up through the first week of July - I think it's safe to wonder what she might've gone on to accomplish had she remained healthy. She still hadn't even reached 30 years of age at the time of her second retirement, quite a fact when you realize how much she'd accomplished by then. Fate had other ideas in mind, however, and while I know that Justine is definitely something of a polarizing player and personality (to say the least), her status in the game's history is undeniable. Food for thought!

3. What if...Victoria Azarenka hadn't gotten a raw deal?

Something of more recent vintage, and an undeniably strange saga - the fate that has befallen Victoria Azarenka. A former world #1, two-time Australian Open champion, and long considered one of Serena Williams' primary challengers - for a head to head that's 18-4 in Serena's favor, there have been some memorably close encounters - Vika struggled through injury problems in 2014-2015, finishing just outside the world's top 20 in both years and breaking a six-year streak in that department. She seemed to catch fire at the start of 2016, though: following a quarterfinal appearance in the Australian Open, she went on to complete the Indian Wells/Miami sweep in March, something only Steffi Graf and Kim Clijsters have ever done on the women's side. These results propelled her to a place in the world's top 5, and she seemed to be on the verge of reclaiming her spot among the game's elite.

From here, however, is where the ride got bumpy: back and knee injuries curtailed much of her clay-court season, the latter of which forced her to quit Roland Garros in her first round match and ultimately caused her to withdraw from Wimbledon as well. In July, though, the biggest surprise of all was revealed: she was pregnant! Naturally, this caused her to miss the rest of the season, and she delivered a happy bundle of joy that December. She seemed set to resume her career the following summer, but after playing in the 2017 Wimbledon tournament, she was mired in an ugly custody battle with her former partner that prevented her from leaving the state of California. A resolution to these legal proceedings wasn't reached until the following January; by that point, she'd missed two majors and wasn't able to return to the tour in full until Indian Wells in March. Sadly, it just hasn't been the same for Vika since all of this went down - perhaps it was one stoppage in play too many, but she hasn't come close to the form she'd previously displayed, with no titles to speak of since her IW/Miami sweep in 2016, and no appearances in the second week of any majors.

There are a lot of layers to chew on with this one: the injuries, the pregnancy, the custody battle, all of the accumulated time away from the game. Quite the clusterfuck, eh? It may be too early to close the door on Vika - she IS still only 30, an age which seemed to mark a death knell in years' past but less so nowadays. The happenings I've listed off can't help but make me wonder how things would have been if all of this had shaken out even the tiniest bit differently, though, particularly the custody battle thing - I can't imagine how frustrating it must've been for her to be healthy and ready to go, only to have her hands tied by legal proceedings. The final chapter of this story has yet to be written, so who knows - maybe happier days are still in store for Vika. Here's hoping - after initially not warming to her, for reasons I can't even articulate (sometimes it really is just a gut thing), I've really grown to respect her quite a bit over the years, and this kooky set of circumstances couldn't help but earn her my sympathy to an even larger degree than ever before.

2. What if...Venus Williams had won her 2017 U.S. Open semifinal match against Sloane Stephens?

Likely a bitter pill for Venus, coming as it did on the heels of an extremely successful season for her in which she reentered the world's top 5 in rankings and made two Grand Slam finals earlier in the season, at Australia (losing to her sister, whom we now know was with child in hindsight) and Wimbledon, losing to Garbiñe Muguruza. Sloane, meanwhile, was returning from foot surgery that took place in January and was appearing in just her fifth tournament since her comeback. Coincidentally enough, both players made it to the semifinal stage after surviving final set tiebreaks in their previous rounds (Venus against Petra Kvitova; Sloane against Anastasija Sevastova). A topsy turvy encounter saw each competitor exchanging blowout sets (Sloane winning the first, Venus the second) before settling into a classic finale, with many breaks exchanged and advantages gained and lost. Venus was merely two points away from winning at 5-4, 30-all, but Sloane dug deep and held on, using her speed to create several highlight reel winners. In the end, youth prevailed, with Sloane winning it 7-5 and going on to triumph in the final with an easy victory over Madison Keys.

Sloane has gone on to back this win up, more or less - she went on to hit the top 3 and reach another major final, at Roland Garros, the following year. While she had a rough 2019 by comparison, age and time are obviously on her side. It's a much different story for the almost 40-year-old, Venus, however, who has struggled a fair bit since 2017. She hasn't reached these heights again, and while I outright disdain the practice of calling for an athlete to retire before they personally decide to hang it up - this woman has earned the right to play for however long she feels able to, and that's that - some two years removed from this fabulous season, it is beginning to feel like something of a last hurrah, though history has taught us time and time again never to count her out, of course. This defeat stung a little more for me than the two final losses from this year, personally; credit to Sloane for hanging tough and pulling it out, of course, but in hindsight, this still seems like a huge lost opportunity for Venus, especially considering how one-sided the final ended up being (albeit against an injured opponent). A lot of near-misses and "what could have beens" for Venus since the start of the 2010s; for my money, this is at the top of the list in what could have possibly been had she squeaked by here.

1. What if Serena hadn't lost THAT match?

I know, I know, I know. Mentioning this match is the equivalent of ripping off the proverbial bandaid, pouring salt into the wound, twisting the knife, etc. If you're a fan of Serena's, it's hard to top this as far as painful losses go - the shattering of perceived expectations vs. the crushing disappointment of reality. As you all surely know by now, though, I do a whopping grand total of jack shit for shock value or controversy's sake - I am far more focused on giving you my honest opinions on things rather than stirring up drama. The fact of the matter is, it's impossible to tell the story of tennis in the 2010s without mentioning this match; it's one of the ultimate "where were you when...?" moments in the sport's history. (I was at work, and heard about it secondhand - I'm not sure if this is better or worse.)

It's always worth remembering that failing to accomplish the calendar-year Slam did not stop winning Serena from winning four in a row during this period; this loss happened after she'd already accomplished her second "Serena Slam" of having won four straight in non-calendar fashion. That doesn't quite ease the blow of her loss here, I know, but it is worth noting, since four consecutive majors so rarely happens whether or not it all occurs in one season. That being said...who the hell could have anticipated this? Against an opponent whom she was previously undefeated in four prior matches, and the opportunity of not then-world #2, Simona Halep, as many expected, but another Italian opponent who had also gone winless in seven attempts (Flavia Pennetta), awaiting in the final, Serena couldn't cross the finish line.This match was actually meant to be played on the second Thursday of this tournament, but rain prevented that from happening - I know some folks have speculated on that being a factor, with Serena having an extra day to mull over everything she was on the verge of accomplishing. Whatever the case may be - nerves, a tricky opponent, the weight of expectations - that rarest of accomplishments, a true calendar year sweep, wasn't meant to be. 

So what if Serena had won this match? It's interesting to think about this in hindsight, because so much has happened since she didn't pull this feat off. She eventually tied and surpassed Steffi Graf on the majors ladder, gave birth to a child (punctuated by a difficult delivery), and, at the close of the decade, is still in the conversation of the sport's best participants - she's reached four major finals over the course of the last two seasons, and while Margaret Court's name continues to get bandied about as the apparent benchmark (uh huh), clearly Serena has accomplished enough that she will have absolutely zero to answer for by the time she's finished playing.

If...however...if Serena had won this match...

If she had won this match, there's no guarantee that she would have won the final. She still had one more match to go, and we won't know if something similar might have happened during the last round. The odds would have certainly appeared to be on her side, however.

If she had won this match, and the final, and every other result from then til now hadn't changed, she'd be on 24 total majors, and would have at least quieted a large part of this ridiculous Court debate, if (likely) not having silenced it altogether yet. Then again, who's to say that this loss didn't shake her confidence in closing scenarios even before her pregnancy-related hiatus? She was 21-4 in major finals before this loss, and has gone just 2-6 since.

If Serena had won this match, it would have marked the first, and to date, only time she would have made all four major finals in a single season - of the many other records and accomplishments she's achieved, this is something she has yet to do, believe it or not (she missed the Australian Open entirely at the start of the first "Serena Slam").

If Serena would have won this match, and the final, she would have at least shut up all the idiots who thought a goddamn horse (not even the jockey at least, mind you, the horse) should've been SI's Sportsperson of the Year in 2015

For me, the key moment will always be the game point at 2-0, 40-30 in the third. Remember, Serena was up an early break at this point. If she closes this game out, maybe it helps her to keep settling her nerves. Instead, she doesn't do nearly enough with a forehand approach shot, letting Vinci easily pass her and go on to break back.

If Serena had won this match...

But she didn't. C'est la vie. And as my beloved Rafa said recently, "if, if, if, doesn't exist."

Ultimately, though, it hit me as I was writing this entry out why it is I like to reminisce about these things. I don't think I'd really given it much thought before I decided to do this, but y'know, in many ways, it kinda feels like this is my method of coping with these tough losses, these difficult memories. We'll never be able to change the course of human events, of course...but damn if it isn't fun to imagine what you would do if you had to power to change even one of those moments, especially for us sports geeks. I'm already a big daydreamer as is, so it's easy for me to sculpt my memories into imagining what might have happened if things had gone a little differently. These are just a few of the ones I happened to think of as I reflected upon everything that's happened over the last ten years - there is so much that has happened, and always will happen, that the possibilities are virtually endless. What are some of your "what if?" moments from the last decade in the WTA?

Stay tuned for the gentleman's half of this project as soon as I find the time to keep hacking away at it! :)

Anna Kournikova Did *Not* Suck At Tennis, You Insipid Fucking Morons

Welp...another calendar year, another blog entry. At least this time around, I can pat myself on the back for not taking an entire year to post something. I'll consider that some kind of moral victory, I guess. In the meantime, please pardon a bit of my usual brand of candor before today's subject is fully delved into, because it's imperative that my motivations for this particular post get talked about with as much acuity that I can muster up, and it happens to directly correlate to how I finally roused myself and made this long-gestating hypothetical idea a reality.

As I've no doubt stated several times on this blog, starting this little project of mine was not done with any grand design in mind - not beyond the initial idea, anyway - and it certainly wasn't started with the intention of presenting myself as some sort of Grand Authority on tennis. It was, quite simply, a labor of love, a way to combine two of my biggest passions (tennis and writing, naturally) whenever I felt motivated enough to chime in. I knew that matching my opening salvo of dropping a blog a day for an entire month would have been hard to match by any reasonable standard, but regardless of how often I was able to produce content, it was and is my ongoing hope to treat this as a space that will always be here whenever I am ready for it.

And oh, am I finally ready, if that purposely incendiary post title didn't tip you off. I've wanted to write about this for a really, really long time, but it's ended up becoming a greater source of anxiety than I ever anticipated. For several months now, I've been dealing with an epic case of writers' block across all platforms, regardless of subject matter - there are many reasons for this, including the never-ending changes in life that I feel like I'm still trying to adjust to (and no, I don't need furniture anymore!), but this has largely has been the fallout from a fairly modest professional writing opportunity I had last summer that went south in a hurry, where an article I'd been working on for months got hacked all to pieces and published without my consent. I mention this not to grind axes any further than they've already been ground, nor to get into a public mud-slinging competition - what's done is done, though yes, I admittedly was furious and super petty in the incident's immediate aftermath. No, I bring this up because the residual effects of what happened have left me lacking in confidence and feeling supremely self-conscious about my hobby. I can't count the number of times since the article affair where I've tried to write something, anything, subject matter be damned, only to stop and inevitably find myself thinking, "this is stupid. Why am I doing this? No one cares" and shutting down before I get anywhere or bother to develop anything. That's been the hardest thing to deal with: something that I used to not have to think about too much, something that used to be an an arena I could turn to for its many cathartic and healing properties has, for several months now, sadly, been turned into something of a nerve-racking experience every time I've made an attempt.

In addition, the fact that I've been putting undue pressure on myself to come up with something both worthy and respectful of the person in question hasn't helped, either; the perception of this player as nothing more than a marketing tool, a proverbial "bimbo with a racket" with no redeeming skill whatsoever, still seems to exist, amazingly enough, and has pissed me off for a very long time. I certainly didn't want the final result of all this to be something that ends up reducing her to mere eye candy or a simple recitation of stats about how she was one of the most-searched athletes on the web, as if that's all her playing career consists of - sure, her popularity is an integral part of the story, but in making this post, my goal is to talk about her primarily as a professional athlete, first and foremost, and how much her ubiquity in the sport during her career is directly correlated to the fact that, you know, she was actually good at her job for the most part, and may very well have achieved more than what she did were it not for the plague that has bitten so many athletes over time: recurring injuries.

With all of that having been gotten off my chest, I am powering through it all - the doubts I have about writing, the questions about whether or not I can do a good job - and I'll try my best to be insufferably long-winded informative and entertaining as always. And before we finally plow ahead, I want to send a huge shoutout to the folks on Tennis Twitter for unwittingly throwing me a bone with this one, seriously: it's honestly been the final push I needed in overcoming all of my recent uncertainty about my chosen form of expression and turning this long-held idea into reality. Dare I say it, it suddenly seems a bit timely, given the recent discussions as of late revolving around players and their alleged importance (a word I've got a lot of thoughts on) in the sport's history. But I digress - at long last, I will wrap up my contextual babbling and just get on with it already.

Yeah, I bet *that* got your attention, didn't it? For shame, you dirty devils. For shame. 😁

The seeds for this post were first planted a couple of years ago, when two persona non gratae myself and a couple of gentlemen that I was living with at the time were sitting down to watch the 2017 Wimbledon tournament. It was a ladies' contest; as such, the WTA was a running topic of conversation. Being the far more knowledgeable person about the sport as compared to the two people I was sitting with, it nevertheless proved to be quite a fruitful conversation, at least upon first blush. Then by happenstance, a name was spoken of someone whom I don't think I'd thought of in years at that point:

Anna Kournikova. 

I felt a pang of nostalgia as my thoughts immediately seemed to whisk me back in time 20 years to 1997, the year of Anna's biggest moment of glory in tennis, and a most pivotal time in my fandom of the sport. I was but a mere 10 years old then, caught up in all of the awkward hormonal trappings and nerdy interests of my pre-teen years, and while both myself and many other Chicago residents of the time, young and old, were captivated by the spell that was Michael Jordan, my abiding love of tennis began to fully flower that year. I'd become aware of the sport some four years prior, but 1997 cemented it as my favorite: it's the first time I can remember having cable to access all four majors throughout the year and, in the days before the internet was an omnipresent thing, the first year that I can recall feverishly checking newspaper box scores, all in the name of getting my fix and staying up to date.

Among other fond memories of this momentous year in my life - the serving and volleying of the devilishly handsome (especially in hindsight) Patrick Rafter, Martina Hingis winning just about everything in sight on the WTA side, Andre Agassi's pink shirt at the U.S. Open, Pete Sampras having some real Petr Korda issues, the first signs of what was to come from the Williams sisters, to name but a few - was witnessing the breakthrough of this talented Russian teenager, who was quickly rising up the rankings since turning pro at the tail end of 1995, and who seemed poised for superstardom after her performance at the '97 Wimbledon tournament, at the time, only the second instance of a women's player progressing as far as the semifinals during their Wimbledon debut (and I believe something that only Alexandra Stevenson has since matched).

Now, I mentioned it a couple of paragraphs ago, but please keep in mind that I was only 10 while all of this was happening. As much as I don't want this to devolve into yet another piece that minimizes her career into being nothing more than good looks and marketing muscle, it's rather difficult to tell Anna's story without noting how much her appearance caused ripples the way that it did; even some of the more benign contemporary articles I found in researching this piece make reference to her "much-photographed figure" and such. I at least feel like things are a little more age appropriate in my case, but for remembrances' sake, let the record show that I too was quite smitten, not only because of her looks, but just as much by the fact that she played the sport that I happened to be gravitating towards the most.

All of these thoughts and more went flooding through my head, yet as I was lost in the haze of fond memories, I was rudely and abruptly snapped out of my reverie when one of the gentlemen blurted out a rather cutting, dismissive phrase, something that shouldn't have shocked me, words that I imagine many variations of being spoken ever since her playing career ended, yet still makes the hairs on my arms stand up when I remember the cold, callous manner in which it was uttered:

"It's too bad she sucked at tennis."

(In the aftermath of her greatest triumph - reaching the 1997 Wimbledon semifinals)

Has there ever been another tennis star quite like Anna Kournikova? Has there ever been another player who turned heads quite like she did, who captivated so many imaginations and, for a brief time, seemed to have the tennis world on a string? More importantly, has there ever been a player who has been tagged with such an enduring perception of apparent mediocrity (particularly among know-nothings like the ones described above) to the point that she has become...dare I say it...underrated?

To be as bold as to suggest something like that comes with full recognition of the metaphorical can of worms that I am daring to open. The instant, almost reflexive response is one I can hear being uttered by both casual and dedicated fans alike: "she can't be underrated! She never won a singles title!"

Indeed, the failure of Anna to win a singles title during her time on tour seems to be the one stat that is universally fixated upon. No matter the (overwhelming, IMO) evidence that can be presented to the contrary, the impression many people continue to have, especially among those who don't follow the sport regularly, is that of a titleless wonder, one whom evidently never had any success whatsoever, hence the continued label of her and "sucking" at tennis (among other derisive associations).

Ah, but we wouldn't be here today if the story was that simple, would we? 

Reducing Anna's career to being a failure because of her lack of a singles title has always struck me as being a grievous error, as the issue is much more complex than would initially appear on the surface. First and foremost is the fact that she turned professional at a very young age, and was also done playing professionally while she was still very young - she was 14 when she first hit the professional tour in the fall of 1995, and when injuries ultimately curtailed her career some eight years later, in 2003, she was a mere 22 years of age. In an era where players' longevity seems to be more present than ever before (and let the record show that Anna was born in June of 1981, just a few months before the still-active Serena Williams), 22 hardly seems like a time that most professional athletes are ready to call it quits. Were one to project a more "normalized" ending to her career - let's say that she retired after her age 30 season, in 2011 - it personally strikes this amateur scribe as highly likely that she would've eventually gotten over the finish line, had she remained healthy. How many late career breakthroughs have we seen in the last couple of decades? We'll never know for sure, of course, and this also doesn't mean that she was poised to become a multi-Slam winner or anything along those lines. But I want to be very strident in emphasizing the fact that it was not her alleged mediocrity that caused her retirement - it was the fickle nature of the human body.

What especially seems strange to me about tagging Anna's career as some sort of disaster is that a simple, cursory glance of the raw statistics proves in spades that she was a talented individual. Perhaps this perception is a result of all of the casual souls who became interested in the sport thanks to her elevated Q-rating and were simply not aware or didn't understand what she accomplished, and because of the prominence of the singles game, her achievements have gone unheralded. But one need only look at the facts, which should prove the obvious to anyone with even half a brain. Even before her performance at Wimbledon '97, she was named the WTA's Newcomer of the Year in 1996, after improving her ranking some 200+ spots and making the fourth round of that year's U.S. Open as a 15-year-old qualifier, losing to the eventual champion, Steffi Graf. She spent the three years after her Wimbledon breakthrough as a constant presence in the world's top 20, peaking at a high of #8, scoring 16 total top 10 victories, and reached four singles finals, three of which were Tier I tournaments under the WTA's old classification system. Her run in the 1998 Miami tournament seems especially notable - in reaching the final, she defeated four top 10 players in a row (a stat I was salivating at trotting out for this piece but is apparently commonplace nowadays, heh), all of them former or future Grand Slam champions (in order: Seles, Martinez, Davenport, and Sanchez-Vicario), before losing in the final to Venus Williams. While she never again progressed as far as the semifinal stage of a major after her Wimbledon '97 success, this doesn't mean she stopped playing well at the big events; in fact, at one point, she made the second week of six straight majors she participated in, from the 1998 Roland Garros tournament to the 2000 Australian Open (missing two in that time span due to - you guessed it - injuries). Hell, even her 2002 season seems noteworthy: the previous year, she'd suffered a stress fracture in her left foot, missing most of the year and seeing her ranking fall from a spot in the year's top 10 in 2000 to a final position of #74 in 2001. She managed to halve that during her comeback year of 2002, though, once more being ranked in the top 40 by season's end and reaching a singles final to boot, before recurring back injuries began to crop up and forced her to call it quits the following year.

And this is a person that "sucks" at tennis, mind you. Tough crowd.

The plot thickens even further when you incorporate Anna's doubles success into the story. Now, I'll admit: I'm guilty of not following the doubles aspect of tennis with the same zeal that I do for singles. A large part of this is because my love of the singles game as a solitary sport - with no teammates to rely upon, it's up to the individual to figure out game plans and strategies, and how to dig themselves out of tough situations whenever necessary (barring instances of illegal coaching or timeouts at the non-Slam events on the WTA side, that is). Having a partner undermines some of the aspects of the sport that appeal to me, but it doesn't mean that I don't have tremendous respect for the people who earn their living playing doubles - it's a blast to watch a professional doubles match in person, honestly - and it doesn't mean that their hard work or success should be any less valued or cherished. When you look at Anna's doubles results, they're simply dynamite: as early as 1995, she'd already reached a main-level tour final in doubles, and she ultimately won two majors partnering with Martina Hingis at the Australian Open, in 1999 and 2002; the pair also won the year-end doubles championship in 1999 and 2000. She won 16 total titles, finished 1999 as the world's top-ranked doubles player, and remained a highly-ranked competitor in the format, all running concurrently with her singles career. 

Therein lies the rub when it comes to the common approach of analyzing Anna Kournikova and her career: I believe that a lot of the perception of her alleged suckitude at tennis comes from the prevalence of the singles game in the minds of the average person (and the constant fixation of her not winning a title in the singles format), because if more people were aware of her doubles success, there's absolutely no way that this idiotic thought would be so commonplace. How - HOW - can a multiple-time Grand Slam champion and a world #1 ranked doubles player EVER be considered bad at what they do?! I'm willing to bet anything that if you hit most people who happen to be spouting the typical "she sucks" crap with the response, "oh, you mean Grand Slam champion Anna Kournikova?" they'd look at you like you were crazy; personally, that's what I'm gonna be doing from here on out.

Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been the end of the story - while the above info is likely to be old hat to the seasoned tennis observer, it's imperative for me to mention all of that in trying to challenge the status quo of how Anna seems to be commonly regarded. As fate would have it, though, her name has popped up in discussions recently among the tennis crowds on Twitter. The conversations have centered around which WTA players might be considered "important," and, among many other suggested names, Anna was mentioned as a potential candidate, largely because of the very things I've tried to avoid framing this post around: her looks, her marketability, the way she (unwittingly?) tapped into a certain zeitgeist. 

Now, I personally didn't dive too deeply into the rabbit hole of these discussions - for the sake of common courtesy, I'll bite my tongue in regards to the main reason why, though it's not a secret if you follow me on Twitter - and, not having much of an affinity for podcasts, didn't listen to what I'm sure was a carefully reasoned analysis for the criteria of so-called "importance." I will say point blank, though, that using the term important as a descriptive quality for athletes comes off to me as a deliberate weasel word that is designed to start arguments - it's akin to the old High Fidelity mindset, devolving everything in life into an endless series of meaningless "top 5" lists about any given subject. In the context of assessing professional athletes where (unlike other subjective artforms) they are specifically judged on their ability to produce results, calling someone important is using a word that is so vague, so ill-defined, that it could literally mean anything. Perhaps that's the point in using it, and if it's a term that holds significant meaning to you, dear reader, then by all means, you do you. But I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid; quite often, we are asked what our "favorites" are, or what we think are the "best" examples of something, i.e., what are your favorite albums? What do you think are the best movies ever made? But "important"? Pssssh. That could mean fucking anything. I could easily cite, say, Jeff Tarango as being an "important" tennis player for me, being that he was involved in one of the first widely publicized professional tennis meltdowns I can recall hearing about in my younger years (if you've been watching the sport long enough, you know the one). But does that make him "important" in tennis history? In my personal life, maybe, but even then, nah, I really don't think so. To me, there's a big difference in calling a person a vague, open-ended term like important, as opposed to saying that they should be fondly remembered - that is what I'm attempting to do with this post. I personally wouldn't consider Anna to have the criteria to qualify for any so-called top 10 of importance - there are simply far too many players with better records and a much bigger influence than she. But, she absolutely does deserve a much fairer shake than what she's gotten over the years - that much should be clear to you by now.

(And just for the record, since this person immediately came to mind in terms of "importance": did anyone on Tennis Twitter mention Renee Richards at all? Surely the first major trans athlete in the history of the sport would deserve a spot on anyone's top 10 of importance, certainly over Anna Kournikova, hmm? Especially if on-court results aren't considered to be the primary criteria for importance. Just sayin', peeps!)

(I purposely tried to use on-court photos for this post, but nostalgia has rendered me unable to resist using the two pictures that bookend all the others. Sue me. :D)

As usual, I tend to be someone who writes with more of a "food for thought" approach; as usual, I don't have all the answers, nor am I telling you that my line of thinking is gospel. No one is saying that Anna Kournikova is a Hall of Famer; no one is suggesting that she be canonized as an all-time great, or that injuries prevented her from ascending to the top of the game. We will simply never have the answers to this hypothetical scenario. But can we just like, cut it out with this stupid ass automatic reflex that associates her with being overrated or sucking? Particularly since I feel like so much of that comes from people who didn't actually watch the sport with any continued dedication and therefore - surprise surprise - have no fucking clue of what they're talking about. Hell, I'll go one step further if you're an American and you're parroting that garbage: if she DID suck at tennis, you wouldn't have any fucking clue of who she was, given the rather niche status of the sport in this country. It should be plainly evident: she. was. a. talented. player. If these things - making the Wimbledon semifinals at age 16, being a perennial top 10-20 player when healthy, a career singles record comfortably above .500, being a no. 1 ranked, Grand Slam winning doubles player - if that is somehow supposed to be an indicator of someone "sucking" at tennis, please, dear Lord almighty, by all means, sign me the fuck up. Seriously.

Have I made myself clear, you insipid fucking morons?!?! AHHHHH!!!!! 

:)