It happens every year at the Open. It’s a little past 7:00 in the evening, I’ve spent the day getting scorched by the sun, and I’m woozy from watching tennis balls fly back and forth. It’s time to begin the three-borough journey back to Brooklyn. As I trudge across the grounds, though, I can’t quite bring myself to leave. By this time the sun is almost down and the air is less humid. The night crowd has also arrived; young Manhattanites dressed in black are streaming in and turning the place into a mini-Hamptons in the heart of Queens. I hate to say it, but the Open gets better-looking at night.
Eventually I’m pulled off my path to the subway and into the dark maze of back courts, where I can hear cheers and shouts and racquets pounding tennis balls. I turn a corner and happen upon a brightly lit court radiating blue, with bleachers filled with curious and hyped-up spectators. What they’re enthusiastic about is always something of a surprise. It’s typically a doubles match, often featuring four players whom a very small percentage of the fans in attendance have ever heard of. They may be better-looking, but the night creatures don’t know their tennis like the day crowd.
This scenario presented itself once again on Tuesday. I wandered into a loose and energized Court 11, where a hard-fought and contentious men’s doubles match was heading into a third set. This time, though, everyone had at least heard of one of the players. It was Andy Murray; I’d seen the name on the day’s schedule but assumed it was his brother, Jamie. But there was no mistaking Andy. Just as I walked in, he sailed a volley long, bared his teeth, and yelled, “Bod!” That's Scottish for “Bad!”
Murray and his partner, an unknown and unlikely-looking fellow Brit named Ross Hutchins (he was born in Wimbledon, no less), were playing Thailand’s version of the Bryans, twin brothers Sonchat and Sanchai Ratiwatana. As the third set wore on, things got heated and, in the grand tradition of doubles everywhere, the teams began aiming balls at each other. Murray in particular seemed to flourish in this atmosphere, barking a horse “Ya!" after each winning point and leading the way to a 6-4 third-set victory.
More than that, Murray showed what a top singles player, particularly one with hands and skills like his, can do to a doubles match. Very simply, he can make it worth your time. Like most people, I love to play doubles but rarely watch it. I’ve always chalked it up to the fact that, as exciting as the close-range rallies can be, there seems to be less on the line mentally for the players. Having a partner lowers the risk, and pain, of failure for each guy. Doubles has never looked like life or death to me, which is a big part of what makes singles compelling to watch.
But something about doubles on an outer court during a summer New York evening works. Maybe it’s because the social aspect of the game feels like an extension of the convivial atmosphere in the stands. On this might it was Murray who made the bigger difference. Like Roger Federer during his run at the Olympics, Murray's unique talents were highlighted by the fact that the other three guys on the court couldn’t come close to matching them. While they played meat-and-potatoes, bang-bang doubles, Murray softened volleys and angled them wherever he chose; he hit forehand slice lobs; he bombed serves and took full cuts on returns; best of all he put balls away with a simple and controlled forehand poke volley, a shot I had never seen before. Murray just places his racquet in front of his hip and lets the ball deflect off the strings for a perfectly placed sharp-angle winner. The crowd loved it, and I think they loved the slightly surreal sight of a star player enjoying himself in this more down-to-earth, rough-and-tumble version of the sport. We got to see him interact in a competitive situation, something we rarely see our top players do. It humanizes them.
With the win, Murray and Hutchins earned a match against the top seeds, Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, on Friday. Open schedulers underestimated the interest in this one; it was played in front of the small bleachers on Court 6, which were completely packed even before the players arrived. The fans weren’t disappointed, as the two teams fought tooth and nail, serve and return, lob and overhead, volley and pass, into a third-set tiebreaker before Nestor and Zimonjic, who do this sort of high-wire act for a living, prevailed.
It was Murray who I came to see, but it was Zimonjic who ended up impressing me the most. The bearded Serb is an intimidating presence; he’s built more like a football player, at least in the upper body, than he is a tennis player. All of which makes his clean ball-striking from the ground a surprise. On the first point, he took a Murray first serve and rifled a line-drive, point-winning backhand return. On both sides, he generates an immense amount of power with a short, sharp backswing. He can bomb a serve, too. Nestor, an ectomorphic Canadian whose 36th birthday is approaching, is the hands guy and the better volleyer. He’s also good at picking his spots. While he missed a lot of returns early, he came through with a series of clutch shots—including a backhand volley winner when he and Zimonjic were down 15-40 on his serve at 3-3 in the third. The ball crossed the net by a millimeter and ended up saving the match.
