It’s tough for the players, but a pleasure for the fans: To fit in the Olympics this year, the North American hard-court season gets started a couple of weeks earlier. All the better if the sport is going to build on any momentum it generated with the Wimbledon men’s final. Tom Perrotta and I were unanimous in our two-person assessment this morning in my office: Continue to stage the Canada event this early and move Cincy back a week from its spot this year. It would help both of them.
For now, the men are already pounding away on the asphalt of Indianapolis, the women are doing the same in Stanford, and U.S. fans are starting to sweat in their seats—really, the summer game should consist entirely of night matches, shouldn’t it?—so this is my last chance to look at the hard-court season as a whole. There’s a lot going on in the next couple months, including multiple Masters and Tier 1s, a major, the Olympics, and the Davis Cup semifinals. The top rankings on both tours are up for grabs. Here are five questions to ponder as we move from British grass courts to American parking lots.
1. How will Rafael Nadal react to being The Man?
This is the million-dollar question of the moment, and it’s impossible to say right now. Some guys embrace it, some guys tolerate it, some guys run from it—I don’t think anyone can know how they’ll feel at the top of the hill until they get there.
John McEnroe seemed ready to dominate the tour for years when he overtook Bjorn Borg in 1981, but he was a rebel, not a ruler. His touchy genius wasn’t suited to the long haul the way Ivan Lendl’s dutiful, consistent excellence was. Pete Sampras knew he belonged at the top and was level-headed and dedicated enough to stay there, but it was a chore. His scramble through the European fall circuit in 1999, when he needed every point he could get to finish his sixth straight season at No. 1, was one of the more joyless success stories in tennis history. Of all the recent No. 1s, it’s been Roger Federer who has thrived in the role the most. He feels he deserves it and seems to enjoy the pressure and the attention.
Nadal is not a Hollywood type, and I think he'll have to get used to being the favorite, or co-favorite, at an event like the U.S. Open. Even as he’s racked up wins over Federer, he’s been able to say, truthfully, that his rival is still the King. That line will begin to seem disingenuous if Nadal overtakes Federer in the rankings. Being No. 1 means being the face of the game, an added complication and responsibility that Federer has handled smoothly for four years. In the long run, Nadal’s groundedness, desire, and ability to block out anything that comes between him and a tennis ball would likely make him a successful Big Dog, if he makes it there. But I would be surprised if he went all the way and won the Open this time around. To do that right after his first Wimbledon win is a big ask.
2. Can anyone take control of the women’s game in the post-Justine Henin era?
The Slams have been split between Sharapova, Ivanovic, and Venus Williams. All three, plus Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic, will make appearances over the next two months in North America. At least they’re scheduled to appear; the women are notorious for summer withdrawals (Davenport has already pulled from Stanford this week), much to the chagrin of U.S. Open Series organizers. Serena and Anna Chakvetadze are the top seeds in Stanford, but with the absence of the San Diego event we probably won’t get a meaningful shakeout among the big names until they get to Montreal over the last few days of July. If they all survive that long.
Ivanovic has won in Canada in the past, and she remains the biggest question mark at the heart of the WTA in 2008: Can she withstand the power of the Williamses and Sharapova? A second question is whether the Williamses themselves can translate success at Wimbledon to the hard courts. At the moment, they seem committed to making that happen. The third question involves Sharapova: Was her horrid Wimbledon loss a blip, or a sign of terminal inconsistency? I think she’ll bounce back and make a run at Flushing Meadows. One more question: Could the WTA, despite all of its fragility, chaos, and lack of total commitment, be set to give us an entertaining summer?
3. Does Andy Roddick regret skipping the Olympics?
After Wimbledon, you might wonder whether he really believes he has a chance of winning the U.S. Open, no matter how burned out the top three guys are. While Roddick has lingering shoulder troubles and isn’t playing one of his favorite events, Indy, this week, he always gets it together by mid-August. We should be seeing a lot of him (the Olympics may not even be televised here for all I know) by that time, when Wimbledon may seem like a distant memory. But unless he does a complete overhaul of his return game, or gets another Connors-like injection of mid-summer swagger, it's not going to help him win the U.S. Open.
4. Will Roger Federer bounce back?
Like the Nadal question, we won’t know until it happens, because Federer hasn’t come to the U.S. without his Wimbledon title since way back in 2002. He’s been fine against everyone other than Nadal in the last two Slams, losing just a few token sets at the French Open and none at Wimbledon. I doubt a 9-7 loss in the fifth to Nadal will give the “locker room” a sudden jolt of confidence against him. What may help Federer through the second-half slog is his world-class consistency. Last year, while other players had their ups and downs, he reached the final in Canada, won Cincy, and won the Open. The question will be how he reacts if and when he faces his recent tormentors, Nadal and Djokovic. I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily see him getting his revenge against either of them. Is Fed a revenge kind of guy? Or are these guys, particularly Nadal, firmly lodged in his head? We’ll find out.
5. Where does Novak Djokovic fit into all this?
After a long and nearly uninterrupted climb, the Serb is suddenly dealing with the expectations game. He looked drained at Wimbledon, and his countrymen Janko Tipsarevic said he may have felt the new pressure. But I’m going to guess that his loss to Safin was a blip in middle of that long climb, and that Djokovic may steal the show on hard courts. He’s going to be more rested that Nadal and Federer, and will come in under the U.S. media radar, which will be fully trained on the Spaniard. Don't sleep on the Djoker. He took to New York last year, and he may take one more step there in 2008.