US Open 2010: Last Round of Qualies

If you're ever in New York on the Friday before the US Open officially begins, you really must make the final round of qualifying. For one, it's free. Second, it's amazing how great the players are who are competing to qualify for the main draw, and you get to see them compete up close and personal. Professional tennis is a cruel dog-eat-dog world and the difference between the fellow who makes it into the main draw of a slam, and those shut out is, well, pretty small. Lastly, all the top names are out on the practice court and you might get to see them prepare for free.

First, the first qualifying match I saw was Nicholas Mahut beat Uladzimir Ignatik to advance to the final round of qualifying (67 [4] 76 [5] 62). You heard that right: the fellow who lost the longest match in history (held in the 1st round of Wimbledon) had to schlep his ass to play the qualifying tournament. Why the French Tennis Federation chose to award their reciprocal wildcard to Guillaume Rufin (19 year old) who is ranked lower than Mahut baffles me? The best (and still lame) explanation is that they have some rule to award their reciprocal wildcard to their best junior player on the cusp of turning pro. Frankly, this smacks of a brainless failure to recognize Mahut's truly historic achievement.

At any rate, I don't know who Ignatik is, but it was pretty easy to figure out his game after a couple points: he's your plain vanilla baseline grinder who unleashes a few big serves to win free points. There's a truism in tennis: you're only as good as your second serve. Mahut's second serve compared to Ignatik is excellent. Mahut has an excellent kick serve that Ignatik had to return at shoulder height (despite standing several feet behind the baseline). Ignatik, on the other hand, was going for more on his second serve and hitting way too close for comfort to the lines (and double faulting a bit too much). That difference alone gave me the feeling that Mahut would be able to win the match.



In contrast, Mahut tries to be an all court player. While he has a pretty good one handed drive backhand, he will use slices to coax errors out of his opponent or run around it (often) to hit a strong forehand to take control of the point. You will see Mahut rush the net quite a bit. Overall, Mahut is a very entertaining player to watch simply for his shotmaking. On the other hand, I tweeted Mahut seems to be a tortured artiste: he will miss the most incredible shots when it's crystal clear he was in control of the point. Mahut really should have put away Ignatik a lot earlier but he had to gut it out.

Watching the top players practice was a highlight. Federer was playing a practice set with Monfils (he lost) on Louis Armstrong Stadium.



Both guys were serving well, and Gael was ... there to entertain the crowd.



And the usual Federer slice and dice was at work to frustrate Monfils. The Annacone-Luthi brain trust was there to coach the Greatest Shanker of All Time.



Here are video samples of their practice section.



Nando and Kohli were on the Grandstand later to jerk each other side to side.



Then Curls and Big Berd were punishing balls as hard as they can.

One interesting take away I had: some of the rec players (NTRP 4.5+) I've played with can hit the ball as hard as the pros, but the huge differences are: it's a lot harder for the pros to miss; they can place the ball where their opponent least likes it; and they have phenomenal movement (i.e. the ability to get to a difficiult ball and still do something good with it).