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On day eight of the U.S. Open 2024, Iga Swiatek rolled on, there were two match-points from heaven, and a fire alarm caused Hawk-Eye problems.
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The two halves of Iga Swiatek, this time on a tennis court
Earlier in the tournament, the two sides of Iga Swiatek’s game manifested in a single match. She eased through the first set against Kamilla Rakhimova with a display of controlled aggression, before being flustered by the Russian raising her level, as has happened in recent defeats, most notably against Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva at Wimbledon.
On Monday night, the world No. 1 went through another match of two halves against Liudmila Samsonova, the No. 16 seed.
For the first 45 minutes of the 90-minute match, Swiatek was involved in a contest. For the second 45, she was not.
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Play had gone with serve until the 10th game, with Samsonova serving at 4-5. Swiatek made her move, bringing up three set points.
On the first, Samsonova served wide to her backhand on the ad-side. The pace and trajectory of the serve surprised Swiatek off the bounce, as it rushed through a little lower than she expected. She somehow readjusted her wrists to produce a two-handed block return that landed a little over a foot from the baseline, right into Samsonova’s feet. She missed a forehand long, and that was the set.
In Samsonova’s next service game, Swiatek moved up a set and a break thanks to two ludicrous backhand winners. The first, inside-out from a central position, was followed by a more conventional but just as impressive effort — whipped crosscourt as Samsonova watched it fly by.
Swiatek then made it five games in a row after an inside-in backhand winner, and then an effort redolent of her compatriot Agnieszka Radwanska, with her back knee touching the ground during the shot.
That was the match settled, even though there were games to go.
Charlie Eccleshare
How can two match points be more different?
If this was Caroline Wozniacki’s last, last Grand Slam singles appearance — she retired once already, four years ago — let the record show that she went down swinging. Her match against No. 22 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia produced two spectacular match points, for very different reasons.
On the first, Wozniacki, now 34, showed everything that made her world No. 1 and an Australian Open champion in the 2010s, plus some of the grit that allowed her to complete the New York City Marathon 10 years ago.
A 20-shot rally had Wozniacki all across the baseline, and even outside it. She needed touch to slip her racket under a forehand, just before the ball bounced for a second time. She needed to do one of those windshield-wiper drills that her father, also her coach, surely ran her through. She needed to reset in the middle, then she needed to go on the chase again, before finally she got what she wanted: The chance to smash one of her signature backhands down the line.
She doubled over as the crowd in Louis Armstrong Stadium rose to its feet.
The beauty and the curse of the tennis scoring system is that a point like that has the same value as the point that followed a few points later. Haddad Maia had hit a double fault on the point immediately after Wozniacki’s stunning effort, but then she earned another chance to seal the match.
Struggling with her nerves and losing velocity on her serve, especially on the ad-side, Haddad Maia delivered a serve that is well familiar to park hacks, but not so prevalent on the pro tours.
An accidental drop-shot serve, on a match point, shanked with crazy spin and travelling so slowly that the speed gun did not deign to rate it. It bounced so close to the net that Wozniacki could barely get her racket under it.
Match done.
And was this the end for Wozniacki? She isn’t sure.
“I know I can beat the best players, but I also know that to win a tournament, you need to win five, six, seven matches in a row,” she said. “That’s where it gets a little hard.”
Wozniacki, who began her comeback from having two kids at this same tournament a year ago, will talk with her family about what is next.
Matt Futterman
A glimpse of life without electronic line calling?
The courts of the Billie Jean King Tennis Center fell silent at 3:35 p.m. Monday — apart from a rumble of confusion as the electronic line-calling system went down.
Matches paused on all courts simultaneously, from Arthur Ashe Stadium, where Daniil Medvedev was easily beating Nuno Borges in the fourth round of men’s singles, to the field courts all over the complex that had been taken over by the junior singles tournaments. Monitors across the courts displayed messages that said “play suspended,” while players spoke to their coaches and tried to stay loose.
Meanwhile, umpires spoke into walkie-talkies and supervisors stood on courts, as the tournament temporarily descended into chaos with brief bafflement about how things might get fixed. Then, after six tense minutes, the system returned to normal, and the tennis could begin again.
The USTA (United States Tennis Association) said in a statement that “a fire alarm in the broadcast building, which also houses ELC Live operations,” was the cause, referring to the abbreviation for electronic line calling.
(Oskar Garcia / The Athletic)
On Court 5, where reigning Wimbledon women’s champion Barbora Krejcikova was partnered with Matthew Ebden for a mixed doubles quarterfinal, fans murmured as play stopped. The chair umpire, Chase Urban, scrambled to communicate with colleagues, first over a walkie-talkie and then a landline telephone.
Eventually, he announced that play was being suspended momentarily because of a problem with the automated line-calling system.
“Bring back the people,” a fan immediately retorted, as others in the bleachers groaned and the players walked to their courtside seats.
Beside them, on Court 4, Dominick Mosejczuk and Petr Brunclik sat as they would for a changeover during their unexpected break two games into their juniors second-round matchup. The scoreboards at the ends of the court had a U.S. Open logo and the “play suspended” message in capital letters.
While this was a brief pause, a longer malfunction would be disastrous for the tournament. The U.S. Open introduced ELC in 2022, replacing human line umpires. Voice recordings of the calls — “in,” “out,” and “fault” — play on demand, and the system can be adjusted to leave a bigger or smaller gap between the bounce of the ball and the call.
James Hansen and Oskar Garcia
The best racket smash of the year?
What to do when you can’t smash a tennis ball correctly? Smash a racket, according to Harri Heliovaara.
The current Wimbledon men’s doubles champion endured a day to forget on Court 5, putting in a miserable performance in the crucial stages of a mixed-doubles match, playing with Anna Danilina against Taylor Townsend and Donald Young. The Finn missed two elementary shots in the match tiebreak — one forehand into the net, and one smash he likely would not miss again if he was trying to send the ball into the stands.
When you can’t smash a ball, smash the next best thing.
Harri Heliovaara couldn’t hit tennis balls very well today, but he could break stuff! pic.twitter.com/1kChpFX42N
— Tennis Blockade (@tennisblockade) September 2, 2024
James Hansen
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U.S. Open men’s draw 2024
U.S. Open women’s draw 2024
Tell us what you noticed on the first day…
(Top photo of Iga Swiatek: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
