The Grand (Re)Opening: Take Two

This week we were supposed to be in the final stretches of the 2020 clay court season, getting ready for the French Open, which was originally scheduled to kick off this coming Sunday. 

Things are different now, of course, with tour-level tennis now on hold until the end of July at least, even as some countries and states begin what will undoubtedly be the long and arduous process of reopening not only their courts but their entire economies.

Still there is some reprieve for those aching for some live professional sports -- South Korean baseball has resumed with fake fans filling the stadiums, Nascar held its first race over the weekend in South Carolina, and Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson won a charity Skins game benefitting COVID-19 first responders. 

And on the tennis front, this weekend we'll get the second edition of the UTR Pro Series event, with four ladies this time competing for the first title since February and a little bit of that much-needed prize money.

We're only 3 days away from part two of the #UTRProMatchSeries! 🔥🎾🙌🏼

This time @AjlaTom, @AnisimovaAmanda, @riske4rewards, and Danielle Collins will take the court live on @TennisChannel starting May 22 at 12pm ET.

Who are you most excited to watch this weekend? pic.twitter.com/wDBDFwDe2T

— MyUTR (@MyUTR) May 19, 2020

Danielle Collins and Amanda Anisimova, semifinalists at the Australian Open and Roland Garros respectively last year, Alison Riske, who was just off a career-high ranking at #19 in the world when play was stopped, and Ajla Tomljanovic, will compete in round robin style down in West Palm Beach, Florida, hoping to duplicate the success seen by Reilly Opelka a few weeks ago.

And while each of these players may be a little rusty after two months without true match play, some of their results pre-lockdown could give us a glimpse of what to expect now. So why not take a stab at telescoping what we might see when play gets underway.

Alison Riske is the on-paper favorite, with the highest ranking of the group and the most career titles -- two. But despite the low hardware count, she's had some solid wins over the past year, taking out Petra Kvitova and Elina Svitolina in Wuhan, and taking Serena to three in the Wimbledon quarters, after ousting world #1 Ashleigh Barty a round earlier. She's been a little quieter this year, losing the two matches she's played since the Australian Open and beating no one in the top twenty to date. Of course, she's got a lot of talent, but there's plenty of opportunity for someone to notch an upset here.

Anisimova too comes to this event a little vulnerable. While she remains in the top thirty, the eighteen-year-old American is still riding high on the points she earned at last year's French, where she stunned Simona Halep and took Barty the distance in the semis. But a back injury kept her off court for most of the back half of 2019 and she'd been a little slow at the start of this season too, getting demolished by Serena in Auckland and pulling out of Doha after an admittedly impressive win over Svitolina. And while she did win the U.S. Open Juniors title back in 2017 -- beating Coco Gauff, by the way -- it still feels like she might've done better had the clay season gone as scheduled. 

So it may just be that the biggest surprises come from the lower-ranked entrants. Danielle Collins came out swinging this year -- while she fell well short of defending points from her 2019 Melbourne run, she did score wins over Svitolina in Brisbane and both Sofia Kenin and Belinda Bencic in Adelaide. And Tomljanovic, the only one of these four not from the States, actually has the most match play this year -- albeit with the only losing record at 5-6. Still, with two career wins over Riske and another over Anisimova, she's had the most experience against this group, and knows how to win.

Of course, all that said, we'll certainly see a few surprises this weekend. Overall, these ladies don't have a lot of experience playing each other, and, as above, it could take some time for them to shake off the cobwebs that have collected over the last few weeks.

But if this UTR Pro event is a success, it could really help set the stage for more play this season. And after all, no matter how different it feels and looks, isn't that what we all want the most?

Trouble With the Serve

Over the weekend, Reilly Opelka won the first pro tennis event since lockdown began over two months ago, defeating Russia's Miomir Kecmanovic in three sets to claim the UTR Pro Match Series championship.

The victory didn't earn him any ranking points, but he did score some hard-to-come-by-these-days prize money -- he was quick to point out that ATP Officials have been paid their full salary since March, even as tour play has been suspended, while players themselves have had no means of truly earning their keep -- and that all-important match play during this unprecedented time.

And in watching Opelka on court, you can't help but be reminded of another American player with very similar attributes. 

At 6'11" (!!!) the 22-year-old is actually an inch taller than John Isner, and he understandably shares his compatriot's big weapon -- down 15-30 to Kecmanovic in the third set Saturday, he fired off three aces to win the game. In his two months of regular play this year, he's already hit 214 service winners, and over the past 52 weeks he trails only Isner in average aces per match.

But as we've also come to know, a serve in this sport is not everything. I've long lamented how many times Isner is forced into a tiebreak -- nearly half his sets this year have been decided in, well, deciders -- and if you can't break your opponent's serve then what good, really, is dominating yours?

Opelka is not entirely innocent of posting similar stats. He's only won 12% of his return games this year; Rafael Nadal, meanwhile, wins more than one of every three. And he's racking up as much time in tiebreak land as Isner -- every one of their ten sets against each other last year went 7-6 or 6-7.

But he is working to improve. That 12% record compares to the 10% he won on the receiving end last year, and is several times better than the 7% he notched in 2016. And he's consciously focused on fixing his weakness.

“I've spent a lot of time on my return,” he told the Tennis Channel after his win this weekend. “I returned well in Delray, and I returned well in Davis Cup. I’m much more confident in my return game. It’s so much more fun for me as a player to believe I can break serve. I’m not just focused on holding serve. It adds a whole other element to my game.”

Will that translate into more success when regular play resumes? Hopefully -- the world #39 has already had some decent results this season, taking Fabio Fognini to five sets in his Australian opener and winning that title in Delray, the second of his career, beating Milos Raonic along the way. Last year he beat Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon. 

And, since the comparison with Isner is inevitable, Opelka won all three of their matches in 2019, so at the very least he seems to be winning the battle of the big servers for now. 

Of course, I don't mean to say that Isner's career isn't something to aspire to -- we could all do a lot worse than being ranked in the top twenty for the balance of a decade -- but I would like to see Reilly do even better. We could talk for hours about how long it's been since an American played a Grand Slam final, never mind won one. Opelka may or may not be our best chance at that, but he's certainly an option.

But even beyond the hardware he could earn, for him to really thrive on tour, we need to see a more well-rounded game. I have confidence he's getting there, and can't wait to see what he does when he's truly at the top of his game.