History, Interrupted

2 hours & 47 minutes.
6 match points.

A fantastic bronze medal match. 👏#Tokyo2020 #Tennis #Olympics pic.twitter.com/JXOy0NrGpA

— ATP Tour (@atptour) July 31, 2021

Novak Djokovic had a lot riding on his performance at this year's Olympics.

After his stunning, and frankly brilliant, win at the French Open, tongues started wagging that a Grand Slam and an even rarer Golden Slam were potentially in sight. And when he picked up a third straight Wimbledon title earlier this month, the countdown began in earnest -- just thirteen more match wins, and the #GOAT 🐐 contender would do what no man had ever before.

But, sadly, it was not to be.

Though Djokovic looked characteristically unstoppable in his early rounds in Tokyo this week, he ran into a surprising stumbling block in Friday's semi against Alexander Zverev. Down a set and a break, the German rallied to win eight straight games and stunned Nole for only his third win against the world #1, and his first since 2018.

And after losing the bronze medal match today against Pablo Carreño Busta, the man whose only previous win against Djokovic came thanks to a bizarre default at last year's U.S. Open, and subsequently pulling out of mixed doubles, Novak walked away from the Olympics without any hardware, an outcome I don't think anyone would have predicted a week ago.

It's the second time he's lost the consolation round at the Games -- in London 2012, he fell to Juan Martin Del Potro after losing to eventual gold medalist Andy Murray in the semis -- and one of the very few times he's lost two matches in a row. And it leaves Steffi Graf's legacy as the only person ever to win the Golden Slam in tact at least until 2024.

Of course, this is far from the last we'll hear from Djokovic, and he has plenty of opportunity to still make history this year. While he did point to the injuries he's been dealing with, he's got a month to recover before the U.S. Open, where he'll still vie to become the first man since Rod Laver to win every Major in the same calendar year. And that's no small feat.

And, who knows? Maybe now some of the pressure has been lifted form his shoulders he'll hit the courts again even stronger. After all, we've seen so clearly these last few months how much that can weigh on elite athletes, and with even a little of it taken away now, there's no reason to expect him to pick things up where he left off.

There's still a lot of history for Djokovic to make, and this may be just a little break along the way.

Elsewhere in Tokyo...

While all the Olympic tennis attention may have been on Djokovic, let's take a moment to shout out Carreño Busta who beat not just the world #1 on his way to the bronze medal, but also took out world #2 Daniil Medvedev in the quarters. He may not have won the biggest prize, but to him it's just about as good as gold.

Still that match, between Zverev and Russia's Karen Khachanov will be contested tomorrow, and while the fourth seed may be the heavy on-paper favorite, you can't count out an upset here too. Khachanov won the pair's last two meetings, albeit the most recent two yeas ago, and has notched victories over PCB, Diego Schwartzman and Ugo Humbert already this week. And given how topsy-turvy the draws have been, you never can tell what's going to happen here.

After all, who would have guessed Belinda Bencic, who'd racked up a mediocre 17-14 record so far this year, would walk away with the ladies' gold medal in Tokyo? But the world #12, who I thought for sure would drop her opener against the talented but unseeded Jessica Pegula, not only persevered, but went on to beat both of this year's Roland Garros finalists, giant-killer Elena Rybakina, and, in today's gold medal match, Marketa Vondrousova, who'd backed up her own stunning upset of Naomi Osaka by taking out eventual bronze medalist Elina Svitolina in the semis.

It's certainly been an Olympics we'd never expected in so many ways, and with so much history -- not to mention patriotic pride -- on the line, that should be no surprise. But it's going to be three years before they get a chance to play the Games again, so here's hoping they're able to keep bringing the same fire again well before then.

One More in the Books

Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam championship in New York in 1999.

Fifteen years later she was hoisting Major trophy number eighteen, becoming only the fourth player in the Open Era -- man or woman -- to hit that mark.

Anticipation was high for this moment since last summer, when a fifth U.S. Open title brought her within a stone's throw of the milepost achieved by legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova a quarter century or longer ago. But while there may have been times this year when she showed she could be just as vulnerable as anyone on the biggest stages, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the long-time world #1, and arguably the most dominant player this century, got there eventually.

Serena's almost always the favorite at any tournament she enters -- on paper or not -- but players had gotten used to her bringing her best at the Slams. There was a stretch between early 2008 and mid-2011, in fact, where the only tournaments she won were Majors and year-end championships. Things changed a bit this year, though, and she was in danger of posting her first Major-free year -- of those in which she entered all four -- since 2001. After an easy win in Brisbane, she suffered her first career loss to Ana Ivanovic in the Australian Open fourth round; after her win in Rome, she was stunned early by upstart Garbiñe Muguruza in defense of her Roland Garros crown; and she failed to avenge her Dubai loss to Aliz&eactue; Cornet at the All England Club.

This year, somewhat uncharacteristically, it seemed a strong warm-up season was no indication of future results, so even with a 12-1 record since Wimbledon, Serena's prospects in Flushing Meadows were uncertain.

But Williams was able to regroup just in time. She began her New York campaign with some easy straight set wins, only facing her first real test in the quarterfinals when Flavia Pennetta ran off to a 3-0, two-break lead to start their match. But the task would be a little tougher in Sunday's final against a resurgent Caroline Wozniacki -- the 2009 runner-up was playing some of the best tennis of her career, taking out French Open champ Maria Sharapova in a gripping fourth round before totally demolishing thirteenth seed Sara Errani in the quarters. The former world #1 also took Serena to three sets in two matches over the summer, and having put together her best Major run in five years, she could have given Serena more than a little bit of trouble.

Serena, though, had other plans -- though the pair traded breaks early in the match, Williams was the aggressor from the start. She fired off fifteen winners in the first set compared to just one service ace from Wozniacki, and in the next actually cleaned up her game with twice as many winners as errors. She didn't allow a break opportunity in the second set and after just over an hour had wrapped up the win, officially making the U.S. Open her most successful Major.

Of course now the question becomes if and when Williams will match or surpass Steffi Graf's haul of twenty-two Slam singles titles. The way she played this fortnight, there's no reason to believe she can't get it done even next year. Still, plenty of others will be trying their best to start a record collection of their own -- but if Serena's performance in New York showed us anything, it's that she's not ready to go anywhere yet.

Golden Domination

We knew that by the end of today's Gold medal match we would make history -- either world #2 Maria Sharapova or Wimbledon champion Serena Williams would walk away with the elusive Golden Slam, winning each of the Majors and the championship medal at the Olympics. It's a rare honor only three people have achieved before and given the legacy both have created over the last ten-plus years, it's hard to choose two women more deserving of the prize.

But I don't know that anyone would have predicted such a one-sided performance as the one we got today.

The match took just over an hour, the scoreline reading 6-0, 6-1 in favor of the American. Sharapova didn't get on the board until the tenth game of the match, won fewer than half of the total points and managed only six winners in total -- one-fourth the number Serena scored. It was Williams' biggest win over the recent world #1 -- since that stunning loss to the Russian in the 2004 Wimbledon final, she's only lost once to Sharapova, and in her wins has ceded fewer and fewer games as time passed.

Serena's victory Saturday was more than the story of just one match, though -- it was the culmination of a season in which she's time and time again dominated the best women in the sport. This week alone, she easily ousted a couple former #1s -- Jelena Jankovic in her opener and Caroline Wozniacki in the quarters -- a two-time Major finalist and the current top-ranked player. In her first five matches in London she only dropped serve once, fired off thirty-seven aces and lost just sixteen games. Considering the quality of her opponent in the final and how much was on the line, her showing today was arguably even more impressive.

But the thirty-year-old's streak has been going strong for quite some time longer. Since she returned to the game post-injury last June, she's beaten thirteen top ten players, eleven of them in straight sets. She's only lost three times in 2012, with two of those defeats coming at the hands of players who really just caught her off guard. Against the best, Serena seems to always be on her game these days -- even more so than before her injury. She may stumble a bit, but she always seems to pull out the big guns when history is on the line. And the way she continues to play, it looks like there will be more for her to make in the coming seasons.

Williams' win today makes her the second woman, after Steffi Graf, to complete the Golden Slam. With Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka, who exhibited a slightly more muted domination of Russia's Maria Kirilenko in the earlier Bronze medal match, occupying the rest of the podium, you could argue that the best of women's tennis was certainly represented at the Summer Games this year. But while no one's efforts in London should be discounted, it sure seems like that top spot in London reaches just a bit higher than all the others.

The Era of the Grand Slam

Is it just me, or have we been seeing a lot of career Grand Slams recently?

After a seven-year drought, first there was Roger Federer with the French in 2009, a little more than a year later, Rafael Nadal did it in New York. And now we have this.

I don't know that too many people expected a much different result from today's women's final in Paris. New #1 Maria Sharapova, three times a Major winner before, took on Italian Cinderella Sara Errani, who'd never made it past the third round of a Slam prior to this year. The scoreline was one-sided: Sharapova ran off with the first four games, won more than eighty percent of her first serves in the opening set, hit more than three times as many winners as her opponent, and despite an unflagging challenge from Errani was ultimately crowned the French Open champion.



Perhaps more important than the title itself is what Sharapova accomplished with the win -- her career Grand Slam, it turned out, was a long time in the making.

A breakout star with her astonishing 2004 run to the Wimbledon title, Maria went on to pick up the U.S. Open crown in 2006 and another in Australia in '08. She rose to #1 in the world, holding the position for seventeen weeks in total, but saw her career stall when a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery kept her out of the game for nine months. Her return was well-documented, but it took a while for her to really get her stride back -- at her first Slam post-injury, she battled to the Roland Garros quarters, but needed four three-setters to do it. It took another two years before she got past a Major fourth round, and her struggles made those first couple titles seem a few light years in the past.

But things started to turn around last year. She fought her way back to the Wimbledon final, albeit without facing an opponent ranked higher than she was, and kicked off 2012 with another runner-up showing in Melbourne. After going undefeated on the red clay this season, she proved she was truly one to watch in Paris and, though she avoided potential event-ending showdowns with Serena Williams or Caroline Wozniacki, she was able to live up to those high expectations.

At seven years and eleven months, hers was the longest length of time needed by man or woman to complete the career Slam -- Chris Evert needed two months less -- but the victory is just as sweet. I'm not sure many thought she'd be the next one to complete the feat, but now she joins an elite group of seventeen that includes the likes of Serena, Steffi Graf, and of course Rod Laver. And the better news is that this might be just the start of many more records to come -- with the Olympics just a few weeks away, she might have that elusive Golden Slam in her sights too.

Tomorrow Novak Djokovic will try to one-up even that. Currently reigning champion at three Majors, he has the opportunity to complete the Nole cycle Sunday, holding the title at every Slam at the same time -- something last done by Laver in 1962. Of course he'll have to go through clay court king Rafael Nadal to do it, but if he can pull off the upset -- yes, it'd be an upset despite the Serb's #1 ranking -- that would be four completed career Slams in three years, the most prolific period in history.



Of course that won't make the achievement any less prestigious, but it sure makes the divide between the sport's elite and everybody else that much greater. And with the latest entrants (or possible entrants) into the illustrious group separating themselves from the pack, they've put up notice for anyone who steps on court with them.

Separated at Birth -- Part Two

A few months ago I posted an article comparing tennis stars to their famous (and not-so-famous) doppelgangers. People seemed to find it amusing, so I decided to work on the second edition.

Since last time I focused on the top men in the sport, this time I turn the tables and search for look-alikes in the women's draw.

I've never been a huge fan of the Williams sisters, but if I had to root for one, I suppose it would be Serena. She might be one of the best women's tennis player in the world, but she certainly has her fingers in a variety of pots -- from acting to fashion designing. She's almost as much a staple on the red carpet as her Oscar-nominated counterpart, Queen Latifah.



I just hope Serena doesn't try to take on the music industry too. I'm not sure a rap album would quite fly, no matter how many leather catsuits and go-go boots she wears on the court!

And I'm embarrassed to admit that I can indentify any of the useless characters on MTV's The Hills, but it's hard not to notice the similarities between Jelena Jankovic and one of the reality show's stars.



Sure, Jelena is concentrating on her return and Audrina is probably just -- I don't know, distracted by the sun's reflection off LC's compact? But the intensity in both is obvious.

Moving on...

Ever since the days of Anna Kournikova, tennis players have come to be known as much for their beauty as for their serves-and-volleys. All tall, lithe and blonde, it's easy to think these girls should be strutting the catwalk and not pounding the baseline.

Take for example Daniela Hantuchova, who bears a striking resemblance to Mrs. Project Runway herself, Heidi Klum.



And Dinara Safina who, I'd bet, isn't saving her last dance for anyone.



But let's give these girls credit! They easily could have taken a more glamorous route to fame and fortune. Instead they choose to slog it out on the tennis courts, facing the prospect of injuries, making awkward faces as they fight for points, and (gasp!) appearing in public without makeup!

And for proof that the look-alike theory holds from one generation to the next, let's go back a few years and note the similarities between two legends in their respective fields.



Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!