THIEM JOINS THE TIGERS WITH US OPEN WIN

In the jungles of Bengal and Sumatra, the lesser beasts do not dare to approach a clear pool while a tiger sips its fill. Despite what children’s films may suggest, there is no truce at the watering hole, and weaker creatures will spook and flee if they sense a predator near their source of nourishment. It has been so in men’s tennis for more the best part of two decades. The apex tennis players drank their fill at the Grand Slams, and they drank deep. Since Rafael Nadal won his first Grand Slam in 2005, only Juan Martin del Potro, Stan Wawrinka, Andy Murray and Marin Cilic have intruded on the trio of Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic’s feasting at tennis’ four biggest tournaments.

This partly explains why for two sets the US Open final of 2020 felt like a contest defined as much by who was not there as who was.

With Coronavirus cases soaring across the US, defending champion Nadal stayed away, preparing for the clay. Federer saw in the pandemic the perfect time to pause for a surgery to lengthen his extraordinary career.

It would be Novak Djokovic then, surely. Unbeaten all year, the Serbian was determinedly closing in on his two rivals’ title counts. For three rounds it seemed an unstoppable procession towards another coronation. The Serbian coasted, steamrolling his opponents. Could anyone stop him? Perhaps, but would they, over five sets, with a Grand Slam title on the line? It seemed unlikely. Then, with one reckless swipe of the Serbian’s racquet, the tournament was blown wide open. Djokovic defaulted, the title destined at that moment to be won by a first time Grand Slam champion.

Fast forward six days and there were two men vying for the honour. At one end Alexander Zverev, the giant German who won the 2018 Tour finals but has so often fallen victim to his flaky serve and a tendency to timidity on court. Opposite him was the second seed, Dominic Thiem. The Austrian was a three time beaten finalist at Grand Slam level, but his conquerors had been two of those three immortals at tournaments they have made their own, Nadal twice on clay, Djokovic once in Australia earlier this year.

For two sets, the final underwhelmed. Thiem in particular looked all at sea, although credit must go to Zverev who came out playing a flat hitting, serve and volleying style. The tactic was a surprise, perhaps to Thiem as much as anyone else.

Too often Zverev has been prone to getting lost behind the baseline. Too often he has played down to his opponents’ level rather than playing assertive tennis to push others aside. Now, on the biggest stage of his life, Zverev soared, his level remaining remarkably high, only to find that his opponent was sinking, dragging down the quality of the contest with him. Zverev was playing well but it was hard to work out exactly how well, so little resistance did his shots meet.

At that point the final was not a contest between two players but between two very different Alex Zverevs. Could the clean ball striking and monster serving Zverev keep at bay the double faulting, self doubting alter ego? Would Dr Jekyll shine through or would weight of errors eventually summon the mishit wide? Could Zverev keep going to the well and coming back with the courageous hitting that had got him to this point?

At that point, two sets in, it would have been hard to judge a casual observer for concluding that the future of men’s tennis looked more than a little brittle. The sport, it seemed, would not be regressing to the mean after the departure of the big three. It might sink lower than that.

Zverev had underwhelmed against Pablo Carreno-Busta for five sets to reach this stage. Felix Auger Aliassime, the brilliant young Canadian, briefly offered a glimpse of generational promise in his violent stroke play and balletic movement, but subsided all too easily when confronted by Dominic Thiem, who, in truth, had been the only man to excel throughout the tournament.

The Austrian, the pre-final narrative went, had bided his time, licking the wounds inflicted by those greats of the game. The tigers had come for Thiem in previous finals, but that was natural, a part of earning his right to eventual victory, and when he achieved it it would be all the sweeter for having been chased from the watering hole three times before. But here he was against Zverev, a man who was, relative to those great champions, more kitten than beast, and again, he looked like the prey rather than the hunter.

The contrast with the thrilling women’s final played 24 hours earlier looked increasingly stark. Where returning veteran Victoria Azarenka and the powerful, articulate Naomi Osaka had duelled with all their considerable skill, here was Thiem throwing drunk punches.

The German went two sets up. The weight of his previous defeats and the prospect of joining Ivan Lendl as the only man to lose his first four Grand Slam finals must have been crushing for Thiem. In the second set, the commentators name-checked the shortest ever US Open final. At least, they reasoned, this looked likely to surpass that.

Then suddenly, inexplicably, everything changed.

A match that for two and a half sets looked like a dull vision of the future of men’s tennis suddenly found spectacular clarity.

Thiem stared into the pool and saw a way forwards. The mud cleared, the waters parted. The speed of foot and thought and shot increased as the Austrian began to scamper and hammer. Block the returns. Turn up the power.

Now both men were unloading on the forehand side, Thiem’s pace picking up to match Zverev’s own power and subtlety. Time and again the older man blistered the lines as he had done in previous rounds, but had been unable to do for those first two sets. With Thiem’s improvement, the contest suddenly found meaning. Zverev’s own winners, particularly some exceptional inside in forehands, looked even more impressive for coming in the face of that stiffer resistance.

Suddenly there were consequences for momentary caution or imprecision. The cost of a point had become the winner’s skill as much as the loser’s error. With Thiem now embedding himself more ably in Zverev’s service games, Zverev’s flaws became a complement to the contest rather than an awkward sideshow to it.

If the backhand is his ace shot, the serve has always been Zverev’s tell. When the nerves come, his racquet does not so much decelerate gently as stall and crash into oncoming traffic. Serves as slow as the low seventies are comedy and tragedy when there’s nobody to capitalise but drama when his opponent grows stronger. Because of Thiem’s growing threat, Zverev’s brave fight against his own weaknesses became that much more compelling as game after game he fought valiantly against his own doubts and his opponent’s ascending brilliance. This was, we remembered a young man who had won three five setters already to reach this point.

Each game was now its own battle, and at last it was one worthy of a Grand Slam final.

The Austrian nervelessly reduced the deficit, winning one set, then a second. Doing so meant that a fourth straight men’s Grand Slam final went to a fifth set. It was another vindication of the longest, toughest, most thrilling format of the sport. It was also a reminder that another two sets of Osaka and Azarenka might have added even further to that spectacle.

The tension grew. Thiem converted his momentum into an early break in the fifth. A scintillating Zverev two hander down the line coupled with, irony of ironies, a Thiem double fault, gave it back immediately.

From there the pair traded escalating blows, growing vocal as they roared themselves through the decider. With a 4-3 lead Zverev broke, an opportunity established by bravery at the net and another deft dropshot. A double fault and three errors followed. Had the chance slipped through his fingers or had it been pushed?

At that point, it would have been easy for Zverev to crumble. When his own serve was broken to give Thiem the chance to do what Zverev could not, it looked inevitable. Instead, he fought on, a howitzer forehand taking levelling the match again.

Six service games each could not separate them, leaving a tie break to do what more than four hours of tennis could not and find a winner.

Zverev struck first in the tie break, only for the double faults to return. At some point, a visitor becomes so unwelcome that the only remedy is to call the police. Zverev’s serve was fast becoming an emergency. When a Thiem championship point met another Zverev second serve, the script looked set. To his immense credit, Zverev found the box, and Thiem netted. From that disappointment, Thiem found another winner, a forehand pass to earn a Championship point on his own serve, and this one he did not waste.

At the end, Alexander did weep, but he played his part in a way that suggested he will be back in these great domains.

For Thiem, the time had finally come. He eats with the tigers now.