By U.B. Acharya

As most of the tennis followers would have already seen on TV (live or later in news channels) or read in the newspapers that after failing thrice in the ultimate round to the two great champions, Dominic Thiem of Austria (pronounced as ‘Teem’) won his first major Title namely the US Open Champions in five sets against another rising star 23-year-old German Alexander “Sascha” Zverev. For the record, he won in about four hours with score line being 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 and 7-6 (8-6). According to the TV commentators, match was not of a great quality but for Thiem and his fans it is a great victory.

A critical analysis of the ATP tour of 2020, the present US Open and the final match is summarised as follows:

1. Normally, the tour starts in the first week of January with South Asian and Australian circuit culminating in the Australian Open. Then the Desert Circuit in Southern USA with a couple of Masters 1000 tournament takes place. This then is followed by the European Clay Court season again terminating with the French Open in early June. Following this, the Grass Court season starts with only three tournaments with Wimbledon Championship in early July as the finale. This is followed by US season with US Open as the last tournament in USA. The season continues with a few indoor Hard Court Masters 1000 Tournaments in China and Europe with season ending ATP finals in London.
2. All these programmes got either cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic after the Australian Circuit. However, due to the determined efforts of USTA with the active co-operation of New York City authorities, US Open was conducted as per schedule. The health restrictions were very strict and in fact one player was sent home due to suspected COVID-19. There were no spectators and post-match press conference was online.
3. The most prominent point of discussions during the second week of the Championship was the disqualification of the top seed Novak Djokovic. He was the favourite and had sailed through the first three rounds of the tournament. In the fourth round he met the 20th seeded Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta. In the first set at 5-4 Djokovic served for the set. After leading 40-0 he made some uncharacteristic errors and lost the game. In the next game, Busta held his service for a 6-5 lead. For Djokovic it is not a defeat but just a minor set-back. As he changed ends, in frustration, he swung the ball backwards towards the back screen without looking where he was hitting the ball! As his bad luck would have it, the ball struck right at the neck of a middle aged lines woman! As per the ATP and USTA rules, Djokovic was disqualified from the tournament in spite of his “begging” with folded hands (Namaste) to the Chair Umpire and the Chief Referee of the tournament.
4. It is now a moot point whether Thiem or anyone else would have won if Djokovic did not have this unexpected and inadvertent mistake. But since the mistake did happen there is no point in pondering further on the subject and one man’s loss became another man’s gain.

Now for some tennis statistical buffs, there are some interesting numbers. Starting from 1877, there have been a total of 470 Grand Slam events but because of multiple winners, there have been only 149 names in the winners list so far. Last in this list is Marin Cilic of Croatia who won the US Open way back in 2014! Thus Dominic Thiem is the 150th player to have his name in this illustrious list which includes names like Bill Tilden (10 Titles), Fred Perry (8), Don Budge (6), Roy Emerson (12), Rod Laver (11), Jimmy Connors (8), Bjorn Borg (11), Pete Sampras (14) and the three present greats namely Federer (20), Nadal (19) and Djokovic (17). Hopefully it is only the beginning of his winning streak.

However, there are now half a dozen next-gen players who are gunning for glory. They are Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Borna Coric, Denis Shapovalov and of course, the runner-up Alexander Zverev. But I have faith in one 18-year-old Canadian named Felix Auger Aliassime. According to my reckoning, he is likely to overtake all the next-gen players mentioned above and get recognition as the world’s top ten all time greats! Let us wait and watch.