Inside the Open – Recap of Day 14, Williams, Huber-Raymon, Vergeer

Written by: Staff on 12th September 2011

Inside the Open - Recap of Day 14, Williams, Huber-Raymon, Vergeer

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Inside the Open

SERENA’S BAD BEHAVIOR: On a day when it should have been all about Sam Stosur, the ill behavior of Serena Williams once again seemed to overshadow the Australian’s greatest career achievement.

Down 1-0 and a set, Williams yelled “Come on” before Stosur could retrieve a ball that she wasn’t going to get to. And the chair umpire called point to Stosur. Williams should have simply walked back to the service line and continued play to try and turn around a match she probably didn’t think she was going to come back and win.

So she had to get ugly. And any one who has ever served as a line judge or chair around the world turned their heads. Williams called chair umpire Eva Asderaki a “hater” and “unattractive in her heart,” and said she was the one in the chair for the Clijsters match (it was not; it was Louise Engzell of Sweden). She even told Asderaki that if the two ever pass each other in the halls, she’d better “turn the other way.”

Classy, real classy. They are only words, but on the day tennis is on the world’s stage, it didn’t need to come to this. It did seem to help Williams play as she won the game and then broke back for a 2-1 win. But Stosur just proved too strong on this day, hitting winner after winner, breaking Williams in the seventh game of the second set and again at 5-3 to become the first woman from her country to win the US Open in 31 years. The final tally was 6-2, 6-3 and she instantly became $1.8 million richer.

In 2009, Williams also went down in defeat after thrashing a lineswoman who called her a foot fault on her which led to her losing in the semifinals to the unseeded Kim Clijsters.

“I just yelled, ‘Come on!’ ” Williams would say at her press conference. “It was a great shot. It was beautiful. I hit it like right in the sweet spot. I don’t know. It was a good shot, and it was the only good shot I think I hit. I was like, ‘Whoo Hoo!’ ”

So it will be a long winter for Williams who no doubt will replay the match over and over in her mind. But after seeing she learned nothing or felt no remorse from the 2009 incident, we doubt it will change anything about Williams. We’ve seen the stubbornness and hard-headedness from Williams in the past (she still won’t play Indian Wells over an incident that happened more than 10 years ago). Perhaps it’s what ultimately makes her as good as she is. Just not as fun to watch.

Stosur, meanwhile, will years later probably not even remember the incident. Nor will Evonne Goolagong Cawley, the last Australian woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, taking Wimbledon in 1980.

Goolagong Cawley was in Australia’s capital city of Canberra on Monday morning with 100 Aboriginal work experience students when a television was brought in so she could watch the last part of Stosur’s win, leading her to conclude she was “delighted” for Stosur.

HUBER-RAYMOND WIN WOMEN’S DOUBLES: Two doubles powers met up and gave the Ashe crowd something to cheer about before the singles final as Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond defeated the defending champion team of Vania King of the U.S. and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan, to win the doubles title and claim the No. 1 world ranking, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3), in 2 hours, 47 minutes.

“I think that’s probably one of our biggest assets as a team is our experience,” the 38-year-old Raymond said. “Yes, they were the defending champs and they have two Grand Slams and they’ve done well, but we have years and years and years of being in finals of Slams, winning the championships, being down breaks in the third set to win or lose a Slam.”

COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER: Jon L. Wertheim’s lead Sunday night, calling Williams’ loss “among the most seismic upsets in recent tennis history.”

“It’s one of the great virtues of sports, unpredictability is. Want scripted endings? You go to the theater. Want choreography? Go to the ballet. Then there are sports, the best reality TV going, virtually limitless in their capacity for surprise.”

And this: “In Sunday’s title match, (Stosur) played the biggest match of her life like it was just that. Relentlessly aggressive, unshakably poised, a look of all-business pinned to her face, she ‘out Serena-ed’ Serena. Williams did not lose a set in her first six rounds, making the final appear less like a competitive match than an inevitable coronation. Ah, no. Balls wafted to Stosur’s court as though taking a Sunday stroll and she pounded them back. In the match’s most tense moments, it was Stosur who met them head on.”

JUNIORS MATCHES CONCLUDE: In wasn’t a good day to be a top-seeded junior player on Sunday at the Open as American Grace Min and Oliver Golding of Great Britain both pulled off epic upsets.

Min, 17 and from Duluth, Ga., came into the tournament unseeded but put it all together over the last eight days to claim the title over Caroline Garcia of France 7-5, 7-6 (3). She’ll have to find a spot in her trophy case right next to the junior Wimbledon doubles title she won in July.

“She hits a big ball, so I knew I had to play some big defense, and bring the ball back an extra time and hopefully force an error from her,” Min told a wire service afterward. Garcia is ranked No. 138 in the WTA world rankings.

Min opened the tournament with a huge upset in the first round over second-seeded Irina Khromacheva of Russia. She ended it with an even bigger victory.

Golding, seeded 13th, battled back to beat top-seeded Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

In the girls’ doubles final, American wild cards Taylor Townsend, 15, and Gabby Andrews, 14, fell to Irina Khromacheva of Russia and Demi Schuurs of the Netherlands, the No. 6 seeds, 4-6, 7-5, 1-0 (10-5).

STAT OF THE DAY: Courtesy the AP: The five games won by Serena Williams equaled her career worst at a major tournament. She also won only five in a 6-1, 6-4 loss to Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2004.

MEN’S FINAL PICK: It’s simply his year. That’s why we have to stay with the hot hand and predict that Novak Djokovic will beat Rafael Nadal in five sets to win the US Open men’s singles on Monday.

He’s already done it in five finals in 2011: Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome and Wimbledon, the first two coming on hard courts. Nadal couldn’t find an answer for Djokovic then. And try as he might, he won’t find one on Monday.

But it will sure be fun watching him try.

WHEELCHAIR FINALS SETTLED: In the men’s wheelchair singles final No. 1 Shingo Kunieda of Japan defeated Stephane Houdet of France 3-6, 6-1, 6-0. In the women’s wheelchair singles final Esther Vergeer of the Netherlands won her 18th consecutive Grand Slam, and 429th consecutive match, over Aniek van Koot, also of the Netherlands, in straight sets. In the quad wheelchair singles final David Wagner beat Peter Norfolk after Norfolk retired down 7-5, 3-1.

MODAY’S SCHEDULE:

Arthur Ashe Stadium, Starting at 1 p.m.