| 04 September 2010
The pleasures of this year's USOpen are multiplying rapidly now, but for my money the most entertaining match was the 5-set duel yesterday between the Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky and American newcomer Ryan Harrison
Can a string bean really play tennis successfully? I asked myself this after last week's event at the Pilot Pen, where I saw newcomer Sergiy Stakhovsky play some fascinating matches in winning his fourth ATP title in four tries.
Stakhovsky has to be one of the scrawniest-looking guys to walk onto a court. Facially he reminds me a bit of Kohlschreiber, but he's taller than him (at 6'4"). It's just you wonder where they put all the beef on this guy, and then you realize there just isn't any.
His shots therefore don't have a lot of pace in back of them, but he doesn't let that interfere with life. Stakhovsky - can we just call him Starsky now and make life easy on all of us? - does not wail on the ball like there's no tomorrow. Instead his shots have a careful feel about them, as if he were actually trying to place them in a particular spot.
He has a lovely one-handed backhand and that shot really impressed me in New Haven. He can slice it, roll over it, drive through it. His serving is pretty decent, but again, it is all about the placement rather than the pace.
In the match against Harrison yesterday, Starsky continued to show the variety he has, chipping and charging the net, throwing up lobs, retrieving balls. What made the match a great popcorn fest was the fact that his opponent started feeding back the same strategy. Soon we had both guys chipping and slicing and dicing, and the crowd ate it up. Maybe they are as fatigued with baseline bashing as I am; I like to think their animated roars were due in part to our seeing a strategy we rarely see on court these days, god forbid - the all-court game.
Clearly the crowd wanted Harrison to move on, but I wanted Starsky. No one was cheering for him, a fact he commented upon wryly in his post-match presser. His game impresses me and I enjoyed very much seeing his play last week. Could he keep up the good play at the Open or would he crash out early as so many hot players have before? The answer was that Starsky is ready for his moment. After being down three match points in the fifth-set tiebreaker, he somehow hung tight and pulled the match out with a lovely volley at the end.
The score was Stakhovsky, 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6).
Sadly, the American commentators bubbled and cooed their way along with Harrison throughout the match. To hear them gush you'd think there was no opponent at all on the other side of the net. Granted, Harrison has a great game, and a great presence on the court for one so young (age 18). I saw Roddick play a match at the same age, and Harrison has a lot more stuff already than Roddick at that age.
Starsky could have used a little love from the booth too. He finally got it well after the match was over, when Gimelstob and Morariu were digesting the day later on. Corinne mentioned what a remarkable comeback Starsky made against the young American.
Better late than never, we guess.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
