Bad manners take tennis back to the future as even Federer shows his fire
Entertainment value soars as players vent feelings US Open feels like a re-run of gripping Eighties games
Is it all the backstage political wrangling? The end of a long, hot summer? Or is the wave of civility ushered in by Roger Federer coming to an end?
Either way, this US Open has returned to the 1980s norm of aggro and tetchiness – and feels all the better for it.
Veterans of New York tennis still talk about Jimmy Connors’ notorious quarter-final here against Aaron Krickstein in 1991, which felt like a boxing bout or even WWE wrestling. The same mood returned for last year’s women’s final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, and over the past week there have been another half a dozen incidents. The sequence began – almost inevitably – with unguarded comments from Nick Kyrgios, and continued on Friday with the most highly charged night session thus far.
It is a moot point which of the two main courts was the more intriguing. Scheduled on Arthur Ashe Stadium, world No1 and runaway favourite Novak Djokovic arrived late for his warmup hit – a result of soreness in his left shoulder – and was then filmed arguing with a fan through the back fence. “I’ll come find you afterwards, trust me,” Djokovic warned ominously. Even when his match against Denis Kudla started, he remained unusually prickly, barking at a couple of different rowdy fans to “Shut the f--- up!”
Meanwhile, the leading young player of the American hard-court season to date – 23-year-old Russian Daniil Medvedev – was also antagonising the crowd on Louis Armstrong Stadium. During a tense win over Feliciano Lopez, Medvedev first attracted a chorus of boos when he aggressively snatched a towel from the hands of a ball boy – apparently because he had not wanted it brought to him in the first place. He then gave the fans a one-fingered salute, but held his hand at the side of his head so that chair umpire Damien Dumusois could not see it.
Poor behaviour? Absolutely. But it was hard not to chuckle at Medvedev’s anti-hero posturing after his four-set victory. Interviewed on the court, he positively relished his infamy, holding his hands above his hand and saying: “Thank you all guys, because your energy gave me the win. I want you all to know when you sleep tonight I won because of you. The more you do this, the more I will win. For you guys.”
Intriguingly, this was a similar message to the one Djokovic later sent to his practice-court antagonist. Asked what the unknown person had said to him, Djokovic said: “We’ll keep it between us. But he definitely helped me.”
And there you have it. Truculence is back. Fake mateship is out. Even Federer uttered a profanity in the interview room on Friday. Asked whether he had requested an early start against Britain’s Dan Evans, Federer burbled inconclusively for a few moments and then barked: “I have heard this s--- too often now. I’m sick and tired of it, that apparently I call the shots. The tournament and the TV stations do.”
The opening week here has thrown up several other umpiring bust-ups, including first-round loser Stefanos Tsitsipas telling Dumusois that “you have something against me ... because you’re French, probably, and you’re all weirdos.”
Williams’s meltdown last year may have helped create a more hostile environment. In an effort to avoid further embarrassment, the US Open briefed all the umpires more rigorously than usual before the tournament.
The idea was to improve consistency, but in practice, this meant everyone emulating the famously hardline Carlos Ramos, whose tough stance had helped turned that final into a circus in the first place.
Williams’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou suggested before the tournament the whole shemozzle was “the best moment for tennis in the last 10 years”. As he added: “People want to feel the emotion, root for someone, they want to be shocked, happy, sad.”
OK, so there might have been an element of self-justification in this argument, given that Mouratoglou had earned Williams her first code violation when he made a coaching gesture from the stands. But the last week has supported the point, by reminding us everything works better when players are truly themselves.
In the case of Djokovic, he is far more effective when he reveals some of the inner fire that drives him. Between the summers of 2016 and 2018, he spent much time hanging out with his guru Pepe Imaz and meditating on “harmony of the soul”. He won nothing of consequence. But as soon as he started baiting the partisan crowd on Wimbledon’s Centre Court last summer, cupping his hand behind his ear during his ousting of British No1 Kyle Edmund, we knew he was back.
The balance is tricky to strike. Manners are important, and no one would wish to celebrate rudeness for its own sake. But sports without human drama are just board games writ large.