CONCUSSION CAPS A PAINFUL WEEK
Canadians Bouchard, Raonic and Pospisil leave U.S. Open hurting
Tennis is not generally considered a rough-and-tumble affair. It is the rare sport in which a cardigan sweater is considered appropriate playing attire. And yet, Canada’s opening week at the U.S. Open was one characterized by collapses, and medical visits, and collisions.
Vasek Pospisil, the smiling kid from Vancouver who made a surprising run at Wimbledon, where he lost to Andy Murray in front of Will and Kate in the quarters, staggered his way through a fiveset loss in the first round.
Pospisil, who has had problems in extreme heat before, cramped badly in the latter sets. That he didn’t withdraw in the punishing New York humidity was a moral victory of sorts, given that this tournament has already seen a record number of heat-related retirements.
Milos Raonic, the 10th-seed here who missed much of the season after foot surgery that also saw him limp his way out of Wimbledon, suffered from an ailing back that he was able to overcome for two rounds, but no more.
Feliciano Lopez, the Spaniard who is now into the quarterfinals, dispatched him easily, which is what you would expect a good player to do against someone who is barely mobile.
Raonic moved about as much as his famously coiffed hair.
But while the 24-year-old was frustrated with the continued health issues, he took some solace in his ability to scrape through a couple of rounds. In his rise to the top ten in the world rankings, Raonic has too often relied on his booming serve. Forced to compete largely without it, he managed a respectable showing.
“Yeah, I guess there’s that sort of silver lining in the whole thing,” he said after his thirdround loss.
“Even when I’m not playing well, at least I have enough, at least at this point, understanding and experience of how to deal with situations so that I can sort of scrap my way through and always give myself some kind of chance to win, which is definitely different from where I was a year ago.”
Pospisil and Raonic may have lost, but they each gave it a valiant effort. Sometimes you are not at 100 per cent. Sometimes you are much less than that. It happens.
What hardly ever happens is what happened with Eugenie Bouchard, whose Labour Day weekend in New York was impossible to categorize. It was its own film festival: A stirring comeback story, a romantic comedy, a dark tragedy and, finally, a mystery.
The 21-year-old from Montreal, who arrived in New York fresh off a 6-1, 6-0 thumping at the hands of Roberta Vinci that was typical of her 2015 season, instead pulled off back-to-back wins for the first time since March.
Then she went out on Friday and beat Dominika Cibulkova in a three-set thriller, a match in which she played her best in the pressure points.
It was the signature of her 2014 ascent, the ability to hit great shots at high-leverage moments, and it had been utterly missing from her game this season.
A couple hours after that win, she went out under the lights at Louis Armstrong Stadium and smiled and giggled her way through a mixed doubles win with partner Nick Kyrgios, the Australian who is probably the only athlete here to have had a worse time in the press this year than she did.
Kyrgios appeared to throw a set at Wimbledon, and he is forever getting fined for on-court behaviour, including a crack about Stan Wawrinka’s lady friend in Montreal last month, but with Bouchard he was goofy in a good way.
“Bouchard, Kyrgios flirt their way to victory,” is how the Daily Mail described it.
After that match, Bouchard said she tried to keep him from losing his temper. It worked.
“It was super fun,” she said of the experience. She said “that’s probably why I’m extra tired now because I was just laughing all the time.”
A few hours after that statement, she was on her way to hospital, having slipped on the floor in what was apparently a dark training room while in search of an ice bath.
On Saturday, she withdrew from both her doubles matches. On Sunday she bowed out of the singles with a concussion.
By Monday it remained unclear what had happened.
The Bouchard camp had blamed the fall on a wet floor and a completely dark room, which would be somewhat odd, given that the U.S. Open often has matches that run into the wee hours.
The USTA wasn’t yet commenting on the specifics of the fall, perhaps aware of the liability issues involved.
There were various conflicting rumours. The floor was extra slick, or it wasn’t so much wet but was missing the tacky floor mat next to the tub. Or it was wet, but not, you know, a puddle.
Whatever it was, Bouchard went from the best moment of her season — happy, smiling, playing well, finally — to arriving at the National Tennis Center on Sunday looking like she had been in a car accident. Dark glasses, slow, deliberate gait.
There is no timetable for her return.
Monday afternoon, Daniel Nestor, the 43-year-old doubles legend, lost in the third round alongside partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France. Nestor was the last of the Canadians at Flushing Meadows, and he was done, too. But at least he still had his health.