My bus trips are generally supported with a nice book and music, but a few months back while travelling from Delhi to Jaipur i met this fellow named Brad David, an american by name and accent he was on his way to jodhpur. A dedicated tennis fan, we began talking about backhands and volleys, from there we moved to the greats of the game and then we reached the U.S. open. The slightest mention of which lit up his eyes, after all he had been going there year after year. He was there when Pete Sampras cried, he was there when Agassi said goodbye....
A fan rumouredly shot in the leg. A spectator apparently plays saxophone in the crowd. Assasin-eyed Pete gets so moved he cried at one. This is the US open, believe what you will. Stars have been made and broken here. Sometimes you play under the stare of hollywood stars. Sometimes everyone goes home except the stars as night matches sweat into the open mornings.
When Connors played it was chaotic, crackling, cackling, concrete fight club where a crotch grab was like some sort of salute. Now Federer almost seems to yawn as he walks past his opponents to take back his trophy.
Its 1989, Connors,37, the only man to win the open on all three surfaces, is doing his last-man-standing thing, he's down 1-5 and goes on to lose to a 19-year-old kid with a juggler's fast hands and a blinding wardrobe.
The kid who beats Connors that day is now 36. He has said his sayonara. No one hates Agassi, not any more. Not even for marrying Steffi. He hates his twisted back. But careers mostly limp and lurch to a finish, and sloppy happy endings remain in Karan Johar's minds. Either way people wept. Once at the open, they laughed at Agassi.
Agassi changed, too. Tennis was a gamble for Agassi, shots hit without thought like careless rolls of a dice; but then he became the architect, each point finely calibrated, each match a grand design. That pale-face fellow Agassi plays in the 1990 final, his father is not at the court, he's at the mall. Nervous, understandable. Till a shopkeeper mentions his son, Oh, That Sampras kid won. This is a New York moment.
The legend that Sampras kid eventually becomes is right in front of us. He looses the 1992 final. Pressure he reasons out. Connors says its bullshit. Sampras is altered forever. An executioner is born. He wins 5 opens. equaling whom? Jimmy.
Federer has no hard edges. His game isn't rude. His feet make no noise. He is about as likely to grab his crotch as Connors is to get a full pedicure before his match. For Connors the open was like a jungle trail, but Federer has turned it into a catwalk.
The Open will stay here but the Champions will change. Each sandpapering there names amidst the steel and mortar of the open.
