Late May has always marked the dawn of what most of the world considers "tennis season". It's warming up outside, the landscape has grown verdant, and folks are ready to hit the courts with an extra hour of daylight to play with. We get some added motivation by watching the best players in the world at the biggest tournaments, as the French Open represents the beginning of the run of three Grand Slam tournaments that bookend Summer. This is the sport's time to shine at its brightest, and TV plays a major role in turning up the spotlight. In America, we have ESPN doing a very respectable job covering 3 of the majors - hell, the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" actually brought the Australian Open back to relevance in this country - while NBC and the Tennis Channel handle affairs in Paris. NBC, we know they stink, that's never been a question, and how they've hung on to the most important time slots in Paris is both a miracle and a bad joke. Outside of the climactic matches at Roland Garros, we look to the sport's media beacon in America, Tennis Channel, for a thorough, in-depth look at the only major played on clay.
Unfortunately, Tennis Channel has botched their French Open coverage in embarrassing fashion. They've chosen to show the same big guns on Chartrier and Lenglen, non-stop, and then tease us with a live "4-Square" look at other matches in progress. If we do get a cut-in, it's for a set or match point. That's it, we rarely even get a look at scores of other matches in progress. Unsurprisingly, money is the driving force behind these poor decisions. TC has struggled to attract reputable advertisers since inception, and they're force-feeding us the players that US advertising dollars demand, the players that the larger pool of "casual" tennis fans will take the time to root for, or against. To be fair, extended coverage of the biggest names is nothing new(just not to this extent, maybe), but Tennis Channel has taken the quest for revenue to another level, and "Tennis Channel Plus" is the tool they will use to wrench that cash out of our hands. This ridiculous money grab is our only hope of watching one of those matches displayed in the dreaded "4-square". For $90 - great news, it's auto-renewable - we can actually watch the full slate of French Open tennis that we tuned in for, along with other bonus action throughout the year. Hold on, now, we already jacked up the price of our monthly cable bill by ordering some type of premium sports package that would bring us TC in the first place...usually about a $25 difference. There's no internet arm to help us out like ESPN3 does at the other 3 Slams, either, at least not for a base cost. The hardcore tennis fan is the clear loser in this equation...we've done our part in supporting Tennis Channel to this point, and our reward is to be ignored and manipulated.
Broadcasting Grand Slam tennis has always been a pretty straight forward affair: you show a bunch of matches when there are a bunch to be played, then focus on fewer contests as the field shrinks. And you go where the action is hot, period, who needs to see blowouts? That's how you introduce your viewership to all the amazing athletes who play this exciting sport, while also keeping the audience on the edge of their seats, wanting more. It's not rocket science, and it works. Another reason it works is that by spreading the wealth and actually dropping in on some outer court matches, viewers get a look at some athletes who almost inevitably end up leaving a noticeable imprint on professional tennis. It's a strategy - with a look far beyond a single day's schedule - aimed at planting a seed by allowing a fan the opportunity to say to him or herself, "Hey, I'm gonna keep an eye on this player". Best-case scenario is that a fan purchases a ticket to a tournament for an up-close look at this great player, but even if that fan simply gives that player's social media a look, and then maybe makes an effort to watch a few of their ATP or WTA matches...guess what, all of those roads eventually lead directly to Tennis Channel, USA! Call it playing the long game, investing in the future, whatever, but it demands a certain amount of faith in your product as a whole. Tennis Channel doesn't seem to posses that type of faith - "get it while the getting is good" seems to be their prevailing thought - but what happens when the "Big 4", Serena, and Maria wells run completely dry? Until then, tennis fans in the U.S. would be best served by ESPN holding a decidedly un-American monopoly on the rights to broadcast the crown jewels of the sport.
It's difficult to get a bead on where Novak Djokovic's game through his first two matches at the 2017 French Open. He's mowed through Marcel Granollers and Joao Sausa - two competent clay-courters - without the loss of a set, but then we're not just looking at these two performances in a vacuum, are we? No, we're REALLY just comparing Djokovic to the player who brought tennis to it's knees from 2011 until the 2016 French Open...the "old" Novak. A player some would call the best there has ever been on the men's side. Fair comparison on our part? Of course not, but it's reality, because nobody - and I mean, NOBODY - is ready to give up on the "Big 4" dominating men's tennis. Not with Federer and Rafa contesting yet another Slam final in Australia, and not with Andy Murray sitting on the #1 spot and trying to gather some momentum as he tries to replicate his own '16 run at Roland Garros. We want to see Novak Djokovic firmly in the mix, hopefully duking it out with Nadal in another epic French semi-final slugfest between the best dirt-ballers of their generation. It's what we've come to expect, but we just can't pencil it in at this point. We'd be getting way ahead of ourselves.
There's a ton of buzz swirling around Novak for a whole bunch of different reasons, but let's just ignore all of that and focus on the recent "positives" we have from Djokovic, which really boil down to a thrashing of Dominic Thiem in a Rome semi. Novak did look pretty damn vintage in that mismatch, and it was a performance that had a lot of folks proclaiming that the reigning French Open champ had returned to form. Then, Djokovic went out and got absolutely hammered in the final by Sascha Sverev. It was ugly, the Serb was tight from the start, and he never gained any solid footing in a match that saw him fall 6-4, 6-3 to a 20 year-old playing in his first Masters 1000 final. To make matters worse, Djokovic was surly all day, and his poor attitude and demeanor cast a pall over what should have been a day where Sverev enjoyed the full spotlight as a rising power in the sport. Nobody's perfect, but we all know Djokovic is better than that on both fronts.
So what kind of insight can you gain from a lopsided win and loss against elite, young players, two days apart? The most glaring would be that, consistency - on several levels - has left the building. Which is the real Novak Djokovic? At this point, both, it's just a coin toss as to which version takes the court for a match. It's a frustrating scenario for fans, let alone an athlete who has played in a staggering 21 Grand Slam finals before the age of 30. Djokovic is unquestionably still a force to be reckoned with - he had some nice moments in a Madrid semis loss to Rafa that showed he can still amp the intensity up on a big stage - but he is just as surely a shadow of the player born in 2011 so long as he continues to suffer from drastic and puzzling dips in play. Those "levels" of consistency are comprehensive, they are affected and intertwined by training and conditioning, match preparation, mental focus, attitude, fortitude, belief...one ingredient lacking can set off a negative chain reaction within the recipe. The bright side? Djokovic is one of the blessed few that have nailed the recipe down to perfection.
Djokovic can't fool the man in the mirror, and he probably knows he's in a minor state of rebuild...no issues that can't be fixed, but it doesn't mean it will be an overnight project, either. This is an important tournament for him, he needs to pass some tests, check some boxes. Smaller-scale stuff that will have a great impact on the bigger picture, somewhere down the road. Tomorrow's match against Diego Schwartzman, for example, is a valuable opportunity to stand in there with a player who can go backhand-to-backhand - a tried and true Djokovic pattern - with anybody, and who isn't going to shrink from the occasion. Schwartzman can be a backboard on clay, and "Nole" will not only have to work hard for his success, but also be prepared to handle some adversity. This is the guy Novak should WANT to see! It's time for Djokovic to refocus on the process that built his consistency, and to take faith that the desired results will eventually come.
It took a long time for Angelique Kerber to reach the top of the tennis world. She's been hitting the fuzzy, yellow ball since the age of 3 - she's 29, now - and she's been a pro since 2003. In 2005, her WTA highlights read as, "Fell in WTA qualifying five times". Glamorous life, huh? Not easily waylaid, Kerber was forced to kick a lot of ass in ITF play - the tennis minors - which earned her the right to fall in WTA qualifying no less than eight times in 2007. Then seven more times in 2009. Sure, a lot of those qualifiers were taking place at smaller tournaments with tight fields, but that couldn't mask the fact that Kerber DIDN'T have any big weapons, and DID have a cream puff of a serve. She was on the pudgy side, an awkward lefty. No way she was even the best German lady of a very solid crop nurtured in the post-Graf era. Kerber thought differently, hitting top-50 in 2010, and exploding in 2012 for her first two WTA titles, a Wimbledon semi, and a French quarter. By the start of '16, Kerber had become a top-10 stalwart, and that seemed to be a nice, feel-good story and ceiling for the scrapper from Bremen, right? So, so wrong. Kerber beat Serena Williams for an Australian Open title, drove off in a new Porsche at Stuttgart, lost to Williams in a Wimby final, took silver in Rio, and then won the U.S. Open to become the uno, world #1. No more minor leagues, no more questions, and about - oh - $20 million in career earnings. It's been a career that a little girl with a starter racquet in her hands could only dream about.
On Sunday, all of that cachet earned Kerber a first round exit out of Roland Garros - 6-2, 6-2 - courtesy of Ekaterina Makarova. First top-seeded lady to ever lose in the first round at the French Open. The only surprise is that none of us are really surprised...unlike Kerber's rise to the top, we could see this one coming around the bend for a while. Angie has been pedestrian in 2017 and she limped into Paris after a second-round loss in Rome to qualifier Anett Kontaveit in which she was unceremoniously fed a dreaded "goodbye bagel", 6-4, 6-0. How, and why does this happen to such an accomplished player? All sorts of reasons. Although she's had her moments on the dirt, clay would never be Kerber's surface of choice, she's more of a reactive counter-puncher and faster surfaces cater to her uncanny ability to absorb and redirect pace. Tough draw, too, as Makarova is #40 in the world, and has seen the semis in two Slams. Fine, but go ahead and throw out the French...what about '17 as a whole, including her poor showing on the early-season hard courts? Those answers may rest in some weary legs and lungs, but also more certainly inside the mind of a woman who's done the unthinkable and isn't quite sure of what comes next.
Kerber may or may not have used people's relative lack of expectations for her career as fuel for the fire - only she knows - but if she did, those days are long gone. Whether from the outside world, or from her own self, expectations are now sky-high for the two-time Slam winner. With Serena taking leave during her pregnancy, even more so! Kerber is now a player expected to put butts in seats, to make consistent runs at every tour stop, to promote the WTA, tennis, and hordes of sponsors in a positive manner...in short, she's expected to win. Not every time, but most of the time. Falling short of expectations can be a grim, lonely experience in professional tennis because the "failure" almost has to rest solely on the individual player's shoulders...there are no teammates to help share the blame, it's just Angie Kerber out there taking the "L". And while Kerber may posses - for the most part - the same game that most of us thought would be lucky to land her inside the top 20-30 in the world(She's absolutely improved her strength and conditioning), she'll never be a true "underdog", again. You can't be an underdog at #1, forget it, and that realization heaps a ton of accountability upon a player who didn't wear the rankings crown until the advanced tennis age of 28.
Our new WTA #1 can also forget about slipping into a match even remotely under the radar, as she has a huge "X" marking her every spot...with Serena out, Kerber is suddenly the biggest scalp in the women's game, and she's going to get everybody's best effort from first point to last. That's just life at the top, and when was the last time Kerber was, officially, THE top dog? Locals, juniors, ITFs, maybe? Either way, it takes most folks in any arena some time to adjust to that type of standing, so don't write off Angelique Kerber off as a shooting star, just yet. She's proven to be a deft problem-solver up to this point, and somewhere inside her mind may lie a new way to attack her career, a new way to set and reach goals, maybe a new way to prove people - even, herself - wrong. There's no question that her journey to superstardom has been long and arduous, but if Kerber can learn to appreciate the view from the penthouse, she may decide she wants to stay for a while.
