Per Aryna Sabalenka, Nike had a different athletic inspiration for each of the slams: Surf for the Aussie Open (only really clear with Naomi Osaka’s jellyfish outfit), the French was ballet for some reason (also… really?), Wimbledon was cricket (except for Osaka), and the U.S. Open was basketball — possibly, a decision they made after the Knicks won the NBA title. And THAT one is very obvious. Sabalenka’s is extremely on-the-nose; Osaka’s were rather more open to interpretation. She is working with Law Roach now, and they had a different designer do each round. I would love to know what they had ready in case she’d made it further.
It was a fantastic U.S. Open in terms of most of the tennis. Six out of the eight quarterfinals went the maximum number of sets. Ben Shelton played a quarter and a semi that felt like finals; as I type this, he hasn’t played the final yet, but I would not be surprised to see an energy dip given how much he poured into those. Djokovic lost in round 1 and cried in the middle of his match; Alcaraz came back after an eternity away due to wrist surgery, and looked excellent; the fans were more irritating than usual — I have never heard so many admonitions from the chair umpire about camera flashes, yelling between serves, yelling words that sound like “OUT,” and having photo shoots in luxury boxes during points — but the players delivered.
Congrats to Elena Rybakina, who played spoiler to Sabalenka’s bid to win three in a row. I’m not an Alexander Zverev fan; condolences to Ben Shelton for losing that final. He was made very aware over and over again that a U.S. man hasn’t won this open since Andy Roddick in 2003. That was a lot to carry, and he fought hard, but who could blame him for being out of gas? Zverev’s road got easier as he went and he’s a stellar server; Shelton’s return game is spotty, and his schedule stayed spicy. He’ll be back, but I’m sure he’ll want to nurse this wound for a while.
