A Cold War at the US Open
A love letter to Sabalenka, the Slavic Nurse Ratched
Opening night of the US Open was a classic Cold War showdown featuring the up-and-coming American Frances Tiafoe and the Belarusian juggernaut Arnya Sabalenka.
Son of a tennis custodian, Tiafoe was raised in the locker room of an elite junior tennis academy where he picked up a racket at the age of four and now ranks 20th in the world. He faced off against a fellow American, though you wouldn’t know it from his name: Aleksander Kovacevic, a communist straw man, born in America and trained on a ranch in Arlington.
Kovacevic put up a good fight, winning the third set and breaking Tiafoe early in the fourth. But Tiafoe edged away in the end, rallying when he had to. After Kovacevic won the stadium’s affections with spirited volleys, Tiafoe regained control late in the fourth, quickly dispatching Kovacevic while serving, looking as comfortable as he did earlier in the match when he won the first two sets handily.
Even though Tiafoe emerged victorious, the match was more competitive than anyone expected, lasting for more than three hours. I don’t watch enough tennis to know this, but endurance did not seem to be Tiafoe’s friend.
The other superpower was everyone’s favorite villain: Sabalenka. With her full, fiersome brows and hair pulled taut in a slicked back bun, she cut the figure of a Slavic Nurse Ratched. Her height and piercing gaze made her into a walking eye of Sauron: unblinking fire and all-seeing in her eternal search for court supremacy.
A former number one, currently ranked second, everyone expected a blowout and the crowd naturally sympathized with the underdog challenger, Priscilla Hon. It was very possible Sabalenka was the toughest opponent Hon ever faced and it showed. She had to restart her serve wind-up several times after a bad toss, nicked a couple of balls off the edge of her racket into the hands of appreciative fans, and barely scored a point in the first three games.
But Hon showed something else too. A tenacity, especially with her backhand, that led to several extended rallies she sometimes won. Other times she outfoxed Sabalenka, playing short, volleying overhead and opening improbable angles.
Until this match I hadn’t looked at the nearby monitor, but Sabalenka’s face was so expressive in the camera close-ups I had to watch. I saw how frustrated she was after losing one point in the opening game, even though it was Hon’s serve. For all her severity, Sabalenka was undoubtedly harshest toward herself. Nothing else would catapult you to number two in the world, and we all know second means nothing to champions.
Perhaps it was this wound of being so close to the top prize that drove Sabalenka to browbeat her opponent. It could’ve just been her physicality too. She loomed large, easily a head taller than her opponent, but also broad shouldered, broader even than Tiafoe.
Sabalenka wasn’t just brute force though. There was elegance and precision in her play. She could play the short game deftly and drill a zinger down the line, the ball’s warped shadow just barely gracing the thin white line.
We left at the Cinderella hour as Ubers surged back over $100. We came in as if on a pumpkin chariot, with security unclipping the velvet rope on account of my crutches. They didn’t even scan my tickets or search my bag and I regret not sneaking in another tall boy. I shelled out for good seats and we had an umpire’s vantage point perfectly flush with the net. We opted for the ADA seating just behind for the legroom. From our privileged perch, I admired the US Open’s iconic blue and green colorway and the court’s soothing geometry.
There’s always a mental element in elite sporting events, but this was the first time the psychology of sport was spotlighted. Until then, I had only attended team sporting events at the professional level. In baseball and basketball, the psyche of a game is spread thin, wrapped up in the crowd, and can be summed up in tides of momentum. But in tennis, where it’s just you and your opponent, a whole psychology opened up. After a while, I stopped following the tennis ball like a metronome and studied Sabalenka instead. She was almost Shakespearian with her expressions, and so unlike the boys and Hon, who remained placid except to pump their fists or raise their palms to conduct the crowd after winning points.