Day 13
Context and Background
The U.S. Open, which started August 27th and runs through September 9th, is the last tennis major of the year. There was a week of qualifying (the qualifying started on 21 August) and now the real heavy lifting begins with the last week of the tournament now in progress.
Results
Women’s Singles Championship:
- Naomi Osaka defeated Serena Williams, 6-2, 6-4
In a contentious, fractious, difficult Women’s Championship, the girl–Naomi Osaka–who idolized Serena Williams, took the queen of the sport down in straight sets. The match was marred by officiating difficulties experienced by Serena, starting with a ruling from the chair that Williams was being coached during the match. She denied it, but her coach later admitted that he was trying to coach her (in Serena’s defense, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she saw the signaling from her coach, who was sitting in the player’s box). It got worse from there, with a broken racquet (another violation) and another violation for abusing the umpire. Serena had a meltdown and paid a huge price for it, but the officiating interference might not have had as much to do with the loss as Serena’s opponent: Osaka broke Serena Williams three times in the first set and had the ground strokes, power, and speed to push Serena around the court. In winning the title, Naomi Osaka became the first Japanese player to win a major (and we all thought it was going to be Kei Nishikori) and she deserved the win, defeating arguably the best woman player of all time. The end of the match was marred by booing fans–which unnerved Osaka–but Serena did the right and classy thing and asked the crowd to stop booing and respect the new Champion. This incident will be debated forever.
Sunday’s Men’s Singles Championship pits Novak Djokovic–back on form after almost a year and a half off–and Juan Martin Del Poltro. Expect lots of big groundstrokes, but a Men’s Final without Nadal seems out-of-character.
A series of links to stories and information about the tournament are listed below. Also, today, we are adding a group of equipment links–just in case you get inspired and go out to play tennis, there are links and information on what to buy and where to buy it.
Links
New York Times continuing coverage (i.e. constant refresh) of Women’s Singles Championships today (8 Sept 2018)
New York Times Coverage of Friday’s Matches
Direct Link to U.S.Open Website
New York Times Coverage
Nadal/Theim/BBC Coverage
Direct Link to Men’s Draw
Direct Link to Women’s Draw
Direct Link to U.S. Open Draw ( all classes)
U.S.Open Schedule of Play
Players in the 2018 U.S. Open
How to Watch: International
How to Watch: USA
Favorites for 2018
U.S.Open history
The Kyrgios Drama
2018 Wimbledon Final Results
2018 French Open Results and Stories
2018 Australian Open Results
U.S. Open Draw/Results
U.S.Open Sponsors
Federer Vs. Krygios
A Day in the Life of Court 15
Marin Cilic Profile
The Shot
Osaka and Serena
USTA Membership Info
Equipment resources
Nike Tennis
Head Tennis Racquets
Babolot Tennis
Yonex
Wilson
ASICS
Fila
Polo/Ralph Lauren
Addidas
Lacoste
New Balance
Tennis Express (Online ordering)
Tennis Warehouse (Online ordering)
Lotto
The Fine Print: Image embeds courtesy of our friends at GettyImages.com, who have the photographic history of the 20th and 21st century on file. Images are not been altered in any way. All rights reserved by GettyImages.com. Video clips courtesy of U.S. Open Tennis Championship and ESPN. Videos are not been altered in any way. All rights reserved. We thank them for sharing. Nightshift Sports coverage of the 2018 U.S. Open tennis championship is produced by Perception Engineering and the Media Bunker. Text copyright (c) 2018 donald pierce. Follow Nightshift Sports for the entire tournament as we update on a regular (and irregular) basis). Thanks for reading.