Federer hits around the net — and hits the jackpot

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — He gave them what they wanted, and a little more. Roger Federer was on stage — well, on court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, not that there’s much difference — and on his game, fighting off service breaks, moving gracefully and effectively, and then pulling off a shot that bordered on disbelief.

A shot that had his opponent, Nick Kyrgios, who is famous for the spectacular — and the self-destructive — literally gaping and then gesticulating. A shot that Federer agreed was one of his more unique ones in a unique career.

It didn’t mean much in the flow of the match Saturday, coming in the third set, which Federer would win as he won the first two. But the shot — Federer dashing in for a low bouncer and then hitting the ball around the net, not over — was highlight video stuff, as in “Hey, Mabel, you got to see this.”

Federer dominated Kyrgios, 6-4, 6-1, 7-5, and so moves into the fourth round of the U.S. Open, a tournament he has won five times. True, Kyrgios had chances early on, but he couldn’t take advantage, hardly a surprise, and then Federer played like Federer, in control.

Roger will be 38 in a week, but age no longer seems important. That Casey Stengel line when he got fired as a manager because he was too old, “I’ll never make the mistake of being 70 again,” is inconsequential. Friday night, Serena Williams, almost 37, beat sister Venus, who is 38.

Tennis, as golf, is a sport of recognition. Fans cheer for Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. And for Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. And when Federer pulls off a shot as he did, it’s a bonus.

“It was unbelievable,” said Kyrgios. Then with a smile he chirped, “I’m probably going to place it on Instagram.”

Kyrgios is the 23-year-old Australian with a big serve and erratic style. Only Thursday, the chair umpire in Kyrgios’ match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert was so disturbed by what he thought was a lack of effort by Kyrgios he climbed down from his chair to give Nick some advice — thereby going against the sport’s protocol.

The Aussie, who often says he would rather be in the NBA than the ATP (the men’s pro tennis tour), was on his best behavior Saturday and, for the first few games, on top of Federer. But it’s a matter of history: the longer the competition continues, the greater the odds that the better player will win.

Even without a stunning shot.

“He played really well today,” Kyrgios said of Federer, who he beat three years ago, his only win now in four matches between the two. “I didn’t play my best tennis, but I couldn’t have done much I thought.”

Except marvel at that shot around the net.

“I was trying to tell him the shot wasn’t that good,” joked Kyrgios. “No, it was almost unreal. It almost got to a point where I wanted him to start making shots like that, and I finally got it.”

Federer is the No. 2 seed behind Nadal. As everyone knows, Roger has won 20 Grand Slams, far more than anyone else, but none have been this year. He is a constant among the big three of men’s tennis, with Nadal and the revitalized Novak Djokovic.

His strengths are a timely serve and wonderful consistency. Still, the conversation was about comparing the few shots, like the one Saturday, that are special.

“I explained (to ESPN) on court you don’t get the opportunity to hit around the net post very often because you can’t train for them,” he said. “On practice courts, the net is farther out. You will be running into a fence, and you will hit it into the net.

“But I have hit a few throughout my career, and they are always fun. You realize you have the option. I can just shove it down the line. That’s what happened today.”

So rare, so remarkable.

Tennis Open is anything but a nightmare

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Headline on the New York Post web site: “US Open’s week 1 has been a nightmare.” That’s the trouble with those tabloids, always understating the situation.

Nightmares are for Elm Street, not tennis tournaments. Nobody’s awakened screaming here. Just confused. Or angry. Or sweating. Or bewildered.

In other words, it’s a normal Open. The weather is oppressive, the players obsessive and the fans impressive. Hey, it was after 1 a.m. on Thursday, a qualifier, Karolina Muchova was beating Garbine Muguruza and there were people in the stands.

But this is the city that never sleeps, the place, we’re told, that if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. Whether that includes beleaguered tennis umpire Mohamed Lahyani is problematical, although he was back in the chair Friday on Court 13 to officiate a men’s doubles match.

The problem was that Lahyani got out of his chair Thursday and gave what appeared to be a pep talk to the slightly imbalanced Nick Kyrgios because Kyrgios seemingly was not trying in his match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert. The USTA announced on Friday that the well-respected Lahyani wouldn’t be suspended.

Think of an NFL referee giving advice to Tom Brady in the second quarter of the Super Bowl. But this is tennis, where women change shirts on court and players are allowed “bathroom breaks.”

For a while Friday, it appeared Rafael Nadal, the defending men’s champion, needed a break of a different sort. He lost the first set and was two games down in the second to Karen Khachanov of Russia. But there was no nightmare for Nadal, or for tournament sponsors who wouldn’t want to lose a top name in the first week.

This Open began with temperatures in the mid-90s, which brought grumbling — as we’ve heard forever, everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it — and then evolved into a question of the competency of an official.

Among all this, Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic kept winning, Muguruza and Caroline Wozniacki lost and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, were destined to play Friday night in a third-round match they didn’t want but the public certainly did. The American men, other than John Isner, couldn’t make it out of the first week, Sam Querrey inexplicably losing in the first round, Tennys Sandgren, Francis Tiafoe and Steve Johnson losing on Thursday, and Taylor Fritz losing on Friday in the third.

Fritz is known as the e-sports champion of the locker room, which is not exactly the champion of the court, but you can’t have everything,

What the U.S. Open, the final Grand Slam event of every year, has is its own personality. Some players dislike the atmosphere. Others say they enjoy the carnival approach, the distractions and no less the attention gained in competing where every day and night there are more than 50,000 spectators.

Federer, winner of 20 Slams including five Opens, says he embraces the Open, where the fans embrace him. He likes playing at night in 23,000-seat Ashe Stadium when the temperature drops and a tennis tournament becomes another off-Broadway hit in New York.

Nightrmare? For Roger, the Open is dream.

Unfortunately and fortunately, it’s Venus against Serena

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — And so in what might be called the twilight of their careers, the ladies whom the late Bud Collins nicknamed “Sisters Sledgehammer,” Venus and Serena Williams, will face each other Friday night under the arc lights. “Unfortunately,” said Serena, “and fortunately.”

Unfortunately for the siblings, who were raised to become the champions they are but cringe at the thought of competing against each other.

Fortunately for tennis in America, a nation that in the last several years hasn’t had many winners in the sport, male or female, other than the Williamses.

Maybe, to borrow a Rolling Stones lyric, this could be the last time. Maybe Venus, 38, and Serena, who will be 37 in September and is a new mother, will not go head-to-head again after this third-round match in the U.S. Open.

That would be acceptable to the sisters, who through seedings, success and the luck of the draw have met 29 times, starting at the 1998 Australian Open — yes, 20 years ago. Venus won that first match, but Serena has a 17-12 advantage.

Golf and tennis are games without team loyalties. It you’re a Red Sox fan, a 49ers fan, an Auburn fan, who’s out there doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they’re wearing the right uniform.

It’s different in individual sports. Support is built on achievement, certainly, but also on recognition — which admittedly comes from achievement. There’s a reason Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams are scheduled at prime time, night time. To fill the seats. To build the TV audience.

The tennis purists know Alexander Zverev or Karolina Pliskova. But everybody knows Venus and Serena. Tennis fans? Let us borrow the Bill Veeck quote alluding to a sport far more popular in the U.S.: “If you had to rely on baseball fans for your support,” he said when he owned the Cleveland Indians, “you’d be out of business by Mother’s Day.”

Tennis is very much in business with Venus and Serena, who are as likely to be featured in Vanity Fair as they are in Sports Illustrated.

Their father, Richard, who both started their careers and, it is believed, manipulated those careers early on, supposedly deciding who would win the matches against each other, was protective of the sisters. He held them out of big-time competition until Venus, then 14, entered a WTA event at what now is Oracle Arena in Oakland in 1994.

She was impressive, but Richard Williams would say, “Serena is going to be better.” He was correct. She’s also more expressive than Venus, who as the older sister is more protective and less nonsensical. Also, when the questions fly, less tolerant.

After defeating Camila Giorgi in the second round Wednesday, Venus naturally was asked about a probable match against Serena, who a bit later would win against Carina Witthoeft. 

“You’re beating it up now,” Venus said. “Any other questions about anything else? I just want to talk tennis.” But not the tennis curious journalists wish to discuss. After all, how many times can you talk about a forehand? What’s going on in the player’s head?

“We make each other better,” Serena said about competition between the sisters.

They last played in March, at Indian Wells, Serena’s first tournament and third match since giving birth to Alexis in September 2017. Not surprisingly, Venus won, 6-3. 6-4, although Serena said she wouldn’t have been shocked were she the winner.

They might not want to play each other, but they definitely do want to defeat each other when on the court.

“We bring out the best when we play each other,” said Serena. What they also do is avoid critical remarks about the other.

“I never root against her, no matter what,” said Serena. ”I think that’s the toughest part for me. When you want someone to win, (it’s hard) to try to beat her. I know the same thing (goes) for her.  When she beats me, she roots for me as well.”

What we’re rooting for is a match worthy of the Williams sisters.

Down to a sport bra and caught up in controversy

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — In 1999, Brandi Chastain scored the winning goal for the U.S. in the women’s World Cup, ripped off her jersey in excitement and, showing a sport bra, became not only a heroine but a cover girl on Time. People cheered.

Two days ago, Alize Cornet changed a shirt that was being worn inside out during a first-round match of the U.S. Open, briefly showing a sport bra, and drew a warning that in turn drew an apology — and drew defenders by the numbers. Some people gasped.

But of course. That’s the history of women’s tennis attire, stitched up with controversy.

There was Gertrude “Gussie” Moran’s lace-edged panties — knickers they’re called in Britain — at Wimbledon in 1949, Karol Fageros’ gold lamé panties at the 1958 French Open that got her banned from Wimbledon a month later, Anne White’s bodysuit at Wimbledon in 1985 and Serena Williams’ black “catsuit,” only days ago forbidden by the French Open.

Now, on a steamy 90-degree day in New York, when even male players were permitted to take a break before a third set, as women previously were allowed, Cornet returns from the locker room to realize she had put her top on incorrectly. So, hey, switch.

Oh gracious, a lady in a sport bra, as we see in gyms, running paths, even on sidewalks. Not a bikini. Not a swimsuit. But exactly what Brandi Chastain was wearing when she fell to the grass at the Rose Bowl in ecstasy.

Chastain did wonders for women’s soccer — only recently she was inducted in the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame, to join Joe Montana, Bill Russell, Joe DiMaggio and so many others. The guess is that Cornet, of France, will give women’s tennis a boost, if only out of curiosity.

Anyone who perhaps never heard of Cornet will Google her name. A negative may turn out to be a positive.

Quickly on Wednesday, the U.S. Tennis Association, which controls the Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments each year, sent out a press release stating it regretted the code violation assessed tor Cornet.

“We have clarified the policy,” said the USTA, “to ensure this will not happen moving forward. Fortunately she was only assessed a warning ... Female players, it they choose, may also change their shirts in a more private location close to the court, when available.”

The men have been stripping down for years, pulling off one perspiration-soaked shirt after another and putting on a clean, dry one. Indeed, there are differences between the sexes, but the ladies, on court and off, felt that the whole issue was just another one of those old-boys ideas on which they’ve never had a vote. Or been asked their thoughts.

“If I would say my true feelings, it would be bleeped out, because I think it was ridiculous,” said Victoria Azarenka, twice a U.S. Open finalist.

“It was nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. It wasn’t anything disrespectful. She literally changed her shirt because it was backwards. So I couldn’t believe this was a conversation.”

But it was, harkening back to tennis history. Anything out of the ordinary evolves into a major incident.

“I’m glad they apologized,” said Azarenka, “and I hope this never happens again.”

It will. Truth tell, it’s happening now, with Serena’s one-piece outfit. She will be unable to wear it at the French Open, played in late June. Assuming she enters, when Serena shows up the first question to her will be not about her serve but the attire she won’t display.

Azarenka understands what she doesn’t understand.

“There is always a double standard for men and women,” said Azarenka. “But we need to push those barriers. And as players, as representatives of the WTA Tour, I believe we’re going to do the best we can to make sure that we are the most progressive sport and continue to break those boundaries, because it’s unacceptable. For me, it’s unacceptable.”

By the way, in the match that was the cause, Cornet was beaten by Johanna Larson, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2. So much for the important stuff.

Djokovic stays cool in a very hot U.S. Open

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The air was unhealthy. The heat index was unreal. It was sport in a steam bath, officials intervening, players withdrawing, everybody — on court or in the stands — more concerned with what was on the thermometer (the temperature reached 95 degrees) than what was on the scorecards. 

This is America’s tennis championship, the U.S. Open, and so far no one has been able to whip that feisty lady Mother Nature. She’s been in control from the first match. “Extreme weather conditions,” was the official announcement. Are they ever.

The end of summer in New York, Odell Beckham Jr. getting headlines on the front and back page of the New York Post for signing with the football Giants; the Yankees losing ground in their attempt to overtake the Red Sox; and Roger Federer and Serena Williams back at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, out where the Mets play at Citi Field and the jets swoop low when they land at LaGuardia.

The Open is noisy, as is everything in New York; exciting, since if you can make it here you can make it anywhere; and hot, although rarely as hot as this August, when on Tuesday five men — none of them named Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal — withdrew because of conditions so severe that it was decided to give everyone a 10-minute break before a possible third set.

There are now retractable roofs on two of the courts, including the main one, the 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Court, but understandably officials from the U.S. Tennis Association do not want to close the roofs unless there is rain. Players under cover would have an unfair advantage over those on the outside courts.

Not that those in the night matches, Federer and Maria Sharapova among them on Tuesday, don’t have an advantage over those out in the midday sun, which as the lyrics go is for mad dogs and Englishmen. And on Tuesday for Djokovic, a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 winner over Martin Fucsovics, and Caroline Wozniacki, who beat one-time champ Sam Stosur, 6-3, 6-2.

“Yeah, it was very hot conditions for sure,” said Wozniacki, the Australian Open champion. “I just tried to stay cool. We got a little lucky. In the shade, I was able to cool down a little bit. So that helped.”

Marin Cilic, who won the Open four years ago, was a winner when his opponent quit — well, the explanation is “retired” — at 1-1 in the third set after losing the first two sets, 7-6, 6-1.

“Conditions were extremely tough,’ said Cilic. ”Very humid, very hot. The ball was flying a bit more than usual, so I was having a tough time trying to control it. I was missing some easy balls, making unforced errors that are not that usual for me.”

He won. Whatever the situation, the better players inevitably do, which is why they are the better players.

Djokovic was the best player a couple of years ago, in the rankings and in the minds of most others. He had a stretch of four straight Grand Slams, from the 2015 U.S. Open through the 2016 French Open. Then he collapsed.

Maybe because of a bad elbow. Maybe because of reported family troubles. Now, after a win at Wimbledon a month and a half ago and victory over Federer in Canada, he’s back.

He did worry Tuesday because he said the heat made him feel sick during his match, even asking for assistance. The No. 6 seed, Djokovic recovered while taking the 10-minute break before the fourth set and then breezed without losing a game.

Argentine Leonardo Mayer, one of those who couldn’t finish, said of the allowed recess, “Ten minutes? I would have needed an hour and a half.”   

Djokovic and Fucsovics only needed to take an ice bath. That was cool, in more than one way.

A’s oblivious to everything except winning

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — Yes, gone. With only a few traces. The baseball diamond still was there, most of all the dirt infield that the NFL teams despise, the last one. But already, an hour after the A’s home stand had ended, the scoreboard was showing the Raiders, who won’t be there until Friday.

That’s the way it is for the Oakland Athletics, second-class citizens of the Coliseum. The best baseball team in the Bay Area, in California — at least the California team with the best record — the fourth-best record in the major leagues, and to borrow that ancient but poignant Rodney Dangerfield comment about himself, they get no respect.

You think a few minutes after the conclusion of a Raiders game in Oakland the scoreboard would be flashing an upcoming A’s game? Not a chance.

But the A’s seem oblivious to slight, as they are to everything else, small crowds, a ballpark that’s really a football stadium, the leaking toilets — since repaired — and an occasional defeat, as was the case Wednesday, when Oakland fell to the Texas Rangers, 4-2.

The A’s are thinking big, as in big picture, as in the World Series. Baseball is a sport of percentages, not of perfection. You’re going to lose games, a lot of them when you play 162. The key is to win two-thirds of the time; especially when, as for the A’s, it gives a team one series after another — for Oakland, 18 of 19, virtually unheard of. Other than the Red Sox.

And going away for a week doesn’t faze the Athletics. “We’re one of the best teams in the league on the road,” said catcher Jonathan Lucroy, “and we have a built-in home field advantage here because it’s a graveyard. Teams don’t like playing here.”

He apparently was referring to the way balls don’t travel well, other than for day games, not to a burial location, although there is something about the stadium that makes its occupants think of final resting places. Long ago, players for the great A’s teams of the 1980s called it the mausoleum.

Into the mix for the A’s is the announcement from president Dave Kaval that the team has hired a Danish architectural firm, Barke Ingels Group (BIG), to design the new ballpark that someday may be constructed someplace. Maybe it will look like a pastry or a hunk of smoked salmon.

What the A’s look and sound like is a team brimming with self-belief, which is understandable. The more you win, the more confidence you have, and the more confidence you have, the more you win. That is if you have pitching, of course.

In the previous two games of the series, the A’s shut out the Rangers. Wednesday quickly ended any thought of that occurring a third straight time when the first man up for Texas, Shin-soo Choo, homered.

The Rangers built the margin to 4-0, but in the ninth, the crowd of 13,139 having shrunk, Oakland loaded the bases without a hit. A bit of excitement, but not a victory.

“It would have been nice to finish off the third one,” said Bob Melvin, the A’s manager, about the last game in this series and the Houston series, “but looking at the home stand, and the series, we’ll take two out of three.

“It’s gotten to the point where we know who we are and what’s going on around us. We’re not looking down the road. We are just trying to win the game at hand. I think that’s what this team does best.”

Lucroy offered affirmation. “We shouldn’t scoreboard watch," he said, "just worry about the game we’re playing."

They lost that game on Wednesday. And then, as the players headed to the airport, the Coliseum was being reconfigured for a Raiders exhibition game.

Of Pebble Beach, Jones, Nicklaus and the U.S. Amateur

By Art Spander

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Two words, one locale, a dateline that excites golfers, a landscape that thrills artists: Pebble Beach, where Bobby Jones was slammed a year before he won the Slam and where Jack Nicklaus won an Amateur, a Crosby and an Open.

Many of us know Pebble for winter storms and celebrity hijinks, but now it’s summer, when the weather is morning fog and afternoon sun, and they’re playing the 118th U.S. Amateur, so players are grinding and not goofing.

The Amateur had been played only in the East until the U.S. Golf Association chose to hold it at Pebble in 1929. Jones, the defending champ, was eliminated in the first round of match play.

Nicklaus won the Amateur at Pebble in 1961, then of course won the Crosby a couple of times and in 1972 the first Open held at Pebble. He also redesigned the par-3 fifth hole, which was moved to the edge of Carmel Bay.

Nicklaus, interestingly, planned to stay amateur and chase Jones’ records, but for a person to become as dominant as Jack did with his 18 pro majors, it was necessary for him to turn pro, which he did in 1962 — and then a few months later, he won the Open.

Surely, the kids who have success in this Amateur, which now has reached the quarterfinals, will all turn pro. Maybe they’ll be stars like Nicklaus or Tiger Woods, who remains the only man to win three consecutive U.S. Amateurs. Or maybe they’ll be near-misses, like Ricky Barnes, who won the 2002 Amateur but hasn’t done much since going pro.

But whatever transpires, the contestants will have special memories. “The 18th hole,” said quarterfinalist Austin Squires, “there’s all that water on the left and the little stretch of fairway.”

Years ago a San Francisco journalist nicknamed the iconic 18th “The Closer,” not because it ended careers but because so many match-play events ended there, the fans on one side of the fairway, the surf crashing spectacularly on the other.

Jack Neville, with the help of Douglas Grant, laid out Pebble along the rolling bluffs. “It was all there in plain sight,” Neville told me back in the 1970s. “Very little clearing was necessary. The big thing was to get as many holes possible along the bay.”

Do courses make the player, or does the player make the course? The answer is both. Nicklaus hitting that 1-iron off the stick at 17, Tiger making that birdie out of the rough at six. That’s how we think of Pebble.

The quarterfinalists think they are in some of links heaven, and that’s a figure of speech because even though the official name is Pebble Beach Golf Links, the course does not traverse linksland.

Isaiah Salinda, a quarterfinalist, is from Stanford and South San Francisco. The Pacific Ocean is no big thing, although to him Pebble always will be. Squires, from Union, Kentucky, shakes his head at views he never imagined existed until his first trip to Northern California — and Pebble.

“It’s my first time at Pebble,” said quarterfinalist Devon Bling, who plays for UCLA. “This is an unbelievable place. I prepped by playing the little Tiger Woods PGA Tour game. It looks a little different in person. This is amazing.”

Is it ever.

For Tiger, was it a last hurrah or a hint of the future?

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — Who knows where it goes from here? In a way, who cares? This might have been a last, wonderful hurrah for Tiger Woods, the PGA Championship in the humidity and enthusiasm of Middle America.

Or maybe it was a hint about a future that, at moments, could make us remember his past.

But it doesn’t matter. What does matter, for the game and for the golfer, is that for a week there were reminders of the way it used to be.

And a year ago, who dared imagine that would be possible? Not even Tiger.

Three weeks ago, he stirred emotions by working his way into the lead on the final day of the British Open before slipping to sixth, which was impressive, all things considered.

Then, here at Bellerive, green, lush and water-logged, so different from the links in Scotland, Woods played an even better major.

He shot 64 on Sunday, the final round of the 100^th PGA Championship, and had the enormous crowd engaged and hopeful — and, of course, cheering loudly. The roar after a Tiger birdie rumbled across the fairways almost to the banks of the Mississippi.

The tournament in the end would belong to Brooks Koepka, who with a second major in a single calendar year, after the U.S. Open, and a third major overall, including consecutive Opens, right now may be the best golfer on the globe.

He has the long game and, perhaps more importantly, the short game and the poise. Koepka finished with a 4-under-par 66 for a 16-under total of 264, to win by two shots over, yes, Tiger Woods. Welcome to 2000.

Woods closed with a 6-under-par 64. He was holing putts and pumping his fist — and pumping up the fans. He dropped a long one at 18. He was a contender. He finished ahead of Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, British Open winner Francesco Molinari and Jordan Spieth, who in our tendency to exaggerate we’ve called the next Tiger Woods.

Ahead of everyone except Koepka.

But it was the former and current Tiger Woods who made this PGA thrilling. And surprising.

Woods was a question after the two back surgeries, the second to fuse a part of his spine. He needed to change his swing. He was 43, coming off months of inactivity and rehabilitation.

“At the beginning of the year, if you would say, yeah, I have a legitimate chance to win the last two major championships,” Woods conceded, “with what swing? I didn’t have a swing at the time. I had no speed. I didn’t have a short game. My putting was OK.

“But God, I hadn’t played in two years, so it’s been a hell of a process for sure.”

There’s a sporting axiom that greatness is forever. Age and injury may have an effect on performance, but a champion is always a champion. Tiger, we found out in the last few weeks, is still Tiger. In the hunt, he’s a factor.

What is different is this Tiger smiles and slaps hands with spectators, as he did walking up the ramp from the 18^th green. We didn’t know if he would be back. He didn’t know. They say you don’t appreciate something until you don’t have it.

What Woods had during the PGA, especially the captivating last round, was a belief that this is where he belonged, high on the leader board, and striding purposely toward a goal that so many doubted ever would be attainable. It was fun. For him. For everyone.

“Oh, you could hear them,” Woods said of the fans. “They were loud, and they stayed around. It’s been incredible with the positiveness. They wanted to see some good golf, and we produced some good golf, I think, as a whole. The energy was incredible.”

It flowed from Brooks Koepka, from Adam Scott and most of all from Tiger Woods.

“I’m in unchartered territory,” said Tiger about his game, “because no one’s ever had a fused spine hitting it like I’m hitting it. I’m very pleased at what I’ve done so far. Going from where I’ve come to now in the last year, it’s been pretty cool.”

As they used to yell, you’re the man.

Newsday (N.Y.): Jordan Spieth remains upbeat despite making a big mistake

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

ST. LOUIS — He called it a perfect storm, brought about by a less than perfect golf shot.

Jordan Spieth worked a miracle to win last year’s British Open, salvaging a bogey from a driving range. Saturday in the third round of the PGA Championship, there was nothing miraculous, only disastrous.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2018 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Koepka still trying to prove he belongs

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — Yes, Brooks Koepka has an attitude. He also has a game, and in sports — maybe in life — that’s a wicked combination. You’re determined to prove you belong. You have the skill to show that you do belong.

Koepka is a back-to-back U.S. Open champion, arguably one of the three or four best golfers in the world. But it isn’t so much what he’s done that keeps him pushing, but what was done to him.

“I can think of plenty of people along the way telling me I’d be nothing," said Koepka the other day, “working at McDonald’s, doing things like that. The whole time, you’re just trying to prove them wrong.”

Which he has done overwhelmingly.

After matching the lowest round ever at a PGA Championship, a bogey-free, 7-under-par 63 on Friday at Bellerive Country Club, Koepka is high on the leader board with half the tournament remaining.

“I’m just very much in the zone,” he said. “Very disciplined.”

And very driven, which every athlete needs to be.

“Growing up, in college,” said Koepka, “through right when you turn pro, there’s always people who are going to doubt you, say you can’t do it. Even know you’re just trying to prove everybody wrong. That’s the way I view it.”

The way he was viewed by some others was as a kid with a temper. At Florida State, he slammed more than one club to the turf. But all that intensity kept him from surrendering when things went wrong, as they often do in golf.

It’s a maddening game, one without teammates. The frustration builds. On Friday, while Koepka was shooting his 63, Bubba Watson, a two-time Masters winner, shot 78, 15 shots higher. That’s why golfers, no matter if they are touring pros or hackers, never are more confident than the next shot.

Koepka, 28, became a golfer truly by accident. A car crash when he was a boy kept him from playing contact sports. At 6 feet tall and 186 pounds, he looks like an athlete and would prefer to be hitting baseballs over fences than golf balls down fairways. The former major leaguer Dick Groat is a great uncle.

“If I could do it again, I’d play baseball — 100 percent no doubt,” he told Jaime Diaz of Golf Digest. Then again, he said that before winning his first U.S. Open at Erin Hills in June 2017.

Koepka failed in his first attempt to qualify for the PGA Tour. Then, instead of going the usual route, the secondary Dot.com Tour, triple-A minors you might say, he joined the European Tour. It was a grind, in unfamiliar locations with different foods, but it helped toughen Koepka.

An injured wrist kept Koepka out of the Masters, and all golf, this past spring. He said all he could do was sit on the bed and watch others play on TV.

“It was disappointing,” he said, “but when you take four months off, you really appreciate being able to play, and you’re eager to get back. I kind of fell back in love with the game. I just missed competing. It can get a little bit lonely when you’re just sitting on the couch.”

Since returning from Europe and joining the PGA Tour in 2012, Koepka has won only three times. Indeed two of the wins were in the U.S. Open, but you’d presume a player with his skill and grit would have several more.

“I’m not thinking about that when I’m out there,” Koepka insisted. ”I’m just trying to win this week. That’s the thing I’m worried about, winning this week and taking that and moving towards the playoffs.”

Halfway through the 100th PGA Championship, you like his chances. And no, to answer your question, he never did work at McDonald’s.

PGA: Fowler could rid himself of label as best golfer without a major

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — The label is a blessing and a curse: Best golfer never to have won a major. For so long it belonged to Phil Mickelson, who went years and 46 tournaments before escaping it at the 2004 Masters.

Now, for better or worse, it has been assigned to Rickie Fowler.

What it means, of course, is he’s a hell of a player. What it also means is that he doesn’t have a victory in any of the four tournaments that give a man a spot in history.

Second? Yes, Fowler has been runner-up in three of the four, including this year’s Masters. And a third in the other, the PGA.

But we’re talking firsts, like the 18 of Jack Nicklaus, the 14 of Tiger Woods. We’re talking about beating everyone in the field and not beating yourself up over the mistake that proved costly.

The cliché is that if a golfer is in contention enough times he’ll break through. After Thursday’s opening round of the 100th PGA Championship, Fowler is there once more. He shot a 5-under-par 65 at Bellerive Country Club.

But where will he be on Sunday afternoon?

It’s always the elephant in the room for Fowler, the unavoidable subject: Is this the week? Not that the journalists who confronted the 29-year-old Fowler had the temerity to ask that question point blank. They wondered if he knows how long Mickelson needed for his first major. Or if Rickie’s low round had him excited or worried.

“I’m definitely happy,” he explained, but then fell back on old golf logic. “You can’t win the tournament on Thursday, but you definitely can take yourself out of it and lose it, so we took care of what we needed to take care of today.”

He wasn’t playing with a partner. But like some of the other younger players, he affects the plural. Jordan Spieth is another who chooses to say “we” instead of “I.” Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said the use of “we” should be restricted to editors, monarchs and people with worms?

Fowler grew up in Murrieta, Calif., maybe an hour and half east of Los Angeles, and raced dirt bikes. He earned a golf scholarship to Oklahoma State, and on weekends at tournaments he often wears the school’s orange and black.

The plan Thursday was to dress in blue. But the death from cancer 24 hours earlier of the Australian tour pro Jarrod Lyle, a close friend of Fowler’s, was reason enough for Rickie to wear yellow, Australia’s national color, to celebrate Lyle’s life.

“It’s been fun thinking about him while we’re out there playing,” Fowler said, referring to Lyle, “because he probably would be the one to kind of kick you in the butt it you started feeling sad or bad. He would give you a hard time.”

The golf critics have given Fowler enough of a hard time. He was the No. 1 amateur in the world for 37 weeks during 2007-08, and when he turned pro the expectations were overwhelming — and possibly intimidating. He was PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 2010, and yet there’s that lack of a major victory.

“You can’t force the issue,” said Fowler, who then reverted to the plural adding, “and it relates to some of our game plan and how we’re going about this week. I don’t have to play special to win.”

Fowler is a professed St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, and that hasn’t hurt the way he’s been received by the fans, who were out in force on a steamy day when the temperature reached 90.

“I feel I have a great following with people having some ties to Oklahoma State. I feel there’s some kind of a Midwest connection, and definitely being a Cardinals fans and supporter, it’s great to be here and feel the love.”

What he hopes to feel is the trophy and the elation of a win in a major.

“It’s not necessarily something I worry about,” he said. “Keep getting in contention. We’ll just keep beating down that door.”

Tiger’s Bellerive memories: 9/11 and a different type of long drive

By Art Spander

ST. LOUIS — The drive was a literal one for Tiger Woods, in a car — the only transportation available in a country that had shut down all flights — and it turned out one that provided time for thought.

The PGA Championship, the 100th, begins Thursday at Bellerive Country Club, just west of the Mississippi River. They’ve had previous majors at Bellerive, the 1965 U.S. Open, and the 1978 PGA.

Yet it was a tournament they didn’t have at Bellerive that remains meaningful for Woods.

And, in a way, America.

The 2001 American Express Championship, cancelled because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the Tuesday of tournament week, the day that Tiger would play a practice round with Mark Calcavecchia, at virtually the same time several hundred miles to the northeast, jets were being crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.

The tournament could not go on. Woods was one of the millions unable to travel by air. On Wednesday, September 12, he drove 17 hours back to Florida. “It was a very surreal time, at least for me for me anyways,” said Woods.

A surreal time, and a time for reflection. On that trip Woods made the decision to revise the purpose of the Tiger Woods Foundation, shifting from an emphasis on golf — “a traveling circus,” said Tiger — to an emphasis on education. “And behold, we have 53 different curriculums.”

Woods has yet to play a competitive round at Bellerive. He missed the 2008 BMW, qualifier for the FedEx Cup, after his knee went out in the U.S. Open. “Yeah,” he said Tuesday, “I literally hadn’t stepped foot on the golf course since the week in 2001.”

And the footsteps he finally took were soggy and limited. One of those massive Midwest thunderstorms hit the region in late morning, suspending play and closing the course to spectators for several hours.

This is the new Tiger, the pro who at 43, after the back surgeries and rehab, is at least back as a golfer — “I’m blessed,” he insisted — if not as a front runner.

While he’ll always be a competitor, one wonders if he still should be called competitive.

He made a run, yes, at the British Open two and a half weeks ago, and then had a good start at last week’s Bridgestone, but at the end, where we used to find Woods at the top, he is fifth or sixth or 15th.

His presence will always be a factor. There’s only one Tiger, even if it’s not the Tiger we once knew.

“When I was playing well there for over a better part of a decade,” said Woods, when asked about preparation then and now, “it was the same thought process. The whole idea was to try and get a feel for the golf course and how it’s playing that week, but more than anything to make sure I was fresh and ready to go on Thursday.”

Yet being ready does not necessarily mean being productive. He’s not the golfer he used to be, which even for a superstar who arguably was one of the greatest ever is a matter of growing older.

His scoring average on the back nine in recent tournaments is a stroke higher than on the front nine. “I wish I could figure it out,” said Woods. “I don’t know what it is. If I had an answer, I would give it to you. But I really don’t know.”

What we all know is that in recent majors, even when Woods has a burst reminding us of his play of some 15 years ago, there’s one bad swing — the 3-iron at the 10th hole at Carnoustie leading to the double-bogey — or one missed putt.

Still, two years ago he wouldn’t even have been in the field.

“Well, just the fact that I’m playing the tour again — to have the opportunity again — it’s a dream come true,” said Woods. “I said this many times this year. I didn’t know I could do this again. And lo and behold, here I am.”

Here he is, for a real round at Bellerive. Finally.

This British Open is McIlroy’s chance for redemption

  CARNOUSTIE, Scotland— He spoke about bringing a thesaurus to the next press conference. Rory McIlroy was in a debate about how to describe the virtually indescribable but very difficult last four holes at Carnoustie. He’d be better off bringing a two-shot lead.

   There’s McIlroy, high on the leaderboard halfway through this British Open, in position to overtake the few men in front of him. Or to fail once more.

   In a light rain that made the Open feel like the Open, if with all the low scores not seem like one, McIlroy on Friday shot a second straight  2-under par 69.  He had only one bogey. “I’m pretty pleased with that,” he said.

    Something pleasing at a major golf tournament, finally, perhaps temporarily. He fell apart the final round of the Masters, going head-to-head in the final twosome against the eventual winner, Patrick Reed. He missed the cut in the U. S. Open.

  Now it is time for redemption, time to shake off the criticism, to show he once more is the man who thrilled as a kid, winning the British Open, the U.S. Open and twice winning the PGA Championship by the age of 25.

  The more you do, of course, the more the world wants you to do.

    “The more success you have,” said McIlroy the day before the Open began, “the more pressure you put on yourself because of expectations.”

     His expectations. Our expectations.

    “Rory’s obviously played well this year,” said Padraig Harrington, a statement that is accurate if one win and a second on two different tours means playing well.

  “Clearly,” said Harrington, “his career is solely based on how he does in the majors.”

   As is Tiger Woods career. As is Phil Mickelson’s career. As was Jack Nicklaus career.

  For Joe Montana and Tom Brady the standard is winning Super Bowls. For the Warrior stars, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and teammates, it’s winning NBA titles. Something has to be used as the yardstick for greatness.

    “I was on a nice run there, from 2011 to 2014,” said McIlroy. “I haven’t won one since. But I’m trying.”

    In the British Isle where the attitude invariably is “us against them,” McIlroy has been elevated to celebrity status, his life as well as his golf covered microscopically like some Hollywood figure—and not just because Rory’s from Holywood, which in Northern Ireland is pronounced “Hollywood.”

    The Sun, the British tabloid, carried a story in May headlined, “McIlroy: ‘Wife pulled me out of wine-drinking, TV-binging Masters malaise.”

  According to the story, McIlroy said “he had to be dragged out of the house by wife Erica after spending a full week brooding on his final-round flop at the Masters . . . once I got back into my routine, I was fine.”

   McIlroy, who needs a Masters victory to become only the sixth golfer in history to win all of the four Grand Slam tournaments, was within a short eagle putt of tying Reed on the second hole.

  The ball didn’t fall. McIlroy did, however, and he ended p tying for fifth, six shots back. “I just didn’t quite have it,” he would say that say.”

  Maybe not as bad as 2011, when McIlroy, then 22, blew a four-shot lead he carried into the Masters final round but still a me memory that haunts, a memory of which he’s too often reminded.

  As we’re aware, in sports, you’re only as good—or bad—as your last game. Or match. Or maybe in this Open, last round.  Rory said he Is not playing to cement a legacy. Oh, but he is, every time he tees it up in a major. There’s no escape from his reputation.

“I feel very comfortable out there,” McIlroy explained when asked about his golf. “I had been worrying about the result, not the process.

  “Even if I don’t play my best golf and don’t shoot the scores I want, I’m going to go down swinging. I’m going to go down giving it my best.”

  That’s all we can ask.

Whatever happened to the real British Open?

 CARNOUSTIE, Scotland—Whatever happened to the real British Open? Did it miss a turn on the A92 and end up in Broughty Ferry? Did it tumble off the Tay Bridge. I mean the British Open, one where the rain drenches, the wind howls and the shots that don’t bounce into the rough fly into bunkers.

  A tournament that was supposed to be the Open, the 147^th, began Thursday, but it was a poor facsimile. This one the sun was shining, the putts were dropping and there were so many rounds under par—including , for a while that of Tiger Woods—it was unreall.

   Carnoustie, next to the North Sea, is reputed to be the most difficult course in the Open rota. A young South African, in his first Open, Erik van Rooyen, playing in his first Open may not believe that.

  “It was playing as easy as it was going to play all week,” said van Rooyen.  “You had to take advantage of it.”

  And he and many others did just that. Kevin Kisner, a University of Georgia guy who was overtaken by Justin Thomas in last year’s PGA Championship, shot a 5-under par 66 for the lead, a shot in front of van Rooyen, Tony Finau and somebody named Zander Lombard, another South African.

   Hey, arguably the greatest South African golfer ever, Gary Player, won at Carnoustie 50 years ago, 1968. That Open was miserably genuine, with conditions so unpleasant and demanding even the legendary Jack Nicklaus couldn’t reach the green of the 16^th hole, a 220-yard par-3, using a driver.

  This opening round there were problems—even when Scotland resembles Samoa,  people make mistakes—but they were not the norm., Day One was hardly a walk spoiled. Even 60-year-old Sandy Lyle, in the tournament as the 1985 champion, shot even par the front nine, before fading on the more difficult back.

  “You never know what the weather is going to hold,” said Kisner, alluding to the next three rounds, with rain predicted. ”You’re always going to try and get in as low as you can, because you never know about the next day.”

  You never know about Tiger Woods either. He was 2-under par through 11, and, well, he had said the Open could be the place to earn that 15^th major, because the ball rolls on the hard, almost-barren-fairways. He could keep up with the big hitters.

  But this isn’t 10 years ago. Woods has gone through a lot, physically, with the back surgeries and emotionally for other reasons. He mishits a ball, now and then and even when Carnoustie is kind, there are bogies lurking.

 “I played better than what the score indicates,” said Woods, a lament heard by golfers of all classes, “because I had -- I had two 8-irons into both par 5s today, and I end up with par on both of those. If I just clean up those two holes and play them the way I'm supposed to play them with  an 8 iron in my hand, I think I'd probably have the best round in the afternoon wave.”

  “Ah yes, “if.”

  “So it certainly could have been a little bit better.”

  Jordan Spieth, last year’s winner—the Champion Golfer of the Year is how he’s known—was 3-under through 14. Then, he would confess, “It was a really poor decision on the second shot that cost me.”  Big time.

  A double bogey 6 at 15, followed by bogies at 16 and 17. He finished with a one-over 72.

  “I’ve done a bit of that this year,” said Spieth, “decision making that cost me.”

  That occurs whatever weather nature sends.

  Jhonattan Vegas played at the University of Texas and has won on the PGA Tour. He’s a Venezuelan, and that created a major problem for this major championship.

  He intended to fly to Scotland earlier in the week but his visa for entry into Britain had expired and a new one had been delayed in processing. So at the last minute he had fly from Houston, where he resides, to Toronto then to Glasgow, where he boarded a helicopter to Carnoustie, some 70 miles away.

  There was no space for his tournament clubs, so he used a make-shift-set assembled by the manufacturer he endorses, Taylor Made, teed off around 10:30—and shot 76

A visa problem is not the usual hazard at Carnoustie, or any Open.”

Carnoustie has brought out the best—and the worst

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland—He lost the British Open, tossed it away, a sporting collapse seemingly as embarrassing as it was memorable. And yet Jean Van De Velde did not lose his sense of humor.

   It was 1999 at Carnoustie when Van De Velde carried a three-shot lead to the final hole, hit a few awful shots and a couple of bewildering ones and dropped into a tie with Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard. Lawrie won the playoff.

    The next morning, I boarded a flight, and sat next to the teaching pro Butch Harmon who without even saying hello, asked “What was he thinking?”

  Of course, he wasn’t thinking, not after knocking s ball off a bridge railing into Barry Burn, the inlet that fronts the 18^th green, taking off his shoes and socks, rolling up his pant legs to the knees and finally deciding to take a penalty drop.

Another Open is back at Carnoustie, and so is Van de Velde, now 52, as a commentator for French television. A Jack Nicklaus or a Tiger Woods surely would have laid up short of the water, playing for a bogey. That wasn’t the way Van de Velde, a happy-go-lucky sort went about golf or life.

  “Some people have their name on the trophy,” Van de Velde said the other day, “I have my name on the bridge.”

Golf can make a fool out of anyone. Arnold Palmer had that seven-shot over Billy Casper with nine holes to play in the 1966 U.S. Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club. Arnie went after birdies and came in with bogies. Casper won the playoff.

  Fifty years ago, in another Open, one played in wind so strong Jack Nicklaus couldn’t reach the 240-yard par-3 16^th with a driver. Gary Player won that Open and under the conditions called Carnoustie “The hardest course in the world.”

It has been a difficult one. The last Open held here, 2007, Sergio Garcia was the leader much of the way. He didn’t hit a ball into Barry Burn, but he did make a mess of things, with a double bogey.

  He too ended up in a playoff, with Padraig Harrington, and it was Harrington who grabbed the Open that was Garcia’s. Harrington held the trophy, and Sergio held a grudge, whining, “Everyone else hits the flagstick and the ball drops right down. I hit the flagstick, and the ball bounces off the green.”

   Said Harrington of 18, “There is nowhere to hide on that hole.”

   The rough is not as long at Carnoustie this time as it had been for past Opens, a product of a relatively dry summer across Scotland. But Barry Burn still snakes in front of the final hole.

  “The Open is by far the greatest championship in the world,” said a slightly biased Gary Player, who is now 82. “It’s the only tournament where yardage doesn’t mean anything,”

  That’s it the wind is up. It hasn’t been earlier in the week, but as they used to say about Chicago, wait another hour and the weather will change.”

  “This championship,” reminded Player, who won it three times, “is a test of more patience, of never feeling sorry for yourself. It almost teaches you to enjoy adversity.”

  Van de Velde made the best of his. He’s better known than the man who beat him in the playoff.

Carnoustie is where in 1953 the great Ben Hogan won his only British Open Supposedly the Scots were so impressed with the way he handled the weather and the course they nicknamed him. “The Wee Ice Mon,”  but one of the local journalists insists no true Scot would ever use that term.

   Carnoustie has brought out the best and worst of the men who have played it through the years. Just keep the ball out of Barry Burn or it can be Car-nasty.

Tiger’s thoughts about winning this British: ‘Who knows?’

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland—Who knows? That was the question asked by Tiger Woods. Of himself.

  Who knows if Tiger, well past his 43^rd birthday, is able to win this 147^th British Open? Is able to win any golf tournament, major or not?.

  Who knows if the weather, warm, inviting for all Great Britain, indeed for most of Western Europe, will hold for another week or instead with wind and rain turn the Open into the challenge it was meant to be.

  For a while, at St. Andrews, then at Hoylake, Tiger Woods owned the Open, shooting record scores. But that was then, before the emergence of Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Before the back surgeries, which made Woods a spectator instead of an entrant.

   Now, at Carnoustie, “Car-nasty,”  north of St. Andrews, across the Firth of Tay, in Angus, Woods returns to the Open after an absence of two years, a man of experience and doubt, not a favorite but still the focus,

   To ESPN, he’s the only man on the course, any course, any event. To both the purist and the casual fan he’s the eternal unanswered query: “Is Tiger Woods going to win another major?”

   The sarcastic response would be, not with Brooks Koepka or Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson or Justin Thomas in the field. But golf is different than any sport except bowling. There’s no defense. The only effect you have on an opponent is psychological.

   Tiger was on the media room stage Tuesday, facing the skeptics, who as every tournament he plays-- the Open, which starts Thursday is his 12^th of 2018—wonder how much trust should be placed on Woods’ chances. How’s his swing? More importantly, how’s his confidence?

“Each tournament I keep coming back to,” Woods said, perhaps as much to persuade himself as anyone, “I keep feeling a little bit better because I’m starting to play golf again. My feels are much better than they were at the beginning of the year.

 “I have a better understanding of my game and my body and my swing, much more so than I did at Augusta.”

That’s the Masters, in April, where he tied for 32^nd.  Two months later, the U.S. Open, at Shinnecock Hills, a more punishing course than Augusta National, Woods missed the cut, but so did Spieth, McIlroy and Sergio Garcia.

    A couple after  that, the Quicken Loans event, Tiger tied for fourth.

  He’s changed putters for the British. He’s modified his swing, if only slightly. Everything, he insisted, is a little better. It should be by the middle of July, after weeks on different courses in different locations.

  “I’ve put myself up there in contention a couple of times,” said Woods. “I just need to play some cleaner golf and who knows?”

   The Open is links golf, always played on the hard, fast fairways of linksland, along the coasts of Britain  that thousands of years ago were under the Atlantic Ocean or North Sea.

  It is golf played along the ground, with balls rolling forever, golf that demands creativity, golf Tiger said he relishes, hitting a low-running iron 250 t0 300 yards, golf that enables an older player such as Tom Watson in 2009 at Turnberry when he was 59 and lost in a playoff, to keep up with the young guns.

“I’ve always loved playing links golf,” said Woods. “Feel has a lot to do with winning the Open. I think the guys traditionally over the years who have done well have been wonderful feel players and because it can be difficult to get the ball close, wonderful lag putters.”

   Guys like Watson, who won five Opens; guys like Gary Player, who won three, including here at Carnoustie in 1968; and guys like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Seve Ballesteros won two apiece.

  “There definitely were points in time,” said Woods referring to his post-surgical recovery, “I thought I’d never play in this championship again. Watching it on TV is great, but it’s better in person. I remember how it feels to come down to the last hole with a chance to win. “

  Will he ever have that feeling again? As he said, who knows?

Wimbledon’s last act: An anticlimax starring Djokovic

By Art Spander

WMBLEDON, England — In this land where Shakespeare wrote, “This blessed plot, this realm, this England,” Wimbledon 2018 went against the basic rule of theatre and fiction.

After a fantastic build-up, hours of suspense and history, the conclusion to the tale was anti-climatic.

Not because Novak Djokovic triumphed — he’s a one-man show full of subplots — but that his 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (3) victory over a weary Kevin Anderson in the final Sunday was hardly what we had hoped.

Although it’s probably what many expected.

It was flat and lifeless, a dreary contrast to the semifinals, which were wonderfully competitive if, in this modern age of instant gratification, a bit too long — well, more than a bit.

Anderson needed 6 hours, 36 minutes for his win over John Isner in one semi, finishing 26-24 in the fifth set; Djokovic needed 5 hours 16 minutes (and two days) to get past Rafael Nadal, finishing 10-8 in the fifth set. How do you top that?

You don’t. You get too overly tired players, if one, Djokovic, now a four-time Wimbledon winner and 13-time Grand Slam winner, has the pedigree and the better all-around game. And no less significantly, as he mentioned, the experience in Wimbledon finals.

It’s not fair, perhaps, to describe the game of the 6-foot-8 Anderson, a South African who played for the University of Illinois and lives in Florida, as the tennis version of a one-note samba. But his strength is his serve. And against Djokovic, one of best returners ever, Anderson’s strength was a weakness.

Serving to open the match on yet another glorious 85-degree afternoon, Anderson was broken. You sensed his opportunity was, too. “Novak beat up on me pretty bad,” said Anderson. He now has been in two Slam finals, losing in the 2017 U.S Open to Nadal.

From 2013 through early 2016, Djokovic, now 31, owned men’s tennis, Of the 16 Grand Slams over that period he won seven and was in five other finals. He won four in a row, starting with the 2015 U.S. Open through the 2016 French.

Then at the 2016 Wimbledon, he hurt his elbow. That, along with some coaching changes — Boris Becker out, Andre Agassi out — and rumored family problems, dropped him into a void.

Djokovic finally underwent surgery on the elbow in February.

“After that, I had a really good recovery,” he said. “I thought maybe too fast. I wasn’t ready to compete ... It took me several months to regain the confidence, go back to basics. I had to trust the process ... Playing against Nadal in the semifinals here was the biggest test that I could have, specifically for that, just to see if I could prevail.”

Djokovic is from Serbia, and while he speaks English well he tends to sound as if the words were linked together by, no, not Shakespeare, but a government employee — if one with the great ability to cover every inch of a tennis court.

He was aware of his opponent’s tactics — and tiredness, although Djokovic had fewer than 24 hours to recover from the Nadal semi.

“I knew Kevin spent plenty of time on the court in the quarters (a five-set win over Roger Federer) and semis, marathon wins. I did too. He had a day to recover. But at the same time, I knew it was his first Wimbledon finals, and it really is a different sensation when you’re in the finals.

“It was my fifth, and I tried to use that experience, that mental edge that I have, to start off the right way. The first game, I made a break of serve that was a perfect possible start. After that, I cruised for two sets.”

Anderson, 32, conceded he was nervous. And he said his body “didn’t feel great.”

Nor did the match, which required only 2 hours, 19 minutes (Anderson’s fifth set against Isner alone was some three hours).

“I didn’t play great tennis in the beginning,” said Anderson. “I definitely felt much better in the third set. I thought I had quite a few opportunities to win that third set.

“I would have loved to push it to another set, but obviously it wasn’t meant to be.”

Serena: ‘Two weeks of Wimbledon showed me the end of the road'

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — No, that wasn’t the Serena we knew. That was the Serena who had given birth via Caesarian section only 10 months ago, the Serena who, because of her skill and intensity, made such great progress in a comeback in so short a time that we were fooled into thinking she was as good as ever.

Which, as we learned, she isn’t. But then isn’t that what she kept telling us?

She was in her element Saturday, on the grass courts where she had won seven championships. And yet she was a new mother, a working mother, working to regain the power and touch that made her a champion.

Everything had gone so perfectly this Wimbledon, the top seeds, the big guns, the upsets of defending champ Garbiñe Muguruza and No. 1-ranked Simona Halep. And suddenly there was Williams, two months before her 37th birthday, in the final.

But Kerber had won the Australian and French Opens, and two years ago she lost to Serena in the Wimbledon final. After that she stumbled, lost early in the Slams, fell in the rankings. Tennis people wondered what was wrong.

Whatever was wrong isn’t wrong any more.

Kerber, lashing shots, keeping Williams on the move, breaking serve the very first game of the match, making only five unforced errors compared to 24 for Serena, needed only 1 hour, 5 minutes to score a decisive 6-3, 6-3 victory.

That wasn’t expected. Maybe it should have been.

“It was a great opportunity for me to find out what I didn’t know a couple of months ago,” said Williams. “Where I was, and what I need to do, how I would be able to come back. I had such a long way to go to see the light at the end of the road. The two weeks of Wimbledon showed me the end of the road.”

As opposed to the end of a career.

“She played from the first point to the last point pretty good,” said Serena of the 30-year-old Kerber. “She played unbelievably.”

As the match progressed, or regressed, if you choose, John McEnroe said on BBC TV, “Normally Serena doesn’t beat herself.” But she wasn’t. Kerber was beating Serena.

Now and then there would be a cry of desperation from the stands, “Come on, Serena.” That wasn’t any more helpful than Williams’ relatively ineffective serve.   

The issue here may be our disbelief. Even at the top of their game, great athletes and sportsman have their failings. Tom Brady throws interceptions. Klay Thompson can’t throw a ball into the ocean, much less a rim.

And right now Serena, who embraced Kerber at the net after the final point, is not at the top of her game. She’ll attempt to get there once more, but as was apparent against Kerber it will take time and great effort.

“I knew I had to play my best against a champion like Serena,” said Kerber. Which she did, and then fell flat on the lawn in exultation. Moments later she was handed the trophy, the Venus Rosewater Plate, while Williams stood on the edge of the court in a scene so rare, a spectator rather than a participant.

“It was such an amazing tournament for me,” Williams would say in reflection. ”Obviously I’m disappointed. But I can’t be disappointed because I’m just getting started. To all the working moms out there, I tried. Angelique just played out of her mind.”

Analyzing on BBC-TV, nine-time Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova said, ”Serena played the best player in the tournament, by far.”

And Billie Jean King, a multiple Wimbledon winner, pointed out, “Kerber always got one more ball back.”

In the royal box were actual royalty, the Duchess of Cambridge and the new Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, as well as long-time Serena pal Jelena Djokovic, whose husband, Novak, beat Rafael Nadal to reach Sunday’s men’s final.

“These two weeks,” said Serena of the Wimbledon fortnight, “really showed me, OK, I can compete. I can come out and be a contender and win Grand Slams.”

As she used to do, and as Angelique Kerber just did.

In a record 6 hours, 36 minutes, Anderson wins Wimbledon semi

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — It was a fantastic match, an amazing match, and perhaps an unfortunate match, a tennis battle that, because Wimbledon has its own rules — no tiebreaker in the fifth set — and because Kevin Anderson and John Isner, old pals, served brilliantly and rallied courageously, may force a change at the All England Club.

Anderson won it, as you surely know, finding a place with Isner, the Marathon Man, as part of history and, with the remarkable 7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-24 semifinal victory Friday, finding a place in the final.

The two of them played 6 hours, 36 minutes, a record for both a semi and for Centre Court, but because Isner was involved in that ridiculous 11-hour, three-day match against Nicolas Mahut in 2018, not a record for the tournament.

Isner, 33, won that one, and leading two sets to one and seemingly always in front appeared destined to win this one and become the first American in a Wimbledon final since Andy Roddick in 2009. But it was not to be.

Anderson, a South African who lives in Florida and has applied for U.S. citizenship, came up with the key points, including one in a last set that itself lasted just five minutes short of three hours when he fell, lost his racket and hit a shot lefthanded.

Yet Anderson, 32, who spent time at the University of Illinois and has known Isner since John played at the University of Georgia, was not particularly effusive about reaching the final.

“I apologize,” Anderson said about his reaction. “John’s such a great guy. He’s really pushed me through my career, and I pushed myself harder because of the success he’s had.”

This was a battle between the sport’s big men, literally, the 6-foot-10 Isner and the 6-8 Anderson, two with huge serves and huge staying power. Every time it seemed one had the match, the other would rebound with a service ace or remarkable return. Isner had 53 aces, Anderson had 49.

But Anderson had the win and makes it to his second Grand Slam final. He was runner-up to Rafael Nadal at the 2017 U.S. Open.

Nadal and Novak Djokovic had to wait — and wait and wait — to start their semifinal because the Anderson-Isner match kept going. A fan screamed out during the first match, “Get off and let Rafa get on.”

But by the time Rafa and Novak got on, it was nearly dark, and the roof, which was completed before the 2009 tournament so play could go on in the rain, was closed and the lights turned on.

Djokovic and Nadal, both Wimbledon champions, had to wait impatiently in the locker room while Anderson and Isner went on and on, not knowing whether to grab some food or stay warmed up.

Isner never had been past the third round at Wimbledon until this year — someone nicknamed it “John’s House of Horrors” — and then, after winning the second third sets in tiebreakers, was one set from the final. He couldn’t make it.

“I’m just disappointed,” said Isner. “I came pretty close to making a Grand Slam final. I competed hard. I’m proud of that. But it stinks to lose. He was a little bit better in the end.

“One thing he was doing better was winning the big points. He broke me at four-all in the fourth set. I would like my chances in a tiebreaker.”

What he did have was a blister on his heel, but that didn’t seem to bother him as much as Anderson’s game.

“I don’t know what to say right now,” was Anderson’s comment when the BBC grabbed him moments after the final point. “It was really tough on both of us. I feel like it was a draw. I really feel for him.”

Anderson also feels that Wimbledon, alone among the four Grand Slams, has to forego playing a fifth set and go to a tiebreaker. In his BBC commentary, John McEnroe, a former Wimbledon champion, kept pushing that idea during the fifth set.

“Maybe this will make a difference,” said McEnroe. “It’s unfair the way it is now.”

Not only because the players wear down, but because the winning player feels the effects in his next match.

Isner was in agreement. “Maybe they play to 12-12, then go to a tiebreak,” he said.

And no, John didn’t want to talk about the 11-hour match eight years ago that ended 70-68. “I’m trying my hardest to forget it,” he said.

That will be easier than forgetting this one.

Serena into the Wimbledon final: a matter of presence

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England — They talk about the serve, and it is a powerful one, the Hammer, like a Steph Curry jumper, a Max Scherzer fastball. They talk about the quickness and the ability to cover the court. But maybe what gives Serena Williams the real advantage is presence.

She’s a champion, of course, in effect the sport’s goddess. Everyone knows that, whether battling her or talking about her.   

It’s as intangible and important as any shot she hits.

To the other players, it doesn’t matter if she missed months while pregnant and underwent a Caesarian. It doesn’t matter if this Wimbledon, where Friday she’ll he playing in the finals — go ahead, say you knew it all along — is only the fourth tournament of her comeback. 

“She’s hard to beat,” Martina Navratilova, who as a nine-time Wimbledon winner was equally as hard, said on the BBC.

Two years ago John McEnroe, a damn good player himself and no less an excellent commentator and analyst — Stanford doesn’t admit dummies — said Serena was the best women’s player in history. If not, she’s very much in the mix.

Serena took on one of the game’s improving young stars Thursday in a semifinal at Centre Court, Julia Goerges, who probably played as well as possible — even breaking Williams’ serve once. Williams was a comfortable 6-2, 6-4 winner. The match took 1 hour 10 minutes. Zap.

When someone asked Goerges, a 29-year-old German, if that result was frustrating, she did one of those “Let me escape” responses and answered, “I think frustrating is a negative word. I should not be too negative about the match. It was more about experience ... She knew how to win.”

Serena always did know. Always will know. She’s an intimidator, a destroyer. The weeks away haven’t made a difference to Serena, or to the young ladies she plays.

Also in the final, for the second time in three years, a repeat of the 2016 championship match, will be Angelique Kerber. Williams is seeking an eighth Wimbledon, a 24th Grand Slam.

Williams is not just another female athlete who left for a while to have a baby. This is a legend, with that monster serve — one was clocked at 122 mph against Goerges — and an ability to make returns.

“She was there from every single point,” said Goerges about the last set. “She showed me how to win those matches at that stage, because I think she’s won 23 Grand Slams and played I don’t know how many times on that court, which I haven’t done.”

Neither has the 30-year-old Kerber, who’s also from Germany, but Kerber has won the Australian Open (over Serena) and the French, and was runner-up in that 2016 Wimbledon final, Serena’s last match here until this year.

Asked about Serena, Kerber said, “I see a champion. She’s coming back. She’s one of the great players in the world.”

That item confirmed, Williams, to her credit is guarded, choosing not to remind us of her talent but allowing her play to do so.

She had been in just three previous tournaments since daughter Olympia was born in September, and without the opportunity to accumulate points her WTA ranking had plummeted to 181st. But the Wimbledon people were not fooled. They gave Williams a seeding, 23. Very wise.

And now, they not only have a potentially exciting final but the one name in women’s tennis that resonates on both sides of the Atlantic, Serena Williams. And lucky they do.

“It’s no secret, I had a super-tough delivery,” said Williams. ”The routine was to have a new surgery every day ... There was a time I could barely walk to the mailbox. A lot of people were saying, ‘She should be in the final. For me, it’s such a pleasure and joy because less than a year ago I was going through so much rough stuff.”

Serena said she thought she would have done better in the earlier tournaments, even at age 35 and away from tennis.

“I wouldn’t say it was a reality check,” she said of the stumbles. “I look at as a stepping stone. I honestly felt I would have done better. That was the hardest part, accepting that I didn’t. Whenever I go out there, I expect to win the next match.”

She’s not alone.