Tag Archives: US Open

Non-fiction

The End of Summer

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I was born in the summer, and I used to love vacations, but now I loathe the season for being too hot and not giving enough breaks like the winter when there’s Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years. I sweat and suffer through June, July, and August. September is insufferable too, but I begin to see a glimmer of hope. But it hasn’t cooled down. It’s almost ninety degrees in the morning, and a heat wave has flown overhead and doesn’t plan on flying away any time soon, like a massive raven in the sky. It flaps its heavy black wings and fans more heat onto the valley, where I sweat when I cross my legs.

I went to the gym yesterday just to stay cool and used a stair stepper for a half hour. It makes me drip sweat in front of a television. I wanted to watch the US Open, but on all six televisions in the cardio room, they showed one of those corny comic book movies like Thor or X-Men or Ironman. I was sure it was Thor. I saw a buff blond man with blue eyes in every scene. Why would I want to watch a movie while getting exercise if there’s no sound? It didn’t matter. I was wearing earbuds anyway.

I came home about an hour later and watched the US Open. Sinner played Medvedev, two of my favorite male players in the world, and their poetic strokes. Their rally points went on for over a minute. Amazing how long they could last through each point. They’re conditioned to be machines. In four sets, the number one player in the world, Sinner, won the quarterfinals and will advance to the semifinals to play whoever. I’m sure he’ll win. He’s just too good. I would’ve loved to have seen a fifth set to end the match, but Medvedev couldn’t hang: too many unforced errors. He’d reached fatigue by the fourth set.

The match ended around eight o’clock at night my time on the pacific. I settled in, knowing today would be long. But tonight, football season begins, and I have my fantasy team lined up. It’s something to look forward to when there isn’t much to look forward to anymore. I take what I can get. I never thought it would be this hard when I was a teenage boy with visions of so much more than what I have. No one told me life would be this disappointing. It isn’t something you would tell someone at so young an age. How will I last another thirty years? My parents have made it so far, and they seem happy.

And then I received an email from my tax firm. It said my social security number had been exposed on the dark web. A security breach occurred, and someone may have stolen my identity. I thought it was a phishing email at first, so I was afraid to click on any links. But after I called the firm, they told me the email was real. Bells and whistles went off in my mind. I logged onto the firm’s website and found more notifications. It suggested I call a few places to put a freeze on my accounts. At least they still look secure, but I don’t know. Those criminals may have cleaned me out by today.

Non-fiction

Labor Day Weekend

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It was a blessing to have a three-day weekend after all the work I’ve done, but now it’s over, and I must go back. I spent Saturday with my parents, and we watched tennis at my apartment. I hadn’t watched it in a while. The US Open was on, and I got to watch Daniil Medvedev. His motion is poetry: the way he serves with his feet moving lithely, the way he swings loosely with his backhand. He easily ousted an Australian in the third round in three sets with his wiry frame. I missed his match in the Round of 16, but I’ll catch him tomorrow in the quarterfinals. He may be my favorite player to watch, not to take away from Jannik Sinner, the best player in the world at this moment, who played last night against the American Tommy Paul.

When you see his name and hear it pronounced, you wouldn’t think Jannik is from Italy, but he is, or at least that’s the country he represents. Tommy was beating him in the first set, 4-1. I thought Jannik was going to lose that set with his unforced errors. He kept hitting forehands out of bounds. Tommy Paul seemed to have been beating him mentally. Jannik’s head wasn’t in the match. At one point, Tommy was up 40-0, I believe, in the game, when Jannik beat him four points straight to make it 4-2 and proceeded to win the next two games to tie the score. I knew it would happen. Sinner is a machine. He ended up winning the first set in a tiebreaker, 7-6.

I took a shower afterward and missed about half of the second set. When I came back I think Tommy Paul was up by a game. and neither opponent had broken serve. Tommy kept leading until about 5-4 when Sinner came back again and led him 6-5, but I’m not certain. The crowd was causing a ruckus, rooting for the American. That’s how it has always been at the US Open, unlike Wimbledon or the French Open, where the crowd is relatively polite. The American crowd doesn’t hold back like it’s a football game. The chair umpire had to keep hushing them whenever Jannik tried to serve because they were trying to break his concentration. But Sinner is such a cyborg that he doesn’t even let them faze him.

He led Tommy Paul in aces. His average service speed was 124 MPH to Paul’s 116, I believe. Sinner made some unbelievable crosscourt forehands when Paul sent him to the doubles lines. Sinner would slide across the hardcourt like a hockey player to retrieve those balls and defeat Tommy with multiple passing shots. Jannik won the second set in another tiebreaker, and by the third set, Tommy Paul was finished. It may have been exhaustion, but his shots weren’t as powerful, nor was his serve. He kept hitting the ball into the net when it looked like Sinner was only getting started. Jannik had saved his energy after playing his worst tennis in the first set, which he won anyway.

He beat Tommy with ease in the third set and won the match three sets to zero to make his way to the quarterfinals, where he’ll meet Daniil Medvedev sometime tomorrow. I won’t miss that match. Who knows if Jannik Sinner will win the US Open? The only major tournament he has won this year is the Australian Open, but he’s still the number-one seed based on his record. He has lost only twice in the majors this year. I expect him to be at the top for a long time.

I hadn’t watched tennis this close in years to keep up with the best in the world, both men and women. Iga Swiatek is the women’s best. She’s a machine as well, from Poland, and just as impressive to watch as Jannik Sinner.