The men’s tournament at the U.S. Open produced two big names in one semifinal and two relatively obscure players in the other. Many players took advantage of the draw to register first-time career accomplishments, but on the other side of the coin, many players failed to make use of a very good opportunity. Here are the four biggest examples of big failures in New York:
Alexander Zverev
The Montreal Masters champion had a favorable draw. Kevin Anderson, whom Zverev had beaten in Washington and Montreal, made the semifinals at the U.S. Open. He almost surely would not have gotten that far if Zverev had gotten out of the second round, but the German was sluggish and ineffective in a second-round loss to Borna Coric. Zverev is only 20, so he is going to blow hot and cold. He will have his moments of great play, and he will struggle at times, but this was a time when he had such a great chance to make the final, with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the other half of the draw. He will have many more chances to win majors, but this was one he blew.
Nick Kyrgios
The fact that Kyrgios was not fully physically fit is something he couldn’t fully control, but he bears at least some responsibility for a body which keeps betraying him. What makes his first-round loss even worse is that he played in doubles the day after the loss to John Millman. Was he hurt or is he simply blaming another mental lapse on an injury?
Kyrgios keeps making the kinds of decisions which reflect a lack of attention to his career. Kyrgios has to manage his schedule and training as much as he needs to manage his own game.
Grigor Dimitrov
The Cincinnati champion had momentum coming into this tournament, but he didn’t sustain it. Dimitrov got off to a 5-3 lead in the first set of his second-round match against Andrey Rublev, a talented player but a teenager who is supposed to have to endure a lot of losing before he learns how to win. Dimitrov is a physically fit player. He has not suffered damaging injuries the way a lot of other very visible and high-profile pros have endured in recent years. He can hit every kind of shot and can cover the court as well as anyone on tour. He is exactly the kind of player who, when one kind of shot isn’t working, can and should be able to find other ways to win. Rublev was able to win, but Dimitrov should have been able to hold down the first set – he had a chance to serve for it and got broken. Then Dimitrov handled the situation poorly by not being able to bounce back in the second and third sets. Losing was bad enough, but Dimitrov faded away. There was really no excuse for this loss. His career took a step forward in Cincinnati, but then two huge steps back in New York.
Lucas Pouille
The Frenchman watched fourth-round opponent Diego Schwartzman get injured to the point that the Argentine’s movement was severely restricted. Pouille had a great chance to come back and defend quarterfinal points from the 2016 U.S. Open. Instead, Pouille imploded in a sea of errors, enabling Schwartzman to take the match. This is a big missed chance for Pouille to take a big step forward in 2017.
Tomas Berdych
Tomas Berdych probably thought he was handed a gift when he saw the only ranked player in the section of this bracket get bounced in the first round. That meant that he wouldn’t have to face a seeded player until the fourth round, which surely meant he’d get that far, right? After all, Berdych had been having a pretty good season. He was 34-16 on the season and had made it all the way to the semifinals at Wimbledon. Instead, Berdych ended up losing in the second round to unseeded Ukrainian Alex Dolgopolov. It was a disappointing end to a player who was ranked 15th at the U.S. Open. He could have done a lot better.
Click here to bet on tennis – including all of the major grand slams this season – and many other sports at BetDSI!
