Towel time: no US Open crowds hasn’t meant shorter matches

Aussie Alex de Minaur and the moustache even he calls hideous. Picture: AFP

Serena Williams huffed and puffed her way to the women’s semi-final at this year’s US Open and blamed it on the absence of fans.

It makes sense, right? No roaring, whistling, booing, catcalling crowds, so the gaps between points are shorter. The umpire doesn’t have to wait until the noise subsides to announce the score; the players don’t have to wait until there is silence to serve. So less chance for a break after a tough point.

Williams certainly thinks so. “It’s also different because breaks are longer when the fans are here, the clapping is longer — I could have used a little bit of this in this match,” she said after her fourth-round win over Greece’s world No 22 Maria Sakkari.

Serena Williams likes a bit of noise. Picture: Getty Images

Trouble is, it’s not true. Matches without crowds are actually longer. Tennis analyst Jeff Sackmann has done the sums — official match time divided by the number of points — and worked out that before 2020 each point took about 40 seconds. But at this year’s Cincinnati Masters, also played in New York in the lead-up to the Open, the time per point had blown out to a whopping 44.6 seconds.

The explanation is almost certainly that as well as having to cope without crowds, the players have to get by with not having ballkids bring them their towels. No tennis player worth his or her salt can manage without a break at the end of each point to towel down their face, hands, arms, neck, legs and anywhere else sweat appears. And if you’ve got to walk to the back of the court to collect your own towel, it soaks up a fair bit of time.

Zverev feels the noise

Williams has been making up for the lack of crowd noise by creating a fair bit of racket herself. She’s screamed when she lost points, she’s screamed when she’s won points, she’s screamed when her opponents have made an error. “I’m always going to bring that fire and that passion and that Serena to the court,” she said this week, adopting the third-person, which has always been a sign she is in good form.

Alexander Zverev likes it quiet. Picture: Getty Images

Some players, however, are happier with the silence. Germany’s Alexander Zverev arced up when his reverie was shattered by the voice of ESPN courtside commentator Brad Gilbert. “You’re talking too loud, man,” Zverev told the former world No 4. “I can hear every single word you’re saying.”

Missing by a whisker

Meanwhile, the talk of the second week at Flushing Meadows, once the fuss over Novak Djokovic’s throat ball had died down, was Aussie Alex de Minaur’s moustache.

Unlike his hirsute mate John Millman, who is one of those blokes who has a shave and is sprouting stubble as he walks out of the bathroom, de Minaur’s top-lip effort is not so luscious. In fact, it is so wispy on either end that it has earned comparisons to the tash of a certain German dictator from the early part of last century.

But de Minaur is sticking with it, describing his patchy mo as “luck right there”.

“Every time I have this hideous moustache on I seem to play my best tennis, so I’ll do anything for a win,” he said.

Unfortunately, the tache luck ran out when de Minaur came up against big-hitting Austrian world No 3 Dominic Thiem. Maybe time for a shave.

It could’ve been worse

Meanwhile back at the throat ball, Djokovic is apparently in a world of pain after he smacked a ball into the neck of a lineswoman and got thrown out of the tournament.

John McEnroe, who should know, says Djokovic is guaranteed to “be the bad guy for the rest of his career”. And while some villains embrace the villainy, Djokovic hates it. He wants to be the good guy so badly that he keeps making it worse.

Novak Djokovic walks off the court after being defaulted due to inadvertently striking a lineswoman with a ball hit in frustration at the US Open. Picture: Getty Images

Former Czech player Radek Stepanek is one of his closest mates. He’s told reporters at the US Open: “I know he is very sad inside himself and he is in pain. He is in pain because it was unintentional and, in that moment, the pain is bigger. It’s hard for him because we know how hungry he is to become the player with the most grand slams.

“I believe he felt, everyone felt, this one should be for him, reach­able. All these circumstances make it very sad for him and in the first moment, empty, because I believe he himself knew that it was wrong that she got hit. Obviously the pressure on him and the criticism he is getting over time, it’s hard. He’s trying to do the best he can. He might be, by the end of his career, the greatest of all time. We are all human beings. We have a right to make a mistake … but we have to accept the outcome of it.”

But before you start feeling too sorry of Djokovic, consider the fate of linesman Richard Wertheim, who was on the wrong end of an errant serve from a young Stefan Edberg at the 1983 US Open. Wertheim was hit in the groin and fell out of his chair, hitting his head on the hardcourt surface and dying.

Clearly impossible

Let’s sneak away from the tennis court now and on to the netball court, where Diamonds captain and Giants shooter Caitlin Bassett has found a novel way to deal with the boredom of hub life and the stress of an impending must-win clash with the Adelaide Thunderbirds on Sunday.

Netball star Caitlin Bassett is passing time in the bubble with a clear jigsaw.

Bassett is passing time under Super Netball’s strict quarantine conditions battling to complete a “clear jigsaw puzzle”, sent to her by her sister Rhiannon.

The puzzle consists of 150 2cm pieces, all perfectly transparent, which means the only clues you have as to what goes where are the shapes. The manufacturers call it “practically impossible”.

“My sister sent it to me, it’s going to mess with my head,” Bassett told AWAAT.

Infuriating, no doubt, but it’s a distraction from the tough couple of weeks ahead for the Giants. “The vibe of the Giants is the pressure is on, we need to win all of our last three games to make finals,” Bassett said.

Savatiano the tip

BC’s tips have expanded this week to feature one in Sydney and one in Melbourne, since it has its own bubble, though sadly the bubbles have been bursting — something to do with the jockeys employing Dan Andrews’s road map.

At Flemington, Savatiano (R3 #2) is back against her own sex after winning against the males at weight-for-age when resuming last month.

Fasika (R8 #8) lines up at Rosehill looking to go one better having run second in this race 12 months ago. She beat Gytrash in a trial recently and has won another trial since. Primed, you’d imagine.