It continues to be a golden age of men’s tennis, though the lustre may be fading, or beginning to, or is, perhaps, soon to begin to. Rafael Nadal is not the Rafael Nadal of two years ago, Roger Federer is approaching middle age, and the rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray—the likely marquee matchup for the remainder of the decade—produces remarkable defense, but also a fair amount of rally monotony; their styles are too similar.
The strength of the men’s side, though, has never been just the top guys. The best way to delight in men’s tennis during the first week of the U.S. Open, which begins today, in Flushing Meadows, is to avoid the cavernous confines of Arthur Ashe Stadium—if you need to see Fed or Nole, watch them practice—and get to whichever side court the tournament officials have assigned to the Ukrainian journeyman Alexandr Dolgopolov. (His first-round match, scheduled for Monday afternoon on Court 4, is against the Australian Sam Groth.)
He is as quick as any player on the tour. He has more power than anyone under six feet and weighing less than a hundred and sixty pounds has a right to. He has a lovely backhand slice, can hit a drop shot from anywhere on the court, is not afraid of employing a low-arcing top-spin lob, and is entertained by the idea of being entertaining: attempting a trick shot or kibitzing with fans, opponents, and especially himself. (Alas, his off-court antics are not so charming; he took to his Instagram account last year to make fun of the Austrian drag singer Conchita Wurst, who won the Eurovision Song Contest.) He has everything—except patience and consistency, the lack of which can be engaging, too, in its way. It’s a reminder of how hard tennis is, and of the greatness of the truly great.
As it happens, Dolgopolov—at age twenty-six, after nine years as a pro—is playing some of the best tennis of his life. A couple of weeks ago, at the Western & Southern Open, in Cincinnati, he dispatched sixth-ranked Tomáš Berdych and reached the semifinals, where he went up a set against Djokovic before losing a grueling second-set tiebreak and then, deflated, a lopsided third set and the match. The Dog, as he’s affectionately known, has never beaten Djokovic in five tries, but, four years ago, at the U.S. Open, in windblown Louis Armstrong Stadium, I got to watch them play each other for the first time; their first set—more than seventy-five minutes, ending with Djokovic, in the midst of his most dominant season, winning a 16-14 tiebreak—appeared at times like something composed by Twyla Tharp. I’d never seen Dolgopolov before, and I was instantly hooked.
In London earlier this summer, at the Queen’s Club tuneup for Wimbledon, I saw him play Nadal in an opening-round match. Dolgopolov served first and quickly went up 30-0: two slice serves, two desperately stabbed backhand returns from Rafa, then two flattened-out forehand winners in response. My seat was just three rows behind Nadal’s coaching box, so I got an intimate glimpse of the what-the-fuck look Rafa shot his longtime coach, his uncle Toni, after the second of those winners. It was a look that said that the Dog’s confident, and on, and “Why me?” By afternoon’s end, Nadal would be crashing out of the tourney, but not before three sets of all-court, full-sprint tennis, both players sweat-soaked from chasing lobs and all manner of backspin and sidespin droppers. In each of the last two sets, Dolgopolov went on one of his typical walkabouts, losing focus and carrying on extensive conversations with himself. He doesn’t self-berate in the sour, sunken-cheeked way of Andy Murray; he goes on calmly and at length, gesturing with his hands, rolling his eyes, shrugging here and there. He looks, for all the world, like a guy waiting for his train at Grand Central while trying to coax one last client via his hands-free Bluetooth.
Dolgopolov’s father, Oleksandr, was a pro player who went on to coach Andrei Medvedev, Ukraine’s first post-Soviet tennis star. Dolgopolov and his mother, a gymnast, went on tour with them, and, as a toddler, he was already hitting with the likes of Jim Courier and Boris Becker. There remains something childlike, something unschooled and ungainly, about aspects of the Dog’s tennis—his serve, for starters, which he not only hits on the rise, as the tossed ball is still ascending, but in a manner at once rushed and herky-jerky, as if some Geppetto is yanking strings attached to his knees and elbows. His father coached him at first, but they had a falling-out. He spent a few years with the Australian maverick Jack Reader, but that relationship succeeded to the extent it did only because, as Dolgopolov has said, “he wasn’t really pushing me or trying to change a lot in my game.” That’s an outlook to keep a player at a comfortable distance from the Top Ten.
On those days, though, when Dolgopolov has it together, even for a set, you are treated to the pleasures of childlike play. His presence on the court is effervescent; his shots, often enough, wondrous. You shake your head. You smile. Tennis, his game reminds you, is a game.
