New York (AFP)
The US Open 2020 was played in very strange conditions, between a health bubble and the absence of this usually noisy New York crowd, but the tournament will also be remembered thanks to two winners who have made history. tennis: Naomi Osaka and Dominic Thiem.
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Gentlemen
He certainly missed the thrill, always repeated, to see play Federer, who took advantage of the hiatus of the season to undergo knee surgery.
He also missed the amazement to see Nadal defend his title, for health reasons.
But Djokovic was there and Djokovic made "shit" in an incident which would have blown up the Arthur-Ashe court if it had been filled with its 23,000 spectators.
His disqualification in the round of 16 for having involuntarily hit a linesman with a ball out of anger, paved the way for an unprecedented winner.
And after an impressive semi-final against Daniil Medvedev, finalist last year, Dominic Thiem was the perfect candidate for the title.
But his opponent Alexander Zverev, so miraculously arrived this far, took advantage of Thiem's extreme tension in front of this last step to make it almost impassable.
And it was a 4 hour fight, which was worth much more for its dramaturgy than for its tennis quality, which concluded the men's tournament.
Exhausted, paralyzed by the stake, Thiem and Zverev ended up almost passing the ball back to each other while waiting for the other to crack (Zverev, whose service is formidable when he passes, served the first balls at around 110 km / h on the end...).
And at this little arm game, Thiem won his first Grand Slam title after losing three finals.
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Ladies
The table was very depopulated with in particular the absence of six of the ten best players in the world, including N.1 Ashleigh Barty, N.2 Simona Halep and defending champion Bianca Andreescu.
But Jennifer Brady, who had never been seen playing at this level, and the revenge Victoria Azarenka, who had not excelled for years, animated the fortnight.
Without counting Naomi Osaka and the abortive epic of Serena Williams.
At 25, Brady had never passed the knockout stages of a Major.
This time, she inflicted corrections on her opponents, including former World No. 1 Angelique Kerber, until the semi-final, where she still pushed Osaka in the third set.
In the other semi-final, Azarenka took revenge on Serena Williams who had beaten her in the final in 2012 and 2013. With this defeat, Williams missed a good chance to win a 24th Grand Slam title that would allow her to match Margaret Court's record.
The final between Osaka and Azarenka reached tennis heights, unlike the men's final.
And after a nice turnaround, it was the Japanese who won the third major title of her career at 22, after the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open. Osaka also took advantage of this tournament to show off his personality, usually hidden behind a wall of shyness.
She is an activist against racial injustice who took advantage of her exhibition to denounce police violence against African Americans in the United States.
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Behind the scenes
The 2020 edition will also be remembered for the psychodrama that was played off the courts.
It all started with Benoît Paire's positive coronavirus test even before the start of the tournament.
The Frenchman was immediately excluded and confined to his room, but seven players (his compatriots Richard Gasquet, Adrian Mannarino, Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Grégoire Barrère, Kristina Mladenovic, as well as the Belgians Kirsten Flipkens and Ysaline Bonaventure) were declared contact cases. for playing cards with him, and placed in a bubble within the bubble.
Namely, that they were subjected to much more stringent health control conditions.
This made Mladenovic crack, who considered herself a "prisoner" or a "criminal".
She ended up being prevented from playing doubles, causing her duet with Timea Babos to be eliminated.
All these players, although negative for Covid-19 and eliminated from the tournament, had to remain confined in quarantine in their hotel room almost until the end of the New York fortnight.
© 2020 AFP