For Tennis Parents by a Tennis Parent

Yesterday was a mess with all the rain. While the Junior matches were supposed to start at Noon, things didn’t exactly go as planned. On Court 12, for example, where I was going to start my day watching Girls 16s Hardcourts Champion Reese Brantmeier play her Singles Quarterfinals match, the players came on court but weren’t allowed to begin their warmup because there were no singles sticks on the net. Everyone kept waiting for the rain to start, and it did, after just a couple of games were played. 

And the rain just kept on pouring down at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Finally, around 3:30, it was announced that the Doubles Semifinals would be moved indoors for a 5:00pm start and that the Singles Quarters were cancelled for the day. 

In the meantime, I had LOTS of time to do interviews, attend press conferences, and meet with various people around the grounds. In particular, I sat down with Craig O’Shannessy who is working with Men’s Singles Semifinalist Matteo Berrettini. Matteo’s incredible run at this year’s Open ended last night in a straight-sets loss to Rafa Nadal. Craig and I chatted about Matteo and his preparation for Rafa, sure, but we also talked about what Junior Players and Coaches can learn from Matteo’s journey.

As I was sitting in the Media Center waiting for word on what was going to happen with the Junior matches, it was announced that Women’s Singles Finalist Bianca Andreescu’s coach, Sylvain Bruneau, was coming in for an interview. Sylvain talked about his work with Bianca after first seeing her as part of Canada’s Junior Davis Cup Team as well as her close relationship to her mother, Maria. Since we’re not allowed to record video in the Media Room, here is an audio recording of Sylvain (click the black arrow to listen).

Some of today’s Junior Singles QF Matches are set to begin at Noon – others are scheduled 2nd on their respective courts – with the Semifinals matches also being played today. As Colette Lewis reported in today’s ZooTennis article, she has never seen both the QFs and SFs played on the same day. It’s really unfortunate that the tournament organizers didn’t move the singles QFs indoors yesterday or at least let them start earlier today so the winners of those matches would have sufficient time to rest and recover before playing for a spot in the Finals.

The Junior Boys Doubles Finals will be the last match on Court 6, and the Junior Girls Doubles Finals is scheduled “not before 4pm” with the court yet to be announced. You can see the complete Schedule of Play at usopen.org.

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