US open's men's final was rough, Djokovic was in beast mode. Pretty frustrating
i watched from the beginning until 5-4 2nd set, and djokovic had a pretty rough, +10 minutes service game at 4-3 with 3 break points saved. had pony capitalize on one of those chances, it could have been a completely different 3rd set.
an interesting point i read on a local tennis board: del potro will have his 30th birthday in 2 weeks, and all active men's tennis grand slam champions will be older than 30. i find it incredible. players like sampras, agassi, courier, chang, becker, federer, nadal, and even djokovic started to win in their early 20's. all gs champs being over 30 would mean that basically no young players made it to the big stage in the last 8-10 years. pony was the last new below-30 gs champ at the us open, and it happened 9 years ago.
since 2004, those guys could win a grand slam, besides federer (19 gs titles since 2004), djokovic (14) and nadal (17):
- wawrinka and murray 3-3 times
- gaudio won a garros
- del potro won a us open
- safin won an aus open
- cilic won a us open too
that's basically 10 tournaments out of 60 tournaments. insane consistency from those 3 players. and for me, it kinda spoils the fun, too: i'd really like to see some new faces winning titles.