Observations on the 2003 U.S. Open
No, I didn't see A-Rod blast his way to the title. However, I did see A-Rod blast his way through Tim Henman in the first round, and even then he looked like the man to beat. This is disturbing to me, as despite his considerable competitive talent, Roddick posseses what to my eye is the single ugliest game in the history of tennis. He hits his serve like he's driving spikes through an iron wall. His forehand, with that chambered-elbow, cranked wideup, reminds me of an early 1980s technique that was largely abandoned as its exponents, not benefitting from light Babolat racquets, recognized that a more compact strike was to be desired. Roddick's backhand... ectomorphic, and suggestive of a tee-ball swing. Still, he pulls it all together, and you have to give him credit for that (and probably Brad Gilbert, too). Of course, I watched Roger Federer beat James Blake in the third round, and at the time Federer seemed unbeatable. So much ability, harnessed to the end of producing shots I had never seen before (a colleague and I both marveled and what we did our best to describe as a topspin backhand semi-lob passing shot, and forget about the exploding spin forehands RF unveiled late in the second set). But in the final analysis, A-Rod. I don't know, as much as John McEnroe's proposal that the pros go back to wood racquets seems like a pipe dream, in the face of hideously applied naked power, you do begin to yearn...
Vegas, Baby
As much as I have complained, publicly and privately, about my recent trip to Las Vegas with the family, I have to admit that, despite missing the semis and finals (live, no less, and in person) of the U.S. Open, the visit was illuminating. What's interesting about Vegas these days isn't the obvious hypersignification (or kitschification, depending on how you look at these things) of The Strip, but rather than development of a new urban model in the desert. I was struck by this right away, staying as I was in Henderson, a suburb a short drive southeast from the city of Vegas proper. I see the development as Vegas as a place to live along these lines: the suburban ideas that originated in the Northeast, subsequently transplanted and refined in Southern California, then exported to Sunbelt cities like Phoenix, have been raised to a sort of rapid art in Vegas. They know what they're doing out there now. The core model is the internally integrated private community. It seems that even a brand-new cheapo place to live tries to look this way. Of course, there are certain advantages to living in a true private "development," but I figure you could manage a passable imitation just about anywhere in the recently erected Vegas landscape. Does this make eveyone feel better? It's hard for me to say, based on limited experience. But the general impression is, overwhelmingly, one of organization and safety--none of that scuzzy old colorful Oasis of Vice to deal with. As my soon-to-be-wife observed outside Ceasar's, this is what America wants. It's a perfectly distilled expression of the popular desires of late capitalism.
