Two of my favorite movies of all time are Hoosiers and Wimbledon. Why?"" you ask. Because they are both inspirational sports narratives featuring an underdog making its way to the top.
After watching several tennis matches this month, I realized that similar stories were being unfolded right before my eyes.
The fourth and final Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year came to an end Monday night with familiar, yet surprising, United States Open title winners.
Switzerland's Roger Federer may be one of the most well-known tennis players of all time, but he was a definite underdog behind top-ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain in this year's U.S. Open.
Luckily for Federer, Nadal was defeated by No. 6 Andy Murray, a 21-year-old representing the United Kingdom, to get into the title match.
In my mind, this upset was the most surprising in the entire men's singles bracket. I honestly did not think Murray, the young David, would ever trip up Nadal, the talented Goliath who is just coming off of a gold medal performance at the Olympics, to make it to his first Grand Slam title match.
Murray could not push past Federer, who struggled early in the tournament, but I still consider both of these men as underdogs as far as the overall tournament is concerned.
Federer's 6-2, 7-5, 6-2 performance against Murray showed he is arguably the best male tennis player on the earth, giving Nadal a little shove from behind. This tennis hero's journey is nowhere close to being finished, nor is his fight for the top ranking in the world.
He has become the first man ever to win five consecutive Open and Wimbledon championships. Federer's quest for his sixth Wimbledon title came to a halt earlier this year when he was defeated by Nadal on the outdoor grass court in the title match. On the other hand, his dreams of holding the most U.S. championship titles are still alive.
Currently, tennis legend Bill Tilden is the only man to have collected more consecutive U.S. championships than Federer with six. Tilden accomplished this astonishing mark in the 1920s, before the open era began 40 years ago.
As of Monday night's title match, Federer has won 34 straight matches at Flushing Meadows in New York. His performance also earned him his 13th overall Grand Slam crown.
On the women's side, the fourth-ranked Serena Williams of the United States put together a solid performance Sunday to send the second-ranked Jelena Jankovic back to Serbia with the runner-up trophy.
The 6-4, 7-5 match gave Williams her third U.S. Open crown and her ninth Grand Slam title. To get to the title match, Williams first had to defeat her sister Venus, ranked No. 7, in the quarterfinals and the sixth ranked Dinara Safina of Russia in the semis.
Although there is always a chance for an upset, I still found it humorous to see the top ranked female tennis player in the world fall in the second round to a player who was not even seeded in the tournament. Serbia's Ana Ivanovic dropped the match to Julie Coin of France in three sets. Talk about an underdog rising above.
For those of you non-tennis fans out there, Coin's victory over Ivanovic would be like watching an unranked college basketball team barely make it into the big dance and defeat a powerhouse like Duke or Kansas.
Unfortunately, Coin's journey was cut short when she was defeated by another French woman, No. 32 Amelie Mauresmo, in the next round 6-4, 6-4. If I were Coin, however, I would hold my head high knowing I defeated the top player in the world at the time. At the end of the tournament, Ivanovic moved down to the No. 3 world ranking and Serena claimed the top spot.
Additionally, the men's and mixed doubles championships were also won by pairs that did not hold the top spot. A team of brothers, No. 2 Bob and Mike Bryan of the United States, pulled past Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes of India in the men's finals.
Paes did end up winning the mixed doubles title with Cara Black of Zimbabwe. The pair was ranked No. 5 and stifled Liezel Huber of the U.S. and Jamie Murray of the U.K. in the title match.
The only No. 1 ranked team to finish on top at the U.S. Open was Black and Huber in the women's doubles bracket.
Maybe tennis is one of my favorite sports to watch because nobody knows ahead of time who is going to come out with the win. Sure, there are favorites. But tennis is a sport where one poor performance by an individual can bring Grand Slam title hopes to an end.
Unlike other sports where you have your teammates to lift you back up, tennis forces you to find that inner light within your soul to fight back on your own, and that's what makes it so great. Tennis players need to be physically, mentally and emotionally strong to overcome their obstacles, knowing in the back of their minds that anything can happen on any given day.
If you watched the U.S. Open and witnessed an upset, tell Crystal about it at crowns@wisc.edu.
