Incredible Skill and Good Humor: Doubles at the DC Open

Early in the match, Magdalena Fręch looked to break and jump ahead; she would hold serve in the next game and have some leeway, which you need against Peyton Stearns, who played varsity tennis at Texas and hits big top spins that kick up from the baseline paint. She counterpunched with calm method and waited for the ex-NCAA champ to hit one long, and if that did not work, she would surprise her with a drop shot or wrongfoot her with a pass.

She would disrupt the stronger shots of the American girl. This had got her through the qualifications rounds, and it could take her through a few rounds in the main draw. Miss Fręch, who is from Łódź, is graceful and appears almost delicate, and if she does not look like an endurance player, she does look like a patient one. The idea is to disrupt your opponent’s game. Bill Tilden, the first American tennis celebrity, said this, around 1923.

It had worked against the very young, perhaps over-eager Clervie Ngounoue at the Stadium, but today, on the outside court, her opponent refused to feel annoyed. She kept to her own plan of hard drives and huge forehand bombs, which she set up with a patience to rival Miss Fręch’s. At one-all and deuce, they spent 10 minutes trading advantage points, until Miss Stearns found a ball to strike low and cross court. Miss Fręch got to it and put it in the net.

Miss Stearns carried the momentum into the fourth game, getting the break that had escaped Miss Fręch, and now she was the one with some room. She doubled down, and it ended 20 minutes later, without Miss Fręch taking another game.

You get the momentum, and you turn a match into a rout. But Miss Fręch showed her heart again, as she had against the aggressive and stylish Clervie Ngounoue, holding on for 10 games in a second set during which she missed break opportunities. And for a reason: Miss Stearns showed plenty of heart, too, and she is a clutch player who gets the points she needs. She was riding on a bit of luck, having lost in the qualifiers but got in as a replacement against Miss Fręch when Sofia Kenin, former Australian Open champion, had to pull out due to an injury. Luck only is worth what you make of it, and you could see she knows this.

There will be other chances for joy in Miss Fręch’s Łódź. In the meantime, they can be happy in Miss Stearns’ Austin, and also in Wrocław, whose native son on this same court a day earlier had carried his team to victory in the opening round of the men’s doubles draw. In doubles, when one half of the duo is making a mess of things but the team stays in the fight, you say the other half is carrying him. Hubert Hurkacz was carrying Washington’s own Frances Tiafoe to such a degree that it was becoming almost comic. He seemed unable to get into the match, flubbing service returns and shanking easy (for him) overheads and forehands — all the more confounding as Tiafoe is one of the most explosive, as well as solid, never-give-uper of the tour’s younger stars, with an uncanny ability to “get” his opponent’s most impossible shots and deliver his own with a sharpshooter’s accuracy.

Tiafoe’s inconsistency affected his partner adversely, and the side was crushed in the first set 6–2 by Sebastian Korda and Christopher Eubanks. They fought back in the second as Hurkacz increasingly found a way to keep them in the match. It carried them through a dramatic tiebreak that went to 11–9.

These four are among the very best in the game, with Tiafoe having made a deep run at the U.S. Open last year, and Chris Eubanks a sensational run at Wimbledon just a few weeks ago. Which was all the more remarkable as he, at 27 (the elder of the group) has had a career marked by reverses and frustrations and had won his first and only event, a modest one at Mallorca, just the week before the All-England Championships. However, the exuberance and grace that had caught the world’s attention on the Mallorcan and English grass seemed to fizzle on the grandstand court at Rock Creek Park. As would-be put-aways ended in the net, Korda found himself playing the same role on his side as Hurkacz was on the other — making up lost points and creating opportunities only to see them squandered.

Washington is reputed for its treacherous characters, and it is sometimes said that victory goes to the side more skilled at doubling a key player in the adversary camp. I would not know about that, but in doubles it matters who better motivates the faltering doublet. In this highly entertaining match of fantastic individual play wherein teamwork seemed an occasional afterthought, the key factor was good humor and let-it-be. They had a great time, and so did the crowd that was packed like sardines in a can on the second day of the Mubadala Citi DC Open — a mouthful of a name it is — and they all parted friends after the 10-point tiebreak, in which they all redeemed themselves playing unbelievable clutch like a quartet of happy kids. As for the final score — as Ring Lardner used to say, you can look it up.

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