---  U.S. OPEN (Tennis)

             ---  NFL,  BRONCOS VS. RAIDERS

U.S OPEN, THEN & NOW ----  Phenom Novak Djokovic beating Spain’s Rafael Nadal underscored that not since Andy Roddick’s victory in 2003 has an American male won the U.S. Open (tennis). Nor has Wimbledon been championed by an American male since Pete Sampras, year 2000. And, no American man has won the French Open after Andre Agassi captured it in 1999. Nor has an American won the men’s Australian Open since Agassi in 2003. We’re addressing the much-prized four Grand Slam events of the tennis year, final victories denied to American men 39 times since 1999.

Yet in the two decades preceding 1999, U.S. men won the U.S. Open 14 times, Wimbledon 10, the French Open six and the Australian Open, seven. That’s 37 wins for U.S. men in that period. Truly noteworthy, of course, is a 28 year period starting 1968 when U.S. men championed the U.S. Open 21 times, John McEnroe a winner three years in a row, Ivan Lendl also three in a row. In that period, Jimmy Connors won the U.S. Open five times, a record broken years later by Swiss athlete Roger Federer owning the title five years straight, starting 2004.

And between 1992 and year 2000, American men won Wimbledon eight times, losing in 1996; and between 1981 and 1984 Connors and McEnroe shared the top honors at Wimbledon. And, no male player has gone past American Pete Sampras’ total championship wins at Wimbledon---seven, 1993-2000, excluding 1996. Moreover, the six U.S. male wins at the French Open were inside an eight year period, from 1984 to 1992, and the seven U.S. victories at the Australian Open were also within an eight year timeframe, from 1989 to 1997.

Why, then, the 21^st Century decline in U.S. male Grand Slam wins, which isn’t a new question, about which study papers and articles in the media could blanket the courts at each  Grand Slam venue? Some tennis analysts argue that the end of the Cold War freed up male athletes from other countries to practice, improve their skills and reach ultra-championship levels. Another argument says that all sports have been characterized in the poorer eastern bloc countries, and in Russia and China, as a way up from poverty, desire of which has been a driving force for excellence that many U.S. male athletes do not have because of higher levels of affluence.

Other analysts claim that there has always been a level playing field among the more than 100 countries that participate in sports, and that the U.S. periods of domination have been brief leaps in time for only a few U.S. athletes who could win the same competitions repeatedly. After all, the Grand Slam tennis matches have been happening annually for many generations and no nation has ever been super-dominant across the entire chronology of games, e.g., the first U.S. Open was held in 1881, Wimbledon 1877, the French Open, 1925, and the Australian Open, 1905. 

Another premise is that nationality has nothing to do with who becomes a champion, that the variables that allow for an ultra-athlete are mostly personal and local, ranging from desire to be great, to the lifestyle and financial costs of a career, to devotion to training and having the right coaches, also supportive family members and friends, plus how young one starts to train, and certainly not least a high level of mental and physical skills to begin with, including one’s mental approach to wins as well as to losses.

With all of this said, several analysts claim that reasons for the decline in U.S. male championships at major international tennis events could be all of the above, different in degrees depending on those athletes being studied. Yes, seen from our side of the Atlantic it would be “grand” to have an American male win a Grand---but anyway is it really that important when athletes such as Switzerland’s Roger Federer, Spain’s Rafael Nadal, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, the United Kingdom’s Andy Murray and France’s Jo-Wilifried Tsonga can take center stage, show brilliance, inspire and cause us to forget or care about who comes from where? Tennis is a world game, there’s a reason for that Grand Slam tagline, “Open.”

NFL, BRONCOS VS. RAIDERS ( Monday, September 12)  ---  The pre-game dynamics were standard, appropriate: two first time coaches wanting to win their first game of the regular NFL season, the Broncos hoping to show that they’d burst clean and away from the previous year’s embarrassing finish, the Raiders eager to prove they could be other than steam-rollers offensively as well as defensively and could win a season opener “smartly.”

The Raiders beat the Broncos, 23-20. Not so smartly, however, but because the Broncos couldn’t implement enough of the team’s well-chosen tactics with sufficient coordination. Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton chose good plays for driving the ball forward, he saw the right options for the short or long pass, yet he and his receivers executed poorly, both misreading the pass length, receivers dropping catches, allowing fumbles and an interception, Orton sacked possibly more than any other QB has hit the dirt in a season opener, though Orton and crew had an effective third quarter, raising the points differential significantly.

And though the Broncos defense had forced the Raiders offense toward only minor gains at mid-field often enough, it couldn’t prevent the lapses, especially in its own territory, that allowed gaps for the Raiders to enact cliche TD’s and field goals.

In addition to the lack of synchronicity between QB and receivers, important to be looked at are other Broncos deficiencies in the offense, for instance, surely needing correction and betterment before game two of the season is Broncos "pass protection," so, too, Broncos receivers not being guarded when moving the football (defense within the offense). Yet---had Broncos kicker Matt Prater not missed his quite do-able FG attempt, and had a Raiders kicker failed to execute his record-breaking NFL FG distance exceeding 60 yards, well, the Broncos would have reversed the score and up-ended the Raiders.

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