Purely in terms of tournament sass, it was predictable Novak Djokovic would be booed off court after retiring from injury at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday night after once again deciding to graciously gift an opponent a win. The US Open is operating at Liberace levels of theatrics and is highly watchable for it.
Djokovic had already sworn at the crowd and threatened a spectator during one practice session. “I’ll come find you after the match,” he glowered. “Trust me, I’ll come find you.” Retweeting the footage, Nick Kyrgios added the words “I’m scared” and an emoji suggesting quite the opposite. When Djokovic was asked why he had be hunting down the spectator, he replied, his face deadpan: “To have a drink … I’m going to buy him a drink.”
So yes, if you are having trouble characterising your tennis grand slams, this one is the messy bitch who lives for the drama. Think of the US Open as Real Househusbands of the PTA, with all the histrionics you would expect from the dignity-swerving reality franchise.
It is very much the only tournament at which Roger Federer could find himself saying “shit” in a press conference. “I have heard this shit too often now,” he exclaimed of the suggestion he picked his match times. Of course, if Roger is saying “shit”, you can be sure other players understand their responsibility to go a whole lot further. And in this spirit, it is the greatest pleasure to formally welcome a new rebel to the fold in the form of Daniil Medvedev, the Russian who has been goading the New York crowds with such relish.
At the end of Sunday’s win over Dominik Köpfer, which put him in the quarter-finals – and during which he had surreptitiously given the crowd the middle finger – Medvedev addressed booing spectators with sledgehammer sarcasm. “Thank you all, guys, because your energy tonight gave me the win,” he declared. “If you weren’t here, I probably would lose the match … I want all of you to know, when you sleep tonight, I won because of you.” The jeers became even louder. “Guys, continue to give me this energy,” Medvedev smirked. “You’re the best.” Whereupon a perfectly synchronised line of ballboys snapped their fingers and winced “Yasss! you better calls the BURNS UNIT, girlfriend!” On Tuesday night, Medvedev went through to the semis.
“He is the bad boy of tennis,” judged Chrissie Evert. “I want to cook him a meal.” I think that is supposed to be way down the list of things you are meant to want to do with bad boys, Chrissie but I respect you too much to take this one further.
Even so, I have to usher this column to the place it was always going, which is to say: straight-up hymn to the notion of the “tennis bad boy”. I truly believe that when they made the world cinema classic Blades of Glory, men’s figure skating was the only arena more comically perfect for a “bad boy” figure than men’s tennis. But, like, only just?
The tennis bad boy is absolutely my favourite type of alleged bad boy. Given the choice in the reincarnation stakes, I would, without hesitation, come back as a tennis bad boy. What’s not to love? There is the wildly transgressive fashion look, of course – in New York Kyrgios got into a classic tennis bad boy altercation with the umpire over the … hang on, let me get this right … the underside of his collar. Truly, life on the edge, as the official took issue with the words “Just Do You” and told him to fold down his collar because the slogan was against the rules. Kyrgios – tennis’s Chazz Michael Michaels – retorted: “I’m not going to play until you show me the rule. I want to know the rule. I want to see the rule. I’ve seen shirts worse.” That is what you get on the wrong side of the tennis tracks. I’ve seen collared shirts like you would not believe.
Then you have to consider the type of spectator the typical tennis bad boy is in rebellion against. Specifically: TENNIS spectators. At Wimbledon the Centre Court crowd applauds pigeons. Literally even my mother would be a rebel here. As for the authority figures against whom the bad boy must define himself, you have to love that the umpire on whom you are going full Cool Hand Luke is mostly dressed like a fugitive from Gatsby: The Musical.
Frankly, not even that other modern classic, the Strictly Come Dancing bad boy, is higher camp or more brilliantly preposterous. Let’s face it: by his own admission, tennis outlaw Andre Agassi lost the 1990 French Open because he was beset by worry his damaged wig would fall off.
So this is a noble bloodline. In New York, Kyrgios lost no time in welcoming Medvedev to the firmament, changing his Twitter wallpaper to Medvedev’s one-finger salute. Game recognise game. I think we can be entirely sure Nick sees Medvedev as the Jay McInerney to his Bret Easton Ellis.
At root, tennis bad boys seem to get the joke of sport, and most particularly of their sport – just as Nicolas Cage always seems to get the joke of movies and most particularly of Nicolas Cage movies. Take Kyrgios earlier this summer, when his defeat in the second round at Wimbledon by Rafael Nadal had caused the latter to explain solemnly: “Without really loving this game that much, it is difficult to achieve important things.”
“At the end of the day,” was Kyrgios’s considered reply, “it’s tennis, man. Is it really that important?”