US Open: Why is it so difficult to win a second grand slam?
It’s been 18 months since the US Open began with a two-week window for qualifying between two different champions, a format that has proved so dominant in itself that we have begun to ignore its history.
From the earliest years, the Open, like Davis Love, was open to entrants from different countries, a factor that made it easy to see who among them should actually claim the title.
There came a time when the Open was won by an American, but for some reason that idea hasn’t panned out so far. In the last six years, only four Americans have made it to the final, and all of those players won in 2013.
In fact, the US Open has become more and more difficult to win, as shown by the number of times the winner has failed to reach the final three years into his career.
Just ask Alex Corretja, who went from making the final in his first major at 14 to making it on three occasions just two years later. Then again, when did you know a player had become a Grand Slam champion until they themselves announced it was no longer the case?
It’s a strange phenomenon, considering that the biggest obstacle in the way of a second US Open crown is usually the very same man who defeated him the first time out.
At least when the man you beat is a former Open champion, you have every reason to believe that you would be on track to repeat history in the event they have made their own.
So how do you beat a player who is a proven champion, who has played in the final of the US Open on two occasions in his career? There’s one simple answer: You get him to play in the final.
The question is, how to do that? You’d think that by now we’d have a system of rules and guidelines that would help to manage it.
The answer to that question is that there is no system. The rule book remains the same as it was in the late 1980s: You either win or you lose.
No matter how much you want to give it a better name, the US Open is always the Open.
I’m not suggesting that there is some kind