The remarkable, redemption, repeats, resurrections, the routine, ridicule, and Requiescat in pace

The US Open is all but finished, save for the presidential presence of Donald Trump at the ‘Sinnercaraz’ final tomorrow morning. He may be President, but Sinner and Alcaraz are truly the new Kings of the tennis world. Arnya Sabalenka confirmed her queenly status by winning her second successive US Open title earlier today.  

Maybe we could be forgiven for thinking that the best had come with the feats of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer and the epoch of Serena Williams .Yet, the unprecedented and remarkable continue anew.

Between them Alcaraz and Sinner have filled seven of the eight final places in this year’s Grand Slam tournaments. Sinner has joined Laver, Djokovic and Federer as the only players to have played in all four Grand Slam finals of a calendar year. Djokovic and Federer achieved this feat three times.

For the first time in Open Era we have two male players facing each other in three consecutive Grand Slam finals.

Sabalenka has played in three Grand Slam finals this year, but against different opponents. Chris Evert played in all four finals in 1984, losing three consecutive finals to Martina Navratilova. Navratilova played in all four finals in 1985 and 1987. In 1987, she faced Steffi Graf in three consecutive finals, winning two of them.

A remarkable new chapter is clearly being written.

If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere so they say. Well, this year the US Open has also provided opportunities for players to redeem, restore and repair their reputations.

Amanda Anisimova redeemed her Wimbledon whitewash loss by beating her SW 19 conqueror Iga Swiatek and reached her second successive Grand Slam final. Psychological repair achieved.

Sabalenka, for many a mercurial moody type, reshaped her image at the trophy presentation ceremony where she tenderly reminded Anisimova that she had lost two consecutive Grand Slam finals this year. Sabalenka told Anisimova that her hurt is not unique, and complete vindication with a Grand Slam triumph is not far away.  

Anisimova should also be reminded that Men’s Doubles champions,  Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos won their second Grand Slam title of the year, but only after a near decade of being denied in Grand Slam finals. Ivan Lendl lost his first four Grand Slam finals before his breakthrough.

Two-time US champion Naomi Osaka had her most impressive tournament since returning to the circuit as a mother. She reached the semi-finals, despatching another former champion, Coco Gauff on the way, restoring her credentials as an elite player.

There has also been the fair share of the routine: Alex de Minaur once again fell at the quarter-final hurdle; Djokovic, despite the aches of his 38 year old body remains the third best male player in the world by some margin- let’s not forget he has made the semi-finals of every Grand Slam tournament in 2025- his quarter-final victory over Taylor Fritz was his eleventh consecutive victory over last year’s finalist.

Once again, the seedings in both the Men’s and Women’s draws were misaligned with the results of matches: in each of the Men’s and Women’s draws ten players of the final 16 were either unseeded or ranked outside the top 10.

Away from the court or should that be alongside the court there was a great amount of public ridicule directed towards a millionaire spectator who took a cap from a young boy after it had been given to him by Polish player Kamil Majchrzak after his second round defeat of Karen Khachanov.  

In an episode that evoked the hapless George Costanza pushing children out of the way to escape a fire in an episode of Seinfeld, the millionaire was identified as Polish chief executive Piotr Szczerek on ‘Gotcha Cam’. He was forced to issue a grovelling apology.

Maybe our trust in politics would be restored if governments were more prepared to issue apologies for their oversights, unintended or deliberate. Imagine how refreshing it would be to hear the following: “We apologise for mismanaging the expenditure on Project X. Any unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ money is a breach of the essential trust between electors and the elected.” Or maybe, “we apologise for allowing our education system to be overrun with failed pedagogies, especially concerning the development of reading and writing skills.” Sadly, the potential list is a long one.

As a society, we may need to issue a collective corrective to ourselves concerning the effects of technology on our civility and cognitive development.

Have you noticed how many parents in restaurants are content to have their children while away their time watching a screen? Anecdotal fears about screen usage by the next generation have been confirmed by recently released studies. The World Health Organisation recommends that between the ages of 0-2 children should have no exposure to screens. Recent findings show that 75% of children aged 0-2 are and some children at six months of age are in front of a screen for more than three hours a day.

Quelle surprise, we are producing a generation with poor speech skills, poor motor skills and a limited ability to converse.Whatever happened to general knowledge that one knew instinctively? Is there a more existential moment when one asks a store employee the location of a product and their response is “I’ll just check my app”. Too many have surrendered to the seductive power of AI.

We have met the enemy and it is us. Einstein was haunted by the fact that his brilliance had helped created the nuclear weaponry to destroy mankind. Ubiquitous technology, breathtaking as it is, may well now be destroying our intellectual development, the power of original curiosity and the essence of human interaction. Just as we seek to atone for past policies, decisions and laws that discriminated against people and/or destroyed environments, the time has come to confront the corruptions of the computer age.

With her exquisite sense of timing that saw her involved at the conclusion of Wimbledon tournaments, the world is saddened at the end of the US Open to learn of the passing of the Duchess of Kent. Who will ever forget the grace and comfort she provided Jana Novotna after she surrendered what appeared to be a winning lead against Steffi Graf in the 1993 Wimbledon final?

When would an AI robot be ever able to do that or truly know what to say?