Emptying the U.S. Open Notebook

On big fines, Serena's new look, a change to the women's trophy, an explosion of tennis podcasts, and more!

It’s been 10 days since the U.S. Open ended, and I still feel like I’m working back from a considerable sleep deficit after a long and grinding run through the three-week tournament, a haze no doubt compounded by [waves hands] current events.

But these post-Grand Slam tournament notebooks have been one of my favorite features in Bounces inaugural year, and so I’ve been determined—and delighted—to write up through all ~5,000 words of this U.S. Open notebook to bring you a range of odds and ends from the year’s final major.

Here are the 14 notebook items y’all will find within:

• Making sense of a costly mysterious major offense in qualifying with a deep dive into a match almost no one saw

• The unbalanced hot shots of the U.S. Open

• Strangely cold on-court interviews

• The new-look Serena that came mid-tournament.

• Notebooks much cooler than mine at this U.S. Open

• Ample Amanda Anisimova annotations (and a song!)

• Equal hardware joins equal pay

• Translation of Aryna Sabalenka’s most interesting answer in Russian in her final press conference

• Counting the crowds, checking in on the crowding

• The saturated state of the tennis podcasting landscape

• A few of my favorite articles from this U.S. Open

• Tennis having its social media moment

• My sequins of events for the women’s final

• One more update on the Zverev v. Rothenberg proceedings in Berlin.

Here we go!

A Mysterious Major Offense

Longer-term readers of Bounces will recall that the fines lists are always a fixture of these post-major notebooks. This time, I’m going to lead off with the fines list in order to dive deeper into one specific line that caught my eye during this tournament.

The women, as they usually do, picked up far fewer penalties than the men.

The spectacular first round crash out that cost Daniil Medvedev $42,500 was well-documented here and elsewhere, of course.

Daniil Medvedev Crashes Out

But I was intrigued by the second-largest fine on the board. What had Alibek Kachmazov done during a first round qualifying match to earn a fine of $14,250, more than half of his prize money?

When I messaged Kachmazov on the topic a few days after his penalty was posted, the fine seemed to be news to him, too.

Perhaps he was right to be surprised: he hadn’t received a single code violation during the match. But after reviewing tape of his match—and how abruptly it ended—it became clear what the U.S. Open’s problem with Kachmazov and his performance had been.

To continue reading this and the rest of the 5,000+-word U.S. Open notebook, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben