On my annual trip to the 2007 U.S. Open, I experienced something that I have never seen in all my years watching tennis: it was a 12:45am on a late Wednesday night at Flushing Meadows New York where Lleyton Hewitt of Australia and Agustin Calleri of Argentina were doling out a very entertaining 2nd round match. The score line ended up being an upset 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-2 victory in favour of Calleri over the 16th seeded Hewitt. Ironically, Calleri’s career high rank for singles had also been 16, but that is not where the surprise of the evening was to be found. The first set was a relatively routine victory for Hewitt; one break at 4-5 and the set was his. However, the start of the second set is where things started to become interesting. Seemingly, out of nowhere Calleri began to hit winner after winner to a point where the fans and Hewitt for that matter expected it to happen.

The problem for Hewitt and his fans was that no one was stopping Calleri that night. Hewitt, not recognized for a great two-hand backhand up the line, was witnessing 1st hand what the shot was suppose to look like. Augustin must have had in the vicinity of twenty-five down the line backhand winners. His forehand was also a missile and he was dropping aces at will. True to form, Hewitt clawed and tried to COME ON! himself back into the match, but Calleri was having none of that. Simply put, Calleri was in the zone, and only he was going to stand in his way to victory.

His play was very reminiscent of a match I remember watching years ago between American Pete Sampras and Mikael Tillstrom of Sweden. This was a 4th round match at the 1994 French Open. Sampras did end up winning, but it was the play from the Swede in the 3rd set which he won 6-1, that I will always remember. Sampras was at the mercy of Tillstrom for that 3rd set, watching winner after winner go by him and even getting his mighty 1st serve pounded back into the corner. The difference between the Sampras and the Hewitt match was that Sampras found an answer; he eventually ended up slowing down the match tempo forcing Mikael to over hit. Whereas, nothing Hewitt could do on that Louis Armstrong court was going to disrupt Calleri’s flow and rhythm. Never have I seen any player sustain that much lights out tennis for 3 full sets.

After Calleri won the match, the unassuming Argentine gave a quick thank you to the crowd and proceeded to walk off court. However, Malivai Washington, former American player and now USA network commentator, stopped Augustin for an on court interview. Washington made it a point to let Augustin know that he had never seen someone zone for that long of a period, and if he continued to play that way he would win the US Open. Clearly, that did not happen and Calleri lost his next match to fellow Argentine Juan Monaco. The magic for Augustin was over.

Now to further discuss this Calleri-ed phrase that I’m sure everyone is wondering about. I was joined that night by a fellow colleague of mine Daniel Rumeo. He has also watched a lot of tennis and played NCAA tennis throughout college. He too was mesmerized by Calleri’s performance that night, prompting him to coin the phrase, he Calleri-ed it, for a player who is in the zone for a prolonged period of time. Now I understand that using the Calleri-ed phrase may not come off well understood at your local park or club. There will always have to be the preceding story that follows this phrase. However, for the 10,000 who joined Dan and I that late Wednesday night at Flushing Meadows, they would certainly all agree that they would like to see more Calleri-ed type of performances in future tennis matches.

Technorati Tags: Agustin Calleri, Flushing Meadows, French Open, Lleyton Hewitt, Mikael Tillstrom, Pete Sampras, US Open

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