So easy a caveman can do it? Riley Opelka advances at Cincinnati Open
MASON, OH — Sometimes Reilly Opelka can make tennis seem so easy even a caveman can do it. And, OK, that might be a little mean and a straight rip off of the Geico commercial but Opelka, with his wild and wooly hair and unkempt beard, does look a little like that Geico caveman who hates being a caveman. And sometimes Opelka hates being a tennis player
Especially when he’s hurt and losing and wondering how it is his ranking is not where he thinks it should be.
Opelka, 27, is listed some places as 6-feet-11 and in some places as 7-feet even. Which is it Reilly? “Probably 6-11,” said Opelka after his 7-5, 7-6 (3) win over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien Friday at the Cincinnati Open.
It was Opelka’s hand-grenade of a serve that blasted Dellien right out of the tournament. Opelka served 15 aces (Dellien only had two) and won the battle of winners 31-11. It sometimes seemed as if Opelka knew he could erase any deficit with just a couple of those serves.
It often looked as if Dellien backed up into the first row of the stands on the Champions Court to try and return Opelka’s lethal first shot. With such a fabulous and dangerous weapon in his pocket, one would expect the American to have done better than one fourth-round appearance at the U.S. Open in his majors career or be ranked better than the No. 73 that he is now. And, Opelka really, really hates that ranking.
Sitting in a chair, still sopping wet from the heat of the afternoon and apologizing because his coach, Dennis Kudla who joined the team in January couldn’t be in the room as requested − he’s back at the hotel sick Opelka said, as if it were his fault − Opelka spoke of the end of tennis more than the beginning.
He’s had two wrist surgeries because the first was botched Opelka said. Then, because his arm was in a sling for so long he had pain in his neck and shoulder. For a big man who needs that big serve to win big points, it wasn’t optimal.
“I don’t want to be ranked in the 70s,” he said. “It makes life so much tougher. You don’t know if you’re going to get into a draw. You’re waiting around a lot. Do you want to play qualifiers at this stage? When the Asian circuit hits, do you want to fly over, stay in hotels and not know if you’ll get into the draw? I expect better of myself, want better of myself but if this is it, if this is where I am, you know, is it worth it?
It’s that arm that seems so loose and can make serving look so simple, that has given him more trouble than it’s worth sometimes. But on this afternoon Opelka seemed in a happy place. That hot, humid weather that had most of us leaving wet footprints wherever we went, Opelka loves it. It keeps him and that precious arm, loose
Opelka had to save three set points in the first and he did it with the help of two aces. Having done that and evened the match at 5-5, Opelka got the sets’ only break when a frustrated Dellien began spraying groundstrokes everywhere. Opelka then served out the 44-minute set at love, shook has head as if he was a Labrador retriever and sprayed the first two rows of fans with sweat on an afternoon of thick humidity.
Dellien earned the first break point of the second set in the sixth game at 30-40 but the composed Opelka hit a second-serve winner. Dellien got another in the same game on a lovely volley winner but Opelka got back to deuce with a service winner, earned the ad point with an ace and loped into a forehand winner to even the set at 3-3.
From there each game was pretty routine and there was the sense it was going to be tiebreak time and sure enough, that’s what time it became.
Dellien served first and knocked a routine forehand into the net and it’s possible Opelka gave a little grin. He served the next two points – getting Dellien to hit a forehand return long, then followed up with a service winner. With a 3-0 tiebreak lead and that serve behaving as it should, it seemed unlikely that Dellien, who moves well and hits a smart forehand but has no magic weapon like Opelka’s serve, could get back even.
And he couldn’t. Back-to-back forehand winners gave Opelka a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak and a monstrous forehand winner was the final point of the match. Nice, Opelka said, but not the kind of special moment he craves. He has been ranked as high as No. 17 and reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open once, in 2021, but that’s not the special he wants.
“I think I have more in me,” he said, “but if I don’t, I’m not just going to hang around. If you’re not one of the top 30 guys, I mean, this is an expensive sport. People don’t always remember we pay for our flights, our coaches, their flights, food, hotel. I mean if you’re No. 70 tournaments aren’t handing you and your team free rooms and stuff. One of my good friends is Jay Berger, the golfer. Those guys got it a lot better than us.”
And as Opelka spoke, it made one think. Who wants to cram a 6-foot-11 (or 7-foot) body into a coach seat and head to Australia or China or Europe and do that over and over and sometimes not even make the draw? It’s not glamorous to sit in front of a computer in a dreary hotel room hoping you are ranked just high enough to get into the main draw.
Next up for Opelka is sixth-seed Aussie Alex de Minaur. Winning such a match could start a streak and that’s what Opelka is hoping for now that he seems totally healthy. A winning streak, something more than a win or two, something that will make continuing to play fun and not grunt work.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Do I have that in me? It felt good today. Tomorrow? Who knows?”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Riley Opelka advances at Cincinnati Open over Hugo Dellien
