A Tale of Two Breakers
*** 
It only figures that on the same day I wrote about a banner day for U.S. tennis at the Australian Open, the stars and stripes melt into a red-white-and-blue mess, as American players went 1-3 before John Isner's epic win over David Nalbandian.
Christina McHale, a 19-year old New Jersey girl, was the heroine; the goats were Mardy Fish, Donald Young, and Sam Querrey.
Young took it on the chin from a Slovak, No. 119 Lukas Lacko, 6-3, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3. As the scores suggest, this wasn't exactly a "battle royale." And the result is a powerful if not definitive or tested repudiation of Young's decision to reject USTA coaching and strike out on his own again. And if you object, and make the point that Young isn't on his own—he's being coached by his mother, all I can say is, "What's the difference?"
No matter how you cut it, this was a terrible loss.
Querrey didn't fare much better, if you believe in the resonance of things. He was drummed out by the hot hand of barely 19-year-old Aussie wunderkind Bernard Tomic. The scores were 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3. Granted, Tomic is No. 38 and Querrey is No. 95, and Querrey is still working his way back from injury. But Querrey is just 24, he's been ranked as high as No. 17, and this loss sort of frames Querrey and makes you wonder how much upside he really has. That may sound harsh, and it's by no means inalterable. But this was one of those matches that produces a rep(utation) hit. I'll bet a lot of young players are a bit less wary of Querrey than they were yesterday.
Interesting statistical note: Each man hit almost exactly the same number of winners as unforced errors, but Querrey hit almost twice as many as Tomic in both catergories. Querrey hit 52 winners and tagged 50 UE; Tomic produced 30 and 29, respectively. This suggests that Tomic is the guy who's always going to let you pull the trigger first, even though he's equally interested in making the big play. Andy Murray would be proud.
And then there was No. 8 seed Fish, the victim of the biggest men's upset of the first three days of play. Almost a year ago, when Fish reacted to having become the No. 1 American by saying that, deep down, he didn't feel like the top American, it was hard to imagine anyone of his generation but Andy Roddick in that role; he wasn't just being diplomatic. I think he was being honest, and providing us with insight into his character. It's one unburdened by a surfeit of ambition, or a taste for leadership (both of which Roddick has).
There's no point blaming or trashing Fish for that; it's just who he is. But it does make you wonder what someone else might have done with all that talent (not that becoming No. 8 in the world can really be called underachieving), and it does become a perplexing issue given Fish's recent makeover from pizza-scarfing, good-time charlie into dedicated fitness buff and born-again careerist.
Trouble is, the patterns and habits that are ingrained, and have been determining factors for years, can't just be wiped away.
Hence Fish, for all his desire and hard work, remains a guy who often appears too uninterested in combat. He may say the opposite and either wish or believe it to be true, but his body and spirit seem to protest. They balk, like a stubborn mule. Fish was a talented but unreliable fixture on the tour for nearly a decade before he got religion, and that former Mardy Fish can't be made to vanish—he can only be suppressed. It's to Fish's credit that it has worked so often in the past two years.
But not yesterday.
Fish continued the somewhat disturbing precedent he set at the start of the year, with that tiff he had with Grigor Dimitrov at Hopman Cup. Against Alejandro Falla, who's said to be a buddy, Fish was again the angry dude. That he was sluggish and erratic only seemed to make him more surly. Yet he still had a chance to get back into the match (after losing the first two sets) in the third-set tiebreaker—even if the smart money was thinking, "The way he is today, there's no way Mardy is going to stay out there two more hours."
So Fish played a lousy tiebreaker. So did Falla, incidentally, as mini-breaks and holds alternated all the way through the 'breaker—every point!—until Falla won it 7-6 (6). In other words, Fish had numerous chances to take control, but he made three costly, loose errors near the end to surrender.
By the time that one was over, McHale was well into her match with New Zealand's Marina Erakovic, a talented hard-luck story who's trying to rebuild her career after serious injury. Erakovic won the first set 6-3, and looked to be in good shape to close it out in straights. She clearly had more tools than the Little Miss Sunshine. But McHale had two assets that can take you far in the WTA, great determination married with a streamlined game with more "Pow! than "Wow!" No wonder Chris Evert, always on the lookout for a player cut from the same cloth as herself, was so supportive in the ESPN commentary booth.
It was touch-and-go in the second set, and it ultimately took a tiebreaker to decide it. Unlike the Fish-Falla 'breaker, there were just two mini-breaks (one for each player) up to the point where McHale, slugging away and giving not an inch, went up 5-4 with a blazing if awkward backhand winner hit off her back foot. Erakovic followed with a double fault and an inside-out forehand error to lose the tiebreaker, 4-7. McHale went on to sweep the third set, 6-3.
When it came time to Fish or cut bait. . . Oh, never mind.