Shark Alert

Up a set with a point for 5-2. . .

The difference between winning that point (not that it was Jelena Jankovic's only chance to seal the deal, either) and losing that point is the difference between being a legitimate Grand Slam contender and just another good two-handed backhand on a pleasant run in the last major of the year.

Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade (you may now stop rolling your eyes), but Jankovic took the wrong fork in that road, and it led to the cul de sac called "losing semifinalist." Granted, it's pretty nice to have a Grand Slam semi on the resume, but not when you could just as easily have made it final or, dare we think it, a title. But you can't expect to get Anastasia Myskina every year, can you?

Jankovic has really lit this joint up over the last week with her smile and guile; she's also shown, right up until second set meltdown today, a welcome ability to keep the business at hand (tennis) from bumping her off mission. That, in this case, was an objective with two parts: winning the biggest match of her young life while also savoring, enjoying, and communicating her sheer delight with the position in which she had landed with infectious bonhomie. For her wins here weren't just Jankovic's wins, they were ours, too, and that's as fine a gift as any player can give the fans.

But. . .

For all the hyperbole and new-toy wonder displayed by the tennis punditocracy, the biggest statement Jankovic made today was that she's not really ready for this level of competition, nor does she consider herself especially entitled to act as if she is. You just don't have a top player on the ropes the way she had Justine Henin-Hardenne and then waste a potential career moment on the last person you, me, or anyone else wants to hear from, or who ought to be heard from -  the chair umpire.

Oh, you can say, as John McEnroe did, that the chair umpire (Enric Molina) should not have made those provocative comments about "not being a machine." His job, as McEnroe said, is to help keep the players calm and focused, and exchanging barbs with them is  now way to accomplish that. Still, my overall impression was that Jankovic, while utterly enjoying her Big Moment (and the replay of each of her incremental, smaller moments that added up to it), let it slip through her fingers. In fact, her emotional meltdown at the critical stage of the match suggested that she jammed that sucker down through her digits.

Part of this, of course, was because of the line-call controversies that served to highlight the most valid criticism of the Hawkeye instant replay challenge system: the impact it has on an umpire's view of his own job. The temptation is for an umpire to avoid risking controversy by refusing to overrule bad calls, operating on the (faulty) premis that, because of the challenge system, this is now the player's job.

"I think the umpire has to be involved in the match, He has to make his calls, too, It shouldn't all be on us because we have only two challenges," Jankovic said in her presser. "He isn't just there to call out the score."

But what really happened was that Jankovic got carried away by the powerful undertow that threatens any inexperienced player's confidence and composure in a big match, and in no time she was bleeding and drifting far offshore, mere shark bait. You could see H-2's dorsal fin slicing the surface from a mile away.

"I lost my concentration and I gave her that match," Jankovic admitted, with refreshing bluntness.

And she displayed that same welcome frankness in criticizing H-2 for playing up her back injury.

**Okay, Tribe, fire up the comments!

Given Jankovic's charm and willingness to engage an audience (both on the court and in the press room), I hope she uses this run as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. But unlike some pundits, I'm not entirely convinced this was anything more than a surprise run by a player on a good roll. She has a terrific backhand, for certain. She also has a shaky serve. She has great quickness and retrieving ability, but so do 25 other guppies in the great WTA fishbowl.

But she also let her emotions and anxieties get the better of her, which is the difference between a player who gets within four points of contesting a Grand Slam final, and just another girl on a good run at a big event.