The wise men in tennis say: “Keep working and results will come. You will have your time in the spotlight”. For a few of the American journeymen and journeywomen populating the tennis world, the time in the spotlight has arrived at this 2018 Australian Open, where US tennis has known one of its worst Majors in a long time. On opening day, the “stars and stripes” team went 3-12, with only Nicole Gibbs, Ryan Harrison and Mackenzie McDonald to survive the carnage. Day 2 went marginally better, but at 7-9 American players were still well below .500 and only three out of the six seeds advanced to the second round, with a few Top 70 players like Donaldson, Johnson and Bellis already on the way home before the tournament had even properly begun.
In the men’s draw, only Sam Querrey (#13) made it to the second round, while Jack Sock (#8) and John Isner (#16) both fell on their first match; amongst the ladies, 2017 Finalist Venus Williams (#5) went out to the up-and-returning Swiss Belinda Bencic in possibly the toughest first round she could face, while 2017 Australian Open (and US Open) semifinalist Coco Vandeweghe was routed in two sets by Hungarian Timea Babos and was fined $10,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct for an expletive-ridden outburst towards her opponent as well as a surreal tirade with the chair umpire regarding her rights to demand bananas readily available on court.
It was therefore their time to shine time for the “peones”, those who normally sweat in the smaller tournament around the world, where you are lucky if there is a referee watching your matches and support facilities are a far cry from the spotless grandiosity of Grand Slam venues. Former NCAA champion MacKenzie McDonals, 22, ex-leader of the UCLA team and turned professional at the end of his junior year in 2016, came through qualifying, won his first-round match against Swedish hopeful Elias Ymer and engaged in a long battle with world n.3 Grigor Dimitrov, losing only 8-6 in the fifth after a 3 hours, 25 minutes battle. “Mackie” made a roaring debut on the ATP circuit in 2013, when as a skimpy 18-year-old high school graduate he received a wild card for the qualifying tournament at the Masters 1000 Western&Southern Open in Cincinnati where he defeated then-Top 100 Steve Johnson and Nicolas Mahut to make the main draw and lose 6-1 6-1 to Belgian David Goffin. After a successful college career with the Bruins team where he won the 2016 NCAA title in singles and doubles, McDonald turned pro in June 2016 and after the second round at the Australian Open he will climb in the ranking from the n.186 where he was the week before the tournament to around the 150-mark which will allow him to attempt some incursion into the ATP 250 qualification draws as opposed to the almost Challenger-only scheduling he has had to play so far.
Certainly less unknown but equally unseeded, Ryan Harrison has made a run to the third round in this year’s Australian Open with a 5-set win against Dudi Sela and upsetting seed n.31 Pablo Cuevas from Uruguay before falling to world n.6 Marin Cilic. A teenage sensation in the early years of this decade, Harrison established a few precocity records and took part to the 2012 Olympics in London with the US team before falling into a spiral that almost led him outside the Top 200. In 2016 he started his comeback with some good results during the North-American summer and, after proposing to long-time girlfriend Lauren McHale (sister to WTA player Christina McHale), in 2017 he set up his team with two part-time coaches, Italian ex-pro Davide Sanguinetti and USTA pro Peter Lucassen, winning his first ATP title in February in Memphis. In this 2018 he replaced Lucassen with former player Michael Russel and started the year with a final at the very well-attended ATP 250 Brisbane International and this third round at the Australian Open, projecting him within a few spots of his career-best ranking of 40.
Quite new in his role of “LAMP” (Last American Male Player), Tennys Sandgren is the prototype of the Challenger animal populating the second-tier tournaments around the world and trying to make it to the big stages. His name has Swedish origin, his great-grandfather was from Sweden and he was named after him, and bears no relation to the sport he is playing. “It’s always a weird conversation – he says – I have come to terms with it, I have the mindset that every person I explain my name to is one less person I will have to explain it to in the future. But when I order a sandwich or a coffee I usually pick a normal name like ‘David’ or something like that, I really don’t want to get into the ‘your name is Tennys and you play tennis, how cool’ conversation more than I have to”. He just crept into the top-100 in October 2017 after his name (pun intended) came to the attention of the main tennis fan when he won the USTA Challenge to obtain a wildcard for the French Open (and the attached coveted first-round prize money) and then he repeated himself a few months later to get a wildcard for the US Open, too. In New York he was supposed to play Andy Murray on the first round, but the Scot pulled out and he played Marin Cilic instead on Arthur Ashe Stadium. “It was the biggest stage there is in tennis – he said after defeating Wawrinka on the second round – but this was definitely my biggest match and my biggest win”. After the 4-set win against Marterer that made him the “LAMP” for this Major, his thoughts went to his mother Lia, who coached him from the age of 5 until when he went to college. “She grew up in South Africa and didn’t play till she was in her early 30s. Picked it up, played little league tennis, got passionate about it. She’s a passionate person, when she kind of dives into something, it’s all in. My dad was a more serious player, but he wasn’t as invested in the tennis part. He enjoyed the game, he enjoyed playing. The way I played as a junior wasn’t necessarily out of enjoyment. I was a feisty, more negative version of what you see now. That was kind of a turnoff. My mom stuck it out with me, which I appreciate, she didn’t have to. She had to take a lot of nonsense from me, and she did, helping me grow and learn and improve”.
“I was homeschooled from the fourth grade onwards and I was coached by my mom. There’s a lot of time together. You could say that tensions would build up. We both are pretty stubborn, strong personality. We would butt heads. Ultimately, I wouldn’t change it. We have a great relationship. It worked out, for sure”.
On the women’s side, the medal for the American who has stepped into the limelight must surely go to Lauren Davis, the Cleveland girl who crept into the Top 30 last year but is now back down to n.76, who played an epic 3 hours, 44 minutes classic against world n.1 Simona Halep. Lauren had three consecutive match points when she was leading 11-10 in the final set, but she eventually lost 15-13. “Today I feel I have turned a corner because I showed myself what I’m capable of – said Davis after the match -Throughout my career I have always struggled with being so critical and being hard on myself. So I made a commitment to myself before this tournament that I’m going to be my own best friend and just my greatest supporter, and accept all that God has to give me. I think there is a ton of positives, looking at it, and I’m excited for what the future holds for sure.”
