Metaphorical, wasn’t it, as Andy Roddick limped off court, having waved the white flag after going down two sets to one to Lleyton Hewitt and grimacing through several games with a hamstring injury.
How gimpy was the overall U.S. performance at this opening Grand Slam of the season? When the day was done, John Isner was beaten as well, leaving no American men in the round of 16 since the beginning of the Open Era of tennis in 1968.
Gone: Roddick in the second round with yet another injury as he marches, or rather hobbles, toward his 30th birthday.
Gone: No. 8 ranked Mardy Fish, down in straights to Colombia’s Alejandro Falla in the second round.
Gone: Isner, beaten 6-1 in the fifth set by lefty ace-serving Feliciano Lopez in the third round.
And the rest of the U.S. cast of characters are gone as well: Ryan Sweeting, though he looks as if he might have a very good year, young Ryan Harrison, Michael Russell, Donald Young, Jesse Levine, and qualifiers Denis Kudla and Alex Kuznetsov.
On the women’s side, only two of 10 U.S. players remain in the draw — Serena Williams and, surprisingly, Vania King.
This was the start of what was hoped would be a breakthrough year for a number of young American women, and one might argue that 19-year-old Christina McHale, her ranking already at No. 43, had her breakthrough in 2011.
But she was thumped out of the Aussie Open in the third round by No. 13 seed Jelena Jankovic by 6-2, 6-0 with an extremely disappointing performance.
There are other young Americans from whom more is expected by the very heavily funded USTA development program — Madison Keys, 16; Sloane Stephens, 18, Irina Falconi and Alison Riske, both 21; and Jamie Hampton, 22. And for most of them their losses shouldn’t be seen as total failures. They are evolving players who should get better. Still, U.S. tennis fans can be impatient and the toe tapping is well under way for most of this young talent.
Let’s go back a week. The U.S. had just six men players in the Australian Open qualifying tournament, and that alone speaks to disappearing depth. Kudla and Kuznetsov qualified with Denis losing in five to the soon-to-be-retired Tommy Haas in the main draw while Alex drew No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal and went down quickly in three.
The other four in the qualifying produced just two wins, both by Tim Smyczek, who was beaten in the final round in a quest for a main draw spot. Robby Ginepri, Michael Yani and Rajeev Ram? All down in straight sets in the opening round.
On the women’s side, there were 12 in the qualifying with Riske, Hampton and Varvara Lepchenko going through. Only Hampton won a main draw round, beating career minor leaguer Mandy Minella of Luxembourg and then getting blasted 6-0, 6-1 by Maria Sharapova. No great shame in losing there, but the USTA had hoped for a lot more fight than she delivered.
Serena is doing what was expected and, though she’s a longshot to win the tournament because of her succession of injuries, she’ll almost certainly make the second week. King, who turns 23 on Feb. 3, has been a slow developer and, though she upset No. 15 seed Anastasia Pavlyochenkova in the second round, she won’t be favored to get by Ana Ivanovic in the third.
That would leave just one U.S. player out of a total of 22 entered in the main draws.
So what do you deduce? To begin with, it’s not a good start to the year. Last year, Roddick, because of injury, played the fewest matches since his first full-time season, and if this hamstring injury has indeed been lingering since December, that’s not a good signal of his recuperative abilities at age 29.
Mardy Fish? It has been a good year and a half since he became the svelte Mardy and he’s run up an excellent won-lost record and achieved top-10 status. But his performances in the Slams are largely disappointing. There was a quarterfinal finish at Wimbledon last year, where he beat Tomas Berdych and lost to Nadal, and who knows how far he might have gone with a cozier draw. But he was out in the second round of the 2011 Aussie Open (Tommy Robredo) and round of 16 at the U.S. Open (Jo-Wilfried Tsonga). Tough opponents, yes. But still . . . Big players score big results in big moments.
Isner? Two five-setters in a row was devastating. I think he can reach top-10.
Is there another top-10 talent out there on the U.S. women’s side? McHale is the best of the young Americans right now, but I still don’t see elite talent there. Keys is the X factor. She got slapped down pretty hard by Jie Zheng in the opening round (6-2, 6-1), scoring only 35 points in 15 games. But she’s only 16! We still have to see how she holds up physically with an intensified tournament schedule.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com