Huan Hsu, who penned an opus about the Ballard girls' team during his stint in Seattle-- and was known to play a mean game of tennis himself at the Greenlake courts-- has surfaced on Slate with a good read about his complicated relationship with Michael Chang.

He won the French Open. He represented the U.S. at the 1992 Olympics. And now Mercer Island's semi-retired tennis pro Michael Chang has been named to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The New York Times reports here. And since our own resident tennis expert Huan Hsu is away on a top secret assignment in China, it's up to us to state the obvious. While Chang, with his 34 tournament wins, may not rank up there with Connors, Ashe, or Sampras, the guy was a breakthrough figure for Asian American athletes. Winning the 1989 French Open at age 17, he showed unbelievable grit and determination on the clay court, wearing down Ivan Lendl (in the quarters) and Stefan Edberg (in the finals) by returning every shot he could and running down every ball. Never mind those stereotypes about dweeby Asian kids on the chess team or math club and their SAT scores. Chang was tough, and a great example to all the kids who have since followed him onto the court.

When I read this New York Times magazine story on Donald Young a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help thinking it was a little premature.  The kid’s only 17, for crying out loud.  I’ll concede that the title, “Prodigy’s End,” is accurate, given that Michael Chang had already won the French Open at the same age.  So Young’s not a prodigy.  But neither was James Blake, or even Andy Roddick, really, who was a flawed player with a howitzer serve before he broke through at the US Open in 2003, when he was 21.  And for all of Chang’s precocity, he never won another Grand Slam.  

So it sort of annoys me that the default assumption about American tennis is that it’s dead.  And since we’re in high tennis season, that idea gets kicked around ad nauseam in the papers.  I don’t know how many more ill-conceived, poorly reasoned, and utterly predictable columns from people who don’t know shit about tennis I can stomach about the dearth of American tennis talent.  The folks who perpetrate these columns start with the assumption that nobody cares about tennis in America.  This, they reason, is because of the lack of household names in American tennis.  And this, they further reason, is because Americans aren’t winning in tennis.  Americans love winners, you see.  Never mind that Venus Williams just won her fourth Wimbledon.  Or that Andy Roddick and James Blake are ranked no. 4 and no. 9, respectively, in the world.  Some people insist on assuming that because they don’t hear about tennis, nobody cares about tennis.  And that because nobody cares about tennis, American tennis must be bad.  The problem with this reasoning isn’t American tennis.  It’s American sports writers.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, much of the Young backlash stems from his (premature, in hindsight) anointment as the next big thing in American tennis.  He turned pro at 14 and ESPN the Magazine (the editorial mission of which seems to be hyping prepubescent athletes) profiled him not long after that.  Some people aren’t happy about the fact that Young’s ranking is built primarily on wild cards—tournament directors have given him spots for which he wouldn’t otherwise get with his ranking.  You can make the argument that he’s getting into these tournaments at the expense of other players, but no one ever accused the wild card system of being fair.  And he doesn’t receive ranking points for just being there.  Though he might have gained entry to the tournaments under questionable terms, he’s earned every ranking point he has.  In April, he won his first professional event, a third-tier event in Little Rock, Ark. In May, he reached his first final in a second-tier pro event in Carson, Calif.

But again, he’s only 17.  That’s why I was gratified to see Donald Young, bearer of both a nation’s collective expectations and resentment on his still-slight shoulders, win the Wimbledon boys’ crown this past weekend.  Young, seeded no. 3 in the draw, defeated no. 1 seed Vladmir Ignatik of Belarus, 7-5, 6-1.  With the win, Young reminded all of us that the jury’s still out on him. Incidentally, Young had the highest pro ranking (currently 291) of any of his fellow competitors, many of whom, like Young are either pro or play pro events.  I wonder if in Belarus there’s some newspaper story about the end of the 16-year-old Ignatik’s chance to be a prodigy.  

The win puts Young, a former Aussie junior Open champ and US junior Open doubles titlist, into some impressive company.  Former Wimbledon junior champions include Hall of Famers Stefan Edberg, Bjorn Borg, and Ivan Lendl.  Current tour players with Wimbledon junior titles include world no. 83 Nicolas Mahut, no. 57 Gael Monfils, no. 30 Jurgen Melzer, and some guy named Roger Federer.  

(On a cautionary note, the last American to win a Wimbledon boys’ championship was Scott Humphries in 1994.  Who’s Scott Humphries?  Coming out of Florida’s Palmer Academy, he was once heralded as the future of American tennis.  He turned pro after a year at Stanford, topped out at no. 260 in 1996, before becoming something of a doubles specialist and finished with $630,000 in career earnings.  He now helps coach American Mardy Fish.)

The moral of the story?  Donald Young probably isn’t the second coming of John McEnroe.  But it’s still way too early to write him—or American tennis—off.

Apparently, Venus Williams didn't get the memo about American tennis being dead. The 23rd-seeded American rolled over world no. 6 Ana Ivanovic in straight sets to reach her fourth sixth Wimbledon final (she's never lost when playing in the finals). And thanks to Marion Bartoli's stunning upset of top seed Justin Henin in the opposing semi, Williams is all but guaranteed her fourth Wimbledon title. Who's Marion Bartoli? She's short, French, plays two-handed off both wings, and while she's both ranked and seeded higher than Williams, she doesn't have any weapons that are going to hurt the American. And with Williams locked in on her forehand, the shot that goes first when she unravels in big matches, tomorrow's ladies' final is a mere formality.

As for the American men, everything was holding form until about an hour ago. Andy Roddick was two sets up on Richard Gasquet and looked like he was about to punch his ticket to a semifinal royal rumble with Roger Federer.  He's since dropped two tiebreakers to the talented Frenchman and is currently mired in a fifth set dogfight. Hopefully Rocket pulls it out because Roddick-Federer on grass would be some major fireworks.

Update--Roddick falls 8-6 in the fifth. Damn you, former world junior champion turned mercurial pro. Gasquet poses no challenge to Federer. Look for Federer-Nadal part two on Sunday.

 

(Apologies for the boring title, but at this week’s editorial meeting we were told to seed our blog titles with names because it helps increase traffic to our site.  Something about Google hits.  If I’m not mistaken, this is the same tactic that some folks use to redirect unsuspecting Web surfers to porn sites.  So goodbye clever puns; hello staid lists of proper nouns.)

For all the hand wringing over the state of American tennis, the British are in far worse shape.  Sportswriters made much ado about the abject failure of the American men at the French Open (all nine failed win a match in the main draw), but by day two of singles play at Wimbledon, six of the seven British men have been sent packing, as well as four of the five women.  It would have been a skunking for the Kingdom’s men had it not been for Tim Henman’s heroic five set (13-11 in the fifth set) win over Carlos Moya, completed over two days.  At least the Americans had the excuse of literally losing on foreign soil at the French.  To be fair, British no. 1 Andy Murray is sitting out the All-England Championships with a wrist injury, and no one, not even the British, grows up playing extensively on grass courts anymore, but I can pretty much guarantee you that the Americans will do just fine this fall at their own country’s championships, the U.S. Open.