McHale Showing Promise

Back in 2009, Melanie Oudin made a memorable, improbable run to the U.S. Open quarterfinals, making a ton of fans along the way — myself included. Hungry for the next young American male or female player, I was eager to follow her career. Since that breakthrough four years ago, she's not been past the second round of a major.

The situation has been somewhat similar with American Christina McHale. McHale reached the third round of the 2011 U.S. Open, and the next year, she played pretty well in majors and got to the fourth round at Indian Wells. But starting late in 2012, she essentially just stopped winning matches. It seemed like another young American had risen and then quickly fallen, barely to be heard from again.

McHale, as it turned out, had mono last year, and after struggling for a full year, she has finally turned it around. I caught the end of her first-round match in New York last month when she beat Julie Goerges impressively. She nearly beat Ana Ivanovic in the third round, and Ivanovic went on to push runner-up Victoria Azarenka to the limit in the fourth round.

McHale has continued her resurgence in Quebec this week, with a pair of victories. On Wednesday she beat Caroline Garcia in three tough sets, recovering from a first-set loss to pull out a tight second-set tiebreaker. She has a legitimate chance of winning this tournament.

While Sloane Stephens is the undisputed most promising young American, and Madison Keys seems to have a high ceiling, McHale could become a factor again.

Agassi made people care

It was great to see Andre Agassi inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame over the weekend, not only because he deserved it, but because Agassi was always a special player to me.

In fact, Agassi was my first “favorite” tennis player. I can remember watching the young showman on TV playing in Boston when I was a kid, and I rooted for him in almost every match he played for the rest of his career (as a journalist who covered James Blake in from 2002-06, I rooted for Blake in his epic U.S. Open quarterfinal match against Agassi).

Agassi, to me, was like one of my favorite pro sports teams. I lived and died with his matches in the grand slams. When he won Wimbledon, his first major, I was with my family en route to Virginia, where we were going to spend a week with my uncle and his family. We arrived at their house just in time to see match point, and I recall thinking about that much often on our drive. Like Mary Carillo said, no tennis player could make people care about them as much as Agassi.

No player could possibly have provided more ups and downs to his fans than Agassi, which made the victories that much more rewarding. The French Open losses to Gomez and Courier were excruciating; so, later in his career, were the Wimbledon losses to Rafter and Sampras. But what makes the connection with Agassi so interesting is that the flashy, charismatic young guy was the one I first became a huge fan of, but it was the driven, focused, methodical, stoic punisher who I appreciated far more. There will never be another guy quite like him, and it was a pleasure to have been along for the ride.

Wozniacki's strategy lacks common sense

Two well-known players — Caroline Wozniacki and Tommy Haas — had to retire from their matches on Wednesday. I like both players, but my reactions to the two injuries were quite different.

In the case of Haas, I felt bad. Haas is a talented and charismatic guy who has had to work very hard to return to the game on multiple occasions. He finally won his first match of 2011 earlier this week in Newport, R.I., but then had to retire from his second-round match with a back injury. At his age (33, advanced for pro tennis), I admire his determination to return; many players would have called it a career after suffering through significant injuries this late in their career. I hope Haas's setback is minor and temporary.

In the case of Wozniacki, who injured her shoulder, I feel a bit exasperated. She's the No. 1 player in the world — she doesn't need to play so much. Why on earth is the top-ranked player competing in a tournament the very week after Wimbledon? Following a rigorous spring and early summer that includes the long claycourt season followed by a month on grass, and highlighted by two Grand Slam events that are physically and emotionally draining, the top players almost always take at least a week off. Roger Federer generally plays only two events between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Among the top 20 women, Wozniacki is the only one who entered a tournament this week.

And to make it even more puzzling, Wozniacki played a tournament on clay! Why? The claycourt season is over. Wozniacki is still chasing her first major title, and her next opportunity is the U.S. Open in about six weeks. Shouldn't her focus be on preparing for the fast hardcourts of New York instead of sliding around on European clay against inferior opponents? It just seems that a week or two off to recharge her batteries, followed by a a few U.S. Open Series tuneups, would be the best strategy. Now, you have to wonder if her injury will shorten her hardcourt season.

It may be foolish of me to question the preparation of the No. 1 player in the world, but playing in a tournament that seems to do nothing for her U.S. Open prospects strikes me as curious. It makes me wonder if holding on to the No. 1 ranking is more of a priority than winning a major. And let's face it — the time is right for Wozniacki to break through. Kim Clijsters is hurt. The Williams sisters have barely played. Li Na and Petra Kvitova have capitalized on the wise-open nature of women's tennis to win their first majors. Wozniacki could be next. She may need a better plan for making that happen.

Djokovic deservedly feted by home fans

This is really cool. Novak Djokovic has been through a whole lot of ups and downs to get to the top of the tennis world, and it just so happened that his Wimbledon title and hurdle-clearing victory over top-ranked Rafael Nadal coincided with his ascent to the No. 1 ranking. This reception in Serbia that honored him for his Wimbledon title resembled a parade for a championship-winning team in a major U.S. sport (if only tennis were so popular here).

Djokovic deserves to bask in this for a while. And I'll be very interested to see if he refocuses and has a big hardcourt season. As I mentioned here yesterday, he has a chance to leave behind an impressive legacy with one of the greatest seasons in men's tennis history. I already can't wait for the second week of the U.S. Open.

Last chance for Blake?

I realize the big news of the day in tennis is Novak Djokovic's undeniable rise to the top of the tennis world with his four-set victory over Rafael Nadal Sunday at Wimbledon. Finally, there is no longer any doubt that Djokovic is the best player in tennis. He’s won two majors this year, a number that exceeds the amount of matches he's lost in 2011. He has a chance to put together the best year by a tennis player this generation, surpassing anything accomplished by Nadal or Roger Federer.

But as someone who covered tennis in Fairfield County for several years, I was especially intrigued to hear that James Blake, of Fairfield, Conn., won a challenger event in suburban Chicago yesterday.

Blake is a former top-five player with some noteworthy career highlights, but he’s 31 and his best tennis is clearly behind him. However, the question for the last couple of years has been, can he rediscover some of that old magic and become relevant again? Due to injuries and minimal success, his ranking has plummeted and his confidence has suffered.

These next two months have always been the best part of Blake’s year. He excels on the hardcourts and has played some of his best tennis at the U.S. Open. His recent success in the challengers leaves him ranked No. 88 in the world, and a strong summer would give him a chance to get that ranking high enough to enable him to get straight into main draws again.

If he doesn’t play well this summer, it will be very difficult for Blake — who nearly upset Marcos Baghdatis in five sets at Wimbledon two weeks ago — to mount any sort of rally again. He’ll be 32 next year, and in time, wild cards will be less available to him. Does he want to play challengers and try to qualify for main draws into his mid-30s? It’s probably unlikely.

I certainly hope he can win some matches this summer and revive his career. He’s a stand-up guy who’s fun to watch when he’s playing well, with his electrifying speed and go-for-broke style that can be maddening and exhilarating (all in the same match). I’ll be watching his progress this summer with great interest.

Biggest match of Djokovic's career

Sunday's Wimbledon men's final is a much bigger deal to Novak Djokovic than Rafael Nadal. Djokovic will become the No. 1 player in the world on Monday regardless of the outcome of Sunday's match, and he's had a record-setting year. But he's never beaten Nadal or Roger Federer in a final, and he can truly justify that No. 1 ranking with a victory Sunday.

Nadal, meanwhile, has a truckload of Grand Slam titles. The pressure is off him. Djokovic has to win to validate his ranking and his year. Sure, he beat Andy Murray in the Australian Open final, and he's won a lot of matches since then. But he was beaten by Federer in the French semifinals, and he was fortunate enough to avoid Federer at Wimbledon. He can truly position himself as the best player in the world with a victory Sunday. If he loses, doubts will continue to follow him. Does he truly belong in the rarefied air inhabited by Nadal and Federer? We'll learn on Sunday.

Help me, Petra Kvitova, you're my only hope

The advantage to a blog versus writing in a newspaper is that I can write things like this: I don’t like Maria Sharapova. Plain and simple. She annoys the crap out of me. Therefore, I’ll be rooting for Petra Kvitova in Saturday’s Wimbledon final.

What do I dislike about Sharapova? Her I’m-violently-plunging-a-knife-into-another-human screams (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LawWhZcmV0) every time she hits the tennis ball are a great place to start. It’s almost unwatchable at times. I’m afraid to have the volume on Saturday for fear of terrifying my 14-month-old daughter. No living thing should make noises like that unless under severe duress, yet she does it when she hits a ball with a racket. Second, yelling “Come on!” after nearly every point, even opponent errors, is obnoxious and disrespectful. There are other, less tangible things that bother me about her (sense of entitlement, perhaps?), but the bottom line is, the next time I root for her in a tennis match will be the first.

Kvitova has the type of game that can challenge Sharapova on grass. So does Sabine Lisicki, but perhaps the moment of today’s Grand Slam semifinal was too much for the German in her 6-4, 6-3 loss to Sharapova. Kvitova is playing in her first final, so she may be awed by the occasion. But she’s clearly on the rise. At 21, she’s reached a career-high ranking of No. 8, and in her last five Grand Slam events, she’s reached a final (this one), a semifinal (2010 Wimbledon), a quarterfinal (2011 Australian) and the fourth round (2011 French). She’s made five finals this year — on three different surfaces — and won three of those. On Thursday, she rebounded after dropping the second set to decisively close out a very tough player in Victoria Azarenka. She’s a good player with a tough serve. She could win on Saturday.

I, for one, hope she does.