I'll never forget the 1994 U.S. Open because of a Peruvian tennis player named Jaime Yzaga. My favorite netsman, Pete Sampras, had had a rough year and ended up losing to Yzaga in the fourth round. I was devastated. How could Pete lose to someone I had never heard of before? My friend (and 6th grade crush) Carlos sensed my distress and taunted me with the name Jaime Yzaga for years. (Little did I know that Yzaga also had dealt Pete his first ever U.S. Open loss -- in 1988!)This devastating memory was jogged tonight as I watched Andy Roddick lose rather handily to Paul-Henri Mathieu a mere two days after Roddick won the Legg Mason here in D.C. Mathieu's performance was incredible, culminating in a scrambling point on his serve that ended with Mathieu running down a Roddick volley for a desperate forehand winner. It was amazing.
I like Roddick enough, and I loved Pete Sampras. But I imagine it being infinitely more satisfying to walk onto a tennis court and beat someone who everyone is expecting to kill you than to walk onto a tennis court and fulfill everyone's expectation that you're going to win.
Guaranteed Roddick will come out firing in next week's tournament. No one likes to learn the Yzaga lesson.
2 comments:
I came across your comment about Jaime Yzaga.
I am from Peru and the fact that you had not heard from Yzaga, does not mean that he was not well known. By the way, he was the a Junior French Open Champion, a title that speaks by itself. He had one of the best backhands in the tour and gave a lot of problems to Pete Sampras during his career. I loved (still love) Pete by the way. Tennis is my passion. Take care.
He defeated pretty much everybody with a big name during his career, The only one he could not defeat was Andre Agassi.
Post a Comment