NEW YORK—Tennis needs contrasts in styles and personalities, we're often told, and that's just what we got on the Grandstand today. While they’re about the same height and were sporting the same black ponytails, it was hard to imagine two players whose approaches to the game differed more than Marion Bartoli’s and Christina McHale’s.
On one side of the court, in between points, Bartoli was executing the following extended ritual: Turn around, bob and weave like a boxer, do deep knee bend, get back up and do sneaker-squeaking split-step, turn back around, bob and weave a little more, finish with not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, but seven fist-pumps. Plus a thigh slap, can’t forget the thigh slap; one time the French eccentric was so agitated that she slapped her right thigh with her right hand, and then reached over and slapped it again, harder, with her left hand: “Bad thigh.” No wonder Bartoli was having trouble running by the end of the first set.
On the other side you of the net you had 19-year-old Christina McHale of New Jersey. What was she doing? Not a lot. Even after she lost a tough rally, the most we got from McHale was a quick turn, an index finger quickly pointed toward her towel in the corner, and a couple of polite words to the ball kid. McHale is low-key; you might even call her no key. She would be a normal person in any other walk of life, but in the age of the grunt and the fist-pump and the “Vamos!”, McHale is an oasis of reserve on a tennis court. Watching Bartoli do her calisthenics, I started to think, “Come on, Christina, do something, stop being so lazy!”
But it was McHale, after an unsure start, who grew stronger, and seemingly faster, as the match wore on. Afterward, Bartoli said that she was most impressed with McHale’s movement, and McHale herself agreed that that’s her strongest suit. But I was more impressed with her understated perseverance, especially when it looked like she was going to go down 1-4 in the second set. McHale saved two break points and won that game with a smooth kick serve out wide that forced Bartoli to hit from above her head. It didn’t appear to be a crucial moment, but when McHale broke in the next game and found her footing after that, it was clear that it was. It was a big day for the local girl—Grandstand crowd, No. 8 seed as an opponent, natiional TV audience—and her nerves could easily have gotten the best of her, but her natural calm amid the storm served her well.
McHale was asked about how she held nerves together, especially when she went up in the second set and could start to see the finish line. Her answer was exceptionally teenage, but it also revealed a willful streak beneath the shy exterior.
“Yeah,” McHale said, “I knew that, like, I had to try. I had to try and compete really hard in the second set because she was going to try even harder.”
McHale has learned about desperate opponents the hard way. This spring she led Sara Errani 5-0 in the third set at the French Open before losing 9-7 and breaking down in tears. She said then that she had “panicked”; today McHale said that that match had taught her an important lesson: “That was a really, really tough loss for me,” she said, smiling slightly at the terrible memory, “but I think it’s helped me learn to close out matches earlier.”
Every tennis player wants to close out matches as soon as possible, of course. Every tennis player tells herself to focus, to “Come on!”, to try harder. But you get the feeling that McHale has the ability and the even-keel demeanor to make her desires and intentions into reality, to put theory into practice. She knew, today, that she couldn’t let Bartoli hang around. She knew she couldn’t panic again. So she gave herself a little spark with a rare fist-pump in the middle of the second set and won going away.
Dogged grinding, both the physical and the mental kind, is a big part of the McHale game, but there’s more to enjoy about it. She has deceptive pop on her serve—her hardest deliveries clocked in around 110 today. And she plays within herself; when she gets a short ball, she places it rather than belting it. She learns on the job; after that slow start, McHale eventually found Bartoli’s weakness—her side-to-side court coverage—and exploited it with crosscourt-down the line combinations.
McHale has close-to-textbook strokes that don’t appear like they would break down under stress easily, and she’s not one-dimensional—she’ll follow a flat first serve with a kick, and a low slice backhand with a high, looping forehand. She’s a counterpuncher by nature—think Caroline Wozniacki or Lleyton Hewitt—with good returns and passing shots, but like those players she’s not good at punishing short balls or generating her own pace. But that can be a blessing in disguise, because it keeps her from being reckless. She knows she can’t win a point with one shot.
By the time McHale walked into the press room afterward, the dreaded word—“Oudin”—was already in the air, and reporters were already asking her if she had “any idea what this ride was going to be like going forward now?” (McHale’s answer: “No.”) Have we found the next Oudin, and is that a good thing for Christina McHale?
Like Oudin was two years ago, McHale is an appealingly innocent figure. She talked today about how excited she was to get “Rafa’s autograph” the first time she came to the Open. She’s as reserved off the court as she is on it, and she may not translate as “America’s sweetheart” the way Oudin, the blonde, “come on!”-yelling, Georgia girl, did. And as for McHale's game and its future, who knows. She doesn’t have the explosive power that wins Grand Slams, but she seems to be a thinker and a no-nonsense competitor. Many tennis fans will like her simply because she doesn’t make a sound when she hits the ball.
The ride starts now. McHale faces Maria Kirilenko, a similar type of grinder, next, and would likely get Sam Stosur after that. That’s the future. Today, on match point, as Bartoli jumped up and down and took two more huge practice swings for the road, McHale, the woman who doesn’t win points with one shot, did just that, with an ace up the middle. She closed the way she wanted to—fast and early—and she closed like a star.