Storming the net with the purpose of a sprinter steps from the finish line, McNeil made history with her forward-thinking attack. The 30-year-old American snapped Graf’s 21-match Wimbledon winning streak, as the five-time winner became the first defending champion to fall in the first round in Grand Slam history.
The daughter of former San Diego Charger Charlie McNeil, Lori grew up rushing the net on public park courts in Houston. She grew into an accomplished grass-court player skilled at plugging the passing lanes and blocking angled volley winners. Four of McNeil’s 10 career singles titles came on turf, including the Wimbledon tune-up tournament in Birmingham weeks earlier, where she beat childhood friend and 1990 Wimbledon finalist Zina Garrison to successfully defend her title. Playing by today’s 32-seed rules, McNeil would have been seeded, but in ’94 the draw featured 16 seeds, making McNeil a dangerous floater—and a road block in Graf’s quest to win her sixth Wimbledon.
These two had a history, and one memory had to be unsettling for Graf. Two years earlier, McNeil upset the second-ranked German, 7-6 (1), 6-4 on carpet in the opening round of the season-ending championships. That match marked Graf’s earliest exit in 100 tournaments and gave McNeil both the confidence and the game plan vital to pulling off this Wimbledon stunner. Given her opponent’s expertise on lawn, high percentage-play, and smooth touch around net, at least one expert—Graf herself—suggested the outcome wasn’t a huge surprise.
“It's not that big of an upset because of who I lost to," said Graf, who had won eight of their prior nine meetings, though four of those matches went the distance. "It's very disappointing, and obviously it didn't help me that it started raining, but we both had to play the conditions, and she played better than me; that was obvious."
On a drizzly day, conditions played a part in building plot suspense: A pair of rain delays meant McNeil had plenty of time to ponder the upset she was orchestrating. But she mastered the mind game and remained committed to her imposing game plan of continuously forcing Graf to try to produce challenging passes off her weaker wing. After an hour-long rain delay, play resumed with the match deadlocked at 5-all. Graf double faulted on set point to hand McNeil the lead.
"You can't focus on the conditions, you just have to watch the ball that much more," McNeil said. "I was making the right choices, the right decisions, and that consumed my thoughts the whole match."
Time and time again, an aggressive McNeil slid low approach shots into the backhand side, coaxing Graf, who seldom hit her topspin backhand, into flat-lining her one-handed slice into net.
"It was a big part of my strategy to make her pass me off the backhand," said McNeil, who played with a pink over-grip wrapped around her Prince racquet, and looked like she could stick her one-handed backhand anywhere she wanted, including a wondrous lob winner she hits seconds into the video above.
Graf led 4-2 in the second set, but McNeil broke when the German served to force a decider. McNeil then converted her third match point with a forehand volley to wrap up a confident one-hour, 43-minute victory and avenge her three-set U.S. Open semifinal loss to the world No. 1 seven years earlier.
It marked the second time a Houstonian haunted Graf on Centre Court. Graf’s last loss at The Championships was a three-set 1990 semifinal defeat to Garrison, McNeil’s frequent practice partner and sometime doubles teammate. McNeil went on to reach the 1994 semifinals, losing to eventual champion Conchita Martinez, 3-6, 6-4, 10-8. In her near two-decade career, McNeil won more than 1,000 matches combined—436 singles matches and 605 doubles matches—capturing 33 doubles titles with partners ranging from Jana Novotna to Martina Navratilova to Amanda Coetzer, whom McNeil coached.
No. 5: Dokic d. Hingis, 1999
No. 4: Karlovic d. Hewitt, 2003
No. 3: McNeil d. Graf, 1994
No. 2: Bastl d. Sampras, 2002
No. 1: Doohan d. Becker, 1987
