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Chang's time has passed
Posted: Friday September 03, 1999 09:23 PM
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated NEW YORK -- Is there a sight in tennis sadder than a former champ slouching toward emeritus status, swinging wildly to ward off the assault of time? Thursday night, Arthur Ashe Stadium was the scene of the unsightly demise of Michael Chang. He took pains to blame his loss on nagging injuries, conditions, faltering confidence -- fleeting factors that implicitly could be extinguished as easily and quickly as they flared up. But to everyone else in the stadium, the writing on the wall was never more legible: time to call it a career. Chang's descent has been a slow burn. At this event two years ago, Pete Sampras was felled in the fourth round and Chang was instantly deemed the favorite. Had he won the Open, he would have taken over the No. 1 ranking and, more important, proved he was no one-Slam wonder. Alas, the fates had written another script and he lost to Pat Rafter in three quick and easy sets. The match could have been a defining point for his career. When Chang lost, quite simply, he never recovered. "Michael always takes his losses kind of rough, but that one ..." says his brother and coach, Carl, his voice trailing off. "Whoosh." Instead of burnishing his career with the No. 1 ranking, Chang commenced an aimless meandering in tennis' desert, coming up with mouthfuls of sand, not manna. His ranking has dropped precipitously to No. 62, and in order to regain his confidence, which has slipped to subterranean levels, he even deigned to play a satellite event this year. Alas, he lost that one, too. Thursday night, as the showcase performer on the stadium court -- see what happens when Sampras, Rafter and Anna Kournikova evaporate from the draw? -- he took on unremarkable Frenchman Arnaud Clement. This was just the type of opponent Chang could carve to pieces in his prime. But in the final Slam of this, his annus horribilis, Chang looked utterly confused. He missed scads routine balls, showed little confidence at the net, and played with all the passion of a Little League rightfielder. When he walked off the court after getting his hat handed to him, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4, the crowd applauded less for his effort than for a lingering sense they may never see him again. "I had some chances and I was unable to convert," he said afterwards. "That was pretty much the big difference there." For all his recent disappointments, his career has a curious arc. Under ordinary circumstances, a player who wins a Grand Slam at 17 and never re-enters the winner's circle is a flameout. With Chang it was different. Given his physical deficiencies and his lack of power, his ability to take up long-term residence in the top 10 and win dozens of titles made him a standard-bearer for overachievement. On guts, on grit and on guile, he "toughed out" matches, as he liked to say, mastering opponents who, on paper anyway, should have cleaned his clock. Now after a decade on tour, his intangibles have waned and the power differential he once overcame is now painfully pronounced. Clement, who stands just 5'8" himself, looked like a regular banger against Chang's backdrop. "It was clear I didn't have as much pace on my serve as he did," Chang conceded. "He was consistently in 120s on his serve." The game may be bidding him farewell, but fittingly, Chang is "toughing it out," hardly going quietly into the night. When an interrogator hinted about his insecure future, Chang quickly noted that after taking a few weeks off he was headed to play events in Shanghai and Singapore. "I don't really look at things as being setbacks anymore," he said. "All I can hope is for things to get better from here on out." For a minute, it sounded as though he actually believed it. Open volleys Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski's recollections of cherubic nine-year-old Justin Gimelstob, then a patron at the coach's hoops camp: "He didn't listen to instructions real well. Every time we started basketball stations, he had a tennis racquet in his hand. He was a little hyper, but it was a good hyper." ... The U.S. Open's projected revenue from this year is $130 million, up nearly $40 million from just four years ago. See what a gargantuan stadium and $7 smoothies get you? ... Anyone else notice that all four men's semifinalists from last year -- Sampras, Carlos Moya, Mark Philippoussis and Rafter -- have bowed out of this year's event with injuries? ... In antipcipation of his third-round match against hard-serving lefty Greg Rusedski, American Chris Woodruff has recruited John McEnroe as a hitting partner. ... Shame on the quintessentially New York fans who booed Rafter when he called it quits against Cedric Pioline in the fifth set. Rafter, it turned out, suffered a partial tear of his rotator cuff, an injury that has ended the career of countless baseball players. ... When Hicham Arazi beat Fernando Vicente in four sets Friday, it meant that none of the dozen Spanish players in the draw advanced passed the second round. Think they're psyched about next year's "points race," which will weight hard-court events more heavily than clay? ... The highest seed left in Gustavo Kuerten's quarter -- other than himself -- is No. 14 Tommy Haas. ... Wayne Arthurs complaining about the pinpoint returns of fellow Australian Lleyton Hewitt, who beat him in four sets Thursday. "He gets everything back, the little bastard." ... Today's celebrity prognosticator is rapper/entrepreneur Master P.: "It's an all-Williams final."
Jon Wertheim is a Sports Illustrated staff writer.
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