Tennys Sandgren vs. Thiago Monteiro in the first round of the 2021 Indian Wells Masters. After about an hour and a half of play, Sandgren steps to the baseline to serve for the match at 6-4, 5-3.
It’s a blessing, serving for a match. Unless your serve is as bad as mine, the win should be yours if you hit the corners of the service box. Where would a professional tennis player rather be? Money, ranking points, and dopamine are within reach. Best of all, whether or not they get it depends more on them than their opponent (most of the time, at least. See any nervous player against Djokovic, Novak).
But serving for a match can also be a curse — if it goes badly, that is. In the space of two minutes, from victory is at hand it’s I just choked. I just choked, I’ve lost the momentum, and I might not get another chance to complete what I just failed to do. A game of tennis can be over in four points, so, yeah, the margins aren’t that big unless it’s a 6-0, 5-0 situation.
In the case of Sandgren and Monteiro, the 6-4, 5-3 game most definitely did not last four points. Monteiro went up love-30 — sort of a cruel hope, enough of a lead to glimpse the daylight of an even second set, but not enough that one would expect the server to lose the game. As if to prove the point, Sandgren advanced to match point, 40-30, only to flub an easy forehand.
Tennys Sandgren is Tennys Sandgren. He’s ranked 102nd in the world. A flurry of his tweets reeking of the alt-right were deleted in early 2018. In that year and 2020, he made the Australian Open quarterfinals. In the 2020 match against a hobbled Roger Federer — the biggest of his life — he found a way to bungle seven match points and lost in five sets. It’s probably what he’ll be remembered for most on-court.
Thiago Monteiro is a slightly different story. Ranked 10 spots higher than Sandgren, he’s a young guy who’s no longer young at 27. He’s not been past the third round at any major. More of his career is left than of Sandgren’s, but the lack of significant improvement over the past years doesn’t bode beautifully for those to come. He’ll hope that unlike Sandgren, his legacy is yet to be built, but this isn’t a sure thing at all.
None of this was relevant as this game raged on, though. Rankings might as well be dust at 6-4, 5-3 and deuce, with one player two points from advancing and the other two points from a momentum shift that could end up being meaningless or pivotal. It’s all about point-by-point play in this phase; every serve, return, rally shot could prove fatal in the game if executed incorrectly. Sandgren clubbed an ace to reach match point, only to blow another simple forehand. Monteiro nailed a couple on-the-run passing shots — impressive strokes under any circumstances, but delightful ones under that amount of pressure — but couldn’t convert break point. In this push-pull manner the game continued, going past 10 minutes.
On yet another deuce, Sandgren won an exhausting rally. It was immediately clear that momentum had swung beyond just the result of a point. Monteiro had hit several solid groundstrokes to no avail, energy wasted in the ruthless world of tennis when you do not win the point. He may not have been demoralized, but Sandgren was energized. He fired an ace out wide to seal the match. Had you not seen the last game, the way he emphatically whacked the ball into the stands in celebration would have belied the innocent 6-4, 6-3 scoreline. Relief at the end of such a pivotal game is elating.
Sandgren plays 21st seed Cam Norrie next, who’s coming off a final appearance in San Diego. Sandgren will probably lose to the tricky lefty. That final game will prove nothing more than a momentary satisfaction, a deep breath of air after a stifling few minutes.
But nothing is a certainty in tennis, so players give games that could be final or not final their all just the same.