What is it with these American players -- let them play a Grand Slam on their home turf and they feel like they don't have to show up on time? Last year I watched Mikael Tillstrom spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for first round opponent Jeff Salzenstein to arrive. On Monday, it was a Yugoslavian qualifier named Sandra Nacuk sitting alone on court for at least 10 minutes. I didn't time it, but it was long enough that Annie Miller would have been flirting with a default if she didn't have a good excuse. There must have been a logistical mix-up of some kind. It's not as if Miller was stuck in traffic -- I'd seen her out practicing a mere two hours earlier.
I still have no idea what caused the delay. Perhaps Miller needed extra time to choose her outfit, which -- if you're interested in such things -- was a snazzy, black, sleveless number. Her play early on was worth the wait. Miller won the toss, elected to serve, and held at love with a swinging volley forehand winner. This inspired a big round of applause from a cluster of Miller supporters up in one corner of the stands. Annie looked up at her backers, smiled broadly, and happily told them to "chill."
"Did you see that serve?", Miller asked the umpire early in Game 2. It actually sounded like an honest inquiry, not a dispute. At any rate, Nacuk rallied from down 15-40 to hold for 1-1. With the rather squat kind of body you often see on players forever stuck in the qualifying/challenger ranks, Nacuk at least appeared to have some pop on her serve. She was outclassed from the ground, however, and Miller easily held for 2-1. The American darted in to knock off a backhand winner in breaking for 3-1, pumping her fist after the ball landed in.
Miller nearly ended up in the stands in Game 5, chasing a shot all the way to the sideline fence. Nacuk eventually broke to get back on serve at 3-2. Miller fished a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and tried them on. Meanwhile, the court attendent made a phone call, asserting "we need cups on 6" just as a ball girl located an entire stack of paper cups. Such is the disorganized nature of Day One at the U.S. Open. Particuarly early in the day, scoreboards were malfunctioning. Even the IBM Match Update Center went haywire for a while, erroneously reporting -- among other things -- that Schnyder and Thomas Muster had lost their respective first sets.
Sometime during that changeover, Miller decided to go without the shades. It seems she didn't need them -- on break point, Miller used a series of penetrating backhands to set up a vicious forehand winner. She then fought off a break point in holding for a 5-2 lead. The difference was just one break at that juncture, but the Michigan native wasn't about to let her little known opponent get back in the set. A big forehand return at 30-40 was barely touched by Nacuk, who thereby lost the set 6 games to 2. Miller was playing crisp, efficient tennis and -- for a change -- not berating herself about errors.
Court 6 was a good place to soak in some of the atmosphere from Court 7, which became engulfed in word-of-mouth buzz and fan fervor after Bob Bryan (of the charismatic young Bryan twins -- he's the lefty with the better singles credentials) got into a fifth set against Marcos Ondruska, after trailing two sets to zip. While rhythmic clapping took hold over there, Miller picked up a love break and spanked a forehand winner to hold for 6-2, 2-1. She and Nacuk exchanged easy holds for 3-2. Nacuk had to work for 3-3, while Miller held at love with a service winner for 4-3.
From deuce in Game 8, Miller forced Nacuk to hit off-balance backhands to end two consecutive points. The first landed wide, the second found the net, and Miller now had a solid 6-2, 5-3 lead to work with. Nacuk never threw in the towel -- she earned a 0-30 edge in Game 9 -- but Miller was the better player on this day. She took three consecutive points for 40-30. On match point, Miller skied a moonball. Sandra backed up, took aim with a backhand, and sent it wide.
Annie Miller shot an almost embarrassed smile at her supporters before shaking hands with Nacuk. She hung around for quite a while after the 6-2, 6-3 win, chatting with the people she'd told to chill, along with a few other well-wishers who crossed her path. She signed a few autographs for kids who asked her the classic random-autograph-hunting question, "are you a player?" She even posed for a picture with two of them, crouching down to get in the frame. "Am I in it?" she asked. "I mean, are we all in? If I'm in doesn't matter." What Annie's definitely in is the second round, where she's due to face another qualifier, Evgenia Koulikovskaya.