U.S. Open Championship Tennis: On the Comeback Trail

Molla Mallory, 1926

Norwegian Molla Mallory won the singles title at the U.S. Championships eight times in 15 attempts. The last of those titles was in 1926 at the age of 42.

Although Mallory had won an Olympic bronze medal in 1912, she was relatively unknown when she arrived in New York for the first time and beat three-time defending indoor champion Marie Wagner in straight sets.

But 1926 showed her at her powerful best. She had a strong baseline game with a particularly good forehand and passing shots. In her final against Elizabeth Ryan, she used these to fight off a match point and a 0-4 final set deficit to win the U.S. title 4-6, 6-4, 9-7.

Mallory had also came back from a set down in her U.S. Finals against Hazel Wightman in 1915, Marion Vanderhoef in 1917 and Mary Brown in 1921.

Her tennis record speaks for itself, but it’s impossible to ignore one quote from this formidable woman: "I find that the girls generally do not hit the ball as hard as they should. I believe in always hitting the ball with all my might, but there seems to be a disposition to 'just get it over' in many girls whom I have played. I do not call this tennis.”

Pancho Gonzales, 1949

As defending champion, at just 21 years of age, Pancho Gonzales set out in 1949 to prove he was not a one-hit-wonder. He had also set his eyes on the lucrative professional tour. Winning his second title turned out to be a huge task.

Ted Schroeder took a marathon first set 18-16, and then the second, 6-2.

Gonzales fought back to win the third set easily at 6-1, and went on to level the match at two sets all. He finally broke Schroeder's serve in the ninth game and served out the match 16-18, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. Fifteen days later, Gonzales turned professional and did not return to New York until the Open era arrived in 1968.

Then 40, he continued to compete with astounding success against men at the peak of their powers: John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, Arthur Ashe and Rod Laver

The following year, at Wimbledon, Gonzales made an even more dramatic comeback in the longest recorded Grand Slam match, the remarkable first round encounter with Charlie Pasarell. Gonzales won it 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9, and it precipitated the introduction of the tie-break.

Manuel Orantes, 1975

A gentleman of the game, Manuel Orantes was a fixture in the top 10 throughout the mid-1970s. He had also been runner-up to Bjorn Borg in the 1974 French Open. But his best, and most memorable, run in a Grand Slam was his extraordinary comeback against Guillermo Vilas in 1975.

Orantes lost the first two sets 4-6, 1-6 and, despite winning the third 6-2, went down in the fourth 0-5. He saved five match points before eventually taking that set 7-5, and went on to seal the match 6-4 in the fifth.

Less than 18 hours after defeating Vilas, Orantes upset top-seed and defending champion Jimmy Connors, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, to win his only Grand Slam title.

Aaron Krickstein, 1983

It was one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Championships. Sixteen-year-old amateur Aaron Krickstein came back from two sets down to upset the No. 15 seed Vitas Gerulaitis in the third round of the 1983 tournament.

Krickstein, who was the reigning U.S.T.A. national boys' champion, pulled back from a 3-6, 3-6 deficit to win the next three sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-4. The damage done, he went on to lose to Yannick Noah in the next round.

In 1991, Krickstein must have thought his luck had returned when facing a 39-year-old Jimmy Connors in the fourth round. He went a set up, then two sets to one up, and was 5-2 up in the final set. But Connors eventually pulled out a win, 3-6, 7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 after four hours 41 minutes.

But this was far from being the first time Connors had dug in for a gritty comeback.

Jimmy Connors, 1971/1991

If Kriekstein had doubted the determination of the lowly-ranked, 39-year-old version of Connors in 1991, he only needed to look at his first-round match.

Once again, Connors had snatched triumph from near-defeat against Patrick McEnroe 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 at 1:35 in the morning. In that particular match, he was two sets, 0-3, and 0-40 before battling back.

A full 20 years before these superhuman efforts, and playing on his 19th birthday, Connors pulled off another escape from a two-set deficit against Alex Olmedo to win 2-6, 5-7, 6-4, 7-5, 7-5.

Three years later, he won the first of five US titles.

Martina Navratilova, 1986

The record of Martina Navratilova remains one of the most illustrious in tennis. It’s little wonder that a winner of 18 Grand Slam singles titles has huge reserves of determination and physical endurance, and Navratilova successfully drew on those reserves many times.

As defending champion in New York in 1984, she came back, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, to defeat Chris Evert for the women's title. But it was her semifinal match two years later against new star, 17-year-old Steffi Graf, that hit the headlines. Navratilova had to save three match points in securing her 1-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(8) victory.

Spanning two days due to rain, it was described in the New York Times, as “two players who tested and stretched one another and provided a sell-out crowd with the most dramatic match of the tournament."

Navratilova won the title again in 1987, but was beaten in her 1989 attempt at the title by a brilliant comeback from Graf. The German trailed by a set and a service break but went on to win 10 of the last 12 games and the title, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1.

The result recalled memories of Navratilova’s very first tilt at the title back in 1981. In that one, Tracy Austin fought back 1-6, 7-6, 7-6 to hold off the woman who would become the most successful in the modern game.

Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, 1994

It was Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario’s fate to hit her peak in the era of the brilliant Steffi Graf. Even so, the Spaniard got the better of one of the greatest women in the game in some of its biggest arenas, and briefly took the No. 1 ranking from her nemesis in 1995.

As a 17-year old in 1989, she had become the youngest winner of the women's title at the French Open, beating Graf in three sets.

But Sanchez-Vicario’s greatest achievement against Graf was in taking her only U.S. title. Coming back from a 1-6 first set and an early break in the second, Sanchez-Vicario found her counter-punching rhythm in the fourth game and got the break on her fourth break point. After failing to convert three set points in the 10th game, she then also took control of the second-set tie-breaker. She went on to win a 6-4 final set.

While Graf briefly had the trainer on for a back problem during the second set, she herself claimed the injury only troubled her for two or three games and didn’t call the trainer again.

Sanchez-Vicario was runner-up to Graf in their four subsequent Grand Slam finals, but three of those went to three sets. That comeback in 1994 gave the Spaniard her one deserved hard court Major.

Pat Rafter, 1998

Pat Rafter came into the 1998 championships as defending champion, but very nearly failed at the first hurdle against 44th-ranked Moroccan Hicham Arazi.

Rafter saved himself from the ignominy of a first-round loss by coming back from a 4-6, 4-6 deficit. Asazi’s game, once Rafter started to cut out his unusual volume of unforced errors, could not sustain the quality of attack he had found in the opening sets, and Rafter was able to take the remaining sets 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.

The comeback marked the Australian’s fourth career reversal of a two-sets-to-love deficit, and seemed to spur him into action for the remainder of the tournament. He went on to win the title and, in the final against Mark Philippoussis, he recorded only five unforced errors.

Rafter, though, did go out of the tournament in the first round in the very next year, again in a five-setter, but this time with a shoulder injury. He failed to win another Slam, reaching only two finals at Wimbledon.

Serena Williams, 1999

Seventeen-year-old Serena Williams clashed with 16-year-old Kim Clijsters in a “battle of the teenagers” in the third round of the 1999 tournament.

The seventh-seeded Williams went a set down to the newcomer from Belgium, 4-6. She fought back for a 6-2 second set, but was then broken again in the final set.

With Clijsters serving for the match at 5-3, Williams threw herself into the attack and broke the server to love. She then delivered aces of her own in the next game that announced her total dominance for the remainder of the match.

She won 14 consecutive points, and 16 of the final 17 points, to take the deciding set 7-5, and went on to win her first U.S. singles title.

She aims, this year, to make it four.

Todd Martin, 1999

American Todd Martin was an unexpected semifinalist in the Open of 1999. He had made just one Grand Slam final in his career, four years earlier in Australia, but came very close to winning his first Major in New York.

In the fourth round, he met Greg Rusedski and quickly found himself two sets down, 5-7, 0-6, and then down 4-5 in the third. At last, he broke Rusedski back and held the set 7-6.

He held the next, 6-4, to push the match into a decider. Rusedski then took the lead again, 4-1, but with the U.S. night crowd behind him, Martin surged back, winning 20 of the final 21 points to advance to the quarter-finals. The match concluded at 12:50 a.m. at which point Martin was so dehydrated that he needed intravenous fluids.

Clearly a glutton for punishment, Martin pushed eventual champion Andre Agassi to the full five-sets in the final, taking the second and third sets in tie-breakers but eventually losing the match 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-2.

As if to outdo himself, the very next year Martin again took his fourth round match into the early hours with an incredible comeback against Carlos Moya 6-7(3), 6-7(7), 6-1, 7-6(6), 6-2. The match took over four and a quarter hours.

It was Martin's seventh comeback from 0-2 down and his fourth at the U.S. Open.

Martina Hingis, 2001

In 2000, Martina Hingis had lost to Venus Williams in the semifinals after taking the first set and leading 5-3 and 30-15 in the third set. Williams went on to win the title.

The following year, Hingis was No. 1 seed again, but almost went out in the third round against old adversary Iva Majoli, who had deprived Hingis of the French title and Grand Slam sweep in 1997.

Hingis seemed to be in big trouble when Majoli broke her to win the first set 6-4.

Hingis battled back to take the second set 6-4, and looked home and dry when she broke Majoli twice in the first three games of the third set, especially as a blister and sore thigh had forced Majoli to request an injury timeout.

Down 0-3, however, Majoli broke back twice to force a final set tie-break.

Majoli led 5-4 before Hingis, facing the earliest elimination for a No.1 seed since Billie Jean King lost in the third round in 1973, swept the next three points.

Hingis went on to reach the semifinals, but by the end of 2001, she had dropped to No. 4 in the world.

Gustavo Kuerten, 2001

Gustavo Kuerten came into the U.S. Open with the French Open title and as No. 1 seed. Few anticipated that he would be one of only three top seeds to come back from two-sets down in the Open era of the U.S. Championships.

It was a tough match against Max Mirnyi from the outset, and Kuerten went down 6-7 (5), 5-7, only to come back with two tie-break wins to square the match. He ran out the winner in the final set, 6-2, notching up 33 aces in the process.

Kuertan went on to reach the quarterfinals, his best result in New York.

Max Mirnyi had suffered a similar fate in the previous year’s tournament, when No. 3 seed Magnus Norman also came back from two sets down, saving four-match points on the way, to beat him 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4, 7-6(9).

Justine Henin, 2003

Justine Henin came to New York in 2003 bidding to emulate her Grand Slam success in Paris where she beat fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters. But she came close to bowing out in a dramatic semi-final clash with the American Jennifer Capriati.

This night-time match was destined to extend into the early hours of the next morning after Henin lost the opening set, 4-6. Capriati then raced to a 5-3 lead in the second set and, serving for the match, was just points away from victory. But Henin began her fight back and reeled off four games in a row to level the match at one set apiece.

The home crowd cheered on Capriati as she pulled away to a 5-2, 30-15 lead in the decider. But just as she seemed about to close the match, Henin hit back again and once more won four games in a row to force a final set tie-break. Henin sealed it 7-4, bringing to an end a two hour and 45 minute battle at 12:27 in the morning.

The final scoreline of 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 belied just how close the two women were: each won 127 points. Less than 24 hours later, Henin became the first Belgian to claim the U.S. Open title, once again defeating Kim Cljisters 7-5, 6-1 in the final. She won again in 2007, while Clijsters took the title in 2005: a golden period for Belgian tennis.

Andre Agassi, 2005

Eleven years after his first win at the tournament, and in his mid-30s, Andre Agassi was not expected to advance to the latter stages of the 2005 Open. To make his campaign still harder, he survived three five-set matches: in the fourth round, the quarter-final and the semi-final.

It was the quarterfinal against James Blake that went down as one of the most exciting in the history of the event. Agassi rallied from a two-set 3-6, 3-6 deficit to win the remaining three sets, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6(6). It took him until 1.15 in the morning, and he went on to beat Robby Genepri in the semis.

By the time he got to the final against a Roger Federer seeking his second consecutive U.S. title, Agassi could not quite pull off the feat again. Though he took the second set, and was a break up in third, he conceded the title 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(1), 6-1 in his last Grand Slam final.

Honorable Mentions

1974: Billie Jean King won her final U.S. Open singles title against Evonne Goolagong 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.

1975: Chris Evert also defeated Evonne Goolagong, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, to win her first U.S. Open singles title.

1979: John Lloyd defeated Paul McNamee 5-7, 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 7-6 in what was the longest match by games at the U.S. Open since the introduction of the tie-break.

1989: Down match point, Boris Becker benefited from a let-cord passing shot just out of the reach of Derrick Rostagno in his 1-6, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 victory. He went on to win the title, which he added to the French Open and Wimbledon titles he had already taken.

1996: Defending champion and No. 1 seed Pete Sampras outlasted Alex Corretja 7-6 (5), 5-7, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7) in the quarterfinals and went on to take the title.

1998: Mark Philippoussis defeated Thomas Johansson 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 7-6 (12-10) in the men's quarterfinals. Philippoussis had trailed 4-2 in the fifth set and then fought off three match points in the final-set tie-break.