Victory Manages to Escape Mayotte Once Again : This Time, He Loses to Mark Woodforde, an Australian Qualifier, in Five Sets

Tim Mayotte has become the Bill Buckner of tennis, which, if you think about it, might actually be a bit unfair to Buckner.

As much as Buckner, then with the Boston Red Sox, is seemingly forever identified with his unfortunate error in Game 6 of the World Series last fall--his gaffe was merely a low point in an otherwise outstanding and long career.

Mayotte, on the other hand, is regarded as the fall guy, the reason the U.S. Davis Cup team lost to West Germany this summer in the relegation round. Unlike Buckner, however, Mayotte has a career dotted with Game 6-like disasters, played out on tennis courts throughout the world.

Remember London? Remember Hartford?

Friday, Mayotte added a new town--the Big Apple--to the list of his inexplicable collapses. In London, he blew a two-sets-to-love lead against Mikael Pernfors at Wimbledon. For those who have forgotten Hartford, Mayotte made a national hero of Eric Jelen, this time squandering a two-sets-to-one margin in their Davis Cup match.

At least Pernfors and Jelen are ranked in the top 100. This time, Mayotte managed to sink to yet another level as he lost to qualifier Mark Woodforde of Australia, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 2-6, 7-6, in a second-round match at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow.

Even among the Aussies, the No. 134-ranked Woodforde isn’t exactly looked at as the next great player from Down Under. Actually, Woodforde, 21, received more attention for working out with Steffi Graf at Wimbledon than he has for his game lately.

That changed Friday . . . at least for a day.

“It’s a good day to be an Aussie, eh?” said Woodforde, smiling.

It wasn’t, to say the least, a good day to be an American. Ken Flach is now the only American left in the lower half of the draw, if you discount Johan Kriek who was born in South Africa. There are five in the upper half.

Flach almost didn’t make it as he came from behind to defeat qualifier Darren Cahill of Australia, 1-6, 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6, in 3 hours 18 minutes. Flach’s 17-15 victory in the fifth-set tiebreaker was the longest at the U.S. Open in men’s singles competition since the tiebreaker system was introduced in 1970.

While the tiebreaker was Flach’s salvation Friday, it turned out to be the downfall of the 12th-seeded Mayotte.

He lost the first-set tiebreaker, 7-2, and dropped the second set tiebreaker, 7-5.

Finally, as always, Mayotte started to come back when everyone counted him out. He pushed the match into a fifth-set tiebreaker and even looked as though he might take it when Woodforde double-faulted at 2-2.

At 3-2, Mayotte double-faulted. His second serve wasn’t even close as it hit the very bottom of the net.

“I knew he was nervous against me when it hit the bottom of the net,” Woodforde said.

You might compare it to completely missing the basket on a free throw. Or shanking a punt.

Mayotte talked about the importance of that particular point, saying he didn’t lose his concentration.

“It’s a pretty nervous situation, and I double-faulted,” he said. “So you do feel bad about things like that, but you’re out there on the line and you do the best you can do.”

As for the curse of Hartford, Mayotte claimed that the matches didn’t take a lot out of him. He said he played well at an exhibition last week in Wilmington, Del., beating Miloslav Mecir and Brad Gilbert.

“And I played one of the best matches of my career against Sammy Giammalva,” Mayotte added.

Wait a minute, Sammy Giammalva?

OK, we’ll give him that much. Tim Mayotte can win big matches in Wilmington. It’s just too bad for Mayotte that those matches don’t count.