COMMENTARY : Patrick McEnroe Certainly Got His Match

It had taken him all these years to make his way from Box 60 B, where the McEnroe family always has sat for important matches at the U.S. Open, into one of those matches. Maybe it is 30 feet from that box to the court at Louis Armstrong Stadium, maybe it is a little less. Patrick McEnroe sat there once, with his mother and father and brother Mark, and watched his brother John win one U.S. Open after another. He was just a teen-ager in those years. How big the stadium and the Open must have seemed. How great the distance to his brother.

Patrick McEnroe had played in the stadium before. He played one of the most famous matches in Open history there once, against Jimmy Connors, a match that he led two sets to none and finally lost in five sets at 1:30 in the morning. But it was a first-round match. And it was Connors’ stadium that night, because it was always Connors’ stadium once the Open moved over to the National Tennis Center. This quarterfinal match last Wednesday against Boris Becker was different. This was finally Patrick McEnroe’s crowd.

All these years later, Patrick McEnroe had moved out of 60 B and into the middle of the action. His crowd, his day, his stadium. When they yelled, “C’mon, Mac,” they were yelling for him. Now his mother and father watched him in this kind of match. John’s son, Kevin, was with his grandparents. You looked into the box yesterday and Kevin McEnroe’s face was Patrick McEnroe’s face, at the end of the 1970s, when he must have wondered if he could ever make the trip he finally made yesterday.

But he made the trip, at the age of 29, to a shot at the semifinals of the Open. And he was worthy of that chance last Wednesday, a day at the Open when he was so much more than a player always known as John McEnroe’s brother. Known as the other McEnroe, the way Tommy Aaron was once the other Aaron in baseball.

“I am so proud of my brother,” John McEnroe said in the broadcast booth when it was over, after Patrick finally had lost to Boris Becker in four sets, more than four hours in the stadium.

Patrick McEnroe had waited a long time to get to the stadium, and he did not want to let it go. He had two set points in the second set and lost them, and lost a chance for a third on a terrible call that went against him. He made a fuss over that one, and tossed a ball lightly in the direction of the offending linesman. The umpire said, “Code violation, unsportsmanlike conduct, Mr. McEnroe,” and suddenly it was like a time warp in the stadium, hearing an umpire say that. Maybe you can only keep tennis genes like this bottled up so long.

He ended up losing the second set and got behind in the third. But he would not quit. Becker had a couple of double faults in the third-set tiebreaker. McEnroe won it, 7-3. He was alive in the quarterfinals. He still had the day. It was late in the day. The afternoon session was supposed to be over. The people holding tickets to the evening matches at the Open were waiting outside, unable to get in. The stadium had begun to empty out, and now looked the way it did on that night when Patrick McEnroe and Jimmy Connors played past midnight in the first round. It was more than half-empty, but quite loud.

The noise was not for Patrick McEnroe’s opponent this time. It was for him. He had beaten Becker in January of this year, in the first round of the Australian Open. Now McEnroe was trying to get him again. Trying to even the match and get to the fifth set. Becker got up a break in the fourth set. McEnroe came back again. Finally they were in another tiebreaker, third of the match. McEnroe had been to the semifinals of the Australian once. He lost to Becker there. Now he was trying to get past him to the semifinals of the Open.

“You don’t get too many opportunities like this in your life,” McEnroe would say later.

He has been ranked as high as No. 31 in the world. He once played his brother John in the final of a tournament in Chicago. He has played Davis Cup for his country; Tom Gullickson, the current Davis Cup captain, rooted quietly for him from a seat of his own next to the court. “Isn’t it wonderful,” Gullickson would say during the second set, “that Patrick finally got a chance here like this?”

Day had become night on the second Wednesday of the Open. Patrick McEnroe was still alive. He had never been as alive as this on the second Wednesday.

“I enjoyed the experience of being out there,” he said.

On the sixth point of the tiebreaker, Becker served his 29th ace of the match. It was called an ace, anyway. McEnroe thought it was long. He went after the umpire, and if you closed your eyes and just listened to the voice, it was his brother John’s voice, in a million moments like this. The call stayed. It always does. Becker was ahead 4-2, and three points from the match.

Still, McEnroe stayed in there. He has a wonderful backhand and a wonderful return of serve, and he has always been one of the smartest players around. He is a step or two slow from side to side, though. His serve is not the biggest tennis weapon you will ever see. His forehand occasionally can blow around like a knuckleball. But no one ever has questioned Patrick McEnroe’s heart.

Becker played a couple of loose shots. He double faulted to get the score to 5-5. The match was now four hours old. McEnroe was a couple of points from the fifth set.

They are hard points to get from Becker. He hit his 30th ace to get to his first match point. Then he hit a forehand in the alley. It was 6-6.

A long time ago, McEnroe had heard 4,000 or so people in this stadium sound like 20,000 for Jimmy Connors. They were his 4,000 against Becker, but could not help him any more in this match.

Becker charged behind a forehand that was as loud as a plane in the sky over the stadium. It was 7-6. A second match point. Becker did not get his 31st ace, but he got enough of a serve, and Patrick McEnroe could not do anything with it. The score was 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (8-6). Becker goes to the last Saturday of the Open. McEnroe goes home with the best Open he has had.

He has always been one of the sport’s gentleman. He was again in the interview room after a terrible loss, talking about the enjoyment he takes in the game, the excitement of continuing to improve at 29. He said there is a thrill for him in tennis even if he plays five sets of which he is proud on Court 33. Then Patrick McEnroe smiled.

“But it’s a hell of a lot more fun in (the stadium),” he said.

He had been inside before. Just not all the way inside. He made the distance from 60 B to the court for a match like “Wednesday’s. Patrick McEnroe just ended up a few points short of Saturday.