When Mackenzie McDonald dueled Félix Auger-Aliassime for three and a half hours in the opening round of the US Open, fans only got a glimpse of the time McDonald put in for her surprise win on Monday.
For both players, and hundreds of others across the tournament, a match day is more than just a warm-up and the competition itself. Preparation, of course, takes weeks and months, with the grueling men’s and women’s professional tennis tours pushing players to seek higher rankings to gain a more favorable path to the Grand Slam tournaments.
And when they arrive in Queens, a new series of obstacles emerge as the players adapt to the feel of the courts, the ambiance of New York and the demands of one of the biggest games in the world.
For McDonald, the 28-year-old American who entered the top 50 in the singles rankings in 2022 and upset Rafael Nadal in the second round of the Australian Open this year, the preparation for the US Open began on August 22 when he arrived. in New York. McDonald, who is scheduled to play Croatia’s Borna Gojo in the second round on Wednesday, said he trained hard in his first few days, then taped a bit to recover before his four-set battle against Auger-Aliassime.
Those acts, along with travel, can be repetitive. Jessica Pegula, the American third in women’s singles, compared last week the usual tour to “Groundhog Day,” the 1993 film in which a man repeats one day. McDonald echoed that sentiment.
“Things get monotonous every week, locker room after locker room, hotel after hotel,” McDonald said. “It’s good to have little goals or little things that motivate you that make you believe you can do better.”
Two Days
Two days before his opening game, McDonald can’t just focus on his game. Before practice on Saturday, he had to stop by a fan event held by Wilson, his racket sponsor.
His day began around 8:45 in the morning as he made his way to the lobby of his hotel in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. A driver and an SUV were waiting for him, his girlfriend and his trainer as they left the hotel.
On a normal day, driving from Manhattan’s East Side to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows Corona Park can take up to an hour in heavy traffic.
“It’s never been easy,” McDonald said of the Queens commute. “Every day, it definitely adds up.”
But on a Saturday morning, with light traffic and an assertive driver familiar with shortcuts, the trip was a brisk 21 minutes 16 seconds.
The quick ride gave McDonald more time to drop off his bags before heading to the Wilson event, where he spent half an hour of volleying with the childrenthen take pictures and videos.
With the commitment replenished, McDonald can focus on more intense tennis for the rest of his day, starting with working with a physiotherapist and finding time to eat, and follow that with two hours of practice.
McDonald’s first practice time is scheduled at noon against Marcos Giron, another American player, on Court 4 near the Arthur Ashe Stadium. As McDonald and Giron went back and forth and played the scores, many fans stopped to watch them. Near the end of their practice, several of the fans began to gather on the courtside in the hope of an autograph or photo. But McDonald had no time.
After shaking hands with Giron and his trainer, McDonald quickly grabbed his bags and ran for his next practice on the court at the opposite end of the tennis center, about half a mile away.
To avoid having players walk that distance through a sea of ​​fans, the US Open has vans to transport them and their trainers to the farthest practice courts. McDonald and his trainer got into a van, but the driver wanted to stay a few minutes longer to see if any other players were coming.
Already behind schedule, McDonald politely asked the driver if they could leave without waiting. In the early stages of the tournament, when hundreds of players need to practice, court time is precious.
“They really show the beauty of the game on TV,” McDonald said. “It’s everything behind the scenes, it’s the day-to-day and the year-round tournaments that we play that bring us to these moments.”
When McDonald arrived at his next practice court, it was only about 2 p.m., and the sun was shining with temperatures in the 80s. He trained for another hour before cooling off and returning to his hotel to rest.
Final Practice
On Sunday, McDonald wanted to scale back his work to just one hour of tennis, so that he would be fresher for his match the next day. He doesn’t yet know his exact playing time, but since it will likely be late afternoon, McDonald said he hopes to have a spot on the court Sunday afternoon.
He is scheduled to play Lloyd Harris of South Africa at 4 pm on Court 5, where McDonald is scheduled to play the next day.
“More of a chiller day for me,” McDonald said, adding that the rest of his Sunday will be spent resting, hydrating and “taking my mind off tennis for a while.”
But even when he’s not training, McDonald said there’s other preparation that goes into playing a game, including making a game plan and looking at analytics.
“The mental preparation for my match on Monday started as soon as the draw came out,” he said.
Game day
Before McDonald’s match on Monday, there are three others scheduled on Court 5, starting at 11 am. hotel.
But trying to make predictions can be a gamble if rain or a long five-set men’s match could delay the start time of another match. In the majors, McDonald said he likes to arrive four hours before a game to be treated by a physiotherapist, hang out with a teammate for half an hour, eat lunch and then prepare his sports drinks and snacks. racket.
“There’s definitely a lot of little nuances that come into play on a day-to-day basis that you’re really immersed in,” he said. “Everyone is invested in what will best prepare me to play this game today.”
McDonald and Auger-Aliassime took Court 5 around 5:45 p.m., and after a quick warm-up, it was 5:51 p.m. when the umpire, Jaume Campistol, said: “Ready? Play.â€
From the start, the match looked like a long duel. It took one hour and nine minutes for McDonald to win the first set in a tiebreaker.
Auger-Aliassime took the second set, but after that, McDonald settled down. As McDonald and Auger-Aliassime played, cheers from Arthur Ashe Stadium erupted from the venue, and they could be heard on Court 5. At one point in the fourth set, Auger-Aliassime appeared to complain to the chair umpire about noise coming from Ashe.
Eventually, after more than three hours on the court, McDonald won, winning the last five points in the last game of the fourth set to win, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-1, 6 -4, and advance to the second round.
Before his win, McDonald said that each incremental win is what motivates him on tour. The drive to progress, he says, drives him to long practices, travels and extensive travels.
“I want to win a title badly,” said McDonald, who has made one singles final in his career, losing to Italy’s Jannik Sinner at the 2021 Citi Open in Washington, D.C. “I always see that every week, your opportunity every week, that week can turn things around, and I think that dream is what we’re all chasing.
And after he defeated Auger-Aliassime, the routine of mental and physical preparation for Round 2 began again.