By Pauline Vu
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Taylor Dent lost a hundred bucks but won another match at the
Mercedes-Benz Cup Thursday afternoon at the LATC.
In that 6-7(4), 6-2, 7-5 victory over Max Mirnyi, Dent showed
just how much he has learned so far, and just how much he still has
to learn about the game of tennis.
He owes coach Eliot Teltscher the hundred because he
didn’t swing at a serve he thought went out despite the
linesman making no call against it.
“I have a very bad habit. If the ball is out, I tend to
just let it go, like on that serve,” Dent said.
“It’s cost me a couple times when there’sbeen a
no-call. A few weeks ago (Teltscher) said, “˜Every time you do
that it’s a hundred dollars.'”
But despite that error, Dent managed to beat Mirnyi of Belarus.
He didn’t do it just on the strength of his powerful serves,
either. His return game, volleying skills, slicing backhands and
lack of unforced errors played just as crucial a role in propelling
Dent to the quarterfinals.
Dent, a wild card who upset No. 6 seed Carlos Moya to get to the
second round, let Mirnyi know he wouldn’t roll over by
keeping the game close in the first set, though he lost the
tiebreak 7-4. Dent reinforced this point in the second set, easily
taking it 6-2.
But he had problems in the third. Officials made key calls that
Dentdidn’t agree with. So the question was, could he be
composed about what he thought were bad calls, or would he let it
get to him?
With the match tied 5-5 and with Dent on the verge of breaking
Mirnyiat 40-0, Mirnyi had a serve that Dent thought was out. The
linesman made a call that went against Dent, however, and next
thing you knew, Mirnyiserved two tough ones and the game was at
deuce.
But Dent showed his growing maturity when he played through
three deuces to win the game. On the last one Mirnyi
double-faulted.
But the officials still weren’t done with Dent.
In the final game he was up 40-15 when he slammed a serve
everyone thought was an ace. Dent ran up to the net as Mirnyi
headed there to shake hands. Several members of the audience got up
to leave.
The chair umpire said, “Let.”
That’s when an inexperienced, young player lets the
pressure and the frustration get to him. Dent didn’t. He
looked furious about the call, but went back to the baseline, had
another tough serve, volleyed briefly,and sent a stroke down the
left baseline to take the set and match.
Dent likes to compare his game now to what it was six months
ago. At the press conference, he said that six months ago he
definitely would’ve lost the match.
“Probably after that first set I would’ve
snapped,” he said. “Losing that breaker, playing a bad
breaker … I probably would’ve busted a few rackets, and
that would’ve been all she wrote.”
A reporter asked Dent what his personal record in broken rackets
was.
“Wow,” he said, contemplating. “I would not
even guess. I have broken my fair share.
“But that’s all over,” he added quickly.
“No more.”
Dent will next play Xavier Malisse in the quarterfinals.