Last year, Christina McHale was the highest-ranked American in the U.S. Open field not named “Serena Williams” but lost in the first round. This year, she came in unseeded, but has already advanced farther after a 6-4, 6-3 win over Julia Goerges to advance to the second round.
The 21-year old Teaneck, New Jersey native had an awful summer leading up to the Open, losing in the first or qualifying round of four Open tune-ups and even fired her junior coach. She was still recovering from a bout with mononucleosis at the end of last year.
“I got sick at the end of last year and then I lacked a lot of match play in the beginning of the year,” McHale said.” Without a lot of matches, it’s hard to gain some confidence. It’s definitely been a struggle this year.”
McHale held all nine of her service games and only had 13 unforced errors for her first win since a first-round win at Wimbledon in June.
“I didn’t realize until right now I didn’t lose serve the whole match, so…that helped a lot.”
While it is only one match, she hopes to use it as a stepping-stone to get back to where she was.
“ It’s been hard to stay positive throughout the whole year with definitely some low points. But I think I have always felt like I could get my game back. It was just a matter of when it was going to be.”
McHale came in unseeded and is currently ranked No. 114 in the world. A year ago, she was No. 24, having made the third round at the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon.
“I think a match like today really will help me, and hopefully I can continue to build on this for the rest of the year.”