Controversial Maxime Cressy Is Breaking Out

Trouble is, if you look at his strokes, they don’t look very good. He chips his forehand a lot and slices his backhand a good deal, although his net play looks very good. But his yells during the match are epic!

Go Cressy, beats UCLA alum. Maybe Cressy wins the NCAAs and gets the Open direct entry, I think he got quarters last year.

When a man screams and yells and grunts and carries on it’s seen as all good but when a woman does it she opens herself to a pile of abuse.

I know you don’t do this Scoop because you like emoting but on the part of the general public, yes.

I call that unfair.

I don’t think there’s a double standard. Cressy is already being called out for his obnoxious grunting and over-emoting. Look, when women like Sharpie grunt the way she does it’s called out. But with Cressy his emotions are I think good for the game even if he were my son or I was playing against him, I’d drill him. I’ve already told my son, when an opponent of his yells, “C’mon,” he makes a mistake or overly-pumps his fist or yells out, drop shot and then drill him. He doesn’t do it as of yet, but I keep telling him to do it. I hate these little punks in the juniors who think they’re big shots and display bad behavior. I always tell Cal to “Lendl-rize them.”

Cressy wins in 3 close sets, first 2 tie breakers. You have to hand it to him, he stays with the game plan — come in on every point. He gets passed a bunch but it doesnt deter him, he stays with it and it must get in the opponents head, the constant pressure, no rhythm (like Ivo). Torporgaard, the other finalist finally cracked and must have been pissed off by the end, he appeared to walk off in the middle of the trophy presentation (Ive never seen that happen) Cressy was in his head.

Wayne,

I just tell him that. He’s never done it. He actually has won the last two big Super 6’s (top 32-kids in the Eastern section) Sportsmanship Award–something I’d never have won. Cal’s a grinder. Reminds me a lot of Spadea. Super backhand and big forehand when he decides to hit it. He’s a pretty big-time prospect. Solinco just gave him 50% sponsorship of their strings.

He’s the no. 1 12-year-old in Westchester County and probably no. 2, 3 or 4 in all of New York State. He’s going to play no. 1 on the varsity team at White Plains High School, something that’s never been done on the varsity level at this school. He’s still a serious baseball player, very fine pitcher, so we’ll see if that impedes his tennis.

But pros like Chris Mayotte still say that he’ll play pro tennis. Chris said he’s never seen a better ball-striker for a 10 year old (he’s 12 now, but Chris said this when he was 10) except for his brother, Tim, who had a pretty good pro career.

We’ll see…it’s a long road.

Your Cressy fact of the week is this. In the NCAA championships, he lost his final college match to Ohio State’s Martin Joyce. But who did Cressy earn his final college win against? A player from USC also born in France named Thibault Forget.

That’s right, Guy Forget’s son. I bet you won’t ‘Forget’ that!

Also here’s a tamer Cressy celebration in college…
https://twitter.com/uclatennis/status/982426796648947712

Im a fan of go big or go home but isnt that Deadspin piece on grunt works just what the rulebook would call a hinderence? https://deadspin.com/why-do-tennis-players-grunt-because-it-works-1597557402

Catherine, yes, he had it cut last fall. He said the response has been 50/50 about the new look. I like it.

Cressy lost to Christian Harrison today, 6-4, 7-6 (4) in Dallas.

Dan – How are you watching that match? Are you in Dallas with son or streaming it somehow?

Tennis Channel, Doug. They’re showing the Dallas Challenger which is pretty cool. I had the day off today, Tuesday, and timed it right so that I was home to watch most of the match and the rest I taped.

I don’t think it was that Cressy didn’t have the energy to do his usual grunting and loud celebrations. There was one point in the second set where he did let go a scream after he won the point, but I think unfortunately, now that he’s in the Big’s, the word has gotten out to young Maxime that carrying on this way is not going to be tolerated.

I noticed at today’s match that not only was Pat Harrison in the stands, but so was Ryan Harry, and I can imagine Ryan might’ve been there to chortle and maybe more at Cressy if he started to act out. I think a lot of the players saw the reaction Timmy Smyczek had to playing Cressy and they’re not going to let this young upstart from Paris no less, act out like he’s the Second Coming of John McEnroe mixed with Jimmy Connors.

He might be on the Eubanks path. Good player but not elite. We’ll see. I’m not convinced that in the current ATP someone can be elite if they S&V on every point. I’m using my own definition of elite as top 100.

Geez, Chazz you’re very generous when you state “elite” is top-100. Elite in my book is top 40. At this point, you’d have to put Eubanks ahead of Cressy as he’s only a year older at 22 and is more than 150 ranking spots ahead of Cressy.

I asked Taylor Dent, really the last American male who practiced serve and volley, if he thought it can be employed on a full-time basis and he said no, but he thought it’s a good tactic once in a service game. What I don’t love about Cressy’s game is his forehand, he chips it a lot on return of serve which is what chip and charger’s do, but he also doesn’t really accelerate through it when he’s in rallies. His forehand’s got to improve, but I think he has the quickness, size and hands to make his dominant net play work.

The main reason I categorized it that way for Cressy – is he just another guy hovering around the 150-500 ranking, or does he have the potential to get to the next level?