By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday June 23, 2021
Serve-and-volley is a dying art but in Maxime Cressy's eyes it's the only way to play the game.
Fans of the type of serve-and-volley tennis made popular last century, when nimble creatures like John McEnroe and Pat Rafter roamed the Wimbledon grounds, can be excited about the presence of Maxime Cressy in this year’s qualifying draw.
The 2019 NCAA doubles champion, now 24 years old and ranked 151 in the world, is a throwback through and through. Last year, when he reached the second round at the US Open as a wild card and faced Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open, the Greek likened Cressy to an endangered species on tour.
"His game is very unorthodox to be honest with you. You don't have players like this on tour," Tsitsipas said. "He's a rare species of a tennis player, that's what he is."
Cressy, who was born in France but plays for the United States (and intends to for the rest of his career, if you're scoring at home), says that he fell in love with serve-and-volley while watching Wimbledon as a kid.
"I think growing up I watched some matches of Pat Rafter and Richard Krajicek and it inspired to serve and volley,” he said. “These guys inspired me to serve and volley. Pete Sampras as well.”
Cressy told Tennis Now that he made the decision when he was a teenager: he wanted to be a pure serve-and-volley player.
“When I was 13, 14, I had a sudden realization that I just didn't want to play baseline game, I just wanted to serve and volley all the time. I didn't have the results at first, but I did it because I enjoyed it and because my dream was to win Wimbledon. So that's how I started serving and volleying."
Through two rounds of qualifying at Wimbledon Cressy has enjoyed his time on the grass. He has served and volleyed 97 times according to stats kept by the tournament, and won 72 of those points. He has a giant serve and has ripped 27 aces.
Cressy seems like a natural fit for grass, but he’s logged very little time playing on the surface. Today was just his fifth professional match on grass, and heading into Wimbledon qualifying he had lost all three of his professional matches on grass.
He told Collette Lewis of Zoo Tennis, the other journalist at his post-match press conference after Wednesday's win over Marc-Andrea Heusler of Switzerland, that his expectations were too high when he first played on grass.
Lately, he says, he has learned to tone it down and just enjoy the experience.
"The problem was that I expected too much, so as a result I put too much pressure on myself and didn't play the way I wanted to, and my goal for this tournament, at Wimbledon, was to release the pressure and just play my game, focus on me and on nothing else, no expectations and now I start to play my tennis again.
"My mindset changed. I have more of a mindset of letting go, rather than trying to force results to happen, so I was more in a state of appreciating my time here and appreciating the fact that I'm playing my first Wimbledon, incredibly happy to play on grass right now, I'm going to keep having that mindset until the end of the tournament."
Cressy will face fellow UCLA alumni Mackenzie McDonald in the final round of qualifying on Thursday at Roehampton, the site that hosts Wimbledon’s qualifying event.
No matter the outcome, the 6'6" talent has made big strides since tennis restarted last summer after the coronavirus shutdown. He won a round at the US Open as a wild card (his first main draw win at a Slam), then qualified for the Australian Open and reached the second round as well.
Even his losses were valuable. They came against Tsitsipas in New York, and Alexander Zverev in Melbourne.
"Since I am a very ambitious player, it was very important for me to see where my level is at, relative to these players,” he said. “I think my level is right there, I just need to have confidence and stick to a process mindset, and hopefully I'll get there soon, but it really inspired me to work even harder and really believe.”