Before Alex de Minaur played his second-round Australian Open match against Sam Querrey, fellow Aussie Lleyton Hewitt told him he had the chops to compete with the top players. Turns out Hewitt was wrong. The 17-year-old took the tennis legend's words "to the chest," but he still got creamed, 7-6, 6-0, 6-1.
Reality is, de Minaur simply isn't good enough -- not yet. He lacks Grand Slam size, bulk, stamina, experience. That score just isn't pretty or encouraging. Does anyone think de Minaur really learned much from this beating?
The best spin that can be applied is that the loss was mitigated by de Minaur's age and inexperience.
But de Minaur's fate -- and that of almost all wild cards at the Grand Slam events -- raises an interesting and perhaps uncomfortable question. What's the point of handing out more than 6 percent (eight of 128) of your cherished berths in a singles draw to players who have done nothing to earn their place in one of the four most important events of the year, players who are almost always woefully outclassed when the balloon goes up?
We're talking about the wild cards doled out to players such as de Minaur and other "local" talents, as well as the foreign wild cards accepted into Grand Slam tournaments because of reciprocity agreements between host federations including Tennis Australia and the USTA.
At the start of play Thursday, with the bottom half of each draw poised to play their second-round matches, the record of wild cards at the Australian Open is 6-12, but only three wild cards are still in contention. Ashleigh Barty and Denis Istomin accounted for three of those six wins, and they would be legitimate wild-card candidates even if a tournament gave out a more reasonable three or even two.
At the previous US Open, only two male wild cards other than quarterfinalist Juan Martin del Potro won first-round matches, and neither went further. Three wild-card women won matches, but none advanced into Round 3. The aggregate US Open match record (excluding legitimate wild card del Potro): 5-15. That is fairly typical for wild-card results.
A traditionalist or a sentimentalist might argue that the wild cards are an important incentive for the cream of the young crop. Surely, high-performing youngsters deserve a shot at the Grand Slam experience. Mingling with Roger Federer in the locker room! Taking selfies with the Aussie Fanatics! Wild cards provide motivation. Earning one leads to experience. They are inspiration. Giving out wild cards allows host nations to celebrate homegrown talent and acknowledge talent from reciprocal partners.
But you can also say: Do you really want to give a young kid a Maserati sports car for her birthday before she can drive? Isn't a nice mountain bike enough? Also, whatever happened to entry by merit?
These are Grand Slam tournaments, and the cutoff for direct entry is a computer ranking of No. 104 (the draw includes 16 qualifiers along with the eight wild cards). That is, more than 18 percent of the main draw slots are set-asides. A 24-year-old who has worked hard to finally crack the top 100 to reach No. 105 is out of luck and must endure the arduous task of qualifying.
It would be more just to give that No. 105 player a place in the draw and present that can't-miss 17-year-old with the shiny mountain bike: a wild card into qualifying.
And there's this: Does that 17-year-old getting all that help from his or her federation really benefit more from the $50,000 first-round-loser prize money than our friend who just missed the cut?
Wild cards were originally conceived as a way for tournament directors to accommodate players who have been out for a long time because of injury or who do not qualify for direct entry based on ranking but bring added value to an event. That included iconic veterans as well as local talent. The latter can be of significant promotional value at lesser events, but those local talents don't make any difference at the majors. Most spectators are there to see international stars -- not Jenny from down the block.
However, Grand Slams liked the idea of wild cards at the dawn of the pro era because wild cards guaranteed that no matter how many talented foreign players flooded an event, a significant number of places in the draw could be reserved for homegrown talent. Thus the federations could celebrate themselves.
That was already playing fast and loose with the wild-card concept, and it opened the door to novel uses of the wild card and the kind of horse-trading among nations the exists today. It isn't a bad exercise, in and of itself, but it cuts down on the diversity in the draws. Why not practice those wild-card trades at Challengers or select ATP and WTA tour events instead of all-important majors?
Wild cards at majors are mostly high-paid whipping boys and girls. It's unlikely that they learn a lot besides how to take a punch. But the selfie and all the rest of it are a lot of fun -- and the wild cards make a ton of money.
It's hard to imagine that was the idea.