She has the presence of a soloist in a game that takes two to play. Leonard Bernstein, the symphonic conductor synonymous with this city, would have loved Mirjana Lucic’s elegant carriage and strong, precise movements.
The 15-year-old Croatian, who is playing in her first U.S. Open, whacks the ball so hard that it hisses like an angry wind instrument. Her serve sometimes exceeds 100 m.p.h. and her shot placement is surgical. One of her forehands in Thursday’s 6-0, 6-1 second-round demolition of American teenager Aubrie Rippner bent around a net-post to find its mark in the manner of a soccer ball curving into the goal.
Lucic, pronounced loo-chich, has competed so well and so far beyond her years in 1997 that she earned a slot in the main draw even though the professional women’s tour only allows her to play a handful of tournaments in a calendar year.
Grand Slam tournaments make their own rules, however, and U.S. Open officials bowed to Lucic’s talent, deciding that she was ready for the tennis equivalent of Carnegie Hall.
“I really want to show that I can play,” said Lucic in her distinctive, throaty voice, which, like everything about her, exudes maturity. “I am very glad to have a chance to play here, so I can do what I know I do best.
“I take it as a game. I take it very seriously, but I enjoy it very much. There’s no reason for me to be nervous.”
She will need that poise heading into her next match against third-seeded Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic, who has advanced at least as far as the quarterfinals at the Open for three years running. Novotna took most of the summer off to nurse injuries.
Novotna, who played her match just previous to Lucic’s, sat in the stands to take her own measure of the newcomer. “I never saw her play,” Novotna said. “Heard quite a lot about her. That’s why I want to look at it myself and see what is true about it.”
No. 1 ranked Martina Hingis has already weighed in on the topic.
“She’s one of the biggest for the future,” said Hingis, 16, who first met Lucic playing in Federation Cup events two years ago and occasionally trains with her. “I think she has a really big chance to for sure get into the top 10.
“She doesn’t look like a 15-year-old, and she doesn’t handle all the things like a 15-year-old. She seems to me to also be very experienced at a young age already. She has nothing to lose. She goes for each of the matches just trying to win everything.”
Lucic demonstrated a precocious desire long before there was any evidence of her ability. When her parents told her she was too young to play with her older sister, she hid in the family car so she could go to practice.
She won the U.S. Open junior title a year ago. After taking the same honors at this year’s Australian Open, she decided she was ready for the grownups.
In May she won the first professional tournament she entered, the Croatian Ladies Open, trampling top 10 South African Amanda Coetzer in straight sets in the process. She reached the final of her next event in France, eventually losing to Steffi Graf.
Lucic, with her fair coloring and classic high, slanting cheekbones, has an ethereal look that belies her power game. Thursday, she moved quietly to her seat during changeovers, toweling the bangs that the humidity had Scotch-taped to her forehead. It was the only sign that she was exerting herself, but seems to be intent on projecting modesty.
“A lot of young players are coming, and they’re really playing great,” she said. “It’s really nice. It’s really fun.”
