HONOLULU (AP)—Olympic skier Bode Miller’s quest to make the U.S. Open tennis tournament came to a quick end when he lost 6-4, 6-2 to Erik Nelson-Kortland in an opening match at sectional playoffs in Hawaii.
“I had no time to prepare, no time to come have a guy hit 1,000 balls at me like I used to do when I was little,” Miller said in a post-match interview with The Associated Press. “If you don’t do that, you don’t have any reason to have expectations.”
Miller, who won three Alpine skiing medals at the Vancouver Olympics to bring his career total to five, was a state high school champion tennis player in Maine.
Tennis means a lot to Miller, who has played since he was a kid. His family owns and runs a tennis academy in New Hampshire and Miller still plays at a high level in the offseason. So, when the USTA agreed to bankroll his trip to Hawaii and donate money to his charity in exchange for him playing, he jumped at the chance.
But Miller said the combination of no practice, hot temperatures and a tough opponent who plays more than he does left him with very little chance. After going down an early break in the first set, he actually fought back to 4-4 before getting broken again.
The second set was quick.
“It gets hot like that, I get claustrophobic, can’t breathe, can’t motivate myself to focus,” he said. “Between sets, I was dying. I had nothing left.”
In an effort to put the “Open” back in the U.S. Open, the USTA is awarding one spot at Flushing Meadows to the winner of a series of qualifying events taking place this summer.
The draw in Hawaii is relatively small—10 players—but Miller still would have had to win four matches to advance to the next level. Next month, the 16 sectional winners will travel to Atlanta to play for a single spot in the U.S. Open qualifying draw, which takes place the week before the main tournament begins.