How about a Player of the Week award to Vince Spadea? The rapper-cum-baseliner won his first pro title in his 223rd ATP event. After outlasting Andy Roddick in the semis of the Franklin Templeton Classic in Scottsdale, Ariz., Spadea beat the resurgent Nicolas Kiefer in a three-set final. Good for him. His career has gone up and down like Jason Giambi's weight, but he's not far from a return to the top 20. In the doubles Rick Leach and Brian MacPhie beat the South African team of Jeff Coetzee and Chris Haggard. At age 39, Leach becomes the oldest ATP doubles winner since Sherwood Stewart in 1987. It was Leach's 45th career title. ... Say this about Roger Federer: he may have gotten a sick appearance fee to play Dubai -- 350 large, we hear -- but at least he made good on it. The world No.1 defended his title, beating Feliciano Lopez in this final. In what might have been the best first-round matchup in tennis history, Federer had to beat Marat Safin in the opener. ... In the doubles, surely to delight of Monica Seles, Fabrice Santoro and Mahesh Bhupathi took the title beating Leander Paes and Jonas Bjorkman in the final. ... Speaking of players defending titles in oil-rich nations, Anastasia Myskina won in Qatar (pronounced "Cutter" according to Bill Hemmer) for the second straight year. Myskina beat Svetlana Kuznetsova in the final 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Not a bad week for Kuznetsova, though. She dealt Justine Henin-Hardenne her first defeat of the year and teamed with countrywoman Elena Likhovtseva to win the doubles. Kuznetsova will move to No. 14, making her the fifth Russian in the top 15. ...

In Acapulco at the Mexican Open final, Carlos Moya -- probably the hottest men's player this year after Federer -- beat lefty Fernando Verdasco to win another title. Moya has now made the final in four of the five events he's entered in 2004. Keep an eye out for Verdasco, though. In the dubs, the Bryans beat Juan-Iggy Chela and Nicolas Massu in the final. Good for the Bryans for venturing out of the country and off of hard courts. More American players ought to follow their lead. ... In the women's portion of Acapulco, qualifier Iveta Benesova beat Italy's Flavia Pennetta to win her first career WTA Tour singles title in her second career final. In Saturday's doubles final, Lisa McShea of Australia and Milagros Sequera of Venezuela won their first title as a pair, competing together for the very first time in their 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 victory against Czech Republic lucky losers Olga Blahotova and Gabriela Navratilova. ...

The WTA continues to be ravaged by injuries as Amelie Mauresmo pulled out of Indian Wells. Mauresmo does, however, get high marks for her withdrawal statement. In addition to the pro forma "I'm so disappointed," she showed off her literary chops: "I know the sun will shine and it will be a great week." ... Back to Spadea, our friends at the Tennis Channel inform us that a No Strings episode is in the works featuring "Blackjack" Spadea doing his freestyle raps. Seriously. ... Continuing the riveting discussion about the origins of Joachim Johansson's moniker, "Pim Pim," Jerry Balsam of New York was kind enough to send us this link. However Allen Zurapovic of Linkoping, Sweden, informs us: "Recently, local media urged that Johansson should drop the nickname. It is considered dorky." ...

Several of you, including Mitch of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., gave favorable reviews to the new Nike spots that feature Serena Williams playing volleyball. Here's a crazy idea: what if we saw Serena playing tennis one of these days? ... In a story first reported by Dan Kaplan in the Sports Business Journal, the USTA signed MassMutual to a worldwide marketing partnership for the U.S. Open through 2009 and also made MassMutual a charter sponsor of the proposed "U.S. Open Series," a number of summer professional tennis events, tentatively scheduled to launch this year, that would lead in to the U.S. Open, . ... To pre-empt the inevitable onslaught of questions, yes, the Bloomington North basketball team won the Columbus Sectional over the weekend. ... Unsolicited recommendation: for those of you in the market for a novel: check out The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's beautifully written, and you can read it in less time than it takes to fly cross-country. ...

We received a lot of responses to the conundrum about a player having a winning record against EVERY opponent. It seems that the answer is: no one. Rajendra of New Delhi writes: "There is no player who has a head-to-head edge over every player on tour. But Lleyton Hewitt has the best head-to-head record against almost all the leading players of his time -- against Andre Agassi (4-3), Federer (7-3), Roddick (3-0), Juan-Carlos Ferrero (5-3), Pete Sampras (5-4), David Nalbandian (2-0), Guillermo Coria (1-0), Rainer Schuettler (1-1), Mark Phillipousis (3-1), Tim Henman (7-0), Gustavo Kuerten (2-1), Paradorn Srichaphan (5-1) and Safin (5-4). Only Moya has a winning record against Hewitt (5-4)." [Ed: note: Of course Hewitt is 0-1 against Ivo Karlovic, Tommy Robredo, etc.] The ATP essentially agreed with Rajendra, noting that only four players have beaten Hewitt more than three times. ...

Congrats to the University of Illinois men's team. The Illini, the defending NCAA champs tied Stanford's mark by winning their 44th straight match.

If this Mailbag is up to our usual standards, such as they are, we blame the Sopranos-Curb Your Enthusiasm combo. Sorry.

Your interview with Monica Seles made me realize how articulate and smart she is, and how rarely we get to see evidence of that through the media. The only time we hear from most players is immediately after they've won or lost, and no one has their wits about them enough to sound good under those circumstances (and the questions are usually inane). Wouldn't it be good for the sport if we heard more from tennis' smart, articulate ambassadors? And who are they?--Scott Rohr, Minneapolis

Monica Seles is one of many articulate players on Tour. Alex Livesey/Getty Images

While it doesn't compare to meta-topics facing the sport such as dwindling sponsorship revenues and problematic television scheduling, the terms and conditions of media access make for a significant issue in tennis. As you rightly note, Seles is articulate, smart and generally delightful. And she's not alone. Compared to athletes in other sports, I think tennis players fair awfully favorably in the wit-brains-charm-general likability departments. They have informed opinions on matters beyond tennis. (Ask Andy Roddick what he thinks of Bowling for Columbine and you get a disquisition on gun control.). They tend to come scandal-free. (When was the last time a tennis player was featured on that crawl for alleged sexual assault or raping a co-ed on a recruiting visit or dealing cocaine or killing a chauffeur or lying to a grand jury -- all examples of things reported on within just the past week.) Contrary to what their minders would have you believe, they often have time to chat. (There's no team flight to Portland that leaves in 10 minutes, no mandatory batting practice three hours before the match.)

The problem is finding the forum to convey all this personality. In tennis' limited media access, players are shepherded into post-match press conferences shortly after they walk off the court. This is fine for the few reporters and mousse men from TV who need a quick sound bite. But when Monica Seles, to use your example, has just won -- or worse yet, lost -- a three-setter and is still caked in sweat and dying to eat lunch, it's not the time to ask her what she thinks of Roger Federer or HBO's Sunday night line-up or any of a thousand other questions that shed light on and add dimension to her persona. So she gets a few rounds of "How did the wind affect play?" and "Can you talk about that game at four-all?" and "Your next opponent is Fabiola Zuluaga; what do you expect from her?" and walks out.

Another problem with the post-match press conference: Most journalists try to include unique facts and observations and quotes in their stories. (Otherwise, there would be one writer from a wire service on hand and we would all use his or her copy.) When Journalist A has a special question for a player and asks it in a press conference, the response is suddenly public domain, free for anyone to use. So the tendency is to ask bland, innocuous questions and try to sneak in your "special questions" on the side.

There are of course logistical problems to expanding access. In other sports, the media has locker-room access before and after games. All the players, however, play at once. Not so in tennis. Imagine: a media horde circling around Player A's locker to conduct an interview while Player B is nearby trying to psyche himself up before a big match. Another issue: unless it's a special occasion, only a handful of local papers and television stations cover most NBA or baseball or even football games. Yet dozens and dozens of journalists from all over the world converge on even the smallest tennis tournaments. It's not only unreasonable, but it's also unfair to ask the likes of Seles to grant individual interviews to every media member on site.

To the credit of both Tours, they're aware of the problem and have made strides of late to make the players more available, holding "all-access days" before tournaments, coordinating conference calls with players, and mid-wifing requests during events. But as you note, the current system, unfortunately, doesn't do much to expose tennis' many "smart, articulate ambassadors." Especially at a time when sports fans are increasingly sick of cheering for felons, wife-beaters, deadbeat dads, drug cheats and Rasheed Wallace, tennis ought to get more mileage out of the collective character of its players.

I thought you shortchanged former Seminole Paul Haarhuis when you mentioned his retirement a few weeks ago. I have always thought of Haarhuis as a player who always struck the right balance between respecting his talent without overestimating it. How about giving him some props for earning a degree and honing his game on U.S. collegiate scholarships before starting his successful pro career? It should also be noted that he had back-to-back top-40 finishes in singles before he teamed up with Jacco Eltingh to become one of the best doubles teams of the '90s. He made eight singles finals, winning one pro title. Today's young players and their parents could learn a lot from the pragmatic example of Paul Harrhuis.--Kevin Gibbs, Ottawa, Canada

Here, here.

I just wanted to say that the Official Guide to Professional Tennis 2004 is a useful addition to any fan's knowledge base. Anyone can purchase a copy through the official WTA Web site for $25. It's more than 800 pages of tennis information about both the men and women players. It also has a lot of historical information and statistics, too. Sorting out all the different -evas and -ovas is much easier now. Unfortunately, there is very little personal information about the individual players. Another interesting aspect is its politically-correct design, such that neither the ATP nor the WTA appear first.--Jerry Yamamuro, Newark, Del.

No disagreement here. Goes to show what happens when the two tours work together.

Why are so many male American tennis players competing against each other for the all-important ranking points when there are other tournaments around the world? Seems to me the powers-that-be in American tennis should be encouraging those guys to play separate tournaments, or at least send some members of the Davis Cup team to scout out opponents.--Kent, New York

You can get a fat appearance fee, play the hard courts of Scottsdale, eat at P.F. Changs, catch a Suns game, stay at the Princess, and drive a few hours to Indian Wells for the next event. Or you can venture to South America, play on your least favorite surface, and then try to transition in time for two hard court TMS events. Can't really blame the Americans for choosing Door No. 1. But I agree with your larger point: the American men would be well-served to play more clay events even if it means busting out their passport.

You've written nice things in the past about David Nalbandian, but the few times I've seen him play I haven't been that impressed. Do you really think he will win a Grand Slam someday? I sure don't.--D. Patrick, Miami

Perhaps I can been convey my enthusiasm as a limerick:

There was one a player Nalbandian,
A swift-footed, mulleted Andean
No one's one-hit wonder,
He rends foes asunder
With stamina and winners forehandian

Sorry. Just don't know what got into me. You know, I am bullish on Nalbandian. Is he the most fun guy to watch? No. But he is the kind of steady, physically fit, weakness-free, tireless competitor who will one day string together seven straight matches. Random aside: it was less than two years ago that Hewitt played Nalbandian in the Wimbledon final in what was billed as the biggest mismatch since John McEnroe faced Chris Lewis for the 1984 title. If Hewitt plays Nalbandian today -- even on grass -- he's not getting much better than even odds.

Do you think that Patrick Rafter will make the tennis Hall of Fame? He won two Slam titles and was immensely popular, but on the other hand, he only won 11 championships and his credentials don't stack up well against those of Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg, Sampras, Agassi, Michael Chang, or Jim Courier.--Quigley St. Claire, Sytherton, Luxemborg

You're right to imply that it's a close call, but I say give the mate the nod. Two Slams, twice the losing finalist at Wimbledon, doubles success, an aesthetically pleasing game, a swell ambassador for the sport. To use our favorite clich}
of the week -- let's clear some wall space.

If put on the spot, how many active men's players could you name? (I hit 145 during class recently.)--Rafi Zlotnick, Woodmere , N.Y.

	MAILBAG Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag each Monday. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

That's class time well spent. This is harder than you think. Most hard-core fans have heard of, what?... 200, 250 ATP players? Naming them off the top of your head is a lot harder. I tried it with the A's and then checked it against the ATP media guide. I missed Acasuso and Ascione.

What's happening with all the talent in New Zealand? I am so embarrassed to not see any Kiwis in the main draw of the Grand Slams! What can we do about it?--Willy K., Waipu Cove, New Zealand

You may not have a player ranked in the ATP's top 500 -- check that -- you may not have a player who places among the top 500 names on the Indesit Points Race. (Trying to get used it.) But look on the bright side: did Lord of the Rings clean up or what? A trusty Google search reveals that the population of New Zealand is four4 million. That's fewer than the amount of people living in Manhattan. How many of us are top 500?

While drinking iced tea in order to stay awake and write those college papers, I came across this real fact on a Snapple bottle cap: "The fastest served ball in tennis was clocked at 154 miles per hour in 1963." Does this mean that Roddick's serve of 150 mph isn't really the fastest?--Linda, Washington

The Snapple caps I get always have much lamer factoids. "Holland is the only country to have a national dog." Anyway, I had not seen that statistic. Maybe it was just measured on a speed gun but didn't land in the court? Any of you guys know? First correct answer, a bottle of pink lemonade is on me.

Have a great week, everyone!

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers tennis for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.