Players like Jankovic, Davydenko load up on events

	Jelena Jankovic will have played eight weeks in a row without missing any action leading into Wimbledon. Heinz Kluetmeier/SI
	MAILBAG Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag every Wednesday. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

A quick Mailbag before the Big Show. Check back on Friday for our Wimbledon seed reports.

Jelena Jankovic, by competing in Birmingham, England, and being signed up for a tournament in the Netherlands, is slated to have played eight weeks in a row before Wimbledon. Is it love of the game or money that keeps her doing this? Also, do you think that constant play (this week's Birmingham tournament is her 16th of the year already!) and little time for reflection makes her the unimaginative player that she is?
-- Mark, Austin, Texas

I was recently reading an article on Harlan Coben, the prolific mystery writer. Coben learned that Frank McCourt had gone seven years between books and he asked dumbfounded, "What's the guy do all day?!?" At some level tennis is like writing: Different people have different capacities for work.

You and I (and most players) might consider Jankovic's schedule overbooked. But she can clearly handle it, having beaten Maria Sharapova in a three-set final in Birmingham. Reminds me of Kim Clijsters, another workaholic, who once told me that she needed to play and not practice to stay sharp. The year she won the U.S. Open, she had played something like five of the previous six weeks. (Of course one might that she had she played less, she might still be with us.)

Particularly with the men, I think you also have to consider style of play. Nikolay Davydenko enters an insane number of events, but look at how he plays: He's light on his feet, he doesn't crush the ball, he moves a lot laterally, but it's not as though he's making headlong dashes to the net. If lumbering players tried to take on Davydenko's workload, they'd be in traction.

Also, as you note, we'd be naïve to overlook the role of money. It's not simply that every week presents a new chance to win prize money and, in some cases, appearance-fee booty. A lot of players have rankings bonus clauses in their contracts, so if Jankovic can sustain her top-five status, in theory, it could mean the difference between hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The French is history and the Fed pulls out of Halle, Germany, citing fatigue. Yet Rafael Nadal made it into the third round at Queen's. I have to give the GOAT award for mental toughness to Nadal, at least prospectively, at this point. What say you?
-- Bruce, Salt Lake City

You know, these things change. Lindsay Davenport wins the first three times she appears in a Grand Slam final; she loses the next five. Justine Henin is known as a choker early in her career. A few years later her mental fortitude is the biggest weapon in her arsenal.

I agree that Nadal is one tough hombre, seemingly vaccinated against pressure. But I think I we have to wait a while before making any GOAT pronouncements. (Also, we ought to note that after reaching the third round at Queen's, he fell to a player outside the top 100.)

Can you explain the rationale that the women use to opt to play in a red clay tournament right before Wimbledon?
-- Ken Schneck, Bronxville, N.Y.

1) Some promoter offered to pay the WTA a sanctioning fee; 2) There are some players who think little of their grass-court chances and would just as soon scrap their chances; 3) The event in question was held in Barcelona, which might figure into the WTA's future plans, so that event is a nice beach-head; 4) More events means more jobs for the rank-and-file membership.

At some level, this is a pretty good microcosm of tennis' structural flaws. It sounds crazy to approve of a clay-court event two weeks before Wimbledon. It's confusing to the fans, it takes continuity out of the schedule, it spreads the product too thinly. But plenty of constituents have reasons for wanting the event, too.