Mail call: Opinions on NCAA tennis, Sharapova's shoot, doubles, more

Maria Sharapova has only played in four WTA events this season. Bob Martin/SI Jon Wertheim's Mailbag Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag every Wednesday. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND

What's the deal with the photo shoot Maria Sharapova is complaining about? According to the rules, these thing are supposed to be agreed to in advance by the player and the WTA. Is she backing out of something she already agreed to do? Are there other players participating? I would imagine that stylists, makeup artists and a photographer have already been hired. It must be a pretty big deal if the WTA is going to fine her $300,000.
-- Pam, Amherst, N.Y.

Full disclosure: I'm off on non-tennis assignments for Sports Illustrated and know little more about SharapovaGate than what I've read online. Still, I think it's tempting to read the headlines and take sides. Either Sharapova is an ingrate who makes $20 million a year but doesn't have time to give back to the WTA, the institution that makes her professional success possible. Or the WTA is overstepping its bounds, demanding too great an off-court commitment from a player.

In reality, both parties have a point. The players, despite what they and their agents might think, owe a huge debt to the tours. But the tours sometimes lose sight of the fact that the players are athletes first and marketing commodities second -- demanding a four-hour block of time the day before a tournament, reportedly on short notice, strikes me as excessive. Sharapova, quite reasonably, asks why her own "tour" is making her do something against her interests. The Tour, quite reasonably, wonders why one of its most successful "members" is acting so selfishly, counter to the organization that gives her a platform to perform.

I draw two conclusions. One, this never should have become a public debate. Could this really not have been negotiated behind the scenes? Did the WTA really not anticipate a problem when it made this demand? On the other hand, did Sharapova -- who's played only four WTA events this year -- really think she was going to garner sympathy by complaining about the time commitment? (A Bill Maherian new rule: when you make $20 million a year, your forfeit your right to complain about oppressive working conditions. Especially when it's May and you're in Rome.) This becomes a worldwide headline and everyone, including tennis, comes out looking lousy.

Two, this is still another example of the problems that arise when a de facto league doubles as a players' union. It just doesn't work. You can't sit on both sides of the bargaining table. Bring on a real Players' Association, already. Or at least a commissioner to settle this in private.

Perhaps something for you to pass along to Sharko or another keeper of sundry tennis stats: Of, say, the top 50 or 100 college tennis teams, the percentage of their players that come from countries other than the US?
-- Dave Anderson, Waikiki, Hawaii

We'll spare the Sharko the work. Just go here and look for yourself. Wait. What's that you say? Someone carted in a soapbox. Why, let me climb aboard and rant:

I think the influx of foreign players is a serious -- potentially fatal, even -- problem in college tennis. And no one seems to have the courage to take a principled stand. Let's get this out of the way first: should NCAA coaches be allowed to recruit foreign players? Absolutely, especially in these global times, the same way the Sorbonne should (and does) accommodate Americans abroad. It would be immoral (and illegal) to assert otherwise.

But there is a line here. And many coaches don't so much cross the line as they bound over it as if catapulted by flubber. When a program fields a roster almost entirely from abroad, at a bare minimum it subverts the spirit of college sports. You could do this with dozens of programs, but let's make an illustrative example out of Mississippi State. Here is its men's tennis roster.

Its top player, Ivan Bjelica, is a 24-year-old senior. (Move over, Frank the Tank!) According the ATP website, Bjelica was playing low level professional events -- he once lost to Novak Djokovic -- as early as 2003. Even if a school can get its compliance office to sign off on this guy, I think you're hard-pressed to defend recruiting a 24-year-old former pro to play on your college team. Again, this is just one illustrative example. Just for fun, I checked out the roster for Mississippi State's rival, Ole Miss, one of the nation's top teams. See for yourself.

And it's not just Division I. A few years ago an editor asked me to look into this dynasty program at Lander University, a small Division II school in South Carolina. We naively thought that there was a cool story to be written about an unlikely tennis hotbed. Sadly, it turned out that the team was simply importing all its best players from overseas. Check out the Bearcats' current roster and it's no wonder Lander can beat the daylights out of the small school down the road that recruits from nearby high schools.

The offending coaches will quietly tell you that they are under pressure from their bosses to win titles; that can't be achieved when they restrict recruiting to the local talent pool. But this "everyone-else-is-doing-it" logic is cowardly.

First, there ARE successful programs that manage to field teams without bending the rules. Note, for instance, the perennial success of Stanford (granted, an easy recruiting sell) or Ty Tucker's program at Ohio State.

Second, this "logic" is self-fulfilling. If it becomes clear to every local kid that his odds of getting a college scholarship are nil because the spots are all going to some 23-year-old ringer from Slovenia, you're begging kids to switch away from tennis. Then the local talent pool really will be as shallow as a wading pool.

One wonders what role this unfortunate trend plays in the recent eliminations of college tennis programs. The budget axe swings at State U. and the athletic director needs to cut a (men's, invariably) non-revenue sport. The wrestling team or the diving team is comprised of local kids, whose parents paid taxes and know legislators. The tennis team is a collection of Venezuelan ringers who played futures events, couldn't cut it and decided to get a U.S. college scholarship instead. Pretty easy decision, I'd think.

Again, this is not meant as a jingoistic Lou Dobbs tirade. Coaches are entitled, if not obligated, to recruit globally. But the coaches filling their entire team with overseas players, particularly with old-timers who've already tried their hand on the pro circuit? That's indefensible. Next time we enumerate the causes of the sport's stunted growth here in the U.S., don't forget to include these guys.