Doubles pairings lead HOF ballots; more thoughts on Agassi

Gigi Fernandez (left) and Natasha Zvereva are eligible on the Hall of Fame ballot as a doubles team. AP

We'll start this week with two open calls. I received my ballot for the 2010 inductions to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Doubles is the theme this year and the nominees are Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva (as a team), Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge (as a team), and Anders Jarryd (individually).

With the blessings of the good folks at the ITHF, I'm handing over my ballot to you guys. Send me your selections (my e-mail and Twitter contacts are above) and I'll vote for players whom a majority of you select. If this gets too cumbersome, I may have to create a Facebook site or somesuch. But for now, fire away. (Vote one time only, please.)

• Speaking of audience participation: WTA CEO Stacey Allaster has kindly volunteered to take some reader questions -- presumably about her agenda and the state of the women's game, though, who knows, maybe she, too, has strong feeling about The Wire's superiority to The Sopranos. Send me your questions, I'll select a batch and pass them on.

Onward:

You wrote: "Right now, Agassi is taking a hit -- fueled, surprisingly, by criticism from current players -- both for the drug use and the lies he conveyed to a gullible tribunal." Can you elaborate on this point? So far, his legacy doesn't seem to have taken a hit in the media, while his profile is back on top. I'm sympathetic, especially to Agassi's childhood experiences. But the confessions seem self-indulgent rather than reflective and brave. Also, I'm curious about whether you were surprised by the current players' criticism. If you wrote a tell-all about the corruption at SI after leaving, what would you expect from your former colleagues?
-- Matt, Bloomington, Ind.

• As expected, there was a lot of Agassi fallout this week. If you're going to launch a book, nothing like controversy to get the Amazon ranking up. I'm supposed to speak with Andre on Wednesday, and I'm planning to have a Q&A for the site Thursday, so I'll go easy on the Agassi questions here.

I am, though, surprised at how many players -- Marat Safin, Rafael Nadal, Sergi Bruguera, Marcelo Rios -- are taking swipes. (When Safin is defending the ATP Tour, you know something's up.) To Matt's point, I do think Agassi is getting beaten up a bit. Here's a guy who, a week ago, had an unimpeachable image. Suddenly -- and by his own doing -- he's come in for some hard criticism. A lot of us seem to be in agreement and find it hard to condemn him for recreational drug use more than a decade ago, but find the lying and the cover-up distasteful.

But plenty of you wrote in with sentiment echoing that of Michael of Burbank, Calif.: "When I first heard that Agassi's book was coming out, it was on the top of my son's stocking-stuffer list. Now it's not. I do not want my 12-year-old to read how he took drugs and then came back to win Grand Slams. I don't care. He should have thought about that as a father and kept his mouth shut."

Did Martina Navratilova really compare Andre's use of crystal meth to Roger Clemens using steroids? I'm a huge Martina fan, but please tell me the quote attributed to her was a mistake.
-- Rich, Westchester

• You mean Clemens' alleged steroid use. I like Martina personally and have great respect for the rare athlete willing to take political stands, to speak out, and to use her celebrity platform for purposes more noble than selling sneakers. The flip side is that sometimes Martina could probably use an internal editor before sounding off. Comparing Agassi with Clemens is a terribly flawed analogy for any of a dozen reasons. To her credit, she appears to have backed off that assessment, telling CBS' The Early Show that athletes shouldn't be tested for recreational drugs.

How does Agassi's meth confession affect his Hall of Fame entry?
-- Lindsay W., Dallas

• Not at all. If illicit recreational drug use precluded induction, you could house the Hall of Fame in a double-wide trailer.

ITF chief Ricci Bitti suggested it would be counterproductive for the committee to ban the top-ranked player (Serena Williams) for the Australian Open. And so, if Yanina Wickmayer were ranked higher, she wouldn't have been banned for a year? I adore professional tennis, truly. But it just feels like a total mess right now. Are the other sports laughing at us?
-- Ken Schneck, Brattleboro, Vt.

• Other sports have their issues, too. But between Agassi and the Wickmayer farce, it's been a rough stretch for tennis, at least off the court. I've said my piece about Wickmayer here.

The bottom line is this: Lacking as they are in a union, the players are getting hammered on this anti-doping issue. And Bitti's odd remarks, which many of you also cited, only highlight the flaws. So basically ranking determines culpability? If that's the case, maybe a 19-year-old, who started the year outside the top 50 -- and thus may have been understandably clueless about WADA protocol -- deserves a little compassion? Look, Wickmayer did not provide her whereabouts to authorities three times, which is problematic and warrants some discipline. But one year?! That's draconian.

Is it just me being overly cynical, or is one of the big losers from Agassi-gate one Richard Gasquet? Are fewer people likely to believe Gasquet's defense now that Agassi's story has come to light?
-- Cam Bennett, Geelong, Australia

• I had the same thought. Then news broke about the Wickmayer ban.

Will Roger Federer be able to secure the No. 1 ranking in Paris? Haven't heard much about that at all.
-- Tim, New York City

• An actual tennis question? What's that all about? Look at the rankings, and if my math is right, it's entirely possible that Rafael Nadal can finish the year at No. 1. The problem is, he's still looking little like the Nadal of old, the fearless player who trusts his body 100 percent. Plus, the remaining events are indoors, never his favorite precinct. I suspect Federer will end 2009 in the penthouse yet again.

You wrote that the last time Federer took a bad loss in a major was 2003. Um, do the words Nadal, French Open and 2008 mean anything to you? How about a bagel to go with that loss, Roger?
-- Leon, New York, N.Y.

• You guys are rough. Lots of you made a similar observation. Federer simply failed to show up that day. But is losing to Nadal on clay ever a "bad loss"? Not so much, in my book.