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Inside the Fed Cup controversy Posted: Monday April 29, 2002 11:46 AM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. Let's start with the steak before the sizzle: Andy Roddick defended his title in Houston on Sunday, winning his second tournament of the year. But the real story of the week was Pete Sampras getting untracked after a miserable past two months and reaching the final. Included in his run was a straight-set romp over Andre Agassi in the semis. Though he ran out of steam against Roddick, Sampras has to be pleased with his week, particularly given the surface (clay). ... Roddick teamed with Mardy Fish to win the doubles as well. ... In a stunning Fed Cup upset rife with a double dose of women's tennis melodrama, Austria took out the U.S. in Charlotte. Before we discuss l'Affaire Jenny, how about some props, Viennese style, to Barbara (Don't call me Schett, as the local paper did) Schwartz, a player ranked outside the top 50 who took out both Monica Seles and Meghann Shaughnessy. ... Though he hasn't been a credible player for years, Sergi Bruguera, a two-time French Open champion, officially retired last week. Save your tears. Over his career he won -- get this -- nearly $12 million in prize money. ... Yevgeny Kafelnikov's struggles on European clay courts continued as he lost to Italian qualifier Stefano Galvani (plucked, we hear, from the kitchen of Big Night) in the Seat Godo Open. No word on whether Sampras is urging the Y-Man to join Bruguera poolside in retirement. ... The homeys at the All England Club announced a prize money increase for 2002, but they did not bridge the gap between the men's and women's purses. From the Ouch, Babe Dept.: A spokesman said the club is aware there is a difference between men 's and women's prize money, just as there is a difference between the attraction of men's and women's tennis. The troglodyte in question added that the administrators of the U.S. Open and Australian Open are wrong to provide equal monies. ... Michael Chang is releasing an autobiography, Holding Serve: Persevering On and Off the Court. As for the soap-opera portion of today's show, there were a good many last-minute questions about the Billie Jean King/House of Capriati battle royal. First, say this: When was the last time a Fed Cup tie generated this much interest? Anyway, I say good for King. Rules, as someone once remarked, is rules. And when one player is unwilling to comply with rules that the whole team was expected to obey -- no matter how ridiculous said rules may have seemed -- how can a self-respecting coach or captain not take action? A little background is in order, too: I'm told that Capriati's unauthorized practice was merely the culmination of a week's worth of rebellious behavior that undermined King's authority. Capriati arrived in Charlotte a day later than King asked her to; she made various demands that had USTA staffers rolling their eyes; the omnipresent Stefano threw a fit when he was told he couldn't watch practice. As one source exceptionally close to the team told me: "Basically, [Capriati] acted like she was doing the world a favor by just showing up from the moment she arrived." More background: It is an open secret that the Capriati camp -- even by tennis' impossibly high standards -- is notoriously difficult and hypersensitive. Just last month, Stefano threatened to pull his daughter out of the NASDAQ-100 because he felt the event was fixed in favor of the Williams sisters. Why? Because Jennifer had to play back-to-back night matches. Again, good for King for standing up to a bully. So who suffers? Certainly not King, whose legacy is assured and whose Fed Cup duties constitute roughly 1 percent of her various and sundry affairs and projects. She hasn't always been fair or consistent with decision-making (see: Raymond, Lisa), but by most accounts she is on solid ground here. (Note, by the way, how little support Capriati received from her former teammates.) Capriati doesn't suffer much either. For a player who was just given a new Ferrari, she needs Fed Cup lucre like a kick in the head. And unlike Davis Cup, declining to play Fed Cup is no big deal. (Say, where were the Williams sisters, anyway?) We already knew she was hard-headed and capable of throwing a Grade-A tantrum, so this isn't necessarily an image-soiling controversy. No, the aggrieved parties are: a) tennis fans in Charlotte, who paid to see Capriati and didn't get the chance; and b) the sport in general, which yielded yet another example of the tennis-pro-as-insufferable-prima donna, unwilling to bend for the sake of others. A shame. Onward ... What is the talk among the other women about how Venus and Serena Williams can make so many unforced errors yet still win tournaments?
For most players, one of the frustrations of playing the Williams sisters -- and, to a lesser extent, other power hitters -- is that you feel irrelevant. You win points when they miss; you lose points when they hit winners. The outcome of the match is essentially in their hands. Players say to themselves, I have a chance to win if I just get the ball back and let them make mistakes. At times this is true, as Patty Schnyder gladly will attest. But when they crank winners from every angle and retrieve your power shots as if they're moonballs, it's no surprise that they can rack up 30, 40, 50 unforced errors in a match and still win handily. I compare it to Shaquille O'Neal's poor free-throw shooting; he may only make 50 percent of his foul shots, but if he gets to the line 20 times and your center gets there twice, he's still dominating. I was scanning the tennis scores in the paper and saw mention of a player named "Huber." Is this Anke Huber making a comeback? I sure hope so!
Sorry to disappoint, but Pageboy Anke remains retired. I'm guessing the "Huber" in question in Liezel Huber, a South African who plays doubles with Nicole Arendt. (WTA arcana: Huber also has one of the cuter dogs on the women's tour.) I read the first issue of the ATP's magazine, Deuce, and I thought it was excellent, with a lot of good, color photos and profiles. I thought it was a good alternative to Tennis magazine, which at times seems to be heavy on instruction and light on profiles and stories. But do you think the ATP will have to pace itself after such an impressive debut? I would hate to see the quality die after the first issue. Also, is there any word on the WTA releasing a magazine of its own? You'd think it would want to capitalize on its popularity.
This reads suspiciously like a "plant" query from an ATP employee bucking for a promotion. But your e-mail address checks out, so here goes: Deuce was indeed a good read -- and I don't say that just because it reprinted a certain CNNSI.com column. There were lots of well-written, in-depth pieces about players who don't always get a lot of press in the U.S., and, you're right, none of that meaningless instruction à la Tennis. ("When you're hitting a drop volley, pretend you're smelting copper and then pan-searing a bay scallop.") Unfortunately for Deuce, "magazine" is something of a misnomer; it's more of an annual, so don't expect another issue for many more months. As for the women, indeed you would think they would want to capitalize on their popularity. But I'm guessing that "publishing a fan magazine" comes lower on the corporate to-do list than "find a site for headquarters." In other words, the WTA has bigger fires to extinguish right now. What are some tennis-related companies that are worth investing in?
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Seriously, you should just invest in Austin real estate. I've never seen Fernando Gonzalez play, but I keep reading that he is the hardest hitter on the men's tour. I simply refuse to believe it. How can any one single player be considered the hardest hitter when there are so many Marat Safins, Andy Roddicks, Greg Rusedskis, Juan Carlos Ferreros, Mark Philippoussises and Gustavo Kuertens on the men's tour?
I'm with you, Leo. That was highly suspect, given that the guy was barely a top-100 player when the claim was made. I mean, Gonzo doesn't even have his own page in the current ATP media guide. My personal theory: Ever notice how when Sampras loses, he heaps all sorts of praise on the opponent? According to Pete, Safin played the match of his life to beat him at the 2000 U.S. Open. Likewise, Lleyton Hewitt was, in Sampras' words, "totally in the zone" in the final. To Pete, it seems inconceivable that a player can beat him on average day. So when Gonzalez took out Pete in Key Biscayne, the Chilean suddenly became the second coming of Rod Laver. Gonzalez smacks the ball awfully hard, at least from the backcourt. But is he a harder hitter than Safin, Roddick, Kuerten or Agassi? I think not. You often speak about certain players who possess what you deem to be "natural talent." ATP rankings aside, who do you think are the most naturally gifted players on tour today? In other words, when you daydream about the tennis player you wish you were, what player do you think of?
Those are, of course, two different questions. Wink, wink. But off the top of my head, Marcelo Rios, Hicham Arazi, Agassi, Nicolas Escudé and Safin head the "natural talent" list. I once heard Ivan Lendl, of all people, explain that you often can discern natural talent by what a player does when returning an opponent's errant serve. The players who, without thinking, slice a long serve so that it bounces on their opponent's side of the net then backspins to their own side, the guys who mindlessly bat a wide serve around the post and smack-dab in the corner, those are the guys with natural talent in spades. All jokes aside, what does Anna Kournikova need to do to get back to the top 10? Right now she seems very lost.
She may find her way yet. Though nothing is official, I'm told that Kournikova almost surely will hire Harold Solomon as her coach. It's a good move, one that she should have made months (years?) ago. Kournikova's most glaring deficiency right now is confidence, an irony given her bearing in real life. This string of opening losses clearly has done a number to her on-court psyche, as evidenced by her decision to drop down and play Tier IIIs, tennis' equivalent of minor-league baseball, these next few weeks. A few wins against anyone will help. On the court, she needs to get out of the Bill O'Reilly no-spin zone. (Ba-da-bum.) Too many flat, predictable groundies; not enough topspin and craft. As we've said before, if Kournikova would observe Martina Hingis and learn how to junk up a rally, it would do wonders for her results. After his success in Houston, beating Andre Agassi and reaching the final, don't you think Pete Sampras has to be considered a contender to win the French Open?
I think you were out in the sun watching too much tennis last week. Let's give Sampras credit for breaking out of his slump and showing some aptitude. But he ain't winning more than a few rounds in Paris. That's simply fact. Have a good week, everyone! And please, don't schedule your own practices without first clearing it with the captain. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim, author of Venus Envy: A Sensational Season Inside the Women's Tennis Tour, is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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