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GQ spread undermines women's game Posted: Monday September 30, 2002 1:28 PMUpdated: Monday September 30, 2002 3:17 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. Last weekend's winners: Serena Williams captured her sixth title in her last seven events (trivia answer: Chanda Rubin) by beating Anastasia Godiva, uh, Myskina in Leipzig. ... Juan Carlos Ferrero won a third-set breaker against Carlos Moya to take the Salem Open title in Hong Kong. ... Mailbag favorite Fernando Gonzalez beat Jose Acasuso to win Palermo. ... Seventeen-year-old Svetlana Kuznetsova (What? An up-and-coming Russian?) beat Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario in the semis and Conchita Martinez in the final of the Mismilak International in Bali. ... Bjorn Borg has told Swedish tabloid Expressen that he and his wife, Patricia, will become parents in May 2003. The 46-year-old Borg has one son, Robin, who attends a special tennis high school and is ranked among the top 25 in his age group. "Now my role as a father is going to be the important thing, absolutely nothing else," Borg said. "And these days I have a lot of free time. This is going to be a lot of fun." Borg and Patricia were married on June 8. ... From the rumor mill: The Hamburg WTA event is for sale. Truthfully, if I'm an American pro, I'm thinking long and hard about playing there anyway. ... What with its monthly issues, Tennis Week might be the biggest misnomer this side of The Best Damn Sports Show Period. But every now and then the magazine publishes a must-read for hardcore tennis fans. Case in point: Sir Richard Evans' essay in the most recent issue on the masochistic structure of our sport. Freebies: Figured it's about time we had another contest. In the past few weeks, a number of you have written in detailing your chance, off-court interactions with various pros. You sat near Monica Seles on a flight and watched her dutifully sign autographs. You saw Yevgeny Kafelnikov getting the Maxx for the minimum, rummaging through the clearance bin at the Indianapolis T.J. Maxx. (Who among us hasn't been there?) You looked on with horror as Jennifer Capriati dressed down a California waitress working the late shift. So here's the deal: In 150 words or fewer, send me your best story about a chance encounter with a pro, i.e., no "I saw Venus Williams playing at Arthur Ashe Stadium." Best (read: funniest) anecdote gets a Dunlop 300G, the weapon of choice for James Blake and Amelie Mauresmo. A year's supply of Turtle Wax or comparable prizes to runners-up. Time to roll out the barrel: Regarding the "soft porn" photo spread (as you put it) in this month's GQ: Is Daniela Hantuchova lying to us when she repeatedly claims that her tennis is all that matters, only to do photos like this? Or, as your comments insinuate, is someone higher up in the WTA-- or, God forbid, managers or agents -- pushing players to parade in front of the cameras in this way? If someone at the WTA is in charge of this, questions need to be raised about the tour's promotional tactics and sense of morality. We all know that sex sells, but the WTA had made a point, pre-Anna Kournikova, of not doing so this blatantly. What's the deal?
Amen. The WTA Tour's fingerprints are all over this (perhaps that's an unfortunate choice of words). The tour has, unrepentantly, chosen to peddle the sex appeal of its players, and lately hands were being wrung over who could replace the desultory Kournikova (see: Popova, Simonya). To the WTA braintrust, the GQ photo shoot was a great coup. Here are three more young faces to make sure women's tennis still rates in the babe department. (Some of us in the media were even given a breathless heads-up from WTA HQ that a salacious spread was forthcoming.) Rest assured the players' agents were in on this, too. Suffice to say, magazines aren't going directly to players and convincing them to pose nude on the backs of large mammals. This subject is ripe for healthy debate. When female athletes pose in various states of undress or underscore their sexuality in other ways, are they empowered? Or are they being exploited? The simple answer is that it's about taste, context and packaging. If in winning her third straight Grand Slam Serena Williams wears a Lycra catsuit on the court that accentuates her form, that's great. If Brandi ("I ran my ass off for this body") Chastain wants to pose naked with a strategically placed soccer ball prior to the World Cup, good for her. If swimmer Jenny Thompson wants to pose topless in Sports Illustrated, flexing her muscles, the photo accompanied by a glowing 2,000-word article about her athletic achievements, more power to her. If Kournikova wants to vamp on the cover of a magazine, and a lengthy article on the inside extols her tennis, so be it. To issue a blanket condemnation is to end up sounding like the village scold or some moralizing Dr. Laura. Let's also be realistic and acknowledge that if the women posed only in starched linens for tennis-specific magazines, the sport would have the popularity and appeal of the LPGA Tour. The critical question: Is the subject ultimately being portrayed as an athlete or as a sex kitten? In the latest GQ, the answer is obvious. As the breathless cover blurb "Three Eastern Bloc Hotties Who'll Make You Forget Anna What's-her-name?" would suggest, this is 100 percent cheesecake. Visually, nothing in the spread indicates that these are elite athletes, much less tennis players. Myskina is naked on a horse -- a horse, we're told, that became visibly excited when she hopped aboard. Hantuchova is in a post-coitus pose, her hands behind her head, her legs spread. Elena Dementieva is giving us a glimpse of her panties, one of her hands inexplicably bound. This has nothing to do with celebrating the human form or posing subjects artistically; this is simply (hyper)sexualizing the women in question (and providing fodder for onanists everywhere). We also have the matter of "informed consent." Chastain was 30, a wife and a stepmom, when she posed naked. Thompson was in her late 20s, a Stanford graduate headed to med school. When, for that matter, a Jason Sehorn poses in his underwear for a Jockey ad, he does so as a thirtysomething married man. Hard to make the case they didn't know what they were getting into. Anyone who has dealt with the three "Eastern Bloc Hotties" in question has to wonder whether they understood the implications of what they were doing. Mary Carillo recently said that Hantuchova is "totally clueless" that she is being marketed as a sex object. And Carillo is right. You have an icky feeling that the three players (none over 21, none raised in the U.S.) were sweet-talked by tour operatives and simply thought this was an easy way to fulfill one of their dreaded Aces obligations. (An aside: When the tour oversees photo shoots of players showing undergarments and laying naked atop horses, can it really be shocked that the sport has a problem with stalkers?) Perhaps above all, pictorials like this have the effect of trivializing women's tennis and minimizing the achievements of the players. I was a guest on a radio show the other day and a caller phoned in to ask "if that chick who was naked on the horse has a wild reputation." It's a shame that the caller didn't know Myskina's name or care about her tennis abilities, especially since she likely will finish the year in the top 10. It's a worse shame that the WTA Tour is complicit in this. Pass the hat. Sermon's over. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts ... OK, I'll bite: In last week's column, you mentioned that you had a "Stefan Edberg story" to tell. What is it?
Summer 1992. To earn some extra cash before the fall semester of college, I worked the locker room of the New Haven tournament. (Think I feel old? Kafelnikov had to qualify.) Anyway, I was a glorified towel boy, duties including making sure the showers were stocked with enough ATP Tour-brand bath gel. First day he arrived, Edberg, a top seed and defending U.S. Open champion, approached me and extended his hand: "Hi, I'm Stefan." Rest of the week, he treated me like an old friend. Edberg beat Mal Washington, I think it was, to win the title. He got his check, gave his speech and left town. As I cleaned up the locker room one last time, I came across an adidas bag stuffed with new shoes, a new sweatshirt and a racket. Atop it was a note: "Jon, thanks for everything. Good luck at school, Stefan." (FYI: 148 words.) I have a feeling people are writing Venus Williams off as second-best for the rest of her career. I think this shows great disrespect toward Venus and her talent. She's only 22; you would think she was 10 years older than Serena. Venus had a great year; Serena just had a better one. I can see Venus regaining the No. 1 ranking easily. I can also see it flip-flopping between the two for years to come. Your thoughts?
I agree with you to a point. Yes, Venus is still relatively young. Yes, in both 2000 and 2001 she bagged a pair of Slams and was, for all intents, the best in the business. But as of now she clearly is "second-best." The last four times she has played her sister, three of which were in Slam finals, she hasn't mustered a set. I think we would all like it -- and feel more comfortable -- if she and Serena flip-flopped for years to come. But, rationally, right now that's hard to envision. As Pat McEnroe said recently: "However wide the gap is between the Williams sisters and the rest of the field, right now the gap is equally wide between Serena and Venus." I once read in a book that Suzanne Lenglen liked to drink cognac in between changeovers. How would Venus or Serena Williams fare if they had to sip cognac during changeovers? Also, golfers are not allowed to replace broken clubs. Wouldn't a comparable rule in tennis help control people's tempers? For example, allow a player to replace, say, only one or two broken rackets?
Maybe we've hit upon a way to topple the Williams dynasty, after all. Let's just say that as Jehovah's witnesses, they are unlikely to be accompanying Iva Majoli and J-Cap to Serafina anytime soon. Your second question presupposes that the powers-that-be want to "control tempers" and punish players for smashing their quiver of rackets. This ain't the case. Remember the ATP ads that show Marat Safin smashing his racket, underscoring the "color and 'tude" of today's pros? It is, however, possible for a player to smash so many rackets that he runs out of equipment and is forced to default. That precise scenario once befell Goran Ivanisevic in a match against Hyung-Taik Lee. Afterward, Ivanisevic said: "At least when I've finished playing tennis, they'll remember me for something, They'll say, 'There's that guy who never won Wimbledon, but he smashed all his rackets.'" Little did he know ... For those of us who didn't know what you were talking about, could you explain what the "gold exempt list" is?
My crass definition: The gold exempt list is a cloak-and-dagger rating kept by the WTA Tour of the top 20 players in terms of marketability. The list comprises the top 16 players in the world (though not necessarily in order of their computer ranking) as well as four wild cards. Players on the list have certain responsibilities and must play a certain number of events at a certain tier. Those who fulfill their playing obligations are eligible for bonuses ranging from $20,000 or so to well into six figures. The list essentially exists so that promoters can ascertain that marketable players will compete in their tournament and that "ticket-sellers" like Kournikova are compensated accordingly. In theory, anyway, the bonuses are also supposed to preclude appearance fees for the "drawing card" players. Regarding the exempt list, I can understand why the WTA Tour would want to recognize Anna Kournikova. I can see why a pair of great champions and classy players like Amanda Coetzer and Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario would get wild cards. But why, oh, why, would Alexandra Stevenson? Is this a joke? Has she won a match since Wimbledon 1999? Should the tour be promoting other players? Is there a story we should know about?
You're not alone in your healthy skepticism. The "glass-half-empty" explanation: A) Tawdry curiosity remains at work, and some fans want to see "Dr. J's kid"; B) The WTA Tour threw Stevenson a bone in hopes of avoiding yet another knock-down, drag-out battle with her combative mother. The "glass-half-full" explanation: A) While she underachieved mightily in the Slams, Stevenson did play well earlier in the year and has shown flashes of being a top-20 player; B) For all the attendant melodrama, she is one of the better players at fulfilling off-court obligations, participating in kids' clinics, meeting sponsors, etc. Perhaps this is the tour's way of rewarding her for her professionalism. I know professionals get paid for playing with the equipment they use, but are the rackets they use the standard-issue ones that are sold in stores, or are they made especially for that particular player? If a manufacturer labels a racket as, for example, "Andre Agassi's racket," is it really the same?
Basically, manufacturers give the touring pros the frame that you can find in stores. Then the player has the manufacturer's tour rep customize the frame to his or her liking. Typically, players might have the balance and weight changed slightly to suit their swings. In last week's column you wrote that we all know modern players would beat their older counterparts, like Tiger Woods over Jack Nicklaus and Oscar De La Hoya over Sugar Ray Leonard. Are you high? De La Hoya beats Leonard in their primes? Gimme a break.
Lots of you roasted me for that one. Who knew Sugar Ray had so many fans in the tennis community? (Maybe I was on a De La Hoya high having just watched him TKO Fernando Vargas.) How about a less controversial example: Lennox Lewis would manhandle Muhammad Ali. (Kidding.) FINALLY, it's the digestif after all that nutrition. This week's Long Lost Siblings: Francisco Clavet and Jerry Seinfeld. It's uncanny.
Karol Kucera and Ralph Fiennes.
Daniela Hantuchova and Jake Lloyd.
Have a good week, everyone. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers tennis for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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