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Capriati needs a break Posted: Monday October 28, 2002 12:25 PMUpdated: Monday October 28, 2002 1:54 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. Is any player hotter than Paradorn Srichaphan? A week after beating Gustavo Kuerten and Tim Henman in Madrid, the Thai breaker won his second title of the year in Stockholm, beating Marcelo Rios in the final. Check back in a few days for a Q&A with Srichaphan. ... Sebastien Grosjean beat Mikhail Youzhny to win the St. Petersburg Open. Nice to see Youzhny, whose father passed a few weeks ago, come up with such a strong result. ... David ("I no want to be one-hit wonder") Nalbandian outlasted Fernando Gonzalez to win the Swiss Indoors. Props to the Bryan brothers, who won the doubles crown at the event, beating the world's top team of Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor in the final. ... Why three men's events were held concurrently last week is a discussion for another time. ... On the women's side, Justine Henin beat Alexandra Stevenson to win in Linz. But how about a warm round of applause for Stevenson, who is showing that the folks who compile the Exempt Lists know what they're doing after all. She beat Daniela Hantuchova and Jennifer Capriati (the latter for the third time this year) to reach the final and is now in the top 20 for the first time. Stevenson may well have won her first title had she not aggravated a groin injury. ... One can only hope that Samantha Stevenson learned her lesson a few weeks ago and decided against consoling Capriati immediately after the most recent match. ... In yet another simultaneous event, Kim Clijsters won both the singles and doubles in the Seat Open in Luxembourg. ... A storyline to follow: Though I don't believe she has announced it officially, word is that Amelie Mauresmo is pulling out of the WTA Championships in L.A. Problem is, a picayune rule states that eligible players must attend the tournament, even if they are injured and unable to play. Will Mauresmo fly halfway across the world to shake some sponsors' hands and schmooze with Hollywood types for a few hours, or will she risk a fine? ... Much as we all love tennis, was anyone else a little bewildered when the following blurb ran repeatedly on the CNN crawl during sniper coverage: "Top seed [Lleyton] Hewitt loses to [Raemon] Sluiter in Stockholm"? ... What's with the sudden interest in Frida Kahlo? Just asking. ... Speaking of, if Hewitt wins the Shanghai final, what are the odds that he poses afterward with Mark Miles? This will give new zest to the phrase "smiling behind clenched teeth." ... Finally, readers in the Boston area take note: The Sportsmen's Tennis Club is holding a benefit salute to the incomparable Bud Collins on Saturday, Nov. 23. For more info, contact Sandra Elaine Scott at 617-288-9092. Questions, questions ... 1. What has been wrong with Jennifer Capriati in the last month or so? Will she regain her form of earlier 2002, after also doing so miserably late last season? Or will her career spiral downward from here on out?
2. Given the option, what would most top players choose: to have a year like Capriati's, in which she won one Grand Slam title and nothing else, or a year like Venus Williams', in which she won six titles and reached three Slam finals but didn't win the one that counted most? For many months now, Capriati has given the distinct impression that there is nowhere she would less rather be than the tennis world. It's almost like 1992 all over again. When the pilot light is on, the Capster is the world's third-best player. When her head and heart aren't in it, it ain't pretty. Lately she has resembled an also-ran baseball team in late September, simply playing out the string. For her sake, we hope that she takes some time off, regroups and recoups, and regains her mojo in '03. Otherwise, it's hard to see her enduring another stretch like the past nine months. As for your second question, it really depends. I think most run-of-the-mill players would take a Slam over a whole mess of titles. No disrespect to either Venus or the tournament, but five years from now, will anyone really remember who won Palo Alto or New Haven? However little Iva Majoli has done post-1997, she will always be recalled as a French Open champ. On the other hand, I think most top players would rather have Venus' year. Capriati bagged the first major, but then won zilch for the next nine months and, as you put it, spiraled downward. Venus didn't win the biggies, but three runners-up at the Slams and a half-dozen smaller titles bespeaks a stronger year. If you had to bet your fortune on one male and one female player, using wooden rackets and without knowing surface or opponent, whom would you choose?
You can find them under one roof. Assuming we limit this to the Open era (and assuming I had a fortune to jeopardize), I'll take Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. The choice of rackets isn't nearly as big a deal as the surface. Among the males, Agassi is the only career Slam winner. Mats Wilander, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe wouldn't be bad. I wouldn't mind Pete Sampras either; but if the match were played on clay, odds are I'd be selling plasma. On the women's side, I'd feel secure with any of a half-dozen players: Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Monica Seles, though obviously grass could be problematic for Seles. But I'll take the player who has won every Slam at least four times, one of the most underrated achievements in the sport's history. How important is making the Masters Cup for the players? We hear them talk about winning Slams or finishing No. 1, in the top 10, etc., but I rarely hear any mention the Masters Cup. However, it seems like a lot of players work like dogs every fall to get into the thing. Is it the wads of cash that come with an appearance? Is it the chance to finish ranked as high as possible? Or is it merely the allure of Shanghai in November?
Interesting question, but first, let's remember that the event is only a few years old. Prestige will come with time. I also think the answer depends on circumstances. For the past two years, the Masters Cup has decided the Champions Race winner. For Hewitt and Agassi, who are dueling to finish atop the race, winning the Masters Cup is huge. If, say, Tommy Haas won in Shanghai, he'd take home a whole mess of euros, but since it wouldn't catapult him into the top spot, a victory would be of less importance. My question: If a player's winning the Champions Race is a fait accompli before the Masters Cup begins, doesn't this event revert to Stuttgart status? I was surprised to read in last week's Mailbag that the WTA Championships are being held in Los Angeles (sorry for not being up to speed). I guess holding the event in Germany didn't work out, but why didn't it come back to New York? Will it stay in L.A. or rotate among cities? I've been to the tournament at the Garden before and I would love to go again.
We can blame post-9/11 concerns, the time difference, the absence of Venus Williams (then the world's top player) or Canada. For whatever reason, the Championships' one-year stay in Munich was a fiasco. The event isn't scheduled to rotate, but word is that ticket/sponsor sales in L.A. are going slooowly and new sites already are being considered. For a number of reasons -- relative convenience for both European and American players, the proximity to Madison Avenue, a storied venue, a $5 cab ride from my apartment, etc. -- it made all sorts of sense to hold the event in Madison Square Garden. I'm told that the financials, however, never worked out. Two fundamental problems with the year-end championships. First, women's tennis does great in moderately sized venues on balmy summer nights. And it does well when it's mixed with men's matches at the Slams, Key Biscayne and Indian Wells. But is the WTA sufficiently popular to pack an 18,000-seat arena for 10 sessions? Keep in mind that the event offers mega prize money, so tickets aren't cheap. The Williams sisters could sell out arenas, but are thousands of fans going to pony up $60 to watch Anastasia Myskina play Patty Schnyder on a Tuesday afternoon? Second, the event is, for all intents, run by the management firm Octagon. Never mind the Williams sisters vs. Capriati or Martina Hingis, or Sampras vs. Agassi, or Hewitt vs. Mark Miles; the fiercest rivalry in tennis is Octagon vs. IMG. So half the players in the field next week are represented by a firm, IMG, that wants to see the event fall on its face. Who do you think are the top five most talented women on the WTA Tour who have yet to fulfill their potential? My five are:
1. Anna Kournikova: Always the underachiever, but still loaded with talent.
2. Mirjana Lucic: Billed as a future No. 1 when she first arrived on the scene, but has fallen off the radar over the past four years.
3. Alexandra Stevenson: Is getting better every year.
4. Serena Williams: Has done so much already, but just imagine what would happen if she cut down her errors.
5. Kim Clijsters: Consistent with some great results, but has yet to break through with a Grand Slam win. First, I think we need to define the term talent. I'm not sure that Lucic is "talented" per se, so much as she is a big woman who can hit the bejesus out of the ball. When I think talented women, I think Schnyder, a lefty with a ton of natural ability. We also need to distinguish between players who are underachieving and those who simply have yet to reach their peak. Anyway, I'm with you on Kournikova. Lucic was too much a flash-in-the-pan to be considered an untapped talent. Stevenson is making strong progress, but I still have my doubts whether she is a bona fide top-10 player. A year ago Serena would have been a legit candidate for this list, but no longer. Yes, she could stand to cut down on her errors -- who couldn't? -- but someone who's run off three straight Slams isn't failing to reach her potential. I'm with you on Clijsters; the game is there, but one senses she took a step backward this year. I would add Hantuchova, a wildly talented player who's about 18 months away from being a Grand Slam champion. Also, I'll throw in a vote for Vera Zvonareva, who needs a few more years of seasoning but has all sorts of untapped potential. How about a top-five list of umpires on the men's tour? I think you gotta throw Romano Grillotti and Lars Graf into the mix. Whom do the players prefer? And can any of the umps actually play tennis?
I'm reluctant to answer this because one hears surprisingly few gripes from players about the umpires. In baseball, some umpires are vastly more respected (and, frankly, competent) than others. So, too, the NBA. In tennis, the complaints are generally with the linespeople, Jorge (Eagle Eye) Diaz notwithstanding. For all the problems plaguing the men's tour, incompetent umpires isn't one of them. One small suggestion: Couldn't the ATP hire a woman or two for chair duties? Since when is good vision gender-specific? Long Lost SiblingsGustavo Kuerten and Troy Percival.
Fernando Gonzalez and Benicio Del Toro.
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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