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WTA Championships' woes are plenty Posted: Monday November 11, 2002 2:35 PMUpdated: Tuesday November 12, 2002 6:43 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. A week ago I whined that we only got a handful of question. This week I'm whining that we received so many questions I can only get to a handful. Thanks for putting up with me. Right to the mail ... What do you think of the lack of fan presence at the Staples Center last week? The empty arena looks really pathetic on TV. Did the WTA forget to publicize this tournament? Whom do we have to e-mail to get the tournament back in NYC at Madison Square Garden?
Next year's promotion: Buy a ticket and get your own personal concession stand. Jokes aside, the paltry attendance at last week's WTA Championships was, quite simply, an embarrassment. Yes, the late move to L.A. left precious little time to drum up sponsors and sell tickets. Yes, there was no lead-in tournament in the U.S. the week before to get some buzz going. Yes, some of the players were less accommodating than they should have been in promoting the event. But 200 fans to watch two top-16 players? Never mind the Staples Center; you'd get more fans than that if the match were held at an actual Staples store. A non-crowd like that just can't happen, especially at an event that pays $3 million in prize money, especially for a tour at a crossroads. Five unsolicited tips for avoiding a repeat: 1. Take a cue from the men and make this a round robin among the top eight players. We understand that the WTA Tour wants to showcase as many players as possible, but the event would have more prestige if only the creme de la creme were present. 2. Just as Philadelphia was an ideal tuneup when the championships were held the Garden, the WTA needs to add an American event the week prior. (Paul Allen, this is your cue.) 3. The event would be cheapened if there were a discretionary wild card. But, man, it would help attendance if a certain player whose surname starts with K and ends with an -ova were in the draw. (And we ain't talking about Sandra Kleinova.) 4. Combine the year-end championships with the men's and create the de facto All-Star Week we've been discussing here for years. Before we hear about how the men are locked into Houston in 2003 and the women are tethered to L.A., let's consult the attendance figures and TV ratings from mixed-gender events and see if we can't make the numbers smell right for everyone. 5. If that fails, move the championships back to the Garden. The overall attendance for the event in NYC just two years ago was roughly four times what it was in L.A. last week. Los Angelenos (they all come from somewhere) are off at the beach or getting cosmetic surgery during a week in November. You don't have that problem in New York. Further, given the performances of the Knicks and Rangers, we're sure the MSG and Cablevision suits would be all too happy to lower the lease terms and host women's tennis again. If I were an official with the WTA, ESPN or the WTA Championships, I'd be mad as hell. Did you happen to catch the Sept. 7 Los Angeles Times article on the tournament by T.J. Simers? The article was so negative, it was almost slanderous. I know it sounds as if I'm exaggerating, but the author admitted berating Justin Henin about her watch (yes, her watch) and told readers that "I couldn't think of any good reason to actually talk to a tennis player." So much for hometown support of a world-class sporting event. Maybe Mr. Simers shouldn't have bothered to show up out of respect for the players, the tournament and the readers of the Times. Any clue as to why T.J. Simers would write such a rude article?
Here's the link for those who missed it (free registration required). I'm of mixed minds on this one. Aside from his uneven appearances on Max Kellerman's entertaining show Around the Horn, Simers is probably best known for his benighted column a few years back on the WNBA's decision to market to lesbians. Know that in advance. As we've complained in the past, there are few things more annoying than football and baseball writers coming to a tennis event for the first time all year and unleashing a hail of potshots at the sport's expense. (Hey, leave the potshots to us regulars!) Plus, you're right: It's bad enough when this practice goes on at the U.S. Open, but the last thing the attendance-challenged championships needed was a savage column in the local newspaper of record. On the other hand, read Simers' column and I defy you not to laugh at least three or four times. He was also dead-on describing the tour's absurdly high level of player coddling and the ridiculous hoops one must sometimes jump through in order to ask a competitor the simplest question. Finally, Simers is a columnist, not a public-relations official. He may have been unduly harsh, but his job is not to show "hometown support." (A columnist's job, of course, is to be so infuriating that people on message boards form friendships over their mutual dislike of him.) Before we move on, a quick riff on Serena Williams: Provided she beats Kim Clijsters in Monday night's final, Serena will put the capstone on a thoroughly, comprehensively dominating year. We tip our caps, visors and fedoras to her and hope she makes mad money on her pending shoe deal. But we have one minor quibble in the etiquette department: Could she be a little less scathing in her self-evaluations? Serena beat Anna Smashnova 6-2, 6-2 in a non-match that lasted under an hour. I mean, it was so lopsided that Smashnova didn't hit a single winner. Then Serena promptly gave herself a grade of a "C-." The beaten opponent felt lousy enough as it was; why compound her misery by stating you played far beneath your potential? The ATP has decided to cancel the World Doubles Championships due to a lack of sponsorship and because it just didn't "have enough time" to reschedule the event. When will the tour stop looking at doubles as an ugly stepchild and start giving it the credit and attention it deserves? Officials need to start promoting some of the awesome doubles specialists out there -- like the Bryan twins -- in order to get people interested. Am I the only one who realizes that in order to get money out of doubles you have to put money into doubles?
What we have here is a classic chicken-and-egg conundrum. Is doubles declining because it's not being promoted? Or is it not being promoted because it is declining? Players like the Bryan brothers are, understandably, upset that they don't get more props and better working conditions from promoters and the tour. Promoters and the tour are, understandably, upset that they are paying big bucks to players who don't sell tickets. A few assorted points: 1. Its prestige may be waning, but doubles isn't going to become extinct, if only because promoters need to fill sessions. (Plus, doubles is too entertaining to fade into oblivion. Fans who watch it once are hooked) 2. Doubles will improve dramatically if more of the precious singles stars would deign to play. Last week's results in Paris bode well -- Gustavo Kuerten, Nicolas EscudŽ and Fabrice Santoro all played in the doubles final. The more incentive singles players have to play, the better. 3. Players who ignore doubles are idiots. First, it's free money. Second, it helps work out kinks in your game. Third, it helps your exposure. What is Anna Kournikova without the doubles draw? 4. I love Radek Stepanek. You love Radek Stepanek. Hey, let's not kid ourselves: We all love Radek Stepanek. But I don't care if he wins the doubles Grand Slam, no way should he be earning close to $500,000 this year, more than household names like Kuerten and Wayne Arthurs. Point being: The prize money in doubles is grossly out of proportion. The solution is to cut doubles prize money and put the savings toward an inducement to attract the "name" singles players, like a $1 million bonus to the player with the highest combined singles and doubles ranking. I'd like to take credit for that excellent idea, but it was actually submitted by one of you several months back. Here's something I often see in tennis: Player A sends back a defensive lob from the baseline or beyond which barely clears the net and lands in. Player B stands there for ages, waiting to put away an easy smash. Player A continues to stand at the baseline, desperately hoping to guess the direction of the smash, almost always getting it wrong. In cases like this, why doesn't Player A rush the net and attempt to take that smash at point-blank range? This would cut down on loads of angles; the volley he or she hits would be virtually unreturnable; and the rush toward the net might rattle Player B enough to force a mis-hit. This seems perfectly logical to me, but I never see anyone do it. Why?
Your question presupposes that Player A has no interest in having children one day. What you've described isn't strategy; it's a Jackass stunt. Yes, if Player A charged the net after sending up a defensive lob, it would cut down on angles and present a distraction for Player B as he prepares for his smash. It would also lead to severe bruising and possible disfiguration on Player A's body. (Serious answer: I'm not sure the odds of winning the point are any better than Player A's sticking to the baseline and trying to guess right.) For all the hype the so-called "-ova" players have had, none seems to have genuinely broken through to the higher ranks, especially by winning Slams. Elena Dementieva seemed to have it going in 2000, but now she just seems lost. As for Daniela Hantuchova, yes, she is progressing steadily, but watching her game, I would think she should have at least reached a Slam final by now. She moves really well, is a natural athlete and hits a pretty, fluid, yet fierce backhand. What are these girls to do?
Like Yogi Berra and then Starship warned us: It ain't ova till it's ova. By the way, can we agree here and now that Starship is the single worst band of the past 20 years? I'd rather listen to Tom Arnold than hear We Built This City. Sorry, what was your question? Oh, right. I think you're a tad harsh, but it's a point worth making. The raft of "-ovas" may be a hot storyline on the WTA Tour -- "Chip off the Old Bloc," to quote a great Los Angeles Times headline from last week -- but we still await a real breakthrough. I like Hantuchova over the long term, but I could see her falling into a bit of a sophomore slump next year. She can outhit 90 percent of the field, but other players are getting hip to her ways, and I wonder how much wear and tear her 120-pound frame can take. Look for two "-inas," Anastasia Mysk- and Elena Bov-, to be in the top 10 by this time next year. How far in advance do players commit to tournaments? I usually go to the RCA Championships, and there is not a significant list of players until close to the tournament start date. I would be more likely to renew my tickets each year if I had an idea who will appear. I'm such a fan that I appreciate most matches, but I do have favorite players I like to see. Any insight?
It really depends. For the reason you cite, promoters obviously like to advertise the field as early as possible. Which is why Houston is already announcing that Pete Sampras has committed for 2003, even though some folks close to Sampras quietly put the odds at 50-50 that he might be through playing altogether. But all sorts of factors are at play: What is the draw cutoff? How much is the guarantee? How did the player fare in previous weeks? (Lleyton Hewitt won Wimbledon and, perhaps understandably, didn't much feel like playing L.A. two weeks later. On the other hand, when he had a few bad weeks this fall and saw his Champions Race lead ebbing, he took a wild card into Stockholm.) Bottom line: You can never be sure who will be in the draw. On the other hand, as you point out, you're virtually assured of seeing good matches. Verdict: Just buy the friggin' tickets. Light load of questions? I'll take advantage and ask once again for your opinion of Luis Horna. The last time I asked he was ranked in the low 200s; now I believe he is in the 70s. Do you see him as a top-20 player?
Who's Luis Horna? Just kidding. I saw Horna give Marat Safin a run for his money in Key Biscayne before losing 7-6 in the third. Since then, cruising the scores from qualifiers and Challengers, I've seen Horna losing to guys whose names don't ring the faintest of bells. According to the ATP's Web site, our man is 127th in the Champions Race. He's only 22, but let's just say that he's a sherpa-trek away from the top 20. Whatever happened to my main man Shlomo Glickstein? Shlo used to keep me up at nights desperately surfing the 35 basic-cable channels for a glimpse of his tantalizing groundies and mesmerizing volleys. Talk to me.
I'm a little Shlo on the uptake and don't know the answer. But I'll throw a prize to the first mensch who can fill us in on Glickstein's whereabouts. Your comparison of Sideshow Bob to James Blake leads me to this non-tennis question: Am I the only fan of The Simpsons who thinks that the writing has seriously tailed off? That Halloween episode was horrid. Man, do I miss Phil Hartman. Who would win a tennis match between Sideshow Bob and Otto the bus driver?
We all miss Phil Hartman, Mike. You might remember him as Troy McClure, star of such other educational films like Firecrackers: The Silent Killer and Here Comes the Metric System! I confess that I've tailed off on my Simpsons viewing. (Memo to Pete S.: Splurge for TiVo. Having a kid wreaks havoc on your TV viewing.) I will, however, hazard a guess that Sideshow Bob, despite his country-club upbringing, can't take a set off Otto. Provided, that is, Otto remembers to show up. On that note ... Long Lost SiblingsMonica Seles and Celine Dion.
I think that Pat Rafter and Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre look very much alike.
I just caught Mildred Pierce on TV the other night and found one: Check out the young Ann Blyth (as Veda, Joan Crawford's scheming daughter); she's a dead ringer for Martina Hingis!
Can you match up Kurt Angle's pic with Pete Sampras'? I think they are quite compatible.
(Ed. note: It's true, it's true!)
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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