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Not a level playing field Why the tours sanction events that may be exclusionaryPosted: Monday February 24, 2003 2:47 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. This week's Annual Player of the Week award goes not to a player but to the tennis fans of Lowell, Mass., and the surrounding area, who bought so many tickets for April's Fed Cup throwdown that the USTA announced expanded seating. ... A wrapup from last week's half-dozen events: Never mind Mike Tyson. Taylor (The White Rhino?) Dent was the king of Memphis over the weekend. He capped a stellar seven days by thrashing Andy Roddick in 60 minutes to win his second ATP title. Roddick afterward: "What was shorter, this match or the fight?" In doubles, the world's top team, Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor, beat the Bryan brothers in the final. On the women's side of the Bluff City event, Lisa Raymond defended her crown by topping Amanda Coetzer. By our unofficial count, Raymond and Coetzer have now played each other 7,521 times. Akiko Morigami and Saori Obata won the doubles, beating Alina Jidkova and Bryanne Stewart. ... In Buenos Aires, Carlos Moya beat Guillermo Coria in the singles final; Mariano Hood and Sebastian Prieto topped Lucas Arnold and David Nalbandian in doubles. ... Hometown favorite Fabiola Zulauga, an awfully talented player who has been battling injuries for the better part of four years now, beat Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues to win the Bogotá event. Quite poetically, she dedicated the win to Colombia, "a country that cries, that suffers, but doesn't give up." In doubles, Katarina Srebotnik and Asa Svensson beat Tina Krizan (Srebotnik's former partner) and Tatiana Perebinyis. ... Justine Henin-Hardenne won the Dubai event by beating Monica Seles in the final, with ageless wonder Martina Navratilova and Svetlana Kuznetsova taking the doubles. ... In Rotterdam, Max (The Beast) Mirnyi captured his first career title by beating surprise wild card Raemon Sluiter in the final. Mirnyi wasn't as lucky in doubles, as he and Roger Federer lost to Wayne Arthurs and Paul Hanley. ... No truth to the rumor that from now on Wayne Ferreira will be wearing a Ché Guevara cap when he plays. Seriously, for a take on the strife within the ATP, click here. Onward ... Why does the WTA Tour allow tournaments to be held in countries which discriminate against players? I'm talking about the tournaments in the United Arab Emirates, which Israelis are not allowed to enter. I understand that the WTA might not want to get into politics, but this isn't about politics, it's about making sure all WTA players receive a fair shot. If as a matter of policy a country excludes certain people and refuses to make an exception for sports, the WTA should not hold a tournament in that country. Even if we set aside the notion that sport should rise above conflict and bring people together -- which makes this discrimination even more unfortunate -- the main thing here is that the WTA is responsible for all its members being treated equally. If the UAE tourneys don't do that, then the WTA should move these events elsewhere.
I'm guessing that this was a hot topic in tennis chat rooms last week, because we received a number of questions raising this problematic issue. I made some calls to various agencies, including the Israeli consulate and the U.S. State Department, and generally speaking you're correct: The UAE doesn't have diplomatic relations with Israel, and thus Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter the country. Exceptions can be made -- and probably would be made in the case of professional athletes -- but your point is well taken. Let's be clear: This isn't about whether you support or oppose Ariel Sharon's government or whether Country A should have the right to issue a blanket ban on citizens of Country B. The issue is whether the WTA and ATP tours should be in the business of sanctioning events in countries where some of their player-members are denied entrance. (You and most of the other e-mailers mentioned the WTA, but the men's event in Dubai kicks off today.) This is an obvious and, admittedly, imperfect analogy, but we'll make it anyway: If a country (or club) had a whites-only policy, would either tour ever consider holding an event there? I posed this question to both tours. The WTA basically declined to comment. A spokesman explained that the tour doesn't discuss specific policies as they relate to tournaments. (This, of course, is more than a little disingenuous: Did the WTA not just issue a discursive press release on various new policies pertaining to the year-end championships?) As for the men, here's an official statement from Mark Young, ATP executive vice president/general counsel:
A few points: I got into a sports-and-money conversation with some friends: If one were to compile a list of the top 50 sportswomen of all time ranked by their sports-related income, would it include a single non-tennis athlete? I doubt it and think the number would probably extend way beyond 50, whereas my friends believe that Marion Jones or some other track-and-field or winter-sports star would make the list. Going through the prize money (not to mention endorsement income) for the ski circuit makes me all the more certain that tennis is incomparably more lucrative, and it also started me thinking: What about the top 50 sportswomen of today? How many world champions in other sports can come close to making the money that a top-20 tennis player makes on a yearly basis? Is there any reason why parents today should steer their athletically gifted girls to, say, swimming or track and field or basketball instead of tennis?
Your instincts are generally right, but you're either overstating the strength of tennis or shortchanging the other sports. Among women's sports, tennis is unquestionably the leader in the clubhouse, so to speak. There's more money and more global exposure and more endorsement opportunity. There's plenty of anecdotal evidence to support tennis' superiority, too: Any of 10 WTA starlettes are internationally recognized and known to the world on a first-name basis. How many people -- how many sports fans, even -- could pick out Annika Sorenstam, the Tiger Woods of the LPGA Tour, from a lineup of two? Nevertheless, if I had to tick off the top 50 female athletes in terms of earning power, it would be a fairly heterogeneous list in terms of sports. Sure, the Williams sisters, Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis (even in her retirement) are way up there. But so are Mia Hamm, Sorenstam, Jones, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Lisa Leslie, Michelle Kwan and Picabo Street. Instead of looking at the cream of the crop, the real proof is in looking at the run-of-the-mill athlete in a sport. Janette Husarova, to pick a name, made $600,000 on the WTA Tour last year. Granted she was ranked No. 5 in doubles, but this is a player who didn't make it past the fourth round of a Grand Slam singles draw. No way does an athlete of that caliber in any other sport make anywhere close to 600 fat ones. You can keep going down the list, too: The No. 50-ranked singles player, Magui Serna, made more than $250,000 in 2002. (By comparison, the No. 50 player on the LPGA money list, Jackie Gallagher-Smith, made $187,180.) Here's another reason to steer your daughter toward tennis: The sport tends to take care of its own. This is one of tennis' more admirable institutional qualities. After a player retires, she doesn't make like an old soldier and simply fade away. No, she reappears in the broadcast booth, coaches an upstart from her native country, makes some nice cash playing in hit-and-giggle seniors events, works as an agent, runs an academy or works for the tour. It's probably also worth pointing out that although the $$$ in women's sports have grown geometrically over the past 30 years (consider: The purse for the entire WTA Tour in 1971 was $250,000), women's sports still lag way behind men's. Last week the Labor Department released data showing that in the U.S. women earn 77.5 cents for every dollar a male earns. Female athletes would kill for the differential. If every player in the 12-team WNBA received a 50 percent bump in salary, the league-wide raise would amount to less money than the average NBA player earns in a season. In tennis the difference isn't quite as striking, but it certainly exists. Even in this post-ISL world, 16 men earned more than $1 million in 2002. Only nine women did. The No. 100-ranked male on the prize money list, Mark Philippoussis, still banked $215,000. The No. 100 woman, Kveta Hrdlickova, barely made half of that. Apples and oranges, you say? Perhaps. Still, next time you hear how "hot" women's tennis is, consider that it's all relative. I have noticed that the next generation of U.S. men's tennis players isn't the world-dominating force we have grown accustomed to. In fact, I don't see Americans winning many Grand Slam tournaments after Andre Agassi retires. Are you as concerned about this as I am?
Probably not. First, it's not as grim as you make it out to be, Leaving aside Agassi and Pete Sampras (i.e., the past two Grand Slam tournament champs), there's still hope. Roddick has yet to win a Slam, of course, but the guy is firmly entrenched in the top 10 and doesn't reach legal drinking age until the fall. And if Dent and Mardy Fish play half as well as they did last week, they, too, may one day challenge for a Slam. I guess the broader point is that if no Americans pan out, so what? I cringe when I hear that tennis is dying in the U.S. because there are no players to take the baton from Sampras and Agassi. Is it really beyond us to appreciate -- and even support -- players who happen to come from outside the U.S.? Does Andre Agassi have any chance to win all nine Masters Series titles before he retires? Do you think he's thinking about winning the last two on his itinerary (Monte Carlo and Hamburg)?
It's a hell of a tall order. Players will quietly tell you that winning a Masters Series event can be every bit as grueling as winning a Slam. Because of the draw cutoff, you're pretty much guaranteed to play a top opponent in every round. Plus, winning six best-of-three matches in six days is every bit as taxing as winning seven best-of-five matches with a day off between each match. Anyway, Agassi has as good a chance as anyone. As you note, he has won seven of the nine already. But at this stage of his career, one of the keys to his success at his advanced age is that he has been meticulous in planning his schedule. There is about a 0.00 percent chance that he will play Monte Carlo, Rome and Hamburg in the weeks prior to the French Open. If tennis in Asia continues to grow with the success of players like Paradorn Srichaphan, do you think we will see a fifth Grand Slam in Asia? Why not have a Grand Slam on an indoor surface, since we already have so many indoor events but no indoor Slam?
Let's first point out that the Australian Open has very cleverly branded itself as a sort of "Pan-Asian Slam." (What exactly this entails other than giving a wild card to a few Asian players and recruiting a Korean carmaker as a title sponsor is unclear. But it sounds good.) I don't think we'll ever see an official fifth Slam. Furthermore, there are serious logistical issues with an indoor Slam. If my high school math serves me, a 128-person draw means 127 matches. Multiply that by two (men's and women's) and add in the doubles, mixed doubles and junior matches. Now try and find an indoor facility -- with seating -- that can accommodate that many matches over a two-week period. That said, I do think we'll see more events moving to Asia. The Tashkent event will be played in Bangkok this year, and its move may well be the first domino, as it were. Not only are we going to see more Asian players, but the unqualified success of the Masters Cup in Shanghai is proof that Asian countries -- even countries with no local players in the draw -- can host a first-rate event. By the way, how big is Srichaphan in Thailand? As one of the movie selections aboard Thai Air flights, you can watch tapes of his previous matches. I was at the San Jose event recently, and while I enjoyed the tennis a great deal (Andre Agassi is just awesome), I was shocked at how many times a point was in progress and someone's cell phone went off. The umpire made several announcements, but they didn't have much effect. What can be done about this problem, which is distracting to the players and rude to everyone else?
Stop me if I've said this in the past ... The first time a cell phone rings during a match, it's an annoyance and the offending party should be roundly mocked, chastised and forced to buy beer for those around him at the next changeover. By the time it's the third set and the chair has made a half-dozen "as a courtesy to the players, please turn off your phone" announcements and still Nokias continue to chirp, it strikes me as antisocial, almost pathologically hostile behavior. What can be done? My first instinct: It's one of those times when you wish you had some divine ability to give people canker sores. Here's a more constructive, civil and, yes, hygienic, solution: Set up some sort of a kangaroo court (maybe the ushers can help), and the schmo whose phone rings should be forced to make a $50 contribution on the spot to the local junior-tennis program. That'll learn 'em. But since: A) we haven't had a contest here in a while, and B) we're doing all we can to spread the anti-cell gospel, why don't you guys fire away. A prize goes to the five best answers to that age-old (no, really) conundrum: "What should we do about (to?) self-righteous boobs whose cell phones ring during matches?" Speaking of contests ... I noticed that in the first round of Bogotá, Katalin Marosi beat Mélanie Marois. This must be the first time that a match involved two players whose names were anagrams of one another's (and didn't they play doubles together, too?). Weird.
Very nice. Have there been other anagram matches? Best I can come up with: Juan Ignacio CHELA may have faced Rick LEACH in doubles. Andre Sa vs. Andreas Vinciguerra? Does that count? Galo Blanco is "Goal: Can Lob." And Mary Pierce is "Army Recipe." I should add that my esteemed colleague Steve Rushin points out that one can rearrange the letters in "Martina Hingis" to get "I am tarnishing." At the risk of getting all Will Shortz on you, if anyone else (with copious free time) can come up with two other opponents whose names are anagrams, a prize is in order. Names must be different -- i.e., no Venus Williams-Serena Williams or Christophe Rochus-Olivier Rochus. Long Lost SiblingsTennis commentator Cliff Drysdale and political commentator Pat Buchanan.
Steffi Graf and author J.K. Rowling (the Harry Potter books).
I was watching a Beverly Hills 90210 special last weekend and noticed a striking resemblance between actor Mark Damon Espinoza (who played Andrea's husband, Jesse Vasquez) and Pete Sampras.
Have a great week, everyone! Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers tennis for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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