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The quiet American Chanda Rubin rises back through the ranks without fanfarePosted: Monday April 07, 2003 6:56 PMUpdated: Monday April 07, 2003 7:20 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. Player of the Week award goes to Roger Federer who, virtually singlehandedly, led Switzerland to a Davis Cup win over France in Toulouse. ... Russia's reign with the chalice didn't last long. (In fact, Boris Yeltsin has held a cup aloft for a longer duration.) With Marat Safin limited to doubles play, the Russians lost to Argentina. An unsolicited prediction: Argentina, set to play Spain on the road in the next round, will win the whole shebang. The Argentinians are just so much deeper than everyone else. ... Australia had no trouble beating Sweden and will play the Swiss next. ... Spain, which has yet to surrender a single rubber this year, blanked Belgium 5-0. ... Two weeks after she was seen sobbing courtside following a dispiriting loss at Key Biscayne, Anastasia Myskina won her second title of the year, beating Alicia Molik in the Sarasota final. ... Liezel Huber and Martina Navratilova won the doubles title at Sarasota, beating the new hot team of Shinobu Asagoe and Nana Miyagi in the finals. ... Think the timing of an event has some bearing on the quality of the field? Sarasota is a Tier IV event, which means it offers players $140,000 in prize money -- less than 10 percent of last week's pool at Key Biscayne. A week after that event and a week before Amelia Island, Sarasota attracts a deep field. How deep? Anna Pistolesi, who qualified for the 2002 WTA Championships, was the SIXTH seed. First round matches included Ai Sugiyama versus Conchita Martinez and Iva Majoli against Anna Kournikova. ... In Casablanca, Italian Rita Grande beat countrywoman Antonella Serra Zaenetti in the final. Judging from the unfavorable result, we deduce that Serra Zanetti's occasional coach, former Oral Roberts standout Ubaldo Scanagatta, wasn't in the players' box. Lleyton Hewitt and his family are launching their own line of wines produced by the O'Leary Walker winery in Australia's Clare Valley. There are plans to market a Chardonnay and Cabernet Merlot ... The USTA named Richard Ashby, Jay Berger, Jai DiLouie, Debbie Graham, Ola Malmqvist, Wade McGuire, Ray Ruffels and Katie Schlukebir as USA Tennis High Performance Coaches for women's tennis. The new coaching staff is part of the reorganization of the USA Tennis High Performance program that began earlier this year. ... The Tennis Channel and International Tennis Federation (ITF) Monday announced the signing of a three-year agreement for U.S. telecast rights to the ITF's three prestigious international team competitions: Fed Cup, Davis Cup by BNP Paribas and Hyundai Hopman Cup. The Davis Cup rights are for non-U.S. matches only. ... The Kansas City Explorers selected Kournikova with the first pick in the World Team Tennis draft. ... The winners of this year's French Open will earn more money than last year, but women will still get the short end of the stick. Total prize money is going up six percent to $14.2 million, the French Tennis Federation announced last week. The men's champion will earn $915,180 while the women's champ will net $892,300. ... Swedish veteran Magnus Larsson announced his retirement. Oracene Price graces the current cover of Ebony magazine, flanked by daughters Venus and Serena Williams. Oracene is being honored in a feature story on mothers. ... As part of a charity fund-raiser, Helene Smith of Visalia, Calif., had the privilege of playing with Serena for a half hour last Friday at the Naples Bath & Tennis Club. Last September, in the Hamptons, N.Y. Smith's future son-in-law, Donald Torasco, bid $17,000 for the hitting session, which included tickets to the JPMorgan Chase Tennis Challenge, where Williams played Monica Seles, and the OWL Foundation Gala featuring Roberta Flack. ... The Family Circle Cup starts Monday in Charleston, S.C. The event will mark Serena's first clay-court appearance of the year. She said Saturday's JPMorgan Chase Tennis Challenge exhibition was a good warm-up. "I have actually been practicing for a few days on the clay and my game feels good."... Serena will not be joined by Seles, who is recovering from a stress fracture in her left foot, at the Family Circle Cup. ... Jennifer Capriati also pulled out of the event, citing strep throat. ... Many of you asked about the rumored recent arrest of a prominent male player for solicitation of a prostitute. My strong suspicion is that this was an April Fool's joke. ... Back to Seles. Consider this Frank Deford column required reading. Onward ...
I sent you an e-mail last week about Chanda Rubin, but there was one other question I meant to add: Haven't we just made history with three African-American women in the top 10? That's a notable accomplishment, don't you think?
Maybe the real history is that it didn't make history. As far as I can tell, this was indeed the first time three African-American women were simultaneously in the top 10. And perhaps the fact that it went unremarked upon speaks well, not poorly, of tennis' ongoing integration. In the eyes of most people, Serena, Venus and Chanda Rubin are exceptional and well-regarded players who just to happen to be African-American. A quick word about Rubin. She is far better at hitting a tennis ball than she is at self-promotion. And she has entirely too much dignity to fall prey to the WTA Tour's attempts to sexualize the players. Perhaps because of this, she has always flown a bit under the radar, and is currently improving her ranking without much fanfare. If you look closely, however, at her results (including a recent waxing of Justine Henin-Hardenne) as well as how relatively few points she is defending, a top-five finish in 2003 isn't out of the question. This would be a stellar accomplishment, particularly given her litany of injuries. Just a year ago some idiot -- OK, this idiot -- wrote: "In all reality, [Rubin's] days of being a top-10 player are in the past." For her to have jumped more than 40 points since the start of last year really says a lot about both her tenacity and talent.
All ATP players have to play all Masters Series events if they're healthy, right? So how is it then that Andre Agassi didn't play at either Monte Carlo or Hamburg in 2002? Was he exempted for some reason? I have no problem with Agassi choosing the events he wants to play. I'm just curious about how he seemed to get around the "if you're healthy you have to play in the Masters" rule.
I received a similar question a few weeks ago about Hewitt, I believe. Just so we're clear, a player isn't compelled to play the Masters Series events. But the results necessarily count toward his ranking. So if a player thinks he can skip a Masters Series event and still sustain a satisfactory ranking, he's free to do so. Speaking of which, here's a sidebar that might be worth watching: Both the rule that Masters Series events automatically counted toward a player's ranking and the inception of the Champions Race came in conjunction with the ISL deal. The goal of these changes was to accord more uniformity and prestige to the Masters Series events. (In a perfect world, the race would be decided at the year-end event and the denouement would only add more significance to the Masters Cup.) As the ISL deal imploded and there was no longer a real common thread among the Masters Series events -- even those hideous eggplant-colored courts seem, mercifully, to be slowly disappearing -- one wonders whether the rationale behind the Champions Race is still a valid one. And, if not, might we see a return to the "rankings" as we used to know them?
Who's the bigger Russian underachiever, Anna Kournikova or Marat Safin?
Someone else sent the same question this week. Don't get me wrong, Safin is a first-team All-Underachiever. His results this year have been particularly putrid. But come on, the guy has won a Grand Slam singles title! Unless you haven't left your barstool at the Barley Mill since the mid-'90s, you know that Kournikova hasn't won so much as a Tier IV event.
I see that CBS has once again determined the scheduling (and length -- last year was a best-of-five final, now reduced to best-of-three) of the men's final of the NASDAQ-100, presumably so its tennis coverage won't spill over into its NCAA basketball coverage. Television often plays a big role in tennis match scheduling, which I find extremely irritating (mainly because it seems so unaccommodating to the players, i.e. Super Saturday), but is it really affecting the quality of the tennis, or am I being overly sensitive?
I agree with you to an extent, but television pays the bills. Simple as that. Super Saturday at the U.S. Open has become a TV-driven joke. The FINALISTS for a Major shouldn't have to sit in the locker room and twiddle their thumbs until an early-season football telecast ends on CBS. But if the choice with respect to a Masters Series final is a televised best-of-three versus tape-delayed (or not televised at all) best-of-five, I think most of would choose door No. 1 every time.
Saw this result today: Henrieta Nagyova (3) def. Ruxandra Dragomir Ilie, 6-3, 6-4 . Where has Dragomir Ilie been for the past couple of years? I just figured that she retired. I recall that she was doing pretty well a few years back. Does this mean we should expect fellow Romanian Irina Spirlea to return as well?
Virginia Ruzici, anyone? What's next, a comeback by Gheorghe Muresan? Yeah, I saw that score too. The skinny on Dragomir is that she had a baby and is planning a full-fledged comeback. By my unofficial counts, this brings the number of moms on the WTA Tour to three: Dragomir-Ilie, Lindsay Lee-Waters and Rosanna de los Rios-Neffa. Three random thoughts: 1) Dragomir and Spirlea have to be two of the more talented head cases women's tennis has seen in the past decade. When both were on, they were a pleasure to watch. 2) Whatever happened to Henrieta Nagyova? One of my first years covering tennis for Sports Illustrated (1998 or so), a prominent agent who's name I will graciously decline to serve up, advised to me get to know Nagyova "because she'll win a Grand Slam one day." 3) Another agate score from the same day: Lucky loser Maria Emilia Salerni fell in the first round. Two years ago, Salerni was the world's top junior; now she's losing in the qualies at a Tier V? Oy.
I'm disappointed that you singled out Jennifer Capriati for her choice of warm-up music last week, but let Andy Roddick off the hook. Roddick also deserved a verbal slap on the wrist for his choice of Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A., which is not, I repeat NOT, a patriotic song. In fact, it is a very anti-American song which details how a person was beaten down his whole life, forced into the military, and treated like dirt after Vietnam -- all because he had the extreme misfortune to be born in the U.S.A. Roddick was probably clueless about this, but I think that somebody around him or the tournament officials should have paid attention and made him aware of the song's content.
Fair point. And you're right about Born in the U.S.A. Though it's usually played as an American anthem (particularly in NASCAR circles), the lyrics to Born in the U.S.A. are something other than patriotic. I still would submit that there is a huge difference between choosing a well-known song that one (cluelessly, perhaps) thinks is patriotic; and choosing one whose very title is both violent and hostile. A sample of the lyrics to the Outkast song Bombs Over Baghdad, which Capriati requested be played over the P.A. system as she walked onto the court before a match in Key Biscayne.
Don't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bang The moral of the story: particularly in an international sport, players ought to leave politics out of their song selections. (And no truth to the rumor that Capriati is considering Philadelphia Freedom for her next match.) ... Speaking of the Capster:
I just read the following: "Crankiness has accompanied Capriati's inconsistent results in the past year. Her tantrum during one match prompted a sponsor to pull out of a $1.8 million endorsement deal." Do you have any more info about this? Also, do you think Capriati's "crankiness" is only an issue because she's a woman? I don't remember it affecting any of John McEnroe's endorsements.
I do think, as a rule, there's a double-standard in tennis. Marat Safin does a Pete Townshend number on his rackets and the crowd giggles. Martina Hingis would circle the mark of an out ball with her racket and the crowd would shower her with jeers. But in this case, gender is not an issue. I hadn't heard about the lost endorsement deal, but it hardly comes as a surprise. Capriati's unregenerate vulgarity is the worst-kept secret in the sport. (The list of transgressions and fits of pique is too long to catalog here, but when you call Billie Jean King "Hitler," you've pretty much surrendered your boarding pass, far as we're concerned.) One well-regarded top player recently told me that "Jennifer is her own worst enemy." But the real sadness is that her "management team," such as it is, capitulates to her demands, excuses her obscene behavior and furnishes her with no apparent guidance. Instead of explaining to her that Bombs Over Baghdad is an insensitive choice that could be construed as offensive (especially on an international tour), Capriati's camp was fighting about it with tournament authorities until minutes before her match. Instead of encouraging (demanding?) that Capriati apologize for the Fed Cup fiasco, they issue a mealy mouthed release blaming King. Instead of impressing upon the client that honoring promises to appear at sponsor functions is part of the duties that attend being a top player, they make up alibis. After her remarkable comeback (for which she deserves a world of credit), Capriati should be buying on credit for the rest of career. Instead, her reputation and reserve of good will is disintegrating and none of her purported "handlers" seem to mind. Incidentally, if Team Capriati wants an example for performing competent damage control, it needn't look further than Serena Williams. After winning the NASDAQ-100, Serena made questionable remarks about France, albeit in a faux French accent. Truth be told, they weren't particularly objectionable, particularly when taken in context. But given heightened levels of sensitivity and the delicate subject matter, the comments probably weren't well-conceived. Sensing that this could come back to bite her the back next month at Roland Garros, Serena issued a brief apology last week. "I hope people understand I am young and I make mistakes. I never meant to hurt the French. I love the French. My heart is in France." There. Controversy averted.
You've talked about what the Williams sisters have brought to tennis and beyond. Here's something to go under the "beyond" category. I'm a fund-raiser for a non-profit organization and receive junk mail at work on a regular basis. One package, however, didn't make it to the trash bin. It was for a pair of books, Fund-Raising Realities Every Board Member Must Face and Asking: A 59-Minute Guide to Everything Board Members, Volunteers, and Staff Must Know to Secure the Gift. Right next to the books is the phrase: "The Best Pairing Since Venus and Serena." No pictures of the sisters, no tennis balls or rackets, nothing that even hints of who they are or what they do. It's just assumed. When was the last time tennis had such a crossover to popular culture? Chrissy? Jimmy? Anna?
Interesting. Here's another: opposite the contents page in the current issue of Sports Illustrated there's a Wrigley's ad featuring Venus. At least we think it's Venus -- there's no identification, no small print (a la the "Got Milk" ads) identifying the subject. There's no tennis imagery either, save the tagline: "Mint that hits the sweet spot." Having this endorsement speaks volumes about Venus' crossover appeal. That is, where is the nexus between gum and tennis? You see these signs of cultural transcendence and a) it shows just how deeply entrenched the sisters have become and b) it's an indication that maybe Larry Scott doesn't need his head examined after all.
Mary Pierce complained of blurred vision this week, saying something was wrong with her contacts. Didn't she have laser eye surgery a few years ago?
Pierce did indeed have laser surgery in 2000. If memory serves she went to the same SoCal doctor who performed Tiger Woods' procedure. Pierce once told me she was so mortified watching her ritual between points -- "babe-ing" and "re-babe-ing" herself as Mary Carillo once memorably called Pierce's propensity to rub her eyes, play with her hair, adjust her necklace, etc. -- that she felt she had to get rid of her contact lenses. She did indeed complain of blurred vision last week, but she won that particular match -- a fairly rare occurrence for her these past few years -- so we suspect that the problem wasn't too serious.
Whatever happened to ... Boris Bachert? Do you remember that young, redheaded German prospect from a few years back, who had an aggressive style of play, not unlike his namesake? He hailed from the same town as Boris Becker -- Leimen -- and surfaced as a potential successor to the German legend, straaaaaannngeeely enough right around the time the "Dolly the Sheep" cloning story hit? Ah, so many coincidences. Whatever happened to this supposed sequel to Becker?
A prize to the first person who can help our man Nick. 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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