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Men's game has plenty of personality
By Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated NEW YORK -- The first few days at the U.S. Open tend to feel like a dress rehearsal, the seeds breezing through opening-round matches in front of patches of empty seats. But when Gustavo Kuerten emerged on Arthur Ashe Stadium for his first-round match last week, one could be excused for thinking he had mistakenly stumbled upon a World Cup qualifying match. Echoing from the farthest reaches of the stadium -- roughly equidistant between Sao Paulo and the court -- a cadre of Brazilian tennis nuts clustered. The player they had come to see was barely visible, a wisp in a dandelion-colored shirt. No matter. Wielding steel drums and cowbells, their faces painted yellow and green, swathed in the Brazilian flag, they cheered at laryngitis-inducing levels. Every point during the match became a referendum on patriotism. A forehand winner started up a round of "Olé, Guga" so intense that it felt like a World Cup match. An ace caused the pack to rise en masse and wave its flags. At changeovers, the fans serenaded their man with national chants. When Kuerten finished off his opponent, Daniel Vacek, he fired a ball to the upper deck, a token of his appreciation for his countryfolk above. He then waved his racket through the air like a victorious matador and pointed to them. As one of his Brazilian admirers put it to me: "He is color, no?" The theme has been beaten this week as relentlessly as a Guga backhand: Women's tennis is saturated with personality, drama, glamour and buzz, while the men's game is mired in vanilla. The women's game is Jim Carrey to the men's Al Gore, The Sopranos to Meet the Press. But if you look a little deeper, a kaleidoscope awaits. From (Andre) Agassi to (Mariano) Zabaleta, representing 29 countries -- think Model U.N. with better tans and hotter girlfriends -- the cast of characters in men's tennis runs the entire gamut. They range from Olivier Rochus, the 5-foot-5 Belgian who looks like he should be receiving free Fila clothes along with all the other ballboys, to 6-7 Marc Rosset, the Swiss Mister, who has the stature, if not the mobility, of an Alpine peak; from Italian Gianluca Pozzi, who turned pro so long ago his career could have been sponsored by the Borgia family, to the New Big Thing, Andy Roddick, who was born in 1982; from the deadpan dignity of Pete Sampras to Goran Ivanisevic, who single-handedly set sports psychology back 20 years when he pumped himself up to win Wimbledon by watching Teletubbies. The same broad array manifests itself on the court. A player like Max Mirnyi will peregrinate between the net and baseline, nearly playing a different sport than someone like Kuerten, who will venture to the net only to retrieve drop shots and shake hands afterward. But together, the contrasting styles make for the kind of spellbinding match they served up the other night. For all the "hype" it is generating, thus far the women's draw has brought us narcolepsy-inducing tennis, the top players spanking some Sacrificialova in 42 minutes. The men's matches -- punctuated by Monday's Sampras- Pat Rafter epic -- have been far more compelling, flush with five-setters. What about the perceived charisma crisis in the men's game? Perhaps it's that men's tennis lacks for the scandals and police-blotter presence that add so much texture and appeal to other professional sports. We never hear about tennis players putting out a hit on their pregnant girlfriends or being present in a limo while his friends were involved in a post-Wimbledon massacre. No tennis players' names emerged in the Gold Club scandal that implicated half the NBA. You can count on one hand the number of tennis players busted for performance-enhancing drugs. Marat Safin's cracking a few rackets in a fit of pique is as close as you'll get to felonious conduct. The excellent British writer Martin Amis once theorized that, in tennis-speak, "having personality" is code for "being an a--hole." John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, for instance, all had personality in abundance. Maybe this is where men's tennis has gone awry. Under this definition, who besides Lleyton Hewitt qualifies today? Certainly not Rafter and Agassi, who quietly donate millions to charities. Certainly not Kuerten, who traced a heart in the dirt of Roland Garros to express his appreciation for the French Open fans. Nor Magnus Norman, who conceded match point to Sebastien Grosjean in the Australian quarterfinals. Nor Sampras, who has retained the same straight-man demeanor for his entire career. As for the more conventional definition of "personalities" -- distinctive qualities -- men's tennis also has them in spades. Witness John Belushi -lookalike Andrew Ilie ripping off his shirt after a win; the tattooed Taylor Dent vowing to hit a 150-mph serve; or Kuerten inspiring fans to bring a cowbell to a tennis match. "As different as we all are," says Ivanisevic, "we're all interesting in our own way." Put another way: Collectively, they are color.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will file daily reports from Flushing Meadows. Click here to send a question to his Tennis Mailbag.
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