| | Colorful, but certainly
tasteless
Posted: Mon October 12,
1998 
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question.
It's just a guess. But I would speculate that more than a
few of the 2,827 tennis fans who watched
Jimmy
Connors play
John
McEnroe last weekend came away less nostalgic about tennis' glory
days in the late '70s and early '80s. Their match in the
finals of the PricewaterhouseCoopers(expialidocious)
Champions seniors tournament in Dallas was more pro
wrestling than pro tennis. Down
2-3 in the first set, McEnroe received a warning from the
chair umpire and sat down in protest and threatened to
quit. When he got up to begin playing, a fan yelled
innocuously to Connors, "Just play fair, Jimmy."
Connors, for some unknown reason, went
ballistic, demanding that the heckler make himself known and
then challenging him to a fight. Connors then walked off
the court and was defaulted by the chair umpire. When
McEnroe raised his arms in mock triumph, another fan made a
remark that sent
McEnroe off. He grabbed the umpire's mike and yelled, "I'm
prepared to continue if Jimmy comes back but I will not be
abused by people while I wait for him." McEnroe then
coaxed Connors into completing the match, which—as if
it ever mattered—Connors won in
three
sets.
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McEnroe and Connors weren't as cordial in Dallas as they were at this June tournament in Newport Beach, Calif.
(Ken Toy)
| Afterwards, both players left without comment and have yet
to apologize publicly for their foray into Theater of the
Absurd. It is unclear whether the Four Seasons Resorts
& Club will host the event again next year. "We
didn't have a problem with the
tournament because there was some fine tennis played,"
Jim
Green, president of the Metroplex Tennis Association, told the
Dallas Morning
News. "The problem we had was with the behavior and
language. It was worse than what was in the Starr
Report." Suddenly, that
Mark
Philippoussis/Richard
Krajicek match no longer sounds all that
bad.
On to the
Mailbag...
Does there remain any chance of eliminating the second
serve? This may put the tennis back in men's tennis.
Unfortunately, the game has been reduced to a big-serve,
baseline
slamfest.
—Justin Krawitt,
Denver
Put it this way:
Pat
Rafter, hardly a hothead, threatened to boycott the Australian
Open if it adopted a "no let" rule on serves.
Other minuscule proposals like reducing the amount of time
between points by five seconds arouse more protracted
debate than a presidential
impeachment hearing.
Anna
Kournikova will wear baggy clothes before tennis adopts a major rule
change like eliminating a second serve, which would
fundamentally reshape the
game.
What's your opinion about American men's tennis stars
(e.g., Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang and Jim
Courier) not playing college tennis? I wonder if a guy like
MaliVai Washington had not played in the NCAA, where he was
a star, would he have had a more productive ATP Tour
career?
—Jason Lee,
Baltimore
Truth is, any player with real pro ambitions just can't
afford to spend ages 18-21 wearing a backpack and splitting
his time between tennis and calculus homework. I think
you're right that Washington—who only played two years
at the University of
Michigan—might have had more success on the tour if he had
turned pro and started earning ranking points at 16 or 17,
as Sampras, Chang and Agassi did. Some players,
understandably, don't feel ready to live the lonely,
transient life of a tennis pro before
they are old enough to vote. But the days of players treating
the college game as a minor-league system are long
over.
In response to your earlier statement that John McEnroe and
Pete Sampras are the two greatest men's players of all
time (or at least in the Open era), I think you are overlooking
a player who has never gotten his due: Ivan Lendl. I
realize that he is unpopular because of his perceived surly
demeanor, but let's face facts: The guy won more Grand
Slams than Mac (8 to 7); appeared in seven consecutive U.S.
Open finals; and held the No. 1 ranking for a record number
of consecutive weeks. Also, he was a top contender for a
longer period of time than was Mac, who faded badly after
losing to Lendl at the '85 U.S. Open. While Mac certainly
made more noise during his career, I think Lendl's overall
record is as good if not
better.
—James Asali,
Philadelphia
I'm with you that Lendl never got his due. With Connors and
McEnroe as contemporaries, there never seemed to be much
room on stage for a reticent Czech émigré who
was as colorful as the Ostrava sky. Still, I think Mac was
the better player. Why? First,
none of McEnroe's Slams came against a diluted field at the
Australian Open; two of Lendl's majors came Down Under.
Second, Mac won 77 career doubles titles; Lendl won six.
Third, Lendl never won Wimbledon, tennis' most prestigious
event; McEnroe won
three of the five straight finals he played on Centre Court.
Finally, style points have to count for something. His
captious demeanor notwithstanding, McEnroe's genius, his
ability to serve and volley, and his mastery of angles
simply trumps Lendl's
monochromatic baseline
game.
Given the fact that Venus Williams has reached a
career-high rank of No. 5 in such a short period of time,
what do you think are her chances of becoming No. 1 by the
end of next year? Also, what are your predictions for
Serena?
—Richard Rivera, Albany,
N.Y.
It's possible, but Venus's strong 1998 means she will be
defending a whole mess of points next year. Even though she
was disappointed by her showing in the majors, her game
improved immensely this year, particularly her ability to
patiently massage a
point. She still suffers her share of sloppy losses—as
she did last week when she fell badly to a vastly inferior
Dominique Van Roost
at the Porsche Grand Prix in Germany—but otherwise
leaves little doubt she is a legit No. 1 contender. I'm
less encouraged by Serena. Much of the tennis world,
Richard Williams
included, has anointed Serena as the better of the sisters,
but I'm not so sure. She's 17 already—an age by which
Martina
Hingis had already laid claim to three Slams—and has yet to
win much of anything. She has ballistic strokes off both
sides, but has yet to harness her power. And for all her
bluster and tough talk, she tends to collapse on big
points.
A very contentious issue concerning women's tennis these
days is that of the well-timed bathroom break. Where do you
stand on this issue? Is it smart tactics or foul play
falling well below the spirit in which this sport and all
sports should be played in? Should the WTA begin taking a
firmer stance with regards to
this?
—Kate, Canberra,
Australia
The WTA's stance—or squat, as it were—seems to be
an awfully lax one. Time and again, players like the
Williams sisters and Kournikova have excused themselves at
critical points in a match to visit the water closet. It's
a transparent "tactic" that, as
you suggest, transgresses the line of sportsmanship. But
neither the chair umpire, the opponent, nor the WTA can do
much about it. Not only is a bathroom break permitted in
the rules, but as any second-grade teacher can attest it's
simply inhumane to
deny someone a hall pass, no matter how suspicious the
circumstances.
Do you predict any first time Grand Slam champions next
year? What are Tim Henman's chances of winning Wimbledon in
1999?
—Janine Grey, Glendale,
Calif.
For each of the past three years, two of the men's Grand
Slam winners have been first-timers. I wouldn't be
surprised if both
Marcelo
Rios and
Alex
Corretja remove the monkey from their dorsal sides next year. Rios
still ought to be kicking himself for squandering a golden
opportunity at this year's Australian Open, languishing
against 29-year-old Petr Korda in the finals. We'll see if
he can play seven,
not six, solid matches next year. Corretja's best shot is the
French Open—where he was a finalist this year—but
he's proficient on the hard stuff, too. Here's another
early prediction for 1999: Though he won't win a Slam,
Russian teenager
Marat
Safin will take up residence in the Top 10 by year's end. With
the exception of Venus Williams, the women's side is too
top-heavy for any newcomers to win their first Slam. As
ever, Henman is a darkhorse to become the first Brit to win
Wimbledon since
Virginia
Wade in 1977. Henman is plenty athletic and his game has no
glaring weaknesses, but he always seems to run into a wall
on that one day when his serve isn't
on.
Are there any good, young female serve-and-volley players
on the rise? It is getting boring watching every young
woman play the same
style.
—Dave Ross, New York
City
Serve-and-volleying, at least in the women's game, has gone
by way of the set shot and the drop kick. It just ain't
happening. Women tend to pass so much better than they
volley that the risk/reward ratio just doesn't make it a
worthwhile
tactic.
Your thoughts and comments about the Jimmy Connors vs.
Steffi Graf match in
December?
—Cliff Lim, Thousand Oaks,
Calif.
It demeans them both. (Presumably the winner gets to
wrestle with
Hulk
Hogan,
Karl
Malone and
Jay
Leno.) Let's just hope no one has the audacity to stand up and
yell, "Just play fair,
Jimmy."
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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