Commenting on commentators
Posted: Monday November 02, 1998 03:21 PM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question.
A quick stroll down ellipses
lane:
Not a bad week at the office for
Tommy
Haas , who made the finals of the Lyon Grand Prix after beating
two of the world's top three players,
Pete
Sampras and
Marcelo
Rios . Sort of. Hours before Haas' quarterfinal match against
Sampras, the world No. 1 pulled out of the competition with
a bad back. The next day, Haas was leading Rios 6-2, 1-0
when the Chilean withdrew with a left thigh injury ... In
Sunday's finals, Haas
held match point before succumbing to
Alex
Corretja , 2-6, 7-6, 6-1. ... Prior to this event, Corretja had
never won two consecutive matches indoors ... Corretja's
title made him the first Spaniard to win an indoor event
since—get
this— Manuel
Orantes claimed the Houston Masters in 1976 ... The mechanical
bull ride that is
Mary
Pierce 's career bucked again last weekend. She beat both
Venus
Williams and
Monica
Seles to win the Kremlin Cup ...
Anna
Kournikova has double-faulted 37 times in her past two matches ...
Need proof about the depth of the women's game? Before last
week, neither
Irina
Spirlea , Pierce, Kournikova,
Amanda
Coetzer , nor
Serena
Williams were top-10 players ... From the tail-wagging-the-dog
department:
Andre
Agassi received $137,000 for winning the Czech Indoor last
weekend. His appearance fee was
$200,000.
On that
note...
O.K., Jon, you blew me off the first time I asked
this—I'm gonna try again! I would be interested to
know your thoughts on the U.S. Open commentators, in
particular Tracy Austin. I found her to be biased and a
definite fan of the Martina/Venus camps. I don't know if
she's perceived by the industry as one of the best, but I
say she needs to get a new day job—she's awful. I was
glad to see they put Pam Shriver in the stands along with
Betsy Nagelson—both are worthless. The best for me
without a doubt is John McEnroe (critical yet objective)
and the improved Chris Evert (MIA at the Open), Billie Jean
King and Martina Navratilova (you never know what she's
going to say). What are your thoughts on these gals and
guys who call the
game?
—Terry Williams, Round Rock,
Texas
It's generally bad form for any journalist not named
Rudy
Martzke to criticize his colleagues. But since you recklessly
accuse me of blowing you off, I have no choice but to
respond. First, I'll give a lame disclaimer and say that
tennis is a difficult sport to broadcast. There are only
two players to scrutinize,
when the match gets boring you can't go over to Gary McCord on
17, the action often speaks for itself, and there's a
surfeit of dead time. Nevertheless some tennis commentators
are far better than
others.
First, Nagelson, whose husband
Mark
McCormack is the most powerful man in tennis, combines
Bob
Costas ' slick wit with
Edward R.
Murrow 's eye for news and
Cicero 's oratory skills. Seriously, Mac's the best. He doesn't
mince words, he avoids those wince-inducing clichés
("what he lacks in ability he makes up for with
heart"), and he is far and away the most insightful of
the
lot.
Though they take some heat for being decidedly mature, I
like "Cliffy and Fiery"
( Cliff
Drysdale and
Fred
Stolle ) too. Sure, they're from a different era and don't know
what Beanie Babies are, but they are tight with the guys on
tour and have fun razzing each other.
Mary
Carillo only seems to come out to play once a year, but she's
consistently on her game.
Pat
McEnroe doesn't always bring a whole lot to the table but he's
otherwise solid. So is understated
Mal
Washington , though I don't know if he is just a gimmicky fill-in or
if he's serious about a career in TV.
Bud
Collins is in that love-him-or-hate-him category, but I'll chose
the former if only for his encyclopedic knowledge of the
sport.
On the other hand ... Evert is painfully awkward. One gets
the feeling she has a terminal axe to grind against the
young stars who she perhaps fears are encroaching on her
legacy. Also, she is out of her element when she tries to
trade verbal volleys with
McEnroe.
Barry
MacKay simply puts me to sleep, as does phased-out
Tony
Trabert . As for Austin, I wouldn't know anything about her biases
because I have this
Pavlov ian reaction: When I hear her voice I instinctively press
the mute
button.
I must admit that your Tennis Mailbag contains more
terrific information about the game than the published news
stories! Here's my question: It seems to me that, aside
from Jimmy Connors, not too many two-hand grippers appear
in the top 10. In your opinion, is a two-fisted backhand a
handicap in the
ATP?
—Mark Yankovsky,
Cincinnati
To repeat, any question prefaced with an obsequious
compliment stands an exponentially greater chance of
getting posted. Anyway, a good many top players, including
Agassi and Rios, hit a two-fisted backhand (Somehow, that
sounds better than "two-hand
grippers"). I'm not sure it's necessarily a handicap, but
it certainly limits a player's range by a
step.
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McEnroe is still the best—even in the TV game. AP/Steve Holland |
With other women's sports, like track, showing the midriff
and Venus Williams' new outfits showing the side, is it
just a matter of time before women tennis players play in a
halter/shorts outfit like I hear a number of them practice
in? As a guy, I would not have a problem with
that.
—Cowart D. Fairley Jr., El Paso,
Texas
I bet you wouldn't, Cowart. The WTA Tour has adamantly
stressed that it intends to market its players as elite
athletes and not as underaged sirens. That said, I think
you better keep your peepers on the practice courts to
catch the halter/shorts
ensemble you describe so breathlessly. As for Venus, let me get
this straight: She's a devout Jehovah's Witness who won't
celebrate a pagan holiday like Father's Day. But somehow
it's O.K. to play tennis on an international stage in a
form-fitting (albeit
patchless) piece of spandex dental floss? Excuse the pun, but go
figure
...
What do you think about the Nuveen Tour? Besides the
entertainment factor, do you see any added value to the
sport?
—Hugo Ashkar, Los
Angeles
I think the Nuveen Tour is harmless enough provided the
players don't take themselves too seriously. One of the
tour's mainstays,
Mansour
Bahrami , is a trick-shot maestro who plays to the crowd and brings
a Harlem Globetrotters element to the event. The Tour loses
its appeal when these guys forget they're has-beens and
start erupting over missed lines calls and crowd
noise.
I think Goran Ivanisevic is one of the most exciting and
entertaining players to watch. However, in 1998 he has been
very inconsistent. Why do you think he has not won more
tournaments? Do you think that he will do better in
1999?
—Lisa, Morristown,
N.J.
Not that Ivanisevic was the personification of consistency
before this year, but you're right on both counts. He is
one of the more exciting and entertaining players to watch
but he will not recall 1998 as a banner year. Trying to
speculate about
Ivanisevic is akin to pondering the existence of Jah. It's an
undertaking that will likely yield no coherent answers.
I'll say this: Currently ranked 14th, Ivanisevic is already
27 years old, so the clock's a-tickin' on his quest to win
his first
Slam.
I am a fan of Chanda Rubin and would like to know if you
think she will ever get back into the top 10? Also, do you
think Martina Hingis will recover from her 1998
downslide?
—Katrina, Montgomery,
Ala.
I'm not sure what's up with Rubin. She was a semifinalist
at the Australian Open in 1996 and finished the year ranked
a respectable No. 12. But since then, she's been, well, a
Chanda, as we say in Yiddish. She's currently ranked No. 40
and hasn't
exactly peppered her résumé with quality wins this
year. She has a sterling reputation on tour and, in my
experience anyway, has been a pleasure to deal with, but
I'd say a return to the top 10 is pushing it. On the other
hand, it bears mention that she's only
a few months older than
Lindsay
Davenport .
Hard to say about Hingis. We hear plenty about her iron
will and her antipathy for losing but her results since May
don't bode well for next year. Davenport shows no signs of
fading, Venus and Serena Williams are only going to
improve, and
Steffi
Graf ,
Jana
Novotna and
Monica
Seles might still have some fuel in the tank as well. If
Patty
Schnyder continues her ascent, Hingis may not even be the best
player from Switzerland. Then again, what Hingis lacks in
talent she more than makes up for with
heart.
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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