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 Fed up
Posted: Monday April 19, 1999 04:47 PM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. 'Bagward we go... A couple of months ago the Williams sisters announced with some fanfare that
they would be playing Fed Cup, after declining to play in 1998 because of
schoolwork obligations (or so they claimed). Now I see that they are not
playing this year, either. How
come?
A lot of Clinton- ian flip-flopping in the Williams camp on this issue. They haven't played in the past because representing one's country somehow runs counter to the tenets of their Jehovah's Witness believes. They changed their minds this year, but, citing fatigue, both took a pass on last weekend's tie. Now, as I understand it, they both learned that if they don't avail themselves for future ties, they'll lose their eligibility for the 2000 Olympics. Bottom line: expect to see them wearing red, white and blue by year's end. What is your opinion on the U.S.-Croatia Fed Cup tie moving to the United
States? They should have moved it to some place like Switzerland or England to
be fair. Once again the "Big Bully" U.S. gets its
way.
Oh, that's probably a bit too harsh. It's fairly pointless to play a Fed Cup match on neutral soil and there was no doubt that, particularly with Monica Seles on the U.S. team, they weren't going to play the match in Croatia. So, on balance, it probably made the most sense to move it to North Carolina. My suspicion is that if Croatia had drawn any other country, the match would have moved just the same. Do you think Todd Martin can make a serious run toward No. 1, and do you
think he is fired up to do just that because he resents Pete Sampras and Andre
Agassi and believes that he's a better representative of U.S. tennis? I know
answering that takes a bit of speculative psychology, but some of his comments
to the press lately seem to indicate this. Don't you think the fact that he does
better on clay than Agassi and Sampras, but can also play on faster surfaces,
bodes well for his chances of overtaking his
compatriots?
One player taking advantage of the collective futility in men's tennis is Martin, who at the august age of 28 is quietly in the throes of the best year of his career. You're right, too, in noting that Martin is the U.S.'s best all-court player. He just acquitted himself well on clay in Barcelona; the week before, he took apart Greg Rusedski indoors; and, of course, he came within a fifth set gag-o-rama of making the Wimbledon finals three years ago. Provided Martin's body holds up -- no small contingency, given his history of elbow trouble and his current battle with his abdominal muscles -- it wouldn't surprise me if he were as high as a top-four seed by the U.S. Open. Your theory that Martin has extra motivation because he resents Sampras and Agassi is an interesting one. On the one hand, Martin is a popular, easygoing guy who I doubt has any real antipathy for anyone. On the other hand, you have five fingers. No, seriously -- on the other hand, he's spent his entire career in the shadows of Sampras, Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang. At this late stage, he finally had a chance to dent the public consciousness on his own terms. What is the latest inside information on Andre Agassi? Will the divorce from
Brooke Shields make him more dedicated to tennis or will it make him want to
retire? And what is up with Patrick Rafter? I haven't seen him play this year,
but a 5-7 record is not good for a player of his
ability.
Sorry to disappoint, but most of my info on Agassi is straight out of People (there, I said it). Two international stars always on the go does not a happy marriage make, yada, yada, yada. Agassi's career can go in any direction and it won't surprise me. Remember, this is a guy who finished 1997 outside of the top 120 and was back in the top 10 by the end of last summer. My suspicion, though, is that the fuel light on his career is starting to flicker. Unlike 1997, his latest woes have apparently had little to do with domestic bliss or, as he says ad nauseum, "a shift in priorities." Rather, they're simply owed to the fact that at 28-plus years of age, Agassi is not as dominant as he once was. And anything other than his 'A' game won't cut it any longer. Rafter's fate, however, is even more perplexing. What started as a slump has ballooned into a full-blown crisis of confidence. I haven't seen him play much either, but that's because he's usually no longer in the draw after the second round. A couple of losses to Nicolas Kiefer is not necessarily cause for crying into one's Foster's. But when you're losing decisively to Bernd Karbacher, it's time to worry. Rafter started last year slowly as well and didn't pick up much steam until the Canadian Open in August. But right now he desperately needs a few good wins to get his engine back in gear. What's your take on the status of former No. 1 Lindsay Davenport? She started
off the year so well, but since the upset by Amelie Mauresmo at the Australian,
she hasn't made a final. I know she has wrist problems and I haven't seen her
play since the AO, but is she suffering from shaky confidence or is she getting
beat by better opponents? I thought she was on cruise control and she was
obviously tired last fall, but this year she hasn't made much noise at all,
falling to Amanda Coetzer, Serena Williams and Anna Kournikova. What's up with
Lindsay?
The whispers are that her wrist injury is more serious than she makes it out to be. I was under the impression that, through some sort of vaguely New Age magnet therapy, she had nursed her wrist back to health before the Australian Open. Since then, however, it's clearly given her problems. I saw her the night she had to withdraw from her Lipton quarterfinal match against Steffi Graf and she claimed that if the wrist didn't stop bothering her, she was going to have to learn how to hit a one-handed backhand (I assumed she was kidding). Graf is the first player to tell you that an inevitable byproduct of an injury is a lapse in confidence. If and when Davenport gets back in shape, it will be interesting to see how long it takes her to regain the swagger and winner's mindset she had in the second half of last year. I'm a Belgian tennis fan and would like to know what you think the future is for Belgian women's tennis (that is, if you are familiar with it; most Americans don't seem to know Belgium is a country in its own right and not a city in France, let alone know anything about our tennis players). Dominique Van Roost didn't have any points to defend for a few months last year due to injury the year before and managed to get to the top 20 (and even top 10 for a while). Do you think she'll be able to stay there? Here in Belgium there also seems to be a lot of hope for Justine Henin and the sisters Clijsters. I haven't seen them play yet and don't think they're active on the WTA tour. Have you had a chance to see them play or have you heard about them? By the way: "Didn't you used to be Sabine
Appelmans?"
Belgium, ay? You guys the ones with them clogs and tulips, right? Van Roost is a solid, if unspectacular, player who deserves the No. 16 ranking she holds right now. If she were playing a generation ago, she'd be a Sue Barker -like player who'd make a few big finals now and then and hang around the top 10. As it is, Van Roost just doesn't hit a big enough ball to be a real threat to Davenport, Williams (plural), Martina Hingis, Mary Pierce and friends. You're right that Appelmans, once a consistent top-20 player, has fallen off the map a bit. The again, she's 27 already, so her decline isn't a total shock. Similarly, Els Callens is a solid player who made a nice career for herself, but she turns 29 this summer so her days are dwindling. I've heard good things about Henin, too, though I've never seen her play. And I have never seen (or, I confess, heard of) the sisters Clijsters. But if they're half as good as their name, Belgian tennis will be a force for years to come. Do you have any updates on Goran
Ivanisevic?
Not really. Goran is one of those guys who could be filling the star vacuum in men's tennis right now. But after pulling out of the Australian with back pains, Ivanisevic has a match record of 6-6 this year, including losses to such notables as 171st-ranked Xavier Malisse, 33-year-old Mark Woodforde, and 125th-ranked Rainer Schuttler. Given the situation in Croatia, it's understandable that his head is elsewhere, but it would nice -- and not surprising -- if he emerged from his funk at Wimbledon. Regarding your comments on Michael Stich, there is one thing I would like to
add: He was the only player on tour that won tournaments on all surfaces for a
number of years. Neither Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, John McEnroe
nor Ivan Lendl could make that claim. It is unfortunate that he did not have
the drive to make more out of his career. What makes Sampras' achievements so
remarkable is not his tennis talent, but his drive, determination and focus. Do
you think Patrick Rafter and Mark Philippoussis will travel down the same
"had the talent but not the drive"
road?
Rafter and Philippoussis are very different players who are too often and too easily linked together simply because of their shared provenance. Rafter came through the ranks, playing qualifiers and struggling for a few years before making it big. Also, he's not the all-court threat Stich was. Rafter is an athletic player and expert serve-and-volleyer, but in six appearances he's never been past the fourth round at Wimbledon. Before his current slide, he was regarded as a determined, hard-working player who paid his dues. That he has already two U.S. Open titles to his name inoculates him from being labeled a disappointment. Philippoussis isn't quite analogous to Stich either. Scud (he doesn't seem to be called that much any more, does he?) might have the biggest serve in the history of the game, but lacks Stich's smoothness and creativity. He is susceptible to lapses in concentration; but whereas Stich, it sometimes seemed, lacked the requisite fire because he would rather be reading Kant or going on a picnic with his wife, Philippoussis loses interest in tennis because he'd rather be starring in some action movie or bar-hopping on the Greek Isles. Why are there so many good young American women and so few good young
American men? Is this the strongest American women's tennis has ever been? It
seems like everyone from Tara Snyder to Jane Chi can play. Also, what do think
of Alexandra
Stevenson?
First, I'll give you the lame, grand-scale response: Athletically inclined girls have far fewer options than athletic boys, so tennis becomes on obvious choice for the Venus Williamses of the worlds, while the Kobe Bryants and Kerry Woods don't give it a second thought. Without getting too preachy, I also think tennis is, sadly, much more socially accepted and acceptable among girls than it is among boys. Certainly, American women have, empirically at least, been a more dominating presence on the WTA Tour than they are today. Even if you chose to include Seles, there are only three Yanks in the top 10. Consider that in 1980, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, Billie Jean King, Andrea Jaeger and Pam Shriver were all denizens of the top 10. On other hand, I think you're right that on account of the depth of field ( Lisa Raymond, Corina Morariu, Snyder, Chi, Amy Frazier, Chanda Rubin -- to say nothing of Serena Williams) these are awfully good times for American women's tennis. Funny how we don't hear much about that. Stevenson is a bundle of laughs and one of the biggest extroverts on tour. She is not, alas, a particularly gifted tennis player. She rivals Lindsay Davenport in physical stature (6'1", 160 pounds) and hits a booming serve, but she doesn't move well, her baseline game is erratic and she suffers from too many mental lapses for a supposedly up-and-coming player. To the USTA's chagrin, Stevenson is, at best, a top 40 player. Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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