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 The French aftermath
Posted: Tuesday June 08, 1999 05:24 PM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. Any sports fan who thought Charismatic's injury or Larry Johnson's four-point play were the most dramatic moments of the weekend must have missed both the men's and women's finals at the French Open. It was turn-back-the-clock weekend at Roland Garros, and when the red dust settled Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi gave us two matches for the memory banks. Let's hope the sight of two teary-eyed stars in their twilight, having survived scads of physical and psychological minefields, hoisting the winner's trophies -- and not Martina Hingis' embarrassing fit of pique -- are the enduring images of a great weekend of tennis. One point of clarification from last week: A lot of you wrote in about my five best clay-courters. I didn't intend to rank them in any order. Otherwise, obviously, Bjorn Borg, whose lifetime record at the French Open was 49-2 (six titles) would have been No. 1. The few of you who wondered why I included Gabriela Sabatini and not Arantxa Sánchez Vicario have a more valid point. Lots of questions, and lots of your rants this week, so on to the 'Bag we go ... Do you think if Andre Agassi would have stayed more focused over the years,
he would have just as much claim to the title of best player ever as Pete
Sampras? He does hold all four Grand Slam
titles.
Even Agassi himself sometimes seems ambivalent about his career. Should he be beaming with pride that he was able to win a Slam after seeing his ranking plummet to No. 141? Or should he be embarrassed that as talented as he is, with the ability to win a major at age 29, he's allowed his career to be such a roller-coaster ride? If you ask me (which, on second thought, you did), on balance, history will overlook the lapses and regard Agassi as a great player and even greater showman. Yes, with his physical talent and ability to his John McEnroe -like raw genius, we all wonder what could have been, had only AA "stayed more focused," as you say, and been a more consistent player. But after winning all four Slams, playing more than a decade on tour, single-handedly generating more interest in tennis than any of his contemporaries, and winning 70-some titles, his legacy is assured. Steffi Graf, best singles player of all time? I agree. Best all-court
player ever as Chris Evert likes to say? I agree. But flat-out best ever? I
must disagree. The reason is that, it seems to me, if you're going to be the
best ever you have to a great track record in doubles and mixed doubles, too. I
think when you look at the all-around game of singles, doubles and mixed
doubles, you'd have to say Martina Navratilova is the best ever.
Comments?
I'll stand firm on this one. First, I don't put any stock in mixed doubles. It's a flimsy event that's fun to watch and a nice way for marginal players to pick up some extra scratch. But it's hardly a barometer for a player's mettle. (We'll see how well Graf plays mixed doubles when, to the fans' delight, she teams with McEnroe at Wimbledon.) Your other point, that Navratilova's superior doubles play makes her the better player, is well taken. Martina won a ridiculous 165 doubles titles to Graf's 11. Still, against a deeper, more athletic field, Graf was more dominant against her peers, won more major singles titles (including the Grand Slam in 1988), and simply possessed a certain air of invincibility that no other player, before or since, has matched. As much as I respect her talent and her style, I have to say that I was
absolutely disgusted by the way Martina Hingis handled herself during the French
Open finals. I've been a women's tennis fan for many years, but I can't
remember anybody with such a cocky and disdainful attitude. At first I was
neutral, but by the middle of the second set I was rooting for Graf as
vociferously as the French fans. Hingis disgraced herself and the game by
whinily complaining, throwing her racket, smiling whenever her opponent missed
an easy shot, serving underhand down match point, and storming off the court
before the trophy presentation (only to be dragged back by her mother). Can she
go much lower than that? And why are reporters covering the match not calling
it like it is, instead of making excuses for her and showing the
"touching" images of her sobbing on her mother's shoulder? Call it
like it is,
Jon.
If those of you who write in to the Mailbag are at all indicative of tennis fans worldwide, Hingis ought to hire herself a p.r. agent, pronto. I could argue that despite her success and breeziness, Hingis, let's not forget, is only 18 years old. It's entirely understandable how a teenager could blow her cool with 15,000 fans booing her every move. But I'm afraid I agree with Frank. Hingis indeed "disgraced herself and the game" during Saturday's finale. And we journalists should be able to commend Graf for her superlative tennis and emotional title, without letting Hingis off the hook for unacceptably bratty behavior. More galling, still, were Hingis' remarks in the post-match press conference and over the next day. Completely unrepentant, she still intimated strongly that she was a better player than Graf and should have won the match; she said there was nothing wrong with her conduct; and she surmised that the French didn't like her not because of her remarks about Amelie Mauresmo during the Australian Open, her generally cockiness, her bush-league underhand serve, or her incessant line call questioning. No, they didn't like her because "they think tennis comes too easy to me." Please, Martina, take some of the ill-deserved lucre from your runners-up check and buy a clue. In his press conference, Andrei Medvedev said that Andre Agassi winning all
four Grand Slams gives him the bragging rights as the best player of the era. He
said this was a greater accomplishment that Sampras' 11 overall Slams. I am an
Agassi fan, but I think Pete's 11 Slams are a greater accomplishment. What is
your
opinion?
Yeah, that struck me as a little absurd, too. Agassi's achievement is nothing to sneeze at, but it's hard to say with a straight face that it's tantamount to winning 11 Slams, a Wimbledon three-Pete, and holding the No. 1 ranking for six straight seasons. Sampras is having a lousy year, no question about it, but it's also worth pointing out that ever since he won the U.S. Open in 1990, he never finished the year ranked lower than No. 6. Compare this to Agassi, whose career has been a mechanical-bull ride. Recent comments by Martina Hingis -- the now infamous "half a man"
comment about Amelie Mauresmo and the "too slow and too old" comment
about Jana Novotna -- made me wonder: Does the Women's Tennis Association hold
any media-training workshops for their players? That may be a solution in
cutting down the tactless comments we hear from these young players, and prompt
them into being more polite and
diplomatic.
The WTA Tour held a workshop with a p.r. firm in Southern California a few summers, ago and it was an unqualified fiasco. Half the players -- including normally mild-mannered types like Monica Seles and Conchita Martinez -- bagged it. And Anke Huber (who is making all sorts of off-the-court news these days, isn't she?) walked out 10 minutes into the session and, in front of a room full of people, yelled at the WTA communications manager for making her attend. Hingis' display, and her subsequent press conference ("I don't think I did anything wrong ... I just think the fans don't understand me") was simply disgraceful. But the truth is, how much does the WTA Tour really suffer from impolitic player comments? When the Williams sisters predict that they will win Wimbledon, love them or hate them, people tune in to see if they make good on their prediction. Same with Hingis. If she had an editor on her tongue and regurgitated the company line, wouldn't people complain that the women's game lacks personality? Hello? I can't believe you've returned from your honeymoon and not mentioned
Jennifer Capriati's comeback. What do you make of it? How far do you think she
can go this year? I say top 20 is
possible.
I'm skeptical that it was anything more than a slight upturn in an otherwise bear market. But if she continues to play well on the hard-court junket this summer, it'll be a real story. On talent alone, she probably has a right to claim a spot in the top 20. And she's working on conditioning, tactics and mental fitness with former pro Harold Solomon so we'll definitely keep an eye out for her this summer. It's a little premature to hop on the bandwagon now, though. I just saw a feature on a young 14-year-old named Monique Viele. She can't
play many elite tournaments due to her age, but she and her advisors seem to
believe that she has the ability to. What do you think of the age restrictions,
even for such prodigies as Viele claims to
be?
I think I may have written this before, but I spent some time with Viele and watched her play while I was down at the Lipton this spring. (Shameless plug: You can read all about it in the current issue of Sports Illustrated for Women.) There's no question that Viele has big-time potential and could probably hold her own on tour. But so, too, could some gifted eighth graders handle college-level work. What I think people fail to realize is that, just as there's a lot more to college than mere coursework, the life of a professional player is entirely more complex than whacking balls. Every prodigy that comes down the pike has the exact same response to the age-eligibility rules: They might be good as a general guideline, but I am sufficiently mature to handle the pressures of being a pro player. This is essentially Viele's mantra, too. Fact is, these rules were designed by a panel of experts after years of careful study. And they exist for a reason other than to punish precocious girls with pushy parents. Tennis' pantheon of teenage burnouts is entirely too populous, and one wonders how many of them would have had a healthy career had they not held a high-pressure, physically-demanding, full-time job years before they were eligible to drive. If last weekend's women's final taught us anything, it's even an 18-year-old No. 1 player who's hailed for her maturity and "genius" can submit to the occupational stress. Hi! I have noticed that Andre Agassi wears a pendant and a matching earring
in the shape of a triangle with three interlocking circles in it, and that his
coach and trainer wear the same one. What does this
represent?
Don't hold me to this, but I believe it represents the Holy Trinity. And I'm a little skeptical that Agassi's Jewish coach, Brad Gilbert, is in on this fashion statement. Can someone PLEASE tell Andrei Medvedev to shut up already about his
"lost love/lost interest" and suddenly "I'm playing well because
I'm in love" crap?? I think I'm gonna be SICK! Jon, will I play better if
I suddenly fall in love? Tennis fans want strong personalities, not pathetic
ones!
Come on, Ted, give the guy a break. Anyone who wears shorts like those (and doesn't play shuffleboard in South Florida) and somehow manages to find love has the right to crow a little bit. Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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