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 Wimbledon questions, Wimbledon answers
Posted: Monday June 28, 1999 06:09 PM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. The grass is manicured. The queues extend down the block. The Royal Box, which picked up a new member in the offseason, is occupied. Now all that remains is the answer to the questions inquiring tennis minds want to know: Will Martina Hingis rebound from her ignominious French Open and live up to her No.1 seeding? Now that it has a head of steam, will the Pete Sampras Express tear through the draw? Can Boris Becker rewind the clock for one last dose of Farvergnugnen? Whither Venus Williams , the lone member of her family in the singles draw? Can Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf rekindle the fire once more? For now, questions that can be immediately answered: I would be much obliged if you could settle a dispute between me and my boss:
At the French Open, when Martina Hingis first tried the underhanded serve
against Steffi Graf in the finals, who won the point? I say Hingis did, my boss
says Graf. I offered to bet him $5, he wanted to make it $1,000! Though I'm
pretty confident I remembered it correctly, $1K would be tough to part with. I
remember the serve taking Graf out of position at the net and that a passing
shot off Martina's racquet went off the top of Steffi's racquet and to the
right, off court.
You should have trusted your instincts and put a grand on the table. Hingis did win the point the first time she stooped to serving underhanded. As you correctly recall, Graf was caught off-guard, followed her return to the net and Hingis passed her. Next time your boss wants to make another bet, contact me first so I can get a piece of the action, too. Will Jana Novotna be playing at Wimbledon? What do you think her chances are
for winning again and why don't people show her more respect? She's such a
graceful athlete. I wish people would give her a break and stop talking about
her tears from so long
ago.
Novotna plans to play Wimbledon against Shi-Ting Wang Tuesday, but if her ankle is giving her any trouble at all, she won't defend her title. Tennis fans seem to have a strange relationship with Novotna. I think you're right that she's not given tons of respect, but one could argue that she hasn't done all that much to deserve it, either. Yes, she won her Wimbledon and has been a mainstay in the top five, but how many golden opportunities have slipped through her trembling fingers? Fans do, however, seem to root for her and empathize with her jangly nerves. Who among us hackers can't relate to the difficulty of hitting a decent first serve in a tie-breaker? How many of us haven't closed out a match when we were up 5-2? Let he who doesn't shank overheads in the third set cast the first stone. Point is, there is something imminently human about Novotna. Aesthetically, her game is beautiful, but, ultimately it is her frailty that makes her easy to root for. I hate to speculate, but for the sake of tennis palaver, Serena Williams
suspiciously withdrew from Wimbledon. This is arguably designed to avoid a
fourth-round exodus, courtesy of older sister Venus. This would be consistent
with their strategy of avoiding to play each other. My problem here is that they
give up a doubles Grand Slam trophy, which I had them winning at Wimbledon hands
down. Their doubles prowess at Roland Garros was such that I can't fathom any
doubles team beating them right now, except
themselves.
A few points: One, I hate to speculate also, but I think your instincts are correct: it's a smidge suspicious that Serena withdrew from Wimbledon, the Super Bowl of tennis, a full four days before her first match, on account of the flu. Rest a little, drink some OJ, and see how you feel before you step aside. But why pull out so early in advance? This, too, comes on the heels on Serena's dubious Wimbledon last year when, a few points away from losing to Virginia Ruano Pascal in the third round, she abruptly defaulted, failing to so much as shake her opponent's hand. Still, she was spry as ever playing mixed doubles the next day. ("That was total bull----," said another top 10 player. "She was just getting her ass kicked.") All that said, I don't think Serena withdrew from Wimbledon lest she have to face her sister in the fourth round. That "let's-avoid-playing-each-other" strategy was one of their nutty father's nutty ideas that has since been abandoned. Instead, the Williams sisters, like many precocious athletes, are just hyper-concerned about their bodies. Their attitude is: I'll have so many more chances, why press my luck or risk something serious at age 17? I can't say it's irrational, but it does stand in stark contrast to a Novotna, who was carted off the courts in Paris in a wheelchair and vowed that they'd have to tie her to the bed for her to miss Wimbledon. What happened to the doubles partnership of Novotna/Hingis? A June 14 SI
article said that Hingis dumped Novotna because, in Hingis' opinion she
"was old and slow." What do you think of that? Isn't Novotna a more
talented doubles player than
Kournikova?
Hingis denies it, but Novotna claimed that she was summarily dismissed as a doubles partner. Why? Hingis told her she was "too old and slow." So much for Swiss diplomacy. Novotna now seems to be hooked up with Natasha Zvereva —a great doubles player, formerly coupled with Lindsay Davenport —while Hingis is paired with Kournikova. This all has the ring of a cheesy soap opera, doesn't it? Anyway, Novotna is unquestionably a better doubles player. Kournikova smacks the ball plenty hard but is neither as graceful nor as athletic as Novotna. On the other hand, if Hingis is looking for a long-time partnership—and, perhaps, a pal off the court—it is true that Kournikova is much more her peer than a 30-year-old in what may well be her last year on tour. After her French Open finals actions Martina Hingis seemed to be
double-minded. At one press conference she admitted what she did was wrong, and
at other time she said she had no regrets about her actions. I truly think she
has no regrets and she is just admitting to her faults so that she can have good
reception at Wimbledon. I also think she tries to get into her opponent's head
during her matches. She did lots of strange things against the Williams sisters
at Lipton in 1998 and the same tactics backfired at the French
Open.
Sure, Hingis plays head games. But so do plenty of other players. Given the number of strategically-timed bathroom breaks that players demand, you'd think the average WTA Tour player has a thimble for a bladder. And how quickly we forget Agassi mocking and moonballing Karol Kucera at last year's U.S. Open. These tactics might transcend the bounds the good sportsmanship, but I don't think they are a harbinger of the sport's Armageddon. Far more disturbing is Hingis' lack of contrition for her meltdown against Graf. After taking a beating from the fans and media, she still genuinely wonders what the big deal was. She has vowed that there won't be a repeat tantrum at Wimbledon. But that's just her way of saying she doesn't plan on losing. Why do you include Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the list for "Ad-Out"
every single week? Can't you give the guy a break? Also has Sergi Bruguera
retired?
Just calling 'em like I see 'em. When the world's No.1 player goes nearly two months without winning a match—along the way losing to qualifiers 6-1, 6-2—it's hard to shower him with too many accolades. As for Bruguera, he's entered tennis' version of the federal witness protection program. He isn't officially retired, but his ranking is down to No.302 and he hasn't played a point so far this year. His handlers say he might play some events on hardcourts this summer. But for all intents and purposes, I think we may have seen the last of the two-time French Open champ. Boris Becker has been one of the most enigmatic players of recent memory. He
seems to have adopted a very low-key approach to his retirement. I mean he
hasn't announced, like his great rival Stefan Edberg did, that this particular
year is going to be his last one on the tour, and hence may not get the kind of
farewell Edberg got, as he signed off in style at the U.S. Open in 1996. What do
you think about this? Finally what do you think of his chances, if there are
any, of winning Wimbledon as he bids goodbye to
tennis?
Becker does seem to be handling his retirement like an aging heavyweight boxing champ, isn't he? Was it not just last year, after he lost to Sampras, that he announced that it was his last Wimbledon match. For the past few years, Becker has pared down his schedule to the point that he's more a novelty act than a serious player. He's still in the top 100, but that's not altogether surprising, given that he's assured of a wild card every time he wants to play. Anyway, only those tennis fans with igneous rocks where their rocks ought to be (the ones who root against Seles) aren't hoping against hope that Becker emulates Connors at the 1991 U.S. Open and makes one last magical run. The reality is that although he may whip the nostalgic fans into a lather by beating seeded-German Nicholas Kiefer in the second round, he's in no shape to make a legitimate run through the draw. Who determines the draw in tennis tournaments? Is it a subjective or an
objective
process?
Depends who you ask. After the seeds are strategically placed, the draws are supposed to be blind. Most tournaments even have draw ceremonies, where a prominent member of the community picks the names out of trophy or some such. Still, particularly at lesser tournaments, there are so many "coincidences" that one needn't be Oliver Stone to suspect that draws are sometimes manipulated. After the infamous chest-bumping incident at the 1997 U.S. Open, it seemed as if Irina Spirlea couldn't enter an event without having to play one of the Williams sisters within the first few rounds. Similarly, it's amazing how often a local player with a wild card gets to play a struggling, ripe-for-an-upset seeded player in the first round. I enjoy your mailbag and read it every week, but how a good a tennis player
are
you?
I like to think of my game, Brad, as a melding of Novotna, Davenport, Ivan Lendl . That is to say, I have the steely nerves (and unfailing backhand) of Novotna, the athleticism of Davenport , and the pinpoint volleys of Lendl.
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and
check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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