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The 'Bag is Open
Posted: Monday August 30, 1999 11:39 AM
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. For us American tennis junkies, Sunday night was like Christmas Eve. So a quick Mailbag, off to bed and then two weeks of Grand Slam tennis in my backyard. Before I try and plumb a few of your questions, I have good news and bad news: The bad (or good, depending on your perspective) is that there will be no Mailbag next week as I will be knee-deep in the U.S. Open. The following week, we'll do an Open recap 'Bag. The good news (or, again, perhaps bad) is that I'll be filing daily dispatches and predictions from the Open, and will be doing an online chat for CNNSI.com on Thursday at 2 p.m. ET. Mark your calendars accordingly... This past summer has been like the summer of Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras.
They have competed many times with Pete winning each time. It is not hard to
argue that Pete might be the better player, but in your opinion who has been
better and contributed more to tennis? Has Pete and his 12 Grand Slam titles
been better for tennis then Andre and his extreme popularity and charisma? And
which of the two would you say was the most naturally
talented?
Good question. Depends, obviously, on your definition of contribution. If a contribution is simply on the court -- elevating the game, demonstrating a champion's demeanor, stockpiling Grand Slam trophies -- Sampras is your man. If contributions transcend tennis and include generating electricity, packing in fans and drawing Madison Avenue's attention, it's Agassi in a bagel. Whichever side you fall on, this dichotomy is precisely why their rivalry has added texture. The natural-talent question is also somewhat in the eyes of the definer, but the vote here goes to Agassi. Sampras is by far the better athlete, and the built-in air conditioner that keeps him cool on big points sets him apart from the field. But in terms of sheer raw talent -- hand-eye coordination, the ability to see the ball, virtuoso intangibles -- Agassi, in my mind, rivals John McEnroe as the biggest natural of all time. Do you get the feeling that Andre Agassi gets intimidated by Pete Sampras
each time they play? Even though they have had some tough matches recently, it
seems to be Sampras who plays mentally tougher than Agassi. What do you think
Agassi needs to do to get over the hump with Sampras? Against almost all other
players, Agassi arrogantly beats them into submission with his supreme
groundstrokes.
You'd think that after competing against each other for the better part of two decades at all levels, from juniors in Bakersfield to Centre Court at Wimbledon, there wouldn't be much of an intimidation factor between these two. Yet I agree with you: Agassi has seemed uncharacteristically "psyched out" the past few times he's played Sampras. Part of this is obviously the knowledge that he has to play flawless tennis to win. Is it the personalities of the guys and gals on the tour that make some
members of the media hate tennis? I've even heard Dick Enberg say that he
disliked most professional tennis
players.
Though I've never heard Enberg make that remark -- to be honest, my TV volume was probably off at the time -- the sentiments wouldn't be unique. First off, my experience has been to the contrary. In covering most every other sport, the NBA in particular, I find tennis to have a comparatively low jerk quotient. For every Marcelo Rios, who truly makes Albert Belle look like Shirley Temple, there are literally dozens of Alex Corretjas and Lindsay Davenports who couldn't be easier to deal with. Here's one explanation, though, for the bad rap: As soon as tennis players lose a match they're escorted into an interview room, where they are grilled about their unsuccessful performance. Imagine having a bad day at work and before you can go home to your family or drink your frustrations into oblivion, you have to discuss your shortcomings -- What could you have done differently? Why did you go for so much down break point? By the way, will you ever win the French Open? -- with observers who may never have played a set of competitive tennis in their lives. Granted, as far as occupational drawbacks, this doesn't induce much sympathy. Still, losing players often come across as surly in their post-match press conferences, when in fact they are disgusted more with themselves than the interrogator. What's going on with Marat Safin? He seems like he has all of the physical
tools and tennis skills to be a genuinely great player but still hasn't
fulfilled his potential. Why? Is it just taking him longer than expected to
become a force, or is he falling into the trap that many modern tennis players
fall into -- great shots but no understanding of how to actually play the
game.
Safin won his first pro tournament Saturday, beating Greg Rusedski in the finals of the Boston event. So, in his dotage at age 19, he seems to be putting it together. You're right, though, he has taken longer than expected to realize his potential. After smoking Thomas Muster -- for all intents, into retirement -- at last year's Open, he looked like a surefire top-20 player by the end of 1999. Here it is September and he's "only" No. 33. He still needs to work on controlling his power and, as you correctly put it, how to "actually play the game." But he's still the best teenager in the world today. (Note that this response is being written before he plays Sampras in the first round of the Open, a match that is a monstrous opportunity to sear his name on our collective consciousness.). Why is Nicolas Kiefer choosing not to play Davis Cup for Germany? Is it true
he's not playing because of his dislike for Boris Becker? What happened between
Kiefer and
Becker?
Someone once said that gossip is the manna of the tennis desert. This feud, however, is not particularly juicy. Kiefer was Becker's protégé as he ascended the ranks in the juniors and then the pros. Last year, though, the student thought he had exceeded the master ( Aristotle and Plato, age-old theme) and complained about the way Becker, the de facto captain, was running the German Davis Cup team. Becker got pissed, the two no longer speak, Becker exacts revenge at Wimbledon, blah blah blah. In short strokes, they ought to kiss and make up and go about their business. But because they are both professional athletes with a surfeit of machismo, this petty spat is sure to continue festering. Why do you think Vince Spadea has never won an ATP Tour title yet? His game
is similar to Andre Agassi's, he hits the ball hard off both wings, and he has
beaten big name players before (Agassi at the '99 Australian, Yevgeny Kafelnikov
at the '95 Open). So why do you think he hasn't broken
through?
Vince Spadea plays his best tennis against big guns -- he's 7-1 this year against players ranked in the top 10 -- but he loses his focus when he plays a nobody and, consequently, his record is littered with brutal losses. You're right about Spadea, though: He hits a big ball off both sides, he moves well and, for a kid weaned on hard courts, his results on clay are encouraging. It would help his game immensely if he'd add some juice to his serve. Spadea has also been described as mentally frail, which doesn't mean that he chokes so much as he is positively eaten up by losses. Spadea's breakthrough will come eventually. Meanwhile, when he beats Tim Henman in the second round in Flushing, say you read it here first. Watching the Acura Classic a few weeks ago, it seemed as if the two finalists
were the same height, but Julie Halard-Decugis is listed at 5'8" and Serena
Williams is listed at 5'10". What's the deal with all this fibbing about
height? I have heard that Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova are more than a
little shy of their respective listed heights of 5'7" and 5'8".
Monica Seles is really 5' 9 1/2" versus 5' 10 1/2". What's the deal?
We know that most tennis players are tall but they are not models so why pretend
to be taller than you
are?
That reminds of the time the Oklahoma Sooners basketball team exaggerated the height of their players. When the players who were listed as 6'9" tried out for the pros, they were suddenly being measured as 6'7". The coach's response: "We measure them in the their shoes. They don't play barefoot do they?" As for women's tennis, I haven't noticed wholesale lying, as you put it. My suspicion is that any embellishment is strictly to give the player a slight psychological edge. Finally, thought you might be interested in the following epic sent to me by Bruce Miller of Baton Rouge, La. : I know this is a bit long, but it should provide you with some insight into the U.S.'s lack of development of top players. In last week's Mailbag, you discussed improving the waning status of the U.S. tennis against competitors from around the world. I agree with your comments concerning the inability of the USTA to "control the actions of the major U.S. based tennis academies." However, I must disagree with your thoughts about the presence of so many foreign students in our collegiate tennis programs. As I have two sons who were active in the junior tennis program and one who has been fortunate enough to play college tennis (on full scholarship) for the past two years I would like to share the following first-hand knowledge on this matter. A few years ago at our largest statewide junior tournament, the featured speaker was a local gentleman who had coached at two large universities in our state, starting the tennis program at one of the schools and later rising to the level of associate athletic director there. He had a message to all those junior players concerning the low probability that they would be able to obtain a tennis scholarship. He told the kids that the deck was stacked against them for the following reasons: As a group (individual cases aside) the foreign students were: 1) more mature; 2) better motivated; 3) better students; and perhaps more importantly, 4) they were much less likely to be involved in disciplinary situations of all types. (Again, this was a comparison of U.S. vs. foreign students, AS A GROUP!!!) He also told the kids that a coach's primary responsibility is to produce a winning team comprised of the best players that he or she could recruit. Of all the factors, allegiance to the U.S. was rather low on the coach's list of priorities. He also stated that he had learned "the hard way" that he had a better chance of success with a foreign student on his team than with an American student -- given an equal level of tennis ability between the two students. Given this information, it is easy to see why there are so many foreign students playing in U.S. collegiate programs. The differences noted above are directly attributable, in part, to our kids. But more importantly they say a lot about us, as parents, who probably could have done a much better job raising our children. Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and
check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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