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Stuck in a circle No easy solution to U.S. Davis Cup problems
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. Some random thoughts: So how about that gilded John McEnroe era? Anyone else wonder how much longer he stays on as Davis Cup captain if Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi continue to go AWOL? Something tells me he didn't take this job so he could work with Vince Spadea on improving his doubles play. ... If the surface is as slow as it was last weekend, hard to see how Australia beats Spain in the Davis Cup final come December. ... Memo to networks broadcasting tennis: In the age of the Internet, tape-delayed telecasts are silly. ... If you're in the market for a tennis book this summer, check out Steve Flink's The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century (Rutledge Books, $24.95). ... Billie Jean King will announce this week that Serena Williams will get the final U.S. Olympic team spot. Onward ...
Why are so many people calling for changes in the Davis Cup format? The truth is that few Americans care about tennis in general, let alone the Davis Cup, so changing the format won't improve tennis appreciation in America. Also, the fact that the top American players do not make Davis Cup a priority isn't helping either. The American Davis Cup situation is essentially a Möbius strip. The top players feel the event is not accorded enough status to make it worthwhile, so they decline to play. And when Todd Martin and Jan-Michael Gambill, lord bless 'em, get beat by another country's A team, interest in the Davis Cup here wanes even further. Much as Captain Mac would like take Sampras and Agassi to task for their absence, he knows that doing so will alienate them for good.
How many of the players enjoy watching tennis? For instance, how many would have watched the Pete Sampras-Pat Rafter Wimbledon final? Or are they too burned out on it to watch other players? Good question. I'm always surprised by how few players are actually pro tennis fans at heart. There are some exceptions. Put Mary Joe Fernandez, for instance, in the bleachers for a first-round men's doubles match and she's happy. Most other players make like Elvis and leave the building once their matches end. On the other hand, for a money match like Sampras-Agassi in Australia, the seats in the players' section are all filled. I've also noticed that when Anna Kournikova plays, she draws a crowd of other female players who cheer on her opponent and invariably experience shadenfreude afterward.
The Lapentti brothers, Nicolas and Giovanni, beat the British team by themselves in Davis Cup. Could this mean the beginning of great things for Ecuador in Davis Cup? Do you think Giovanni, who's just 17, could soon become top-10 caliber? Nicolas already is top-10 caliber. In fact, he made it as high as No. 8 last year. His younger brother has already signed with IMG and may even be better. "Great things" may be pushing it. Nicolas is a solid player but I don't see him winning any Slams. The brothers, however, give a shot in the arm to a country that hasn't had much recent tennis success to speak of.
I think what the Williams girls need now to take their game to a level never before seen in women's tennis is the finesse of Martina Navratilova added to their power. I am no longer talking about an occasional Grand Slam victory. I am talking about total domination. Navratilova can take them there. Richard Williams will buy Rockefeller Center before his daughters are coached by Navratilova. I agree that they could stand to emulate her training, nutritional habits and commitment. But even in the unfathomable event that Martina had any interest in coaching a WTA Tour player, I can't think of a more bizarre mix of personalities.
Have you ever seen Israel's Harel Levy play? I think he is the only Israeli with any potential to make the top 100, after qualifying for both the French Open and Wimbledon. Do you agree? He's no Shlomo Glickstein -- or even Amos Mansdorf -- but Levy is a perfectly nice player worth keeping an eye on. After serving the mandatory stint in the Israeli army, he is playing full-time trying to get his ranking high enough to get automatic ins to Slams and Masters Series events. At age 21, there's plenty of time for him to improve. The top 100 is an easily attainable goal for him; top 50 is pressing it.
Don't you think Martina Hingis would benefit from working with someone besides her mother? She's been losing tight matches all year long by being totally passive and it's only getting worse. Isn't it time to make a change? She hasn't looked like someone who could win a Slam for a while now. I agree that an overlooked storyline from this year is the fact that Hingis' game is in crisis mode. It's abundantly clear that, physically, she simply can't compete with the heavy hitters. And with each KO suffered at the hands of Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, Venus Williams and Serena Williams, her once shatterproof confidence begins to crack. That said, I'm not sure a coaching change would do her good. Melanie Molitor is one of the few -- perhaps the lone -- tennis parents who is competent to coach her child. Molitor is a realist: She knows that if her daughter is going to stay on top, it will be because of superior technique, guile and strategy, not because she'll win a slugfest.
In your last Mailbag you said Lindsay Davenport was one of the most popular players on the tour. I was under the impression that off-camera she turns into a different person. I've heard she's not that nice to most of the non-top-30 players -- and we all know about the famous Alexandra Stevenson bag-kicking incident. Care to shed some light on this? First off, I put little credibility in the claims of Stevenson, a terribly attention-starved player. Davenport is decidedly tougher than she's made out to be: One doesn't win Slams and take over the No. 1 ranking playing the role of the deferential "girl next door" on the court. But off the court, unlike most top players, Davenport has a wide circle of friends among other tour members and has emerged as a locker-room-leader type. The higher-ranked players appreciate her game while the lower-ranked players appreciate that she is so down-to-earth compared to others in her echelon.
Any updates on Jennifer Capriati and her coaching transition? From all of the things I'd heard, I was surprised she made it to the fourth round at Wimbledon. And although Lindsay Davenport obviously was still not at her best, I thought Jennifer played a pretty good match against her. Also, any comments about the pairing of Jennifer and Jelena Dokic in doubles? I found the pairing an intriguing combination. They also made it to the fourth round at Wimbledon. Is this a doubles team we might see again? I wouldn't read too much into Capriati's relative success at Wimbledon. She scored a good win over Dominique Van Roost, but her third-round opponent was Yayuk Basuki, who came out of retirement for one last hurrah. Excepting Serena Williams at Key Biscayne, one could argue Capriati hasn't had a real quality win since Australia. She gets peeved whenever she's asked why she'd sack a pro like Harold Solomon, under whom she achieved so much success, and replace him with her father. "It was never set in stone," she says of her arrangement with Solomon. Fact is, Capriati fell in love with Xavier Malisse and simply stopped working. Her results show as much. As for her pairing with Dokic, Capriati isn't sure how much longer it will last, but you're right, it's an intriguing combination. A curious bit of symmetry: Dokic, too, recently canned her reputable coach, Tony Roche, and retained her domineering father instead. (Naturally, Damir Dokic has a much keener sense of tennis' nuances than a former Wimbledon finalist.) |
