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Getting blitzed by Venus
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. From time to time some of you ask me how the players on tour feel about the Mailbag. Well, last week yours truly got an earful from Venus Williams, who chastised me -- good naturedly, with a smile on her face, I hasten to add -- for being "too negative" and "too sarcastic." (She added that Serena felt the same way and had stopped visiting this address altogether.) I tried to explain that the word "journalist" derives from the Greek "jour" meaning "natural-born cynic" and "nalist" meaning "with a high cholesterol level" and that any cutting remarks were all in good fun. She shook her head. "We're trying our butts off out here," she said. "It hurts when people take shots at you." Ouch. She was very cool about it, but her message was clear: Tennis players have feelings, too. Even Wimbledon champs with 15-match winning streaks. How did this Gladstone-Disraeli debate end? Because I am a pussycat at heart, I promised to try and be more positive -- and I wasn't being sarcastic. Venus said she would give me another chance. Lots of good questions. Sorry I can't get to all of them. New balls, please ...
There has been much positive commentary on the selection of Serena Williams for the last doubles spot on the Olympic team, but I have yet to see a quote from Lisa Raymond, who has a higher doubles (the highest, actually) ranking and was left off the team. Is she too stunned to say anything or just being a good sport and keeping her thoughts to herself? Lisa Raymond is hardly keeping her thoughts to herself. She has retained an L.A. lawyer, who has filed a formal complaint against the USOC. Raymond alleges that Billie Jean King flouted the USTA's own selection procedures in naming Serena. The matter goes before an arbitrator shortly. Stay tuned, and I'll keep you posted as to how this plays out.
My question is probably stupid, but here goes: Where can I, a regular tennis fan shmoe, find players' lifetime won-lost records? Can I go to a Web site or book or some other magic source of tennis know-how to find out, say, Maria Bueno's record vs. Margaret Court or Tracy Austin vs. Chris Evert or Billie Jean King vs. Evonne Goolagong? Or even today's players' records? And I obviously would like the same info about the guys as well. So where do I go? Thanks. I'll go hide under a rock now for asking such a stupid question to you, THE TENNIS ALLAH. First, there are no stupid questions here at the 'Bag. Second, lets get our terms straight: that's Tennis Buddha (if only for the physical resemblance). Anyway, you've written a sycophantic letter and I thank you for that. But I don't have much of an answer. The ATP Tour's Web site has a head-to-head feature that enables you to see how active players fare against each other. Other than that, I'm at a loss. If any of you have a better resource, please let me know.
Any truth to the rumor that the WTA will be adopting a ranking system similar to the men's? I think it is a better system. Enough of Martina Hingis being No. 1 despite not winning any Slams in the past year and half. None. The women's system is not without its flaws, such as the one you cite, but there's no push from the players to switch formats, much less co-opt the men's. In fairness, we should reserve judgment on the Champions Race until the end of the year, when the much-ballyhooed "race" is actually run. But the big problem with the new system, as I see it, is in tournament seedings. It's simply too confusing to casual fans that Magnus Norman is the leader in the race, but then comes into a tourney as a third or fourth seed. On the other hand, if you seed players simply based on the points standings, someone like Jiri Novak who happens to win an Australian tuneup will get seeded at Indian Wells. Either way, I think it's an issue that needs to be addressed. Funny story about the women, by the way. At a players meeting in San Diego a dozen or so top-20 players were seated around a table discussing the men's ranking system. Dominique Van Roost interjected, "It's ridiculous. Who's No. 1 now anyway? Magnus Norman? Who is he?" At that point Hingis playfully slammed her hand on the table and said, "Hey, lay off Magnus. He's a nice guy."
What gives with the fact that the Masters Series event this week has almost five times the prize money as the WTA event? It seems like the top women's events consistently have tiny purses compared to the men's events. A WTA event with $500,000 purse attracts top women, but a $500,000 ATP event would barely register on the men's radar screen. When you look at the glaring disparity of purses in non-Slam events, it's no wonder the women are so vocal in their displeasure when a big event arrives. That's a question for Bart McGuire, CEO of the WTA Tour. Fact is, although interest in women's tennis vastly outstrips interest in the men's game, the WTA Tour has yet to parlay this into big bucks. Yes, the WTA Tour has a sponsor, some semblance of a TV package and prize money is at all-time high. But if women's tennis has come a long way, last weekend showed that there's a long way to go. Consider: Jiri Novak -- that's Jiri Novak, in case you missed it the first time -- made more cash for reaching the semis in Toronto than Venus Williams made for winning in San Diego, an event that included Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles and Anna Kournikova. This disparity, I should add, is far more egregious than the disparity in prize money awarded at the three Slams other than the U.S. Open. What gives? The short answer is that despite slogging interest and the kind of crippling parity that yields a Harel Levy-Marat Safin Masters Series final, the men were able to package the so-called Super Nine events in a billion-dollar deal that included a consolidated television package. So long as the events on the WTA Tour operate independently of each other -- each effectively cutting their own TV contracts, luring their own sponsors, etc. -- they can't compete with the obscene booty being dispensed on the ATP Tour.
Has Marcelo Rios already seen his best days on the ATP Tour, despite his tender age? I recall many "experts" ranking him among the top two or three prospects as recently as two years ago. Does he show any signs of developing some modicum of self-discipline? Rios is such a wild card, you never know. After a wildly disappointing, injury-addled 1999 followed by offseason surgery, he shows signs of resurgence from time to time. Then he tanks at the French, gets defaulted in L.A. and loses a sloppy match in Toronto. It wasn't just "experts" that ranked him as a prospect. Rios won both Indian Wells and Lipton in 1998 and briefly achieved the No. 1 ranking. Since then, it's been a steady decline. This is a shame because he gave the tour a much-needed personality and, a 5-9 lefty who hits the ball Andre Agassi -early, he can be a joy to watch. Since we're all about being positive here at the 'Bag, it's worth pointing out that despite his patchy results, Rios is still only 24. Plenty of time for him to make another move, especially after Agassi, Pete Sampras and Pat Rafter hang 'em up.
How do you reconcile Amanda Coetzer's success with your theory that smaller female pros, no matter how good, are pretty much condemned to the second tier because of their lack of power? Also, do you think Martina Hingis' career is a swan song to a certain style of tennis? A few years ago, there were still a handful of artists at the top of the game, e.g., Gabriela Sabatini, Jana Novotna. Now it seems Hingis is the only one left who can create truly exceptional points without blasting the ball. I once sat in the stands with Andrea Jaeger and watched Coetzer get her clock cleaned by Venus Williams in about 45 minutes. After Venus teed off on Coetzer's serve time and again, Jaeger said to me, "It's just not fair." Coetzer has put together an awfully nice career and is blissfully far away from "second tier." At the same time, the bulk of her success came during the mid-1990s before Davenport and the Sisters Williams arrived on the court. Since then, she has done very little; only one appearance in a Grand Slam quarterfinal in the past three years despite periodic forays into the top 10. She's among the quickest players on tour and is an indefatigable athlete -- and one of the nicest players you could hope to meet -- but she falls squarely in that "too slight to be a real threat" category. My knee-jerk answer on Hingis is no. You'd like to think that there will always be a place for court tacticians who can offset physical deficiencies with craft and technique. However, I'm starting to think that undersized women are going by way of 200-pound nose guards in football and 6-9 centers in the NBA. You look at the Williams sisters, Davenport, Mary Pierce, Amelie Mauresmo and even Seles and you wonder whether size -- and, by extension, power -- hasn't suddenly become a prereq for the No. 1 ranking.
Watching Justin Gimelstob throw himself all over the court in L.A. two weeks ago, it occurred to me that he can't believe himself as a contender. Diving on a hard court once in a match is understandable, but I saw him dive three times -- landing on his knee once. He called the trainer out, limped around and dove some more. And this was in a bottom-level, early-summer warmup for the Open. Is this guy brain damaged? He cannot possibly take himself seriously and treat his body so stupidly. In the spirit of Venus Williams I'm going to shed the best possible light on Gimelstob. First, I should come clean and say that we in the press love to guy since, win or lose, he's a quote machine. Though he often tries hard to dispel the notion, Gimelstob is actually a bright guy. His problem on the court is that -- to use a highly clinical term -- he's a spaz. The guy has so much energy when he takes the court but he rations it poorly, diving all the place (surface, you're right, be damned) and sprinting to his chair at changeovers. If he could just calm down a bit and lose the histrionics, he'd be a much better player. Just as long as he still has some juice for the interview room.
If today's women players could go back in time, taking their equipment with them, how many years back would they have to go in order to be able to compete with the men? Intriguing question. I'm assuming that for this exercise, the men of the past have to play with their wooden truncheons. Would Rod Laver in his prime beat Venus Williams in hers? Probably. She might outserve him but I think he still beats her in rallies. Any player before him, though, I might give the edge to the contemporary woman. Watch the tapes of players pre-1960 and you're impressed by how crisply they hit the ball, but you also can't help notice the lack of punch their shots carry.
Tell me the real relationship between John McEnroe and Pete Sampras. They really detest each other, don't they? Detest is probably overstating the case, but let's just say that McEnroe probably won't be invited to Sampras' upcoming wedding. Sampras was not amused when McEnroe called him at home on the air during last year's U.S. Open and grilled him about playing Davis Cup. Their relationship only deteriorated when McEnroe publicly questioned the legitimacy of Pete's injury in Australia. My sources tell me that the final straw may have been Mac's publicly rooting for Rafter in the Wimbledon final. The bottom line is that the two couldn't be more different: Mac, the moody loose cannon whose tongue has no editor, and Sampras, the poised introvert who hates being controversial. Let's call the whole thing off.
With Mark Woodforde set to step out of pro tennis after the Olympics, do you have any insight as to who might partner with Todd Woodbridge in future doubles events, presuming TW seeks someone? It seems he would be interested in finding another partner, since essentially all of his success has been in doubles. Todd Woodbridge will definitely keep playing after Woodforde retires. And unlike Regis, he can't do it alone once his partner bails. The courting ritual will start in earnest after the Open, but the name I've most heard bandied about to replace Woodforde is Jonas Bjorkman.
If you were in charge of the Australian Davis Cup squad, how would you prepare your team for the finals in Barcelona? Pat Rafter got to the finals on clay in Rome last year but hasn't had much other clay success. Lleyton Hewitt won, uh, Delray Beach in 1999, and though it seems like his scrappy game would work well on clay, he hasn't shown much of anything special. Do the Aussies have a chance? The Americans seem to kind of hit and hope on clay. Will the Aussies be able to embrace the stuff? If I had one overarching complaint about Davis Cup, this would it: Surface plays too big a role. On a neutral surface, this would be a classic tie. On grass the Australians dominate, and on clay the Spaniards have a huge advantage. You're right that neither Hewitt nor Rafter is particularly accomplished on clay. But what are your choices? Even if he were a good slow-court player -- and he's not -- I don't see how you give Mark Philippoussis a spot after his unexcused absence last month. Andrew Ilie is actually decent on clay, but he's a tier down from Rafter and Hewitt. The good news for the Aussies is that the Woodies won the French on clay and ought to come through against Juan Balcells and Alex Corretja. After that, hope Hewitt beats Albert Costa/Juan Carlos Ferrero and pray Rafter, a good money player, pulls some magic out of his hat.
Here's my proposal for avoiding Grand Slam seeding fiascos (at no Slam should Pete Sampras play only one top 50 player): Seed the top 16 exactly as the rankings show. However, give another 16 players special seedings, like they do at the Lipton, based on their performances on the surface. This would prevent most complaints, and a Todd Martin-Andre Agassi matchup wouldn't happen until at least the third round. It's only a slight improvement, but I think it would be better than what Roland Garros and Wimbledon are doing now. Good idea. Or, as Clint Dockery of Morgantown, Ky., suggests, why not just seed 32 players in a 128-player draw? Sure, you wouldn't see too many marquee matchups in early rounds, but at least it mitigates the effects of allowing tournaments (Wimbledon) to seed players at their own discretion.
It seems like you have a lot of respect for the Argentinian Hernan Gumy. In one Mailbag you put him as one of the best players who hasn't won a Grand Slam, now you put him in your list of five best all-court players. I doubt he has ever made even the quarters in a Grand Slam, so where does so much respect comes from? At the risk of being sarcastic, just you wait.
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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