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Musings from Flushing Meadows
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question. Stay tuned next week for a new Mailbag feature: Long Lost Siblings.
If they aren't already high enough, how high in the rankings would Serena and Venus Williams need to be before you stop questioning the coaching and practice methods their father, Richard, uses (i.e., not employing what you and others consider to be "professional" coaching)? Your point is well taken. But even if they were 1 and 2 in the world, I'd still be curious as to how much better they'd be in absolute terms if they employed more conventional training methods. The answer might well be: not at all. Perhaps steering clear of the traditional path is what has made them so good. On the other hand, if they'd played a normal schedule or if Richard bowed out and retained, say, Harold Solomon to oversee training and strategy sessions, I'd be interested to see the results.
I confess that I've never seen Randriantefy play. She's been at it for a while and was ranked in the top 100 during the mid-'90s. Then she seemed to fall off the map a bit before resurfacing with a few nice results this summer. There have certainly been some fine black Africans in the past: Nduka Odizor and Claude N'Goran come to mind on the men's tour. Also, Selima Sfar of Tunisia qualified for the women's main draw of the 2000 U.S. Open. But I know of no promising juniors. I get quite a few questions from tennis fans in Africa, so if any of you guys have information to the contrary, let me know.
Has anyone ever made any comparisons between you and David Letterman? Not physical, but personal. You both possess biting and candid humor, and I find it refreshing. So thanks for not hurling softballs (as we say around here). Now, I wanted to ask your opinion on Kim Clijsters. I, unfortunately, have never seen her play, but from what I hear she has power and loads of talent. Could you give us a scouting report and evaluate whether or not she has future top-10 potential? What say ye, soothsayer? Todah, Tovah. Well, David Letterman and I are both from Indiana and both have bad teeth (is that redundant?), but I'm afraid the comparisons end there. Anyway, I like Kim (Love Hewitt) Clijsters a lot. She's a big girl who, as she showed against Lindsay Davenport the other day, can handle anyone's pace. Her schedule has been curtailed by the age-eligibility rules and, perhaps consequently, she endured something of a sophomore slump, failing to use the momentum from her three-set loss to Serena Williams here last year. She also lacks the killer instinct that characterizes her boyfriend, Lleyton Hewitt. Still, her combination of power and athleticism make her surefire top-10 material. Along with Justine Henin, Belgium has two of the best teenagers in women's tennis.
I was wondering what became of Monique Viele after she flamed out in her WTA Tour debut last fall -- then I saw that she was a judge for the Miss Teen USA Pageant, where she was introduced as a "future tennis star." What's the story? Is she really playing tennis or just trying to hack it as a third-tier celebrity? That scar you see in the corner of my mouth is where I (and dozens of other tennis journalists) fell hook, line and sinker for Viele's hype. Since the initial publicity blitz, she has fallen off the map. Her pro debut in Tokyo was an unqualified disaster and she's yet to show signs that she's anything other than an Anna Kournikova wannabe who hits the ball hard, if not accurately, on a practice court. She played World TeamTennis this summer -- allegedly on the condition that she be able to sing the National Anthem before each match -- and hardly distinguished herself. Viele has her own cringe-inducing web site, www.monique-viele.com (go there at your own peril), and pops up from time to time in some exhibition, usually tied to Donald Trump. But until she proves otherwise, she's generally regarded as a teenage hoax these days.
I just watched Monica Seles dust off this young American player named Tracy Almeda-Singian in the first round of the U.S. Open. Ms. Almeda-Singian seems to have a great personality, but at No. 162 on the WTA Tour, well, I guess there's hope. Do you think she will become anything? It's depressing watching nice folks like Chanda Rubin get nowhere. At least we've got Lindsay. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. You're right that Almeda-Singian seems like a dynamic personality, but her results haven't been impressive. If my math is right, she's won a grand total of three games in her two U.S. Open main-draw matches. Also, that's a pretty harsh characterization of Chanda Rubin. Yes, she's dropped out the top 10, where she bivouacked in the mid-'90s. But, particularly when you factor in her doubles aptitude, she has quietly put together a more-than-respectable career.
OK, I am really starting to get annoyed with you. I have already asked you this question once before, but since I didn't get a response, I am simply going to ask it again: What the heck do you have against Andre Agassi? You always underestimate him and you put him in your AD OUT column every darn week. And considering the fact that a ton of people like Andre, you're not making yourself any more popular by acting like you have something against him. And by the way, I am not the only one who thinks this. Practically everyone who posts on Andre's message board on this Web site agrees, and it has become one of our frequent conversation topics because, frankly, it is really annoying us. Ouch. Rest assured, I have nothing against Andre. In fact, I have vast reservoirs of respect for his game, his accomplishments, his natural talent, and his ability to resurrect. With Pete Sampras, he has taken men's tennis to new heights. That he has done so after his ranking plummeted to triple digits is more impressive still. (What's more, he obviously deserves our utmost sympathy after the recent disclosure about his mother and sister.) All that said, let's face facts: As he'd be the first to admit, he's had a lot of lousy results since Zimbabwe. When he's the top seed at the Scottsdale event -- the winner of three of the past four Slams -- and loses to Francisco Clavet in less than an hour, he deserves an AD OUT. When he's the top seed in D.C. and can't hit a ball in the court against Alex Corretja, he deserves an AD OUT. Even when, understandably distracted by a horrifying personal crisis, he loses in the second round of the U.S. Open, he deserves an AD OUT. What can I say? Them's the rules. By the way, I stay away from those message boards. A friend told me to check them out once last year and it was an absolutely terrifying experience. I don't have ex-girlfriends who regard me with as much bile and vitriol as some of the people posting. I felt like the anti- Sally Field: "You hate me. You really hate me." It should go without saying that you are free, if not encouraged, to disagree with me. But let's not lose sight of the fact that the `Bag is all in good fun.
Whoa! Please tell me I'm losing something in the translation and Goran Ivanisevic is talking about a cigarette instead of a homophobic slur. ("Instead of smashing every racket, everything, I didn't even say a word. It's like a faggot.") You didn't lose anything in translation, and, unfortunately, neither did he. Perhaps because Goran was clearly in an addled state of mind, there wasn't much backlash. But this was one of the more offensive remarks I've heard any athlete utter.
Having just returned from two days at the U.S. Open, the question that burns is: Why do people go to watch tennis and talk during the points? Two answers: 1) They're ugly Americans who think that the debenture agreement they're about to sign is every bit as important as Magui Serna's concentration level; 2) in that damn Arthur Ashe Stadium they're so far removed from the action that it hardly matters.
How do Grand Slam tournaments seed teams for mixed doubles? It's not as though many teams have a record of success, and I'm not aware of any mixed doubles events outside of the Slams. Good question. I believe tournaments simply combine the regular (same-sex) doubles rankings of the two partners and assign seeds to the lowest tandems. Even though Rennae Stubbs and Todd Woodbridge lost in the first round of Wimbledon, they are the top seeds at the U.S. Open because both are such highly ranked doubles players on their respective tours.
Out of the 32 men's and women's seeds from the U.S. Open, who would be the final four in a game of Survivor?
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
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