|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Parity vs. power: the great debate
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question.
I thought the best match in this year's U.S. Open was between Todd Martin and
Carlos Moya. The quality of tennis was just amazing. And you say parity is
hurting men's tennis? How is it more interesting to watch Lindsay Davenport,
Martina Hingis and Venus Williams cream the opposition until the Round of 16? I
would rather watch a competitive match than a Davenport power exhibition against
a nobody who can't beat her. Would you watch the Lakers and Clippers for a full
year to prove your point? I would pay for your Direct
TV.
Thanks for your generosity, but I'll pass on the marriage-buster that is Direct TV. (Though keep an eye on Clippers first-rounder Darius Miles). First, you're right about Martin-Moya. With the exception of Hingis-Williams, that was the best match of the tournament. Too bad it was on in the infomercial hours when the only folks watching were tennis maniacs and disappointed Strip Poker fans. (By the way, is it me, or are you in severe need of a hobby if you're watch anything other than tennis on the USA Network? And how many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger are there, anyway?) Back to your question ... naturally, we all like competitive matches. But more than that, we like competitive matches that have significance. We also like competitive matches between players we know. Gaston Gaudio and Arnaud Di Pasquale might be in a third-set breaker as I write this, but most fans couldn't tell them from Christian Vinck and George Bastl. In men's tennis, all too often the top seeds and most appealing players are beaten early in the tournament. Give me a round of blowouts if it means cultivating some star appeal and setting the stage for a Hingis-Williams semifinal. Put it this way: What would you rather watch: a regular season's worth of nail-biting Pistons games? Or a season's worth of Lakers romps followed by breathtaking games in the playoffs? Now if you'll excuse me, I have an episode of JAG to watch.
Are Marat Safin and the other "New Balls" going to breathe life
into the unexciting state of men's tennis?
Yes, unquestionably. As he showed in drubbing Pete Sampras in the U.S. Open final, Safin has big-time skills and, also important, he is a good-looking guy who's eminently likable. As for the others, the jury is still out. Someone ought to impress upon them, though, that beyond the occasional title, consistent results are vital to the health of men's tennis. Gustavo Kuerten may win the French, but he doesn't much help the image of the men's game when he proceeds to go down hard in the subsequent two Slams.
Do you really think that the women today hit the ball that much harder than
Monica Seles or Steffi Graf once did? I don't think that the racket technology
has changed so dramatically or that the women today swing so much harder. People
can claim the Davenport-Williams U.S. Open final was the hardest-hitting ever
but they said the same thing about Graf/Sabatini in '88 and Graf/Seles in '95.
Yes and no. We're probably a little too quick to forget the past and slow to recall that, say, Seles and Jennifer Capriati weren't exactly floating marshmallows back and forth in their epic U.S. Open semi nine years ago. That said, no one before came close to hitting the ball as hard off the ground as Davenport or the Williams sisters do now. Just ask Seles, who played against the last generation. One can make an even stronger case for serves, as it's empirical. I recall Sabatini spinning in puffballs at 39 miles an hour. Hingis serves twice that fast and still gets it rammed down her throat.
Maybe this question would be more appropriate in about three months, but now
that all the Slams are over and the general public's tennis interest goes way
down, do you think the ATP Tour's revised ranking system made much of a
difference over this past year? I mean, did you have teenage boys following the
points race as avidly as baseball box scores?
I didn't know teenage boys still read baseball box scores. How quaint. Anyhoo, we probably ought to resist harping on the points race until the actual "race" is run and the year-end championships are held. If your question, though, is whether teams of immuno-biologists are currently seeking out a cure for the epidemic that is Masters Series fever, the answer is a decided "no." It's simply too confusing to have two systems -- the race and the so-called "system" -- exist simultaneously. How, we wonder, is Andre Agassi trailing in the race, but still the top seed at the U.S. Open? And even if, say, Magnus Norman wins the finale, does anyone really think he's a better player than Sampras, who made three Grand Slam semis and won Wimbledon? It seems telling to me that most newspapers, unsure of which system to honor, simply print the prize money totals instead. And at the end of the day, isn't that as good an indication of success as anything?
Is Venus Williams invincible? How does she measure up against the other power
hitters like Monica Seles and Amelie Mauresmo? Also, who do you think will win
the Olympics? Does Mauresmo have a realistic chance of bringing home a
medal?
"Invincible" is an awfully strong word, but Venus looks as unbeatable as any player in recent memory. Davenport can give her a run, but needs to be on her game and serve a hell of a lot better than she did in Flushing Meadows. Hingis soldiers on, but keeps coming up with a mouthful of sand. Seles is simply no longer in the same league as Venus. The player with the best chance of unseating Venus might be Serena. But so long as they are still sisters -- I don't see that changing anytime soon -- and there's still all that ambient weirdness, Venus reigns supreme. Mauresmo has little chance of bringing home a medal. It seems like the last time she was healthy, Suzanne Lenglen was still in the top 10.
Are those almost-inside-the-court seats at the Grand Slams sold in advance --
or sold at all -- to mere mortals? Do you have to be a club member or something
of the sort in order to see the tennis ball as a tennis ball, not a golf ball?
By the way, please name the top 5 backhands in men's tennis (don't forget
Guga!).
Not unlike the New York Knicks, the USTA keeps a box available for celebrities who deign to swing by (and many did for the finals). Suffice to say, Helen Hunt didn't have to patronize a scalper on the boardwalk to sit courtside. Top five backhands in men's tennis: 1) Marat Safin: See U.S Open final, 2000. 2) Guga: Ugly, perhaps, but effective. 3) Agassi: When he's on, it's deadly. 4) Sampras: His most underrated shot. 5) Andrei Pavel: His one-hander is a thing of beauty.
Chanda Rubin has been playing some good tennis as of recently. Do you think
she can get back into the top 15 or top 10 consistently like Anke Huber has
done?
I, too, always associate Rubin with Huber. Wonder why? Maybe it was that 1996 Australian Open, the best Slam for both of them. The wrist injury that nearly ended Rubin's career has healed and she is still a nice, if unremarkable, player. Alas, she has no weapon to hurt anyone in the top 10 and still has trouble against bigger players. Top 15, yes. Top 10, no.
Could somebody please tell Venus Williams and Marat Safin that when you win a
tournament and you're speaking during the presentation of the trophies, you
should say something nice about your opponent and how well he/she played?
I noticed that too. It used to be an monstrous faux pas not to acknowledge your opponent. Remember how Michael Chang, not exactly a font of immodesty, was denounced for neglecting to give props to Stephan Edberg when he won the 1989 French? At the risk of sounding like Bill Bennett or Joe Lieberman (I'll say it again, it's a non-partisan mailbag we run here), it's another example in the decline of sportsmanship and civility. Slouching toward Gomorrah and all that. I will say this in the players' defense: When Pam Shriver thrusts a mic in your face and asks you some ridiculous question about forehand winners, it's hard to redirect to conversation into a paean for your vanquished opponent.
I remember a while back that Lindsay Davenport and Mary Joe Fernandez used to
be very good friends and even played doubles together. Suddenly it was
"announced" that they would no longer play doubles together. Can you
shed any light as to what prompted that at the time? Are they still friends? I
heard that Mary Joe got married. Also, can you tell me whether Monica Seles is
still being sponsored by Nike? I noticed a Yonex logo on her clothing .
From what I gather, it was a big misunderstanding that was finally resolved. Davenport and MJF are still friends, though Davenport now plays doubles with Corina Morariu (at least she did before Morariu got injured). Davenport was present at Fernandez's wedding to Tony Godsick last spring. Godsick also happens to be Davenport's agent. It's an incestuous sport, I tells ya. As for Seles -- who incidentally, is also a client of Godsick, a friend of MJF and was present at said wedding -- my sources tell me that she was lowballed by Nike and reached a deal with Yonex instead. Enough gossip. I need a nap.
We always hear about which tennis parents are nuts and who, like Damir Dokic,
should be banned. How about a top 5 list of the most well-behaved tennis
parents?
How about a top 5 list of the most reputable alchemists? Or what about the best-dressed academicians? Or, to personalize it, Michelle, the most vigorously pro-big business Minnesotans? "Well-behaved tennis parent" is as oxymoronic as "postal service" and "service break." Sorry, just had to go on a little rant. Seriously, for every Damir Dokic and Stefano Capriati, there are dozens of "tennis parents" who are perfectly pleasant. The problem with your question is that I would never know the best parents because they're precisely the ones who stay the hell away from the "scene." That said, I was moved by this recent interlude: After the U.S. Open's women's final, Ann Davenport walked from one end of the players' lounge to the other. As she passed the House of Williams -- Serena, Oracene, several other sisters, three agents and assorted hangers on -- she congratulated them on Venus' play. "Too good," she kept saying with a sincere smile.
Send a question to Jon Wertheim, and check back the beginning of each week to read more of his answers.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
