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Grand it ain't Olympic tennis fever isn't contagious
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions weekly. Click here to send a question.
Do you think that tennis at the Olympics is as big or as important as a Grand
Slam event? A Grand Slam event has 128 players total in the men's and women's
draws, whereas the Olympics has only 64. No more than three players from any one
country may compete in each draw. Hence, Serena Williams cannot play in Olympic
singles competition, because the U.S. team has already three singles players on
its roster. A Grand Slam tournament also has a qualifying round prior to the
tournament, making it dangerous (and quite exciting) for any of the top seeds.
Putting Olympic tennis into perspective, I would say that it is not on par with
a Grand Slam tournament. At best, it is comparable to a men's Masters Series or
to a women's Tier I tournament. Do you
agree?
Am I the only person who hasn't quite caught Olympic tennis fever? And it's not merely the time difference. I agree with you on a lot of counts. Serena Williams can't play singles, but players I've never heard of -- who reside in the netherworld of the rankings -- are in the draw because they happen to be tops in Togo. The U.S. has a Dream Team, but the medals are all individual. (Most players can't even be bothered to wear apparel identifying their country because it would violate the terms of an outstanding endorsement deal.) Then there's the whole issue of whether Venus, Monica, Guga and Co. (and Gary Payton and Vince Carter, too, for that matter), who make millions and play before the world innumerable times each year, should be pilfering the limelight from amateurs who have waited four years for this opportunity. The Olympics aren't close to the Slams, which no doubt suits the ITF just fine. (Why dilute the value of the four majors with a big-time Olympic event?) I'd say the comparison to a women's Tier I is pushing it. A Tier I guarantees the tournament two of the top four players. Given that Davenport is on the shelf, Hingis bailed, Pierce is injured and Serena is ineligible, if this were a tour event, the WTA wouldn't make its commitment. Bottom line: the ITF needs to go back to the drawing board and figure how to make this event more meaningful and more nationalistic. Otherwise, more top players will go by way of Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova in 2004.
I can't believe you seriously included Sampras's backhand as one of
the five best. From my vantage point (usually the TV screen), it
seems he rarely hits through it; he appears to mostly be pulling up off the ball
when he's trying to hit with topspin. And he rarely seems to think he can hit a
winner off that side. On another subject, have the players made any serious
attempt to shorten the season? It seems to me that the central issue must be one
of money. I suggest the players tax themselves in order to generate enough money
to buy out some of the tournaments. Masters Series events in back-to-back weeks
also make no sense. How about alternating years for some of them?
Good questions. First, a few of you gave me grief for including Sampras' backhand. His forehand gets all the notoriety but his backhand is the stroke less likely to break down under pressure. More than one player on tour has told me that a sure way to let Sampras beat you is to attack his backhand. It's hard to read, he spanks it with plenty pace and he has fewer flawed tendencies on that side than he does on the forehand. The players bitch about the length of the season, but you're right, the issue is money. I'd love to know how many top players will be making six-figure windfalls playing various exhibitions the last weeks of November and December. My guess is 90 percent. If the season is truly that grueling, you'd think they'd be home repairing. You're right that holding Masters Series events in back-to-back weeks makes no sense for a number of reasons. (Among them, my idée fixé: having no back-to-back winners only accelerates parity.) But if you look at the calendar, there are not all that many open weeks. Alternating years ain't gonna happen. These are supposed to be the premiere non-Slam events. Why would you have Indian Wells held biannually but San Jose every year?
Let's hold off on those tennis questions for a second. I have a much more
important inquiry. In last week's mailbag you referred to Direct TV as a
"marriage buster." Were you serious? It is my dream to one day own
DirecTV but I also think I'd like to try the whole marriage things as well. Do
I really have to
choose?
"You seriously expect me to dry the dishes when Weber State is setting up for a field goal?" "In a minute, honey. Rainer Schuttler's up a break in Estoril." "I'll be there is a sec. Only one segment left in the Rick Adelman postgame wrap-up." If those alibis fly in your house, go nuts. (Otherwise, invest that $99 a month on Tiffany's layaway.)
What is your assessment of Wayne Ferreira's return to form this year? Is this
just a last flash in the pan before he bottoms out and retires or does Wayne
have enough left in the tank for a few more years of quality
tennis?
No offense, Zach, but it's time to get DirecTV when you're following the ups and downs of Wayne Ferreira's career. Either that or get a wife. Anyway, Ferreira, who doubles as an assistant coach for the Cal-Berkeley team, has to be one of the most maddening players on tour. He can hang with anybody and racks up some monstrous wins; and he's just as likely to get smoked by a qualifier, as he did at Wimbledon. Worse still, he doesn't seem particularly bothered by his up-and-down results. He makes his 500,000 bills, reaches the odd final, hangs around the top 40 and loiters around Telegraph Ave. the rest of the year. He's certainly capable of more of the same for the next few years. Anything beyond that is probably exceedingly ambitious.
After winning 28 matches in a row, why is Venus Williams still ranked No. 3
in the world? She has won two Grand Slam tournaments, beating the two people who
are ranked above her in the
process.
She has essentially rendered the rankings meaningless. Despite her position, any player who hasn't lost since the French Open is the de facto No.1. Period. End of story. Technically, on the WTA tour, the rankings are based on a player's 18 best results over the past 52 weeks. Since Venus missed so many events in the winter and spring, she has fewer ranking points than both Lindsay Davenport and Hingis.
At the prodding of Venus Williams, a few mailbags ago you decided to try being a "kinder
gentler" Jon< -- much to the dismay of most of us. You tried it,
but thankfully, it didn't take. Maybe you could suggest to Venus that she try
being more gracious in victory, even if it "doesn't take." At least
then she too could say she tried. Still, what do you make of John McEnroe's
constant harping about the Williams sisters? For one who is so derisive of
women's tennis, he certainly has had a lot to say in the press
recently.
This McEnroe business sounds a lot like a desperate man trying to drum up publicity for a seven-figure Battle of the Sexes redux. Are Venus and Serena the picture of decorum when they win? Hardly. Would it have been politic if Venus gave Davenport some gratuitous props after beating her? Sure. But it's pretty nervy for McEnroe of all people to play Emily Post with them. Further, one of the cornerstones of the recent success of women's tennis is the rivalries. It adds another dimension to the game when players don't necessarily hold their opponents in the highest regard. If Serena and Hingis or Venus and Lindsay were sisterly and went to dinner after the match, McEnroe would no doubt accuse women's tennis of being non-competitive. When players glower, grunt and compete fiercely, they're too uppity.
As for the best match at the Open, I would submit the Magnus Norman vs. Max
Mirnyi match as competition for Martin vs. Moya -- five amazing sets played well
into the night after a day of three rain delays. But my question is this: In
this day of "power" tennis can a pure serve-and-volley player à
la Pat Rafter or Mirnyi compete and beat the baseliners who seemingly whale away
at every
shot?
Again, here's a mark for/against men's tennis, depending on your threshold for parity. That was a stand-out match, but Norman was the third seed and Mirnyi wasn't even in the top 50. Can you imagine Venus Williams beating some Maria Alejandra Vento 7-6 in the third? Anyway, it's getting harder and harder to serve and volley. Part of it is that returns are being pounded more fiercely than ever by the legion of "power baseliners." But one of the ironies that's seldom discussed is that the harder one serves, the less time he or she has to get to the net. Aside from his superior athleticism, I think one of the reasons Rafter is so effective is that instead of pounding a 130-mph bomb down the T, he kicks his serve out wide at 105 mph. That allows time for an extra step. By contrast, when Mirnyi played Norman, the return was often at his feet before was barely inside the service line.
Do you think that Norman is the men's version of Hingis, who is very unlikely
to lose to unseeded players and plays intelligently but just doesn't have any
standout weapon like Marat Safin's huge serve or Sampras's suffocating
serve-and-volley combination? No disrespect to the Swede, by the way. Sure he
will win a few Slams and stay in the top 5 most of the
time.
Maybe Hingis and Norman have been hanging out together so much that they even share the same weaknesses. Hingis, let's not forget, does have five Slams to her credit. She is also among the best doubles players in the world. Hingis' problem is largely physical; her technique may be outstanding, but she is simply being outslugged lately by larger opponents. Norman is more problematic. He works like a madman, his stamina is excellent and he hits a sufficiently big ball. He just can't seem to get it together in big matches.
Jon, since you're a bit closer to the action than the rest of us: Any
thoughts on Sampras' recent admission (in Tennis magazine, I believe)
that he has a low-iron problem that sometimes makes him lethargic on court? More
specifically, do you think it was a factor in the U.S. Open
final?
Your landsman, Tom Tebbutt of the Globe and Mail first revealed this distinguishment of Sampras years ago. I'm no doctor (I just play one), but I can't imagine that a low-iron problem can help your stamina. On the other hand, Sampras, to his everlasting credit, hates to even discuss his condition and has never come close to attributing a loss to it. As for the U.S. Final, all the Evonne Goolagong- sponsored iron supplements in the world wouldn't have helped him. As he'd be the first to admit, he just his hat handed to him by smoldering Safin.
Last I saw, Gustavo Kuerten (and Jaime Oncins in sympathy) was not playing
for Brazil in the Olympics because of a conflict between Diadora and official
uniform supplier Olympikus. Now I see them practicing in Sydney. How was this
resolved?
This was one of those the-Armageddon-is-Nigh conflicts that made everyone involved look petty. For a while it looked like Kuerten, potentially the frontrunner to win gold, was going to bail on the Olympics because he couldn't wear a Diadora logo. As I understand it, the head of ITF got all concerned parties together and the agreement was that Kuerten would wear his signature yellow shirt but it would be adorned with no logos. Never mind the fine print: Could you imagine the p.r. hit Diadora would have taken if it had effectively prevented Kuerten from playing?
If Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi are "old balls" and Gustavo
Kuerten and Lleyton Hewitt are "new balls," then what are Patrick
Rafter and Mark
Philippoussis?
This sounds like a bad Sphinxian riddle. I give up. But I do know this: there's a vast deferens between old balls and new balls. Ba-dum.
Click here to send a question
or comment to Jon Wertheim's Tennis
Mailbag.
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