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Tag-team tennis?
Sports Illustrated staff writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question.
With all apologies to the traditionalists at Wimbledon, I'm all for a WWF-style version of tennis, at least for promotional purposes. Matches would be played as singles, but tag-team style, with players able to bail out and switch with their partners when in need of "help." What a thought, Pete Sampras taking on Marat Safin for the TTT (Tag-Team Tennis) title, and tagging partner Andre Agassi to guard the "old balls." What do you think?
Pete (The Ex-Terminator) Sampras is lording the umpire's chair over Marat (Racket Smasher) Safin's head!! ... But wait, here comes Yevgeny (The Tanker) Kafelnikov storming onto the court now!! What's he doing, Gene?? He's carrying a blowtorch and a roll of Babolat tape and he's headed for Sampras!! Now Paul (The Coach/Agent) Annacone is shielding Bridgette Wilson's eyes and is yelling at Sampras to turn around!! To answer your question, I don't see it in tennis. But, hey, it's almost XFL time. Then again, maybe we're slouching in that direction when you consider ...
Magnus Norman has a nice official web site (in Swedish only). In his latest update, he speaks out against the ATP's change for the Masters tournament, the fact that players who have won a Slam automatically qualify for the ATP Championship. I think he has a very good point; the ATP Championship should reward the most consistent players. What's your take on this?
My Swedish is a little bit rusty ever since I stopped watching the chef on the Muppets, but I'll take you at your word. This change sounds suspiciously like the boys who control the purse strings want to make damn sure the drawing card/human ratings spike that is Agassi makes it into the draw.
Wasn't the string of injuries and withdrawals from the Chase Championships enough to convince WTA officials to shorten the season? How much more evidence could they possibly need? Also, a reader asked about tennis returning to Chicago. What about Texas? I mean, the WTA basically got its start in Houston, and there was a brief (but glorious) time when there were three WTA stops in the Lone Star state (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio). Any chance for a return to glory?
Yes and no. On the one hand there were injuries galore that reduced the Chase from a premier event into a Tier II field. Though there are no fewer events on the calendar, next year the season will be shortened by a week. On the other hand, what are the top players doing this week, the first week of their offseason? Going to the Caribbean with a stack of Danielle Steel books, a bottle of rum and a blender? Hardly. Many are participating in Fed Cup (for a fat paycheck, I hasten to add) and then playing in assorted exhibitions. The other problem with the blanket statement "the season is too long" is that 90 percent of the players on tour would disagree. The top guns would love nothing more than to end the season after the U.S. Open. Any player outside the top, say, 30 will tell you, to a person, that they wish there were more playing opportunities. As for Texas, again, the trend on both tours seems to be away from events in the U.S, never mind that the vast majority of the top players live or train here. The money is bigger and the television deals and sponsorship tie-ins tend to be stronger overseas, plus there are fewer competing events. Consider last week, where even in The New York Times the Chase was often relegated to the back of the sports section. What with NFL football, Florida-Florida State, Patrick Ewing's first game against the Knicks, and the Mets spurning Alex Rodriguez, who had time to notice Elena Dementieva beating Lindsay Davenport?
In all the recent excitement about the Williams sisters' success and their following in the footsteps of Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe in challenging the lily-whiteness of the tennis world, not a word has ever been mentioned, to the best of my knowledge, about the great Australian Aboriginal player, Evonne Goolagong. Why do you think that is?
Good point. My only response is that by "black" we jingoistic, ethnocentric Americans automatically assume the term to mean African-American.
How about your top five upsets of all time? Here are mine:
First, I'll pick apart a few of yours. In retrospect, Hingis-Majoli was a monster upset. If Hingis wins that match and beats a player who's now ranked roughly 112,343 (though she is playing better lately), she wins all four Slams in 1997. But let's not forget, Majoli was a top-10 player at the time and Hingis had just had knee surgery after falling off her horse. Likewise, Rafter was hardly 100 percent when he fell to our boy Blanco. A few other Cinderella matches in recent memory include: Lori McNeil beating Steffi Graf in the first round of Wimbledon in 1994. The diminutive Peruvian Jaime Yzaga taking out Sampras at the U.S. Open in 1994. Bill Scanlon over Johnny Mac at the 1983 U.S. Open. Circumstances aside, I think you have to include Jelena Dokic beating Hingis at last year's Wimbledon as well. By the way, someone asked me about the biggest upset of this year. Blanco over Rafter and qualifier Wayne Arthurs over Gustavo Kuerten at the U.S. Open are high on the list. But what about Serena Williams losing to the hardly formidable Elena Likhovtseva 6-3, 6-3 at the Australian Open? Serena was the defending Grand Slam champ, she was playing on a fast surface, and she had a cake draw.
In your last Mailbag you talked about Meilen Tu, and how she's made a big improvement this year. I was wondering what you thought of Canada's top player, Sonya Jeyaseelan. She's another diminutive hitter who was top five in the juniors around the same time Tu and Martina Hingis were. This year she has reached the top 50, with some impressive wins the last two years over Venus Williams, Nathalie Tauziat and Conchita Martinez, to name a few. How far up do you see her rising in the rankings?
As you note, Sonya Jeyaseelan very much fits into the Meilen Tu category: good, undersized player who can score some quality wins and offer some entertaining tennis. She can hang with the Anke Huber and Conchita Martinez ilk, but simply lacks the weapons to be a real top-20 threat. Still, that's no knock. The tour needs players such as Jeyaseelan, who can get automatic ins at most events, perhaps win a few matches and give a seed a good workout. And she's rewarded in kind. Though she didn't come close to winning a single event, she made around $200,000 this year. Jeyaseelan, I should add, is an easy player to root for. She had the pro forma "daddy issues" as a promising junior and in the early stages of her pro career. Eventually she mustered the courage to tell her father, in so many words, "I'd rather quit tennis than be this miserable." While not totally severing the cord, she broke free of his influence and moved to Toronto. After some initial struggles, her game started clicking and, as an affable, well-adjusted 24-year-old, she had the best year of her career in 2000.
Mark Philippoussis says he can still fire up a 130-mph serve with a wood racket, and that reintroducing them would make returning serve more difficult. He says the main reason for the game's fast pace is that players are so much bigger and stronger than they were 20 years ago. John McEnroe states it would be difficult to serve bombs consistently. Who's right?
I'm with Mac, a phrase I generally use sparingly. First, if Philippoussis can serve 130 with a wooden racket, my name is Roscoe Tanner. Second, if anything, I'd say the players on the men's tour are getting smaller in the past few years. I walk into a locker and see Lleyton Hewitt, Arnaud Clement, Marcelo Rios, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Magnus Norman, etc., and I'm on eye level with most of them. And even in my re-up year, I'm only 5-10 1/2. Part of what allows players like Hewitt, who is 5-9 and weighs less than an anorexic jockey, to mosey into the top five is a high-tech stick that generates tons of power.
With the WTA year-end finals moving to Munich, has Monica Seles' future participation been considered? I was under the impression that she had refused to play in Germany ever again following the light sentence given to her attacker. What is the WTA's reaction to this?
The tour's reaction is essentially, "Tough s---, Monica." This move to Munich is one of the more bizarre business decisions the tour has made in a while. The Seles factor is just one reason why. She claims that she wasn't consulted about the move and found out about it reading USA Today. If this is true, it's disgraceful. As one would expect, she's not about to reverse her stand and play in Germany after refusing to do so for seven years. Not that she'll be the only absentee. As we saw last week, the year-end event is not imbued with a whole lot of prestige among the top players, who are beset by fatigue by November. If the Williams sisters can't bother to fly from Florida to New York for a few days of tennis at Madison Square Garden, it's hard to imagine them heading to Munich.
Has Richard Williams been hired as Anna Kournikova's new agent? By declaring that Venus and Serena deserve more money from the WTA because of their high popularity ratings, he effectively is saying that Kournikova should get the most money based on her ratings.
Excellent point. If, in some parallel universe, the players were going to be paid upfront based on marketability and not results, Anna K would reign supreme. Richard Williams was likely just stirring the pot, but the tour should have taken a tougher stand last week. There's already a commitment list that pays a player a bonus based on her marketability, assuming she plays the requisite number of tournaments (which the Williams sisters didn't). If the tour went a step further and started compensating players upfront because of "high ratings" and not results, all hell would break loose. The conventional wisdom is if players are really such hot commodities, the market will take care of them and they'll make their millions in endorsements (see: Kournikova, Anna). The irony is that the more Richard shoots his mouth and alienates J.Q. Public, the less marketable his daughters become.
How about this for us loyal 'Bag readers: Tell us one thing about the men's and women's circuit that is shocking, revealing or just plain juicy gossip.
Lisa Raymond likes dogs. (If you want anything more tantalizing than that, you'll have to wait for my book next year.)
Just like any other sport, professional tennis players must have their groupies. On the men's side, who is the biggest babe hound, the sport's answer to Wilt Chamberlain?
Funny thing about tennis. The groupies are plentiful but they actually hang out in front of the press lounge, not the players lounge.
Click here to send a question or comment to Jon Wertheim's Tennis Mailbag.
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