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A tennis-book wish list
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim will answer your tennis questions every Monday. Click here to send a question. Straight to the questions this week ...
My friend and I were checking out the WTA Tour message boards the other day and came across a thread on the "World's Shortest Tennis Books." Some were really stupid, but some were funny like Deep Thoughts by Chris Evert, A Suntanning Guide on Tour by Amy Frazier and Alex Corretja's Guide to Lawn Tennis. Any you'd care to add?
Surprisingly, none of these titles came up on Amazon.com: 10) Eat to Win: Nutrition Tips Before Big Matches, Serena Williams 9) Thoughts I Have Kept to Myself, John McEnroe (foreword by Martina Hingis ) 8) How to Ingratiate Your Television Network to Tennis Fans, Dick Ebersol 7) A Compendium of Fond Roland Garros Memories, Pete Sampras (foreword by Hingis) 6) Future Business Dealings I Intend to Pursue with ISL, Mark Miles 5) Building on Early Successes, Iva Majoli 4) Friends I Have Made Since My Daughter Turned Pro, Samantha Stevenson 3) My Country's Military Heroes, Roger Federer 2) Why I Love Australia, Damir Dokic 1) Workout Tips for Staying in Shape and Avoiding Injury, Anna Kournikova (also available on video ... oh, wait)
You mentioned Pat McEnroe's quandary as Davis Cup captain in a recent 'Bag, and I was wondering who you think his selections may be. How seriously is PatMac thinking about making it a team whose average age is 21? I know for sure Andy Roddick will be on the team, but what about the Bryan brothers and Taylor Dent? These guys established that they can play on grass, and against India they would probably do very well. Is PatMac just looking for good press before he makes the same mistake he did against the Swiss by putting a washed-up Todd Martin and a spotty player like Jan-Michael Gambill on the team?
Fortunately, the tie against India comes after the U.S. Open, so McEnroe won't be basing his lineup on Wimbledon performances. I agree that Roddick is an easy call, particularly given the indoor surface. But, barring the unlikely, I don't see how PatMac could give the second spot to Dent over Gambill. JMG hardly distinguished himself against Switzerland -- or, for that matter, against Italy in 1998 -- but he is simply a better, more experienced player than Dent right now. The interesting call will be tapping a doubles team to take on the Indian Express, aka Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes. If Jared Palmer and North Carolina resident Don Johnson snare a U.S. Open title after their Wimbledon crown, it's only fair that they get the nod. Otherwise, though, I'd be heavily inclined to call upon the Bryans, who are looking like the team of the future. Particularly if the U.S. is up 2-0 -- and, frankly, it ought to be -- it's essentially a no-lose situation for the twins.
I just want to know what's happened to Thomas Enqvist. I think he's a great player, but nowadays (or for the past few tournaments) he can't seem to capitalize on the big points. Do you think he still has a chance to win a Slam?
Good question. On a trip home to the mother country in 1995, I saw Enqvist play spectacular "heavy baseline" tennis and win the RCA Championships in Indianapolis. I would have bet you a St. Elmo's steak that this was a future Grand Slam champion. Six years later, Enqvist has established himself as a Joe Mantegna type, a solid performer but not a star. In fairness, the guy has a bad history with injuries. However, I think of him as a real disappointment. He has great strokes, a good tennis body and a solid serve, and, while he's at his best on hard courts, he can play on any surface. But he has no intensity. As you point out, he plays poorly on big points. He gets beaten by vastly inferior players. And worse yet, he doesn't much seem to mind. I saw him lose to countryman Magnus Larsson in Indianapolis two years ago. Fifteen minutes after the match, he had a smile on his face. Anyone endowed with his game has the chance to win a Grand Slam, as he nearly did in reaching the Australian final years back. Maybe at 27, he'll finally put it together for two weeks. But I'm inclined to think of him as a perennial also-ran, a guy happy to win his occasional event, make his one or two million bones every year, and play an entire career on cruise control.
What was your take on Rick Reilly's little hatchet job on men's tennis? I especially liked this line: "In the men's Top 10 you have nine guys you couldn't pick out of a Pinto full of Domino's delivery men, plus Andre Agassi. Combined, most of the Top 10 men have the Q rating of a lamp." What's scary is he might be right on that one.
Here's the column for those of you who missed it. I liked the piece -- and not simply because he mentioned my book. Equal prize money isn't even a hot-button topic any more; it's simply a no-brainer. Reilly made a good point about the duration of matches, too. Sure, men play best-of-five and the women best-of-three (perhaps the one not-entirely-bogus defense for the disparate wages). But the time in which the ball is actually in play is longer for women's matches. Reilly may have been a bit hard on the men's game, but, sad to say, he speaks the truth. You and I may have a deep appreciation for the ATP and recognize that the level of tennis has never been higher. But the average sports fan -- at least in the U.S. -- doesn't know Sebastien Grosjean from Sebastian Bach, Juan Carlos Ferrero from Juan Carlos Minana and Gustavo Kuerten from Gustavus Adolphus. For tennis to return to the mainstream, get better television coverage and avoid going by way of track and field and horse racing, it is essential to get these casual fans on board.
Do you think that the serve into the body is underused?
Absolutely. I once heard Larry Stefanki, who's now coaching Tim Henman, explain that the serve to the body is like "going glass" in hoops. Just as basketball players now go for the stylish swish rather than use the backboard, tennis players go for the ace rather than the higher percentage, but less sexy, serve to the body. The best part about the serve to the body: Even when returners can make a play on the ball, their angles are limited.
What is up with Jan-Michael Gambill these days? Everyone keeps saying that he's had a great season so far (OK, he reached the Ericsson final), but he's lost in the first round of all three Slams this year. What is funny is that if Gambill loses in the first round of the Open, he'll have a negative Grand Slam. Does Gambill really have a shot ever to win a major?
A number of you have written in about Gambill lately. The guy put the "abs" in absolutely abysmal with his Wimbledon performance. Coming off an inspiring run to the quarters in 2000, he flamed out to Chris Woodruff -- hardly a splendiferous grass-court player -- in Round 1. But he also, as you note, made it to Ericsson finals, beating Lleyton Hewitt along the way, and entered Wimbledon on the fringes of the top 10 in the Champions Race. In the past we've been none too charitable in assessing Gambill (even Anna, a few questions up the page, referred to him as "spotty"). But three years after he came from nowhere to pierce the public consciousness, he has improved on his game, added some weapons and established himself as a solid, if unspectacular, top-30 player. He could easily have been another pretty face with the career arc of Vince Van Patten. I give him a lot of credit for doing otherwise. Is Gambill a threat to win a Slam? Truthfully, no. He lacks the consistency off the ground, he's yet to become a good "big match" player and he has a tendency to cramp (and to be honest, no male player who uses two hands off both wings will ever win a major). But especially on a hard court, he could have a nice run at the U.S. Open.
No offense to Jenna, but are you serious?!? You don't really want to introduce the designated-hitter rule to tennis, do you? Can you imagine doubles players bidding on early upsets from singles to pad their team? Or faking an injury to get a sub when the next matchup is unfavorable? Jennifer Capriati subs for Martina Navratilova to get her team past the Williams sisters? I'm sorry, Jon, but this just doesn't fly with me. If you're depending on doubles for your meals, find somebody else in the same boat. You don't see Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs or Todd Woodbridge whining about the state of things, do you? Instead, I propose players use contracts to protect themselves. If your partner bails on you for singles, they have to cut you in for a share of their winnings. It wouldn't appease John McEnroe, but maybe Magui Serna would have felt better.
I'm looking at this from a "good of the game" standpoint. Sure, Serna would have been better off if she had contracted for a share of Justine Henin's singles winnings when Henin bailed on their partnership. But that still doesn't fill the void on the promoter's schedule nor does it appease the fans who have one fewer match to watch.
This stems from the question about the best player never to have won a Grand Slam. Now that Goran Ivanisevic has won that long overdue Wimbledon, my vote would go to Miroslav Mecir. I have rarely seen someone so immensely skilled be such a big Grand Slam dud (other than upsetting Swedes). For all his talent, he should have won a few. Do you have any idea why he didn't?
Mecir was a wonderfully fluid, efficient player who had a Hingis-like gift for strategy and nuance. But the guy had the potency of a Shirley Temple. His serve wasn't much of a weapon, a player like Ivan Lendl could hammer him off the ground, and his net game was unremarkable. What's more, he was hardly wired like a champion. This is a player who once missed a court call, setting people scrambling at the tournament. Just before he was defaulted, a volunteer found him cradling a turtle he found near the courts.
What are the chances that Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf will raise their first-born as a tennis player? A combination of their respective skills would be anyone's ideal for a tennis pro.
Can I just say how much I pity this poor kid? Despite our curiosity, one almost hopes this genetic überchild never touches a racket. This little dude or dudette is going to have Gary Condit's media following at his first junior tournament.
I find your criticisms of Venus Williams to be objective and balanced, but don't you find something disturbing and hypocritical about John McEnroe's constant attacks on her character, considering his crude temper tantrums in his time as well as his description of Lleyton Hewitt's rude fist-pumping and screaming as "good for the game"? Isn't there something almost visceral and inappropriate about his attacks on her?
You've mentioned the great elephant in the room. Mac's pontificating about certain players' lack of decorum and social graces is like Bob Livingston and Dan Burton decrying Bill Clinton's moral shortcomings or Kournikova lamenting the Williams sisters' pretension. The other, more charitable view is that McEnroe's past doesn't disqualify him from holding valid opinions. You and I may be a lousy actors, but we're still entitled to have opinions about movies.
Do you care to admit that you were wrong about James Blake?
No one ever said the guy was a hack. If I recall correctly, I simply expressed doubts that he would ever crack the top 50. (I'm not sure that his winning a few rounds at a second-rate grass event disproves that.) Blake had his best tournament as a pro last week, but let's be objective: He has yet to qualify for a Masters Series event -- much less a Slam -- this year; in two years on Tour he has won five matches; and, unfortunately, he seems to play his best tennis on grass. When we consider bright American prospects, he's not in the same league as a Roddick, Dent or even Mardy Fish.
This will probably never be answered, but I'll give it a try anyway. For the last year I've noticed that Olivier Rochus is actually pretty good. Yeah, I know he's shorter than 99.9 percent of the players on the WTA Tour (not to mention the ATP), but is there any chance of him becoming a top-50 player in the future?
You get bonus points for being from Lilia Osterloh's hometown. And besides, Olivier Rochus is a Mailbag favorite. Make all the short jokes you want, call him a ballboy, crack that he could practice his groundstrokes by hitting off a curb. But Rochus really does have some game. He's exceptionally consistent, returns well, moves well and has a devilish drop shot. And on clay, his slight stature is less of a disadvantage. Rochus finished last year at No. 67, so top 50 is reasonable. Anything more is, well, a tall order. (There's only one 5-foot-5 Belgian who will win a Slam one day, and her name is Justine Henin.)
I continually hear references to the endorsement deals players make to sweeten their earnings. What do most of these deals require of the players? What does Reebok get for the $40 million that it gives Venus Williams? Does it require her to do much more than wear Reebok shoes and outfits while playing matches? How highly ranked does a player need to be before endorsements usually become available to them?
Not surprisingly, it varies. For a player like Venus Williams who's being compensated to the tune of $7 million annually -- guaranteed -- from Reebok, you can bet there are obligations beyond simply wearing the shoes and apparel. This could mean everything from appearing in photo shoots and commercials to attending corporate functions and lending her name to other Reebok ventures. In some cases, the level of participation is up to the player. Hingis, for example, draws rave reviews from the folks at adidas for being cooperative and willing to view her sponsorship as a partnership agreement. Kournikova, you'll be surprised to hear, is said to be less accommodating to her sponsors. I think most people would be surprised by which players -- and how few of them -- have lucrative endorsement deals. On the first tier, you have Agassi, Sampras, Kournikova, Hingis and the Williams sisters who make serious bank with their endorsements. Then you have players like Lindsay Davenport who will make a few million from a deal, roughly equaling their prize money. The next tier down, say, a No. 15-25 player, will -- provided s/he doesn't meet bonus clauses -- make six figures but nothing insane. After that, the market dries up. Most pros get free rackets and gear but it's rare for someone outside, say, the top 30 to make significant money through endorsements (the exception is a player like Leander Paes or Ai Sugiyama who is exceptionally popular in his or her country). For instance, Nicole Pratt, no Grand Slam champ but a solid top-60 player nonetheless, makes something like $5,000 annually in addition to her prize money. Likewise, at Indian Wells, Andrew Ilie -- then a top-40 player who had beaten Sampras a few weeks prior -- revealed that he was still looking for an apparel contract. Remember, too, that en route to reaching to the U.S. Open semifinals last year, Elena Dementieva had to buy her outfits at Manhattan's Niketown, though she now has her own deal. What always interests me is that at some level, the endorsement game is like playing the futures market. Companies try to scout out talent and sign up-and-comers. At times, they make out like bandits. Take the cases of Fila and Jennifer Capriati or Reebok and Andy Roddick. Other times the companies take a bath. To wit: Alexandra Stevenson's deal with Nike.
What are your feelings on the Boris Becker-John McEnroe match to be played after the women's final at the U.S. Open? It's a nice idea, but I think it totally upstages the women's final. Playing it after the final makes it seem as if the Becker-McEnroe match is the "main event," while the women's match is just a warmup for it. Also, it takes away from the novel "night final" idea. f the powers-that-be want to have it, I think it should be played before the women's match.
If the Becker-McEnroe match is the warmup act for the headliners -- Krokus to the women's Black Sabbath -- it creates several problems. First, the women are back in Super Saturday mode, unsure when they'll take the court. Becker creams Mac (or vice versa) and the women come out cold. Becker and Mac go three sets and the women pace the locker room nervously. Also, given the prime-time television coverage, the women need a definitive starting point.
Here is a possibility for Long Lost Siblings. What do you think of the resemblance between Justine Henin and child actor Haley Joel Osment?
Not bad. But not as good as this one ...
While looking up who beat Jelena Dokic last week (Denisa Chladkova), I thought this picture might be worthy fodder for the Long Lost Siblings series between Chladkova and a young Andre Agassi.
Here's another: Graf and Laura Dern, who, ironically, has a proverbial bun in the oven herself.
I noticed that when you listed the best half-volleyers in tennis you forgot to include Derrick Rostagno, who probably had one of the most natural half-volleys in the modern game. Do you know what he has been up to since the '90s?
A free CNNSI.com T-shirt to the first person who can fill us in. FINALLY, Kevin James of London offers this priceless take on Goran Ivanisevic's homophobia: "Just a quick comment on Goran's press-conference remarks. As a former coach and administrator in tennis I can say that the gay tennis community -- which runs an international circuit of about 40 events with between 200-400 participants at most events -- is so used to slurs like that that we just can't be bothered. It's not that we will stop purchasing Head racquets, Sergio Tacchini clothes (so bloody expensive anyway) or watching ATP events; but we already would rather use Yonex racquets (used by all our icons), wear adidas clothes (not badly priced and well made) and watch WTA events -- because they're more interesting. Goran a sex god? Don't make me laugh. Give us Jan-Michael Gambill or Mark Philippoussis any day!"
Click here to send a question or comment to Jon Wertheim's Tennis Mailbag.
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