Tennis

A young woman leaves the U.S. for France to flee her abusive American father and play for the country of her mother's birth. She turns heads not only with each stroke she carves out but also with the figure she cuts in leading-edge tennis couture. Why then is Mary Pierce unloved in Paris? The whistles and boos that left her in tears at Roland Garros two years ago, after a loss to Germany's Barbara Rittner, returned last week in a loss to 19-year-old Magui Serna of Spain. "If I win, I'm the French Mary Pierce," she said afterward. "If I lose, I'm an American."

In fact, the reluctance of the French to embrace Pierce has little to do with her inability to win much more than a Carolyn Bessette Kennedy look-alike contest since her 1995 Australian Open victory. She spends most of her downtime in Florida, speaks imperfect French and can cop an imperious manner that her record won't excuse. In April, before France's Federation Cup date with Belgium, she called from the U.S. to ask captain Yannick Noah if she could skip training camp and arrive the day before the tie. Don't bother coming, Noah replied.

But more than anything else, the French fault her for a lack of imagination. When Pierce tried out for the French Fed Cup team in 1992, former pro Franchise Durr suggested that she play a short match at the end of a workout. Pierce, taught by her father, who stressed drills, and raised in the ground-stroke gulag of Nick Bollettieri, looked back blankly. She had never learned to build points, only to whack the fuzz off the ball. From a tennis queen, Pierce's adopted compatriots expect more.

Drop Volleys
The Ace Of Spadea's

Jim Pierce is barred from the WTA Tour because of his abusive behavior, but since December he has been working with Vince Spadea, who credits Jim with helping him reach his first ATP Tour final, in St. P�lten, Austria, on May 23. "When I'm in town [ Boca Raton, Fla., where Spadea lives], he puts me through a regimen of conditioning, stroke production, psychological approach, things like that," Spadea says of Pierce. "For four years I hadn't been in the top 50. Now I've broken through [to Number 49]." Mary has no problem with the arrangement, and on those occasions when the men's and women's tours cross paths, the WTA doesn't mind either—so long as Jim is on site only when Spadea is playing or practicing....

Marcelo R�os may be the favorite at the French, but he's no French favorite: For a record-tying third year in a row he has been awarded the Prix Citron by the Gallic media for having the sport's sourest disposition....

American tennis lost 3.1 million recreational players between 1992 and '96, but the USTA has a bold plan to stanch the bleeding: bounty hunting. It has earmarked more than $1 million (from a new five-year, $50 million initiative) to pay instructors $2 for each new pupil they sign up for one of two grassroots programs....

How much is this French Open mere prelude to the World Cup? Jan Siemerink says that if the Dutch soccer team were to play a Cup match that conflicted with a tennis match of his, he'd take a forfeit.