The Specialization Of Tennis

Is there a sporting event more maligned than tennis's U.S. Open? Everyone, it seems, takes a shot at Flushing Meadow, that New York City garden spot that sits atop a landfill hard by LaGuardia Airport. Wimbledon offers royalty and tradition; the French Open, with its state-of-the-art facilities, runs as smoothly as the high-speed train from Paris to Lyons; and the rejuvenated Australian Open boasts a stadium with a retractable roof. In contrast, the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 27 this year, has all the charm of an Erector Set, horrendous match scheduling, $6 hamburgers, an outmoded stadium and, of course, those incessant jets that appear to barely clear the stands. No wonder then that in a 1989 player poll rating the four Grand Slam tournaments, Flushing Meadow finished last in nine of the 15 categories and third in four others.

Still, for all its flaws, year in and year out, the U.S. Open produces better tennis, played by more top players, than any other Grand Slam event (chart at right). Flushing Meadow has one big advantage over Wimbledon and the French Open: It is played on a surface—a medium-speed hard court—that most players can live with, be they aggressive serve-and-volleyers or die-hard baseliners. It's true that the Australian Open is held on a similar type of hard court, but that tournament doesn't attract as strong a field as the other major championships for two reasons: its place on the calendar (in mid-January) and its place on the map.

Saying that players "can live with" the U.S. Open surface is faint praise indeed, but the fact is, more and more players are deciding that they can't live with the game's two other surfaces, grass and clay. Consider the following:

?Of the 128 men who played on clay in this year's French Open, 49 ducked the challenge of Wimbledon's grass.

?Among the missing at Wimbledon were Thierry Champion, Thomas Muster and Andre Agassi, who reached the quarter-finals, semifinals and finals, respectively, at Roland Garros.

?Among those who played Wimbledon but skipped the French were Ivan Lendl, the world's No. 1 player, fourth-ranked Brad Gilbert and 11th-ranked John McEnroe. All the aforementioned players are entered in the U.S. Open.

? Boris Becker, the 1989 Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion and a finalist at Wimbledon this year, has played more than two dozen clay-court tournaments in his pro career. Going into the Austrian Open he was 0 for 26.

However, by entering clay-court events, Becker at least makes an attempt to play on all surfaces, which is more than can be said for an increasing number of his fellow pros. Pay no heed to the nonsense you heard about Agassi not playing at Wimbledon partly because the staid All England Club wouldn't let him wear his hot-pink bicycle pants. In truth, he skipped Wimbledon for the same reason 48 other French Open entrants avoided the English tournament: He didn't have a prayer of getting far on Wimbledon's slick grass. Likewise, Gilbert and McEnroe, who prefer fast surfaces, knew they had little chance of performing well on the slow red clay at Roland Garros. For his part, Lendl, who once declared that he was "allergic to grass," passed up a shot at winning his fourth French championship because he felt that by putting in extra time on grass he would have a chance of winning his first Wimbledon title. It still eluded him.

Forget grass versus artificial-turf fields and turf versus dirt racetracks: In no other sport is the playing surface as critical to the outcome as in tennis. But when 38% of the field from the game's second or third most prestigious event passes up (or isn't good enough to play in) the game's premier event three weeks later, then surface is too critical. In short, tennis has become two sports that are no more alike than Softball and baseball. One version is practiced by hard-charging serve-and-volleyers, who like to keep points as short as possible; the other is ruled by ground-stroke mavens, who engage in wars of attrition from the baseline. In both versions advances in racket technology—does anyone remember wood? — have allowed players to hit balls harder and with more spin than ever before.

Clay-court specialists have been around forever. However, until the early 1970s the more important titles were contested on grass, which meant that clay-courters had one of two options: Stick with their game and ply their trade in anonymity, or develop the necessary skills to play passably on the greensward. Most chose the latter. That's no longer the case, not when 27 of this year's 80 ATP Tour and Grand Slam events take place on clay-more than on any other surface-while the number of grass-court tournaments has dwindled to five, with Wimbledon being the only one of consequence.