Jon Wertheim's Tennis Mailbag ~ May 17th

[tall_one]

Excitement builds for Paris
After a weekend of great tennis, players hitting stride in time for French

After a few unremarkable weeks -- marked more by injuries and withdrawals and retirement rumors than action on the court -- tennis bounced back terrifically this past week, just in time to create an awful lot of intrigue before the French Open.

We have Co-Players of the Week. In Rome, Amelie Mauresmo capped another exceptional week of tennis, beating Jennifer Capriati in a spellbinding final, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6). In a match filled with high-quality rallies, Mauresmo staved off a championship point to win what ranks among the biggest titles of her career. "This match couldn't have been any closer," Mauresmo said. "The level from both of us was unbelievable right from the first point." ... From the file-this-away department: only two players have triumphed in both Berlin and Rome in the same year -- Steffi Graf (1987) and Monica Seles (1990), and both of them went on to win the French. ... Capriati shouldn't be hanging her head, though. After an extended funk dating back to last fall, she looks to be back in business. The Capster took out Serena Williams in the semis and then came within a point of winning the title. Plus, didn't Capriati get tuned 6-0, 6-2 by Mauresmo just a week ago? Now she's losing 8-6 in a third-set breaker? Nice progress. Think that coaching change was well-advised? ... In the doubles, Meghann Shaughnessy and Nadia Petrova are suddenly the hottest team going; they won yet another title, their fourth straight, beating Paola Suarez and Virginia Ruano Pascual in the final. ...

Plenty of excitement from the men too. At the ATP Masters Series Hamburg, Roger Federer looks to be peaking at just the right time. Billed as a "Dream Final," Federer beat Guillermo Coria in four sets. Don't be surprised if these two rematch in three weeks. In the Hamburg doubles, Kevin Ullyett and Wayne Black beat Mike and Bob Bryan. ...

The fates finally smiled on Greg Rusedski. The Grinning One got a spot in the French Open main draw when Mardy Fish pulled out with a hip injury. ... The USTA announced that Mike Nishihara has been named strength and conditioning coach for the USA Tennis High Performance program. Nishihara is based at the training center in Key Biscayne, Fla., and worked with many top pros while he was at Saddlebrook Tennis Center. ... The USTA handed out its media excellence awards. Envelopes, please. The winners were James Beck of the Charleston Post & Courier, tennisreporters.net partners Ron Cioffi and Matt Cronin, and Tracy Allen of The Call newspaper. Nominees were judged on the basis of work from the 2003 calendar year. ...

Speaking of media excellence, my esteemed Sports Illustrated colleague, Richard Deitsch, had a Q&A with the Shizzolator himself, Snoop Dogg. Check out this ex-chiz-ange:

Deitsch: What sport would we be surprised to know you like?

Snoop: Tennis. I used to like Ivan Lendl. He was sharp. An old schooler. Make it happen and roll out. Now I like Venus and Serena, but Ivan was the truth. ...

Speaking of Lendl, nice story on him in the Boston Globe last week. One quibble is the headline: Grass still suits his game. Um. (Good thing Pete Sampras doesn't throw pots.)

No wonder Marat Safin is so cranky lately: A) Here it is mid-May, and he's already played 34 matches. B) According to the ITF records, he lost in straight sets -- albeit a tiebreaker in the second -- to Amelie Mauresmo in his first match of the year.

College Tennis News: The BYU-Hawaii women beat Lynn (Fla.) 5-1 in Saturday's NCAA Division II women's tennis final in Altamonte Springs, Fla., and West Florida topped Valdosta (Ga.) State 5-2 to capture its first men's title. The victory was BYU-Hawaii's 101st straight dating back to 2002 and gives the Seasiders their third straight NCAA title and fifth in six years. ...

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) will induct four new members into its ITA Men's Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame on May 26 during the NCAA Championships in Tulsa, Okla. The Class of 2004 includes a trio of Pac-10 stars -- Jim Delaney of Stanford, Billy Lenoir of Arizona and Larry Nagler of UCLA -- as well as Gardner Larned of William & Mary. Larned will be inducted posthumously. The induction ceremony will take place in the Promenade Ballroom at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Tulsa. ...

In women's Division I second-round play, Florida had its 40-match win streak snapped in Gainesville by Miami (Fla.), 4-3. Miami's Audrey Banada, a freshman from North Miami Beach, edged Gator senior Lindsay Dawaf 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 at No. 5 singles to clinch the upset. This is the earliest exit for a No. 1 seed since the NCAA expanded to a 64-team tournament in 1999.

Gerry (Don't call me Jimmy) Traina of Englewood, Fla., was among several of you asking that we include Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train when we list the best tennis scenes in movies. ... Long as we're talking movies, quick question: Finally got around to seeing Mystic River last weekend. (Note to all our younger readers: This is what happens when you have kids.) Two thumbs up, of course. But didn't get the last scene. Why was Kevin Bacon giving a complicit wink of approval to Sean Penn? That threw me. ...

Have any of you guys seen that television ad for a financial services company featuring Darren Cahill on a fishing boat? Not your conventional choice for a pitchman, but somehow it works. ...

Look for Maria Sharapova to appear on the pages of an upcoming GQ. (Her hair blown out to Andre 3000 proportions, but at least she's not naked on a horse.) ... Honk, if you just bought IMG. ...

[tall_one]

A decidedly low-carb mailbag:

Why, oh why, does Ms. Martina Navratilova have to take a singles wild-card entry away from the next generation of players in Paris? How many farewell tours has she had? How much does her ego need to be stroked? Give it a rest -- try coaching and give something back to the game. -- Diana Pitoulis, Saskatoon, Sask.

We received at least a dozen variations of this question. We addressed this two years ago when Navratilova entered the singles draw of a Wimbledon tune-up. I took issue with it on the grounds she would either embarrass herself by losing, or embarrass the WTA by winning. That probably generated more reader disagreement than anything I've written -- which is saying something.

For whatever reason, whether it's Navratilova's sustained success in doubles, or the fact that the WTA is a weaker property than it was in 2002, I've come around. For her to even consider playing singles at her age is a feat, so why not let her go for it? Regardless of how she fares, it will generate some international buzz -- something, frankly, the sport could use. If Navratilova falls on her face and gets beaten by some Milagros Sequera, we can talk about progress, about how even the WTA marginalia has game. If Navratilova wins, we can marvel at how she has defied time and what a physical freak she is.

Further, this no longer has the whiff of a cheap publicity stunt or ego trip. Navratilova has been a consistent fixture in doubles -- more reliable, dare we say, than most other top draws -- and has proven she still can still compete at a preposterously high level. She plays Fed Cup, she's in the running for the Olympics and she fulfills her sponsor requirements. She is a rank-and-file tour member who has put in her time. What about the argument she is a taking a spot from an upstart? True, but we're talking about depriving a spot to a player outside the top 100. In some utilitarian kind of way, tournaments have as much an obligation to provide an entertaining field as they have an obligation to provide a fair opportunity to 128 players. Save your indignation about wild cards for pretenders like Alexandra Stevenson, not Hall of Fame enshrinees with dozens of Grand Slams titles to their credit.

Bottom line: It's clear if some of you were in Navratilova's shoes, you would have chosen to keep a lower profile in your "retirement." That's fine. But let the kid have her fun.

Let's say you've been asked to organize a fifth Grand Slam. What type of surface do you choose and, more important, where do you hold it? What country do you think would most benefit the sport?
-- Bruce, Riverdale, N.Y.

The knee-jerk answer is to prime the China pump. But from the standpoint of fairness, shouldn't South America be next in line? The continent has contributed so much to tennis but tends to really get shafted in terms of tournaments. I suppose if there's a fifth Slam it ought to be played indoors, but indoor events always tend to feel faintly hollow to me -- and they don't translate as well to television. If there's a slower hard surface, maybe go with that.

Enough about trying to change the game for the purpose of appealing to the masses. As a former Division I player, I think the sport of tennis is fine. If people are bored, then they just don't appreciate the game. Now, with the start of the Tennis Channel, I could care less about coverage by the major networks. They only cover the American players anyway! Just leave tennis alone, and let's enjoy the current level of the men's game. Do you believe that such changes will really make the sport better? Or, are we just "dumbing it down" for the average couch potato?
-- Jonathan, San Diego

Your point is a valid one. "Let's just leave the sport the way it is, resist 'dumbing it down,' and if people don't appreciate it too bad." The problem is that for tennis to become more than a niche sport it needs to convert casual sports fans. The purists who can sit through five-set matches, comprehend the rankings and tell you how to spell "Schuettler" correctly, don't make the critical mass necessary to drive television, attendance and sponsorship. If tennis just concentrates on the hard-core fans, I fear it ends up like professional bowling.

On this very subject, Stephen Duval, who runs the Superset Tennis exhibition had some remarks re: our discussion about exhibitions:

"Superset matches mean something to the new legion of fans we are targeting, including 16-to-45-year-olds. It means something to the players who want and need a new marketing platform, a new telecast and production platform, a new and exciting format to excel, new sponsors, new public relations, etc.

"In Australia, where I am from, cricket was rejuvenated some 30 years ago from an archaic five-day format to a new six-hour, one-day format. When it was first attempted, the establishment and journalists stated that it was a 'quick fix' and would never work. Well, today the one-day game is a multi-billion dollar industry that has helped keep interest in the original format to the point that both are doing well.

"Tennis is a far wider game and appeals to a greater global audience than cricket. In today's society, we need an entertainment-rich, innovative, technologically enhanced product to satisfy our desires. If a game can re-format itself to provide this without alienating the current fans, then this must be a positive. Where else can you have an event that shadows the parameters of a world-title boxing match, with each match being a crescendo to the next, where only one winner walks away with a prize and the rest get to ponder what could have been? ...

"Superset is a 21st-century fusion of sports and entertainment. ... Superset is not trying to take over for Grand Slam's or the ATP, we are an alternative format for the rock stars who are currently playing the game. Over time, our matches will come to mean an immense amount to the players, although nothing was built into greatness in one day. The future is assured of change, and the winds of change in tennis are overdue -- that approaching storm is Superset."

What is happening to Daniela Hantuchova and Jelena Dokic? A couple of years ago they were considered two rising stars, and now they can't even make it out of the first round in Rome. Do you think they will be able to salvage their careers?
-- Lori, Baltimore, Md.

This discussion fits into a larger mosaic. One reason the WTA Tour is -- was, until last week, anyway -- in relatively dire straits for 2004, is that there are so few players who have filled the vacuum caused by the injury-o-rama. We've discussed the "Lost Generation on the ATP," the cluster of underachievers who came after Sampras-Agassi and before Roddick-Ferrero-Federer-Hewitt. Had any of those talented players now aged 26 to 30 -- Mark Philippoussis or Thomas Enqvist or Tommy Haas or Nicolas Kiefer or Marcelo Rios -- grabbed the baton, would the late '90s and early naughts have been so relatively barren? Now we see a similar trend on the women's tour. Where are all of the prospects? Elena Dementieva reached the U.S. Open semis in 2000 and never built on it. Dokic and Hantuchova have their gears stuck in some serious mud. Mirjana Lucic and Stevenson are off the map entirely. Patty Schnyder was a top-10 player in 1998 and has been little more than tabloid fodder ever since. Even the Eleni Daniilidou and Nadia Petrova types seem unable to string together consistent results. (This is to say nothing of the failing of a certain A. Kournikova.)

Anyway, among the many virtues of tennis: A player's fortunes can change at thunderclap speed. Capriati is walking proof but Agassi, Sampras, Safin, Venus, etc. can all attest to this, as well. It wasn't that long ago that Hantuchova was a top tenner with a bullet and Dokic was a lock to reach the second week of the Slams. A few good wins to get the confidence juices flowing, and maybe they can revive careers that currently warrant toe tags.

[tall_one]

James Blake, among others, has opined that allowing coaching in professional tennis would increase the sport's popularity. In your opinion, does coaching at Davis Cup matches lead to higher quality? If the answer is yes, then what part of the coaching accounts for the improved tennis -- mechanics or mental edge advice?
-- Walter Ledesma, Lake Oswego, Ore.

I suppose one advantage of allowing coaching is that creates that many more stars. I think of Sports Illustrated, and the forests that have been felled for the articles about Phil Jackson and Bob Knight and Vince Lombardi and Joe Torre. But I have two objections to allowing coaching in tennis. First, it confers yet another advantage on the wealthier players. The deck is already stacked against the journeymen, now they have to go into hock recruiting a decent coach? Second, to me coaching is antithetical to individual sports. Part of tennis' beauty is watching a player self-correct (or not) mid-match, extricating himself from trouble, changing her game plan on the fly. It really ruins the dynamic if there's a Brad Gilbert figure on the sidelines diagramming plays during change-overs.

Do you see Mary Pierce making the tennis Hall of Fame? I mean, she's had such an up-and-down career in addition to the controversy surrounding her father, but how many women can actually say they have two Grand Slams to their name? What do you think?
-- Michael Mungin, Seattle

That's a close one. But I tend to agree with you. She gets points for two Majors, a good deal of time spent in the top 10 and a career that has exceeded a decade. And she gets a University of Michigan admissions office "plus factor" for overcoming personal hardship. She loses points for wild inconsistency, a string of injuries, and some dismal upset losses. But we're easy. Easy like Sunday morning. On balance, we'll give her the nod.

I'm sure this question has been asked before, but who do you think would win if Martina Hingis played Justine Henin-Hardenne when both were at their best?
-- Franky Wongkar, London

These are the questions we hate because there is, of course, no right answer, and they guarantee angry responses no matter what. As a preface, if I'm Hingis, I hate Henin-Hardenne. Martina the Younger, the conventional thinking went, was a splendid player who was undone by her slight stature and was simply overpowered by the Big Babes. She was a talented lightweight thrown into the ring against heavyweights. And no amount of weight-training or retooling was going to bridge the gap. Then along comes Henin-Hardenne, who makes Hingis look like Shaquille O'Neal by comparison. She works out feverishly with a fitness coach, adjusts her game and suddenly is serving in excess of 110 mph and zinging that backhand and standing toe-to-toe (where would hack sportswriters be without those fail-safe boxing analogies?) with all comers.

Having said all that, if both players are at their best, I'm probably inclined to give Hingis the nod. Or am I? This is a tough one. Henin-Hardenne eats that Hingis serve for breakfast. And she is physically superior, not just in terms of ball-striking power but stamina. On the other hand, Hingis is more consistent, she is tactically better and volleys better. Because Hingis didn't win a solitary Grand Slam in this millennium, it's easy to recall our most recent memories of her: rolling her eyes, looking insecure as her opponents' returns whistled past her and looking exhausted as was being run ragged by Venus or Serena. We quickly forget that stretch when she was playing peerlessly brilliant tennis, and her Grand Slam record was 34-1.

If you could pick just one U.S. tournament to attend (excluding the U.S. Open), which ladies event would you suggest? Take into consideration the following: price, atmosphere, seating and top players actually showing up.
-- Sjohnna, Cincinnati

I'd probably go with Charleston. The host city is one of the country's real gems. Adorable town that has both the amenities of a city (a sterling great-restaurants-per-capita ratio, lively downtown proximity to a decent-sized airport) and a coastal resort town. The tennis event tends to draw a good many top players, but it's sufficiently small that there are no parking hassles, epic lines at the concessions, etc.

What about Petrova? Is she a threat for the Majors yet, or in the near future, after her semifinal run in Paris last year?
-- Derek, Bloomington, Ill.

In doubles, certainly. Petrova is a nice player who hits a deceptively big ball and plays with uncommon intelligence. But you'd like her to win her first title before she even has a realistic shot at a Major.

Just to clarify a Hingis reference from Kevin of San Francisco about who will win the French Open on the women's side ... he said if Henin-Hardenne makes the final (he did not say win the title), she'd pull a Hingis because she skipped the clay-court season in 1997 due to a knee injury, yet still made it to the final. -- Yosh, Las Vegas

Thanks much. Should have figured that out.

As for getting tickets to the French Open, we got a handful of suggestions and personal stories. A few to share:

We bought two tickets for opening day on Center Court at Roland Garros last year from a scalper just outside the stadium that morning. My buddy paid two times the face value of a ticket -- probably more that he needed to, but he didn't barter at all. The seats were great, and so was Serena, who played the first match of the day. We were thrilled. Don't specifically know about grounds tickets, but I reason they are available as well.
-- Carmeline, Chicago

I went last year on the middle Saturday and had no problems getting a ticket or finding a seat on the outer courts. Tickets on the show courts were only available through scalpers, though.
-- Michael Toth, London

Being a tennis-crazed ex-pat living in Paris for the past five years, I thought I'd give some advice regarding tickets for Roland Garros. I've found that one can -- for the first three or four rounds -- buy at the very least general admission tickets the day of the event by waiting in line, which unfortunately, can take up to one hour. But if one wants to see a lot of quality singles matches then that kind of ticket really only cuts it for the first two rounds (though I did see a great Martin Verkerk/Vincent Spadea battle on a side court in the third round last year). The scalper option is always there, though I have known innocent foreigners who supposedly bought phony tickets, so be careful.
-- Mike Kooris, Paris (originally Cincinnati)

Have a great week, everyone!


Sports Illustrated senior writer Jon Wertheim covers tennis for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.