TIME FLIES: Since Federer first rose to No. 1 in February ’04, the price of gas has risen from an average of $1.59 to more than $4 per gallon; Paris Hilton went to jail; the Olympics returned to Athens; the Abu Ghraib photos emerged; a final report found no WMDs in Iraq; President Bush was re-elected; Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and tennis’ prime sage Andre Agassi stepped down; Pope John, President Ford and Yasir Arafat died; and the Boston Red Sox won the World Series (twice).
BEST EXCUSE IN TENNIS HISTORY: A WTA official e-mailed Bank of the West Champ Aleksandra Wozniak, asking her to come to the draw ceremony for the Carson tournament on Sunday. She replied she would, but had to play in the final at Stanford that day.
THAT DOES EXPLAIN IT ALL: The San Francisco Chronicle‘s Bruce Jenkins asserted that tennis “didn’t die. It just ran out of sex, drugs and rebellion.”
NOT A FAN: John McEnroe claimed, “The ATP has been an absolutely deplorable union as far as I’m concerned…one of the worst unions I can imagine.”
AFTER THE MATCH IN HISTORY: It was widely lauded as the best match in history, a magical encounter that one fan told writer Tom Perrotta, “Was the best seven hours of my life.” Many tennis lovers can tell you exactly where they were and how they watched (or missed) the marathon. The final ratings were the best in eight years, ESPN Classic was quick to replay the epic and, for a few giddy mornings, “The Match” was the talk around watercoolers. Sure, there were contrarian voices like Steve Flink, who said he felt the Borg-McEnroe match was, by a narrow margin, the best match ever because of its incredible 18-16 fourth-set tie-break. And it’s true; we’ve yet to see the hordes of women in tennis gear going up and down the veggie aisles (like in the old boom days). Plus, tennis has yet to become a mainstay on Sports Center. But attendance, at least in Toronto and Cincy, spiked, and according to at least one leading retail executive, “Sales have bounced, and are still bouncing.” But there is a downside, too. Crowds at the women’s events on the West Coast were so modest that it prompted writer Bill Dwyre to note, “Tennis is a strange, traveling road show. Its ups can be off-the-chart high, as in the recent Wimbledon, [but] its downs can be Wednesday-night-in-Carson low, when empty seats are the dominant wallpaper.” And even now, tennis remains a “critic-magnet,” a sport that is said to endure more broadstroke swipes than any other. For example, the L.A. Daily News’ Steven Dilbeck contended, “Tennis needs more than drama — it needs crazy characters. If I wanted to watch a love-in, I’d catch some old John Lennon and Yoko Ono footage…Anyone who truly believes the Nadal-Federer final harkens the beginning of a new golden age needs to lay off the sauce. [When] tennis was at its peak…people were enthralled. The players were feisty. They had attitude…They dated models and Playmates, started fashion lines, gave the bird to linesmen, invigorated crowds. They weren’t just players, they were revolutionaries. They raged war on the court, not love. They were mavericks who rocked the country club…They played against type… Then followed the numbing Becker-Lendl-Sampras-Federer period that succeeded in reducing tennis to a niche sport. This is not progress, though I’d like to thank them all for freeing up the community courts. Tennis’…robotic period was in full swing. Can’t we get a little edge back? Some controlled rage? Some spark of individuality? One decent snarl? Now McEnroe sits in a television booth so nice it feels gooey. Words must stick to him. It screams sellout… Here comes the tennis wave. Wait a minute…it’s gone already. Bummer…[This] Wimbledon…won’t save squat.”
WE LOVE BEER, BRAHMS AND BRATWURST, BUT…: Wuz up with Hamburg? The great city, which, yeah, is the home of the hamburger and the world’s first nudist colony, is a key port and a great metro enclave. But there’s a certain ill-fated twist when it comes to tennis. First the city was the site of the most horrific assault on an individual in sports history (think: Seles). Then, in court, Hamburg’s men’s tournament tried to save itself as a top-level event, and by doing so threatened to take down the entire ATP.
AN EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY ABUSER: Last month we said that while the late comic George Carlin blasted golf, he let tennis skate. Not so. In fact, he said tennis was not a sport, it’s “just an advanced form of ping-pong…played while standing on the table…In fact, all racket games are nothing more than derivatives of ping-pong.” But not to worry; when it came to sports, Carlin was an equal-opportunity abuser. He claimed that hockey was just “three activities taking place at the same time: ice skating, fooling around with a puck and beating the crap out of somebody. If these guys had more brains than teeth, they’d do these things one at a time…Soccer is not a sport because you can’t use your arms. Anything where you can’t use your arms can’t be a sport. Tap dancing isn’t a sport. I rest my case. Running isn’t a sport because anybody can do it…For Christ sakes, my mother can run! You don’t see her on the cover of Sports Illustrated, do you?…Swimming is a way to keep from drowning…Sailing is a way to get somewhere…Bowling isn’t a sport because you have to rent shoes. Darts will never be a sport because the whole object of the game is to reach zero…[and] polo is golf on horseback. Without holes.”
VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Reflecting on his former pupil Andy Murray, Brad Gilbert observed, “He’s grown up and I’ve lost my hair.”…The New York Buzz’s Patrick Briaud grew up in conservative College Station, Texas, but went to Cal-Berkeley. Asked about the culture shock in going to the liberal hub, Briaud explained, “In Texas, you’d get on a plane and see ‘Go, Bush’ on roofs. Then you’d get off the plane and see bumper stickers saying ‘Bush [stinks].’”
HOTTEST PLAYER OF THE SPRING/SUMMER SEASON: In her first nine tournaments of the year, Dinara Safina didn’t have a win over a top-10 player. Now, in her last six tournaments, she’s had nine wins over top-10ers.
FROM GOOD TO BAD: Aussie Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga went from the game’s next sizzle-star-in-waiting to an injury-plagued, below-the-radar-screen non-factor.
FEAST OR FAMINE: One season Serena Williams plays way too little, the next she plays way too much.
A MID-TERM SHARAPOVA FASHION QUIZ
Maria Sharapova’s continuous fashion offerings of inventive, provocative, oft-attractive outfits are:
A. A gutsy aesthetic adventure that adds interest
B. A harmless footnote and diversion
C. A self-indulgent, maybe even elitist, conceit
D. All of the above
BY FAR OUR FAVE FASHION POLICEWOMAN: The ever delightful, often whimsical Pam Shriver said of Aleksandra Wozniak, “She’s wearing an orange bottom, a tan top and black underneath. I think she needs to do laundry.” BTW: Shriver was also unsparing of Marion Bartoli, Wozniak’s opponent in the Bank of the West final, who she called “one of the most unfit players on tour. You can only hide a lack of fitness so much.”
‘WOZ’ UP?: Are Caroline Wozniacki and Aleksandra Wozniak women’s tennis’ answer to the once-prominent ATP law firm of Federer, Ferrer, Ferrero & Ferreira?
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN: When Daniela Hantuchova was asked what she would be if she could change herself for 24 hours, she responded, “I’ve always had dreams about being invisible and have a fascination of seeing how people act when they think nobody else is around.”
A TALE OF TWO WTA SITES: So how would you compare the WTA’s back-to-back tournament sites, leafy Stanford and the semi-industrial (down by the oil refinery) Carson? Matt Cronin, who said Carson has the nicest stadium in California, put it this way: “In Carson there is no university feel like you get at Stanford. You cannot smell the student quad or hear the faint sounds of a political science professor who is trying to make sense of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Barack Obama escaping the smoldering summer-school classroom. [And] Carson doesn’t have the leafy Eucalyptus groves either, where fans can take shady strolls in between matches. Such is Stanford’s charm.”
WHAT A WAY TO LOSE: Remember when golfer Michelle Wie blew a potential win at the LPGA State Farm Classic when she forgot to sign her scorecard? Well, by virtue of World TeamTennis’ inventive scoring system, the entire season-ending playoff between the New York Buzz and the Kansas City Explorers this July came down to one sudden-death point, which the Explorers seemingly won when a lunging Dusan Vemic stroked a clear volley winner. The only problem was that the ump immediately noted that before the ball hit the ground for a second time, the Serbian’s foot touched the net. By rule, the point, the match and the season’s championship was won by the Buzz.
SIGN OF THE MONTH: ”WHERE’S ROGER?”
WHERE’S WALDO: After noting that there were eight men’s tournaments in seven countries in two weeks, Bloomberg News asserted that the ATP’s chronic problem is that it has a chronic geographical challenge; there’s “too much of a ‘Where’s Waldo’ syndrome.”
POP-PSYCHE THEORY OF THE MONTH: According to Sports Illustrated, when Chris Evert becomes romantically involved with an athlete, the guy goes on a streak. With Chrissie at his side, Jimmy Connors snared the first three Slam titles of his career; John Lloyd won the only Slam titles of his career; former Olympic skier Andy Mill became one of the world’s best tarpon fishermen; and now Greg Norman, at age 53, nearly won the British Open.
THE REAL-ESTATE SECTION: The Fairmont Tamarack, a high-end Agassi/Graf-backed development in Idaho, has filed for bankruptcy protection…Pete Sampras was asking $25 million for his 10,376-square-foot Hollywood Hills estate (one gym, one tennis court, one guesthouse, five bedrooms, 12 bathrooms), which just sold, but ‘only’ for $23 million. In other Pete real estate news, the $10,000-a-week house he used to rent each year at Wimbledon was owned by a family named Borg. Now Roger Federer rents the same property…Federer recently bought an apartment in Wollerau, a region in Switzerland known for its modest (“millionaires need love, too”) tax rates.
HEADLINES:
One Match Dispels Myth That Tennis Is Dying
The Battle of Wounded Knees
Federer, Peking Duck are Treats of the Village
Playmate Harkleroad Exposed
On Court
The Distress of a Root Canal
Easier Than Facing Santoro
RAFA IN ORBIT: Asteroid 128036 — a four-kilometer-in-diameter planetoid between Mars and Jupiter — has been renamed Rafael Nadal.
WHAT VENUS, SERENA, LINDSAY, KUZNETSOVA, JANKOVIC AND BARTOLI HAD IN COMMON THIS SUMMER: Knee or hip injuries.
CHEAP SHOT: When IT asked Richard Williams about the lingering claims that the outcome of Venus vs. Serena might be a “family decision,” he responded, “We’re the only family who faces that. It’s a cheap shot.”
BELGIAN BUMMER: Asked, in light of the early retirements of Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters, what the state of the women’s game was, Serena quipped, “Well, it’s bad for Belgian tennis. But I think right now the rest of the world is doing great, thank you.”
STATE OF THE GAME: Some argue that the women’s game is doing just fine. Not only are there many dynamic prospects, but the three Slams this year have been won by three charismatic divas: Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic and Venus Williams. But Martina Navratilova begs to differ, contending that women’s tennis “is in kind of a lull because nobody has really stepped up to the plate yet” since Justine Henin stepped down. Imagine Federer quitting; oh, my God, what do you do now? So we lost two giants of the game within like 12 months…and the Williams sisters hadn’t quite played up to par until Wimbledon…the level at the top is not where it will be or where it has been. Sharapova played the best of her career at the Australian and she hasn’t repeated since. Then you have people like Kuznetsova, who has the capability but hasn’t been able to step up…[So] who’s going to step up?
THE I-AM-WOMAN-HEAR-ME ROAR SHOUT-OUT OF THE SUMMER: Russian Alla Kudryavtseva, who beat Sharapova at Wimbledon, claimed, “It’s guys [who]…always say the women’s game is predictable. They always say, ‘You women can’t serve, you don’t go to the net, you can’t slice.’ No, we can do it all. We’re strong. Don’t listen to them.”
70,000 BACKHANDS A WEEK CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH: Martina Navratilova told the Guardian, “Everything [in junior tennis] is getting too serious. Parents don’t want their nine-year-olds to ride a bicycle in case they get hurt and lose a week’s training. For God’s sake! At that age, I played an hour a day. Now they are practicing four or five hours a day, six days a week. It’s all concentrated on…what your ranking is. It is all too planned, too organized. I met a girl recently who said she had spent the week hitting 70,000 backhands. Honestly!”
MOST UNDERATED SENSE OF HUMOR: Sam Querrey.
SENSE OF HUMOR WE MISS THE MOST: Novak Djokovic (and, of course, Goran Ivanovic).
JUST TOO CIVILIZED? You’ve got to love that dignified chair ump who’s committed, experienced, professional, knowledgeable and has plenty of gravitas. But, truth be told, doesn’t her clipped, extremely proper announcing style kind of drain the juice out of all but the most dramatic matches?
MEA CULPA OF THE MONTH: After the Wimbledon final, essayist Bill Simmons (not to be confused with IT’s Bill Simons) reflected on his ‘gotcha’ column in the tennis edition of ESPN the Magazine. The piece trashed tennis by asking, “When was the last time you watched a big match from start to finish?…I don’t have a single friend who’d watch four hours of tennis.” Eventually, Simmons confided that it was “maybe the dumbest column I’ve ever written.”
