|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:15:16 GMT -5
Yeah, I totally want to reread these now ;D I'm moving some of our stuff over from the old board, and this is one of those things I loved, hehe. |
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:15:51 GMT -5
Some things never change -- does this sound familiar?  Pgs 61-69 For six months leading up to the Australian, the rhetoric had flown back and forth between the ITF and ATP Tour almost nonstop. Each saw the other as the root of most of the evil in world history. It had taken the ITF a little while to understand what Hamilton Jordan had done when he put together his rebellion in 1988… When the MTC [Men’s Tennis Council] was voted out of existence by the six player/tournament director reps – with the new ATP Tour scheduled to begin on January 1, 1990 – the ITF finally began to understand that it had a problem. For the first time ever, the four Grand Slam tournaments united, forming the Grand Slam Committee, a fancy name for a war council that would take on the players. The Grand Slam Committee’s first act was to hire Bill Babcock, who had been the MTC’s legal counsel, as administrator and point man…He was very bright, very eager, and very willing to knock heads with Jordan and his band of merry men. Babcock started work in the London office of the ITF on July 1, 1989. It didn’t take long for him to get the attention of the ATP – which had now incorporated as the ATP Tour, ceasing to be a players’ union, a fact that went almost unnoticed at the time… The ATP Tour decided to move its season-ending championships out of New York to Germany, a country that hungered for tennis and to spend money on tennis. The Grand Slam Committee decided that if the ATP Tour would hold a $2 million tournament in Germany, it would hold a $6 million tournament in Germany four weeks later. The Grand Slam Cup was born. Players would qualify based on their records in the four Grand Slams. If the ATP Tour had any plans to try to take control of the Grand Slams by threatening a boycott, it might have a little trouble selling the concept to players who not only would be missing a Grand Slam but would be missing the chance to qualify for the most lucrative tournament in history. Message to the ATP Tour: Tennis needs the Grand Slams more than it needs Sydney, Stuttgart, Monte Carlo, and Toronto. . . . Lower-ranked players were upset about the dissolution of the union. Did they have a voice anymore? The Top Ten felt it didn’t have enough representation on the ATP Tour board and council… The Top Ten then decided that Vijay Amritraj, an elegant Indian and one of the few people in tennis who seemed to have no enemies, should represent them. Amritraj was already present of the player council and the tour board, but what the heck, what’s a little conflict of interest among friends, especially in tennis, where those conflicts of interest rarely survive very long? The Grand Slam Committee watched all the squabbling within the ATP Tour with a good deal of amusement. It was further amused when, amid the cries of “United we stand, divided we fall,” several players posted a petition on the locker-room wall, in Paris. Dated November 1, 1989, it read: The undersigned ATP members are disgusted and outraged at the recent developments and decisions undertaken by the ATP Players Council. An explanation is demanded by all as to how certain “paychecks” have been distributed. We all know the potential of the ATP Tour is boundless if ALL people concerned contributed in an unselfish way with the good of the pro-game being the BOTTOM LINE – It seems to the undersigned there is [sic] some serious EGO MANIACS making decisions on our behalf. If the ATP fails it will be because of problems “within” – An explanation please. AND QUICKLY. There was an addendum on page two: Apparently, “the tour board,” after recently being voted into their positions by the ATP Members, have decided to pay themselves US$20,000, plus 1ST CLASS AIRFARES on top of ALL EXPENSES. Is the tour no longer the voice of the players? We feel there is no longer an ATP but a tour un as a company. Do we as players still have a voice? ALSO: Hamilton Jordan has had a pay increase of US$300,000 from US$200,000 to $500,000. AND Hamilton is also involved in attempting to purchase an NFL franchise. Is this a conflict of interest? We need an explanation for all of the above! And Fucking FAST! The undersigned included Robert Seguso, the longtime American Davis Cup doubles star, and several journeyman players: Kelly Evernden, John Fitzgerald, David Pate, Laurie Warder, and Mansour Bahrami. Brad Gilbert’s signature was not on the petition, but there was a note at the bottom for “all interested parties to meet Wednesday night in Brad Gilbert’s room.” The paychecks, the expenses, and the first-class airfare were a reference to Teltscher, Amritraj, and to Larry Scott, the vice-president of the council. Scott was a Harvard graduate who had had a brief fling on the tour before getting involved in tennis politics. He was bright, engaging, and hardworking, but to many of his fellow players he was still a guy who had never really made it out of qualies. So, they reasoned, why should he be flying first class? While not a major insurrection, the petition was certainly a sign that the unity of the “parking lot press conference” was not likely to last. Jordan’s dream of a PGA-style ATP Tour was fading before the first ball had been hit. This was no surprise, really, because even though tennis and golf are individual sports played by very rich men, the similarity ends there. . . . [Jordan] had quickly soured on the players he had led into the revolution. He began making references to the Top Ten as “those selfish assholes”… |
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:16:48 GMT -5
How about some good ol' tanking stories?  pgs 115-117 During the Australian Open, Layendecker had been involved in one of the stranger tanking stories of the year. Sitting in the locker room before his first-round mixed-doubles match match, Layendecker was approached by Alex Antonitsch. Layendecker and his partner, Elise Burgin, were supposed to play Antonitsch and Barbara Paulus. “Listen, Glenn, I’ve got Davis Cup at home in Vienna next week and I’ve got to get out of here tomorrow,” Antonitsch told Layendecker. “I’ve got a flight booked, so I’m tanking and getting out of here.” That was fine with Layendecker; a win was a win. But in the first game of the match, Layendecker felt something snap in his stomach as he went up to hit a serve. He had pulled a muscle. Antonitsch had not bothered to clue Paulus in on his travel plans, so every time Layendecker threw in a patty-cake serve, Paulus rammed it down his throat. Burgen wasn’t playing a whole lot better than the injured Layendecker or the tanking Antonitsch, thus Paulus became the dominant player on the court. “God knows, Antonitsch tried,” Layendecker said. “But we were so bad, he couldn’t lose to us single-handed.” Antonitsch and Paulus won the match, much to Layendecker’s dismay – and embarrassment. Antonitsch then had to come up with an “injury” early the next morning so he could default in the second round and fly home. In all, there were three prematch defaults on the same day in the mixed doubles, which should reveal something about how seriously mixed doubles is taken by many of the players. Tanking comes in many different forms, of course. Antonitsch’s tank was the most blatant – he actually told his opponent he was tanking and why. There are also tanks carried out with an ulterior motive. For example, at the US Open in 1989, Agassi had told a number of players in the locker room that there was no way he was going to play a tournament in Los Angeles two weeks later, even though he had been designated to play there by the Men’s Tennis Council (top-fifty players can be designated to tournaments two times a year). Agassi was still angry with the organizers in LA for not giving him a wildcard three years earlier when he was an up-and-coming player. The week after the Open, Agassi was supposed to play in an exhibition sponsored by the DuPont Corporation, in Florida, an eight-man event – Americans only – called the DuPont All-American. Agassi didn’t want to play. He claimed he had pulled a groin muscle in his Open semifinal loss to Lendl. DuPont is one of Agassi’s sponsors. Phone calls were exchanged. Threats were made. Agassi showed up on Thursday to play his first match against Tim Wilkison – and did everything in his power to lose. The reason? Each week, the deadline for pulling out of the next week’s tournament without incurring a major fine is Friday at noon. If Agassi beat Wilkison he would be scheduled to play again Friday night. He couldn’t very well withdraw from the Los Angeles tournament at noon, claiming an injury, and then play that night in Florida. There was a problem, however. Wilkison had the flu. His skin was green and he kept throwing up during changeovers. Wilkison is known on tour as “Dr. Dirt,” because he will do anything to win. No way was Dr. Dirt going to quit. But he couldn’t play. Try as he might to lose, Agassi was up a set and a service break. Dr. Dirt couldn’t put a ball into play. Agassi had to do something. At 3-1 in the second set, he suddenly broke into a hobble, walked to the net, and took the umpire’s microphone. He then explained to the crowd in great detail how awful he felt to do this, but he had to default. His groin was killing him and he was afraid if he continued he might seriously injure himself. The crowd gave him a standing ovation as he hobbled off. The next day, Agassi withdrew from Los Angeles, keeping the promise he had made at the Open. In the meantime, Dr. Dirt was so sick that his doctor ordered him to stay in bed. He had to default his next match to Jay Berger without hitting a ball. |
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:17:12 GMT -5
*sigh* The way things were...and the reason GWH doesn't like the book so much?  Pg 167 When you think of clay, you think of marathon matches on slow surfaces, players standing behind the baseline, trying to outlast their opponents in long, long rallies; players such as Guillermo Vilas and Manuel Orantes and Ivan Lendl and Mats Wilander and even a couple of Americans who made their mark in the seventies – Harold Solomon and Eddie Dibbs. Michael Chang ended a thirty-four-year drought for American men at Roland Garros in 1989. However, Bjorn Borg, playing a classic clay-court game, won Wimbledon five times. His fellow Swede and Wimbledon champ, Stefan Edberg, also has a classic serve-and-volley game rather than the more European style. Clay is still the dominant surface on the men’s circuit. There are more tournaments played on clay than on anything else. After the French Open is over, the clay-court circuit grinds on in Europe and South America throughout the summer. Many players never play on any surface but clay. Kent Carlsson, a Swede who may have been involved in more horrendously dull matches than any player in history, actually reached the Top Ten while almost never stepping off the clay. |
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:17:38 GMT -5
Chesnokov, Pt. 1: Monte Carlo
Pg 189-191
The other semifinal matched Sanchez against Andrei Chesnekov, the talented Soviet with the great deadpan sense of humor. Chesnokov – Chezzy to everyone on tour – could easily have been a stand-up comic. His English was a good deal better than he liked to let on, although he would occasionally end long speeches in English by looking at his companion and saying, “You understand the language I am speaking?”
In any language, Chezzy was funny. But his postmatch interviews in English had become legendary. Chezzy understood English but was not fluent. When someone asked him a question in English he had to translate it to Russian in his head, grasp it, think of the answer in Russian, translate back to English in his head, and then answer. Often this brought on long pauses. He also had developed an instinctive habit of staring his answer to any question with the words “but no…yes.” A typical Chezzy postmatch interview might go something like this:
Q: Andrei, was the key to the match the way you served?
A: But no…yes…I served very well today…
Q: So then you feel like…
A: But also I know if I get my first serve in I can win. His return is too good to serve second serves all day…
Q: So then you think…
A: But also I know in my next match I will have to serve even better because my second serve is still too weak to beat a good player with…
Q: Andrei, about your prize money…
A: But no…yes. [Chezzy rolls his eyes.] I keep my prize money.
Q: So then you…
A: But also I give some to charity. Lots of charities. Andrei charity, Chezzy charity, disco charity…
And so on. Actually, Chezzy did give a decent-sized chunk of his prize money to charity. A year ago, he announced that he was tired of turning 90 percent of his money over to the Soviet Tennis Federation. By year’s end, after some lengthy negotiations, Chesnokov had been given permission to keep his prize money, as long as he agreed to play Davis Cup and the Olympics for his country. It was similar to Natalia Zvereva’s deal. That made him happy.
Chezzy was never very happy with his tennis, though. He was as fast as anyone in the game, and even though he rarely betrayed emotion on the court, an intense competitor. All week Chezzy had been playing down his chances. After he beat Jaime Yzaga in the third round, 6-2, 6-1, he said he was happy to be in the quarterfinals but didn’t expect to go any farther. When he then whipped Marc Rosset, the six-foot-six-inch Swiss who could easily pass for Harpo Marx, he said he really wasn’t playing well. Someone asked Chezzy how he would get ready for the semifinals.
“But no…yes, I go to disco,” Chezzy answered. “Maybe I loosen up that way.”
About the only thing Chezzy loved better than going to a disco was talking about it. If he spend as much time in discos as he claimed, he never would have beaten anyone. On Saturday he beat Sanchez in a strange three-setter. Sanchez dominated the first set, Chezzy the second. When Chezzy went up 5-3 in the third, he looked to be in control. But as he had done against Becker, Sanchez came back, winning three straight games to go up 6-5. Chezzy held serve to force a tiebreak, then surprised Sanchez by playing attacking tennis throughout the tiebreak. He won it 7-2. Chezzy, like most Soviets, is an excellent chess player. He had outthought Sanchez at the end.
.
.
.
Chezzy, of course, said he had no chance in the final. Muster had hammered Leconte; Chezzy didn’t think he could beat him. “Thomas is playing very, very well,” he said. “But also I think maybe I take him out tonight. Buy him a vodka at disco.”
Chezzy was nowhere near a disco that night. But he played the next day as if he had taken some kind of elixir. Muster dominated the first set, grunting and pounding away on a hot, sunny day made fr him. Down 5-3, Chezzy went to the afterburners. He won four straight games to take the set in seventy excrutiating minutes, then was flawless the last two sets and won, 7-5, 6-3, 6-3. When the two-hour-and-forty-minute match ended, Chezzy threw his arms in to the air, exhausted and thrilled.
The awards ceremony in Monte Carlo is second only to Wimbledon’s in simplicity and dignity. A prepresentative of the royal family, Prince Albert in recent years, comes on court to present the trophies. No speeches, no endless thanking of sponsors. When the trophy has been presented, the flag of the winner’s country is raised above the scoreboard and his anthem is played. During the Soviet anthem, one of the lovliest in the world, Chezzy stood at attention, not rigid or melodramatic, just respectful. He was clearly moved by the moment. He was not alone.
|
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:18:00 GMT -5
Chesnokov, Pt. 2: Roland Garros
Pg 249-254
Chesnokov had come to Paris playing better clay-court tennis than anyone in the world. He honestly felt he could win the tournament, having been a quarterfinalist in 1987 and a semifinalist in 1989. At twenty-four, he was playing the best tennis of his life, and he knew there were no Lendls or Wilanders in his way.
Few people knew how much Andrei Chesnokov wanted to be a Grand Slam champion. His parents divorced when their only child was three, and Andrei grew up in a small Moscow apartment with his mother and grandmother. He began to play tennis at the age of eight, when he was chosen from a physical-education class by a coach named Tatiana Naoukmo to come learn the game from her. Naoumko is still his coach – and best friend – today.
“Right away,” she says, “I could seed this was a special character.”
Tennis was on a downhill curve in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Although Olga Morozva had made the Wimbledon final in 1974 and Alex Metreveli had reached the final of a Wimbledon watered down by a player boycott in the year before, the Soviets had pulled their players off the international circuit. Since tennis wasn’t an Olympic sport, it didn’t seem worth the risks involved in allowing athletes to travel.
Young Andrei hardly cared. “Tennis became a sickness for me,” he said. “I used to ask my coach, when practice was over, if I could please stay and play more. When she sent me home, I would hit balls all over our little apartment. My mother and grandmother always were angry with me. At night, when I went to sleep, I took tennis balls and my racquet to bed with me.”
Like most Soviet youngsters, Chesnokov learned to play chess at a young age. He still plays but says he never became passionate about it. “Everyone in my country plays chess because there are two things we do not have there,” he said. “One is money, the other is space. In chess you do not need either. So everyone plays. I could never sit still long enough to be very good, though. Always, I played tennis.”
When Andrei was nine, Tatiana entered him in his first tournament, the Moscow 12-and-unders. Andrei was so hyper that he rain everywhere, even in between points. He remembers winning a game and running to the other side of the court, grabbing the balls, and getting ready to serve. “Then my coach [he always refers to Tatiana as “my coach”] calls me over and says, ‘Andrei, match is over. You won.’ I was so excited to play, I forgot what the score was.”
By 1981, he was the No. 1 junior in the Soviet Union. Tennis had been voted back into the Olympics, and the Soviets were beginning to let players travel again. In 1984, Chesnokov began playing satellites. One year later, he qualified for the French Open and shocked eighth-seeded Eliot Teltscher in the second round. Few players were even aware of the fact that the Soviets were on tour again. Chesnokov’s win caused a sensation. Even though he spoke little English, he was asked to meet with the press. Someone asked him who his coach was; he answered that it was Tatiana.
That was the wrong answer. The Soviet Federation had sent another coach with him who was supposed to be given the credit for Chesnokov’s play. Chesnokov was informed of his mistake.
After his next match he was asked again about his coaching. Was the gentlemen with him his coach? Some people were wondering by now if he was from the KGB.
“He is my coach,” Chesnokov answered dutifully. But he couldn’t leave it at that. “He is my coach on this trip. Coach who taught me to play is home in Moscow.”
That last sentence earned Chesnokov an invitation to the Soviet embassy in Paris. He was supposed to play a mixed-doubles match that afternoon, but his plans were changed. At the embassy he was informed, in no uncertain terms, that when he was told who his coach was, he had better not say someone else was his coach.
“I knew then that if I am not careful, the road to the West can close anytime,” Chesnokov says now.
That knowledge may explain his often unpredictable behavior during the next few years. As his English improved, Chesnokov became one of the most popular players on the tour. His play was brilliant at times – especially on clay – but rotten at others. The same was true with the media. Sometimes he was a delight; other times he was quiet and somber. He occasionally claimed – falsely – that he didn’t speak enough English to be interviewed without an interpreter.
He cracked the top forty in 1986, slid back during one of his moody periods, but reached the top twenty in 1988. Early in 1989, encouraged by the reforms being made by the Gorbachev government, he signed a personal-services contract with ProServ. No Soviet player had ever taken this step before. ProServ had represented the Soviet Federation from 1986 through 1988, and Chesnokov had been pleased with what the company had done for him.
But in 1989, the federation signed a new deal with IMG. That was when Chesnokov took the step of signing his own deal with ProServ. Zvereva did the same thing several months later. Both then announced, within a couple weeks of each other, that they were tired of turning their prize money over to the federation. For the rest of the year, both were hounded everywhere they went with questions about the money.
“I did not know what was going to happen,” Chesnokov said. “Signing with ProServ was a very dangerous thing to do. The same was true for Zvereva. We both knew we could be cut off at any time. Things have changed at home, but they are still changing – every day. No one knows what will come next.”
In October, just before he was to leave to play a tournament in Basle, Switzerland, Chesnokov was called to a meeting with the Soviet sports committee. The meeting was no in a downtown office where the newly free Soviet media might get wind of it. It was held in a small flat away from prying eyes. This sent a message to Chesnokov that the authorities meant business.
“They give me a paper saying I must turn fifty percent of what I win in Basle and for the rest of year over to them,” he said. “I didn’t want to sign. They told me if I don’t sign, I don’t go to Basle. I signed.”
Exactly what the federation was trying to prove, Chesnokov wasn’t sure. In 1990, he was allowed to keep all his prize money, make his own schedule, and have Naoumko with him on the road. In return, he pays all his own expenses and plays Davis Cup and the Olympics.
“Right now, everything is okay,” he said, twirling his watch, with the word perestroika written on it in English. “It can change anytime, though. Right now I think the government has more things to worry about than Andrei Chesnokov.
Chesnokov’s concern in Paris was winning a tournament he believed he should win. But in the fourth round, he faced Henri Leconte…
Chesnokov knew how tough Leconte would be, and for two sets Leconte was untouchable. The place was electric, the cries of, “Allez Henri!” echoing all around the sun-splashed stadium. But Chesnokov is as tough as any player in the world when down two sets. His opponents all knew they had better get him out in three or he becomes dangerous. Chang is the same way.
Knowing this, Leconte tries too hard. He began going for too much with his shots. Chesnokov won the third set and the murmurs began. When he won the fourth set easily, the place was almost silent. Leconte was doing it again. The ultimate tease. At 2-2 in the fifth set, he dug himself a 0-30 hole. The murmurs were now grumbles. But somehow Leconte escaped. He hit a huge serve to reach 15-30 and then hit the shot of the day, a lunging forehand volley on what looked like a sure Chesnokov winner.
One shot can turn a tennis match around, especially a five-setter. Chesnokov thought he had hit a winner to make it 15-40. Instead, it was 30-all, and Leconte got one more push of adrenaline. The crowd reacted, too, knowing genius when it saw it. Leconte held to lead 3-2. Then, with Chesnokov serving at 3-4, Leconte came up with three straight winners, shots no one was going to touch. Magically, he was up 5-3 and serving for the match. And he served it out. Chesnokov was in shock. He thought he had the match won at two sets all, and then, without warning, Leconte had flicked his racquet a couple of times and Chesnokov’s dream was gone.
|
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:18:50 GMT -5
Here's what Feinstein said about the other prominent Swedes:
Pg 20
Lendl stirred no emotions at all. Neither did Stefan Edberg, the fluid Swede who won back-to-back Australian Opens and then won Wimbledon in 1988. Edberg was the Swedish stereotype personified: totally blond and totally bland, a person who went out of his way to be more boring than he actually was, because he craved his privacy. Mats Wilander, the other brilliant Swede of the post-Bjorn Borg era, was a bright, interesting man, one of the few players whose intellect McEnroe respected. But his game was deadly, especially on clay, where his strategy most often was to bore his opponents to death. Everyone in tennis respected Wilander, but no crowd outside of Sweden was ever moved by his play....
...suddenly the three players dominating the major tournaments were Lendl, Wilander, and Edberg. In 1987, Lendl and Wilander met in both the French and the US Open finals in matches that, if seen in the right places, could have ended insomnia forever.
|
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:22:40 GMT -5
Some other interesting stories  This one is from Wimbledon: Pg 316- 318 Two hours after Grabb had finished off Gomez, McEnroe walked onto Centre Court with Derrick Rostagno. McEnroe had not caught any breaks in drawing Rostagno, a player everyone in the locker room knew was capable of beating anyone, especially if his opponent was unprepared. . . . Rostagno’s view of the world was considerably different than that of most of his fellow pros. He had lived in Germany, Argentina, and Los Angeles growing up and, unlike most Americans on tour, spoke a second language – Spanish – fluently. He had gone to Stanford for two years before deciding to try the tour at the end of 1985. Shortly after turning pro, he won a Challenger event in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. That put him in the top two hundred for the first time in his life. Satisfied with that performance and ready to go home, he decided to skip the satellite that was scheduled to start in Mexico City the next day. He called his parents, told them he was going to come home, and booked a flight to Los Angeles. But when he got on the flight the next morning, he learned that it stopped over in Mexico City. When the plane landed there, Rostagno looked at his watch: It was a little after eight o’clock in the morning. Sign-in for the satellite was 9 am. “I figured, What the heck, maybe I’m meant to play this thing anyway. I got off the plane, went straight to the courts, signed in, and had to play two matches that day because I didn’t get a wildcard into the main draw. “I didn’t get to the hotel to check in until about eight that night. I was exhausted. As I was checking in I looked over and saw a newspaper. There had been a plane crash. I recognized the flight number – it was my flight. It had crashed just after leaving Mexico City. The story said there were no survivors.” Before he even had a chance to think about how close he had come to death, Rostagno thought about his parents. He had never had time to call them to say he wasn’t coming home. He raced to a phone. “When they heard my voice they both started sobbing on the phone,” he said. “They thought I was dead. My aunt had heard a report on the radio, and she had called and asked them if I was flying on Mexicana from Mexico City that morning. They said they thought I was. She said, ‘I don’t want to tell you this but…’ They went through agony that whole day.” It wasn’t until days later that Rostagno – who went on to win the satellite – really had a chance to sit down and think about what had happened. “It was as if someone had said, ‘Here’s a gift,’” he said. “I didn’t go through a life change or anything dramatic like that, but it did make me think about a lot of things. It also helped put a lot of things, like tennis, into perspective.” It was not coincidence that a whim – deciding to get off a plane at the last second and play a tournament – had saved Rostagno’s life. That is the way he is. Once, at a tournament in Florence, he took a job during the week as a motorcycle mechanic, just for fun. When a train strike in Austria left him stranded, he spent a couple of days hitchhiking and taking pictures rather than just renting a car or finding a plane flight. He often travels the tour in a motor home. At twenty-four, Rostagno is about as close to being a flake as you are likely to find in the regimented, everything-must-be-planned world of tennis. He is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Ivan Lendl. He is also one of the more thoughtful people in the game. |
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:23:10 GMT -5
From Newport. Considering the state South African tennis is in nowadays...another case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Pg 356-358
Nine of the thirty-two men in the Newport field were South Africans. Most South Africans are fast-court players. Johannesburg is six thousand feet above sea level; players grow up charging the net to avoid energy-sapping rallies. The typical South African player is a serve-and-volleyer who plays very good doubles and has a game suited to grass.
The men’s tour has always been dotted with South African players (there are a few, but not nearly as many, on the women’s tour), although very few have been consistent Top Ten players. Cliff Drysdale was a consistent Top-Tenner and a finalist at Forest Hills in 1965; Kevin Curren and Johan Kriek both had moments in the Top Ten; Curren was a Wimbledon finalist in 1985, and Kriek won two weak-field Australian Opens in the early eighties.
All three were now American citizens. Drysdale lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, and had become a very successful tennis commentator for ESPN and ABC. Kriek lived in Florida, and Curren in Texas.
The latter two readily admit that their change in citizenship was done strictly for the purpose of convenience. South Africans cannot play in Sweden, Japan, and Canada – all three countries have antiapartheid policies – and traveling on a South African passport is difficult. That would begin to change in 1991. When the subject of apartheid comes up, both Curren and Kriek have always aid that apartheid was wrong. However, they always add quickly, “But you can’t understand what goes on in South Africa if you aren’t from there.”
Tennis officials wish the topic of South Africa and South Africans would somehow go away. For years, the Men’s Tennis Council sanctioned a tournament in South Africa. Every year, players who went there would later be subjected to questions from the media and, sometimes, irate demonstrations from fans around the world.
Players kept going because guarantees were extremely high. Some agents advised their clients not to play in South Africa; others told them what they had been offered – Pat Cash reportedly got $500,000 to go in 1987 – and what the potential consequences of playing there were.
John McEnroe had always refused to play in South Africa – once turning down $1 million offer to play an exhibiton against Bjorn Borg – but most players were willing to go for the right price. When he was sixteen, Becker played there, but has stayed away since. Most of the Swedes won’t play the tournament because of their government’s stance on apartheid.
When the ATP Tour displaced the MTC, it announced it would sanction not one but two tournaments in South Africa. The chairman of the MTC at the time was Ray Moore, a South African who lived in California. His influence in this decision was apparent. The tour was promptly buried in a barrage of criticism and eventually relented. Both South African tournaments were dropped.
The most amusing part of the whole chain of events was then ATP CEO Hamilton Jordan defending the decision to play two tournaments there, saying that “politics and sports don’t mix.” As Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff, Jordan had been the point man for Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Olympics.
“Different circumstances, different times,” Jordan said, looking back a year later. “Sometimes sports and politics have to mix. In the case of South Africa, I didn’t think they had to. We weren’t doing anything different from the MTC by sanctioning a tournament there, so why did we get buried for it?”
The answer was simple: The ATP Tour had promised it would be different from the MTC. It had picked the wrong spot to maintain – or double – the status quo.
With the tournaments off the calendar, the issue became the players themselves. South Africa produced a steady stream of top one hundred singles players and many excellent doubles players, including Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser, who came to Newport as the No. 2 team in the world. The players didn’t like to talk about politics. In fact, most of them asked to be introduced as being from whatever city in the US in which they had a residence. Roslyn Fairbank, the top female player from South Africa, had gotten the WTA to list her as an American citizen – even though she wasn’t. Christo van Rensburg, the highest-ranked South African male, was usually listed as being from Great Neck, NY.
Van Rensburg was the most outspoken of the South Africans on political issues. Most of them shrugged their shoulders when politics came up and said they were interested only in tennis. Wayne Ferreira, a talented eighteen-year-old, said he didn’t even read the newspapers to find out what was happening back home.
“I’m not interested,” he said. “It doesn’t affect me and I can’t do anything about it. I’m a tennis player.”
Van Rensburg was twenty-seven and had been on tour for eight years. He was extremely sensitive to the apartheid issue and had even gone so far as to write a story in The Australian, that country’s national newspaper, during the 1990 Australian Open, trying to explain his position. This came after antiapartheid demonstrations were held during the tournament.
“Apartheid is wrong,” Van Rensburg said. “I think it’s something that is going to be gone fairly soon. Not soon enough, I agree, but we are making progress. I’ve been able to do clinics in black areas the last couple of years, and we’re starting to see some very good young black players. I did a clinic with both blacks and whites in my hometown, and it was terrific. I drove by two hours later and they were all playing together. Five years ago, two years ago, even, that would have been impossible. Our top twelve-and-unders – both boys and girls – right now are black. I think in the next few years, there will be South African blacks on the tennis tour.”
Van Rensburg knew his time was dwindling. He would like to play Davis Cup and the Olympics for his country, although South Africa has been banned from both events. His is hoping the International Olympic Committee will negotiate a return for South Africa in 1992.
“I would love for that to happen,” Van Rensburg said. “My country is flawed, but I still love it and I would love to play for South Africa. What bothers me is that people around the world judge me not for who I am but for where I’m from. I don’t think that’s fair.”
For the most part, South African players keep to themselves on tour, socializing together, almost always playing doubles together. Van Rensburg, who had played doubles for years with Paul Annacone, was an exception to this rule. So was Gary Muller, a flamboyant, long-haired blond who lived in Los Angeles, dated an actress, and usually flounced around the court with his sleeves pushed up to his shoulders so all the world could see his biceps.
|
|
|
|
Post by TennisHack on Feb 28, 2007 23:23:50 GMT -5
Okay, here's something I completely disagreed with him about. I really resent his description of the final months of the season, his implied backhanded compliment of "tennis people"  and his idea that "lower class" players are only scrabbling for money at the end of the year. This will be the last passage I'll post because I have to return the book tomorrow. There were lots more I wanted to post up but I guess I'll have to wait til I can find a cheap copy online Pg 433-434 Epilogue After the US Open, the tennis tours slog on – and on and on and on. Indoor tournaments abound for both men and women. There is plenty of money to be made, from Sydney to Tokyo to Stockholm and back to Brisbane – if one desires. The people who manage the sport work extremely hard to keep interest alive. There are constant updates on the “race to the championships” – the Virginia Slims Finals in New York for the women, the ATP Finals in Frankfurt for the men. The latter made its debut in 1990, replacing the Masters, which had been the men’s season-ender for twenty years until the death of the Men’s Tennis Council. Tennis people kept close track of all these races, and there was no doubt that many of the indoor tournaments drew excellent fields. The Paris Indoor event, at the end of October, offered almost $2 million in prize money and may have had the strongest field of any tournament in the world, with thirty-seven of the top thirty-eight men entered. But the moment the US Open champion holds the trophy over his head, the game’s electricity is gone until January. The titles that matter have all been won. The only thing at issue during the last ten weeks is money, and in the 1990s, money is no longer a motivator for the top tennis players. It might as well be Monopoly money to then. At year’s end, the ATP Tour fined Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, and Andre Agassi severely for failing to meet their tournament commitments for the year – more than $100,000 for Lendl and Agassi and about $85,000 for Edberg. The response from the players was a collective yawn. Any of them can make twice that from a guarantee in one week. Lendl and Edberg probably made $500,000 apiece in guarantees during the fall. Agassi made less only because he played less. His need for money was put into focus when he fought likea cat to avoid playing in the ITF’s Grand Slam Cup, in which the top prize was $2 million. Show up, you get $100,000. Win a match, you get $300,000. Two matches, $450,000. Three matches, $1 million. Sorry, Agassi said, not interested. The year-ending champions can provide intrigue. In 1990, the Virginia Slims championships were full of excellent matches and a fair amount of drama, topped off by a superb five-set final won by Monica Seles over Gabriela Sabitini. The men went to Frankfurt, with Boris Becker still having an outside shot to catch Stefan Edberg for the No. 1 ranking on the computer (which he finally did in 1991, by winning the Australian Open). Edberg clinched No. 1 in 1990, but lost the final to Agassi. All worthy of note. But only – only – if they provided clues as to who would succeed in next year’s Grand Slams. Because no matter how much tennis people want to think otherwise, only the Grand Slams keep the game legitimate. With all the under-the-table money, the over-the-table money, and the sponsor deals, the only thing motivating the great players to stay at the top of their game is the Grand Slams. Ion Tiriac put it best: “Do you think people someday will writer about Nastase that he won the Masters four times? Of course not. They will write that he won Roland Garros and the US Open. And they will say, How could he not win Wimbledon even one time?” The bottom line is that the Masters or the ATP Championships or the Virginia Slims Finals are all just extensions of Philadelphia, Barcelona, Tokyo, and Sydney. And, as Pete Sampras put it so eloquently after winning Philadelphia, “No one remembers who wins Philadelphia.” The autum in tennis, then, is a long, lucrative march through Philadelphia. The sport’s upper class is thinking only about next year. The middle and lower classes continue to scuffle for ranking and money. To them, the fall tournaments represent an extra opportunity; the top players are more vulnerable in the fall, the matches that really matter being behind them. Even as the money accumulates, almost everyone is thinking about the long plane flight to Australia in January, a trip from the ice of winter to the hot sun Down Under. It is the tennis version of baseball’s spring training. A new beginning, when everyone thinks this will be his year. |
|
and his idea that "lower class" players are only scrabbling for money at the end of the year.