POINTS OF WEEK ARCHIVES

THE WILD WOMEN’S GAME

Women's tennis is getting pretty wacky. Virtually no one, including Martina Hingis, would have predicted that she would win her first tournament since her Wimbledon fiasco so easily. First, Venus Williams clears a mental barrier, ending a five-match losing streak against Lindsay Davenport in the semis. Logic would have it that Williams, brimming with confidence, would dismantle the fragile Hingis, who only a month ago could have won a starring role in a remake of ``Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.'' It made sense that the final in California would be Venus' day. But maybe we underestimated Hingis. Or overestimated Williams. Or maybe we should just stop trying to predict pro tennis matches. At any rate, Hingis crushed Williams after demolishing Amanda Coetzer in the semis. Hingis hasn't just come back, she has come back with her best stuff since the Australian Open. Go figure.

--Aug. 8, 1999

PETE GETS ANDRE'S NUMBER

In the first hardcourt tournament of the U.S. summer season, which finished Aug. 1 in Los Angeles, both Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi looked impressive. Sampras ended up the winner by two tiebreaks in the final against Agassi. Sampras he takes over the ATP top spot once again, giving him 271 total weeks as No. 1, which breaks Ivan Lendl's record.

Normally, a tournament like L.A. wouldn't mean much to Andre. But this one comes on the heels of his crushing defeat to Sampras in the Wimbledon final. It is surely very discouraging for Agassi to be playing about as well as he can and still lose. That must be wearing on his mind.

Agassi knows that to defeat Sampras in this hardcourt season he will have to maintain his very high level of play and hope for Sampras to be off a notch. The game is less fun when you feel that things are a bit out of your control.

Sampras has completely recharged his game since June. He has now won three tournaments and 17 matches in a row -- at Queens, Wimbledon and L.A. After doing nothing all year before Queen's, Sampras is all of sudden playing his best tennis in two or three years. We think it's no coincidence that Sampras has not lost a match since Agassi won the French Open. Having to watch Andre get so much glory got Pete's competitive juices pumping like never before. That doesn't mean Andre can't beat Pete this summer. Sampras is capable of some pretty lackluster tennis at times, and it's unlikely he will keep up this level of play for long. If Andre can maintain his focus the way it has been the last couple of months, he could exact revenge at the U.S. Open.

--Aug. 1, 1999

DAVENPORT STRUTS, WHILE VENUS PERFORMS SELF-ANALYSIS

Like Sampras, Lindsay Davenport went into California riding the confidence of a Wimbledon victory. And like Sampras, she beat a tough opponent in the final. Against Venus Williams in the first women's hardcourt event of the year, Davenport won in straight sets. She is already looking very sharp on the hard stuff. Davenport, No. 3 in our Vitartennis rankings, is likely to move up with another tournament win in August.

Meanwhile, Williams showed some unusual frankness in her post-match interview, admitting that she is losing the important points in big matches even though she has enough experience to win them. She expressed frustration with her inability to play clutch tennis and said it had better stop. This is a big step in the right direction for Venus. Often times players will refuse to admit that they choked, or that they didn't play well at crucial times. Jana Novotna is a good example of that. But in that way, choking is tennis' version of alcoholism or drug addiction. That is, you can't recover from it until you admit you have it. So by admitting her shortcomings, Williams has moved closer to overcoming them.

We noticed that Sampras, fresh off a doubles victory with Alex O'Brien in Davis Cup against Australia, entered the doubles in L.A. He and his coach, 36-year-old Paul Annacone, received a wild card into the tournament. Annacone had played exactly one tour match since 1995 (he and Pete played Monte Carlo last year and lost in the first round). We suppose Sampras felt that if he could win a doubles match with O'Brien, he could win with anyone. Or maybe he just wanted to a hit a few more balls before playing singles. At any rate, Peter and Paul lost to Byron Black and Wayne Ferreira in the first round, 6-4, 6-2.

Annacone is not the only coach to dabble in doubles. Agassi played with his coach, Brad Gilbert, in last year's Challenger event in Las Vegas, Agassi's hometown. They actually won a match before losing in the second round. And Michael Chang played doubles with brother/coach Carl last year in Shanghai. They lost in the first round.

We can understand why the tournament organizers give wild cards to folks like Annacone, Gilbert and Carl Chang. It gets Sampras, Agassi and Michael Chang to play doubles, which draws more people to the matches. For the folks of Las Vegas, for example, it's fun to see Agassi on the court, even if it's just messing around in doubles with Gilbert. (Agassi, in a nice gesture to his hometown fans, also played the singles of that Challenger, but lost in the quarterfinals to Marcos Ondruska.) And for fans in Shanghai it must have been a treat to see Michael and out-of-shape Carl knock a few balls around.

But the powers that be in tennis should make sure this doesn't get out of control. Tournament organizers want fans to watch doubles matches, and they complain that doubles isn't shown enough -- or at all -- on TV. They point out that most people who play tennis play doubles, so it should get more TV exposure. Fair enough. But if fans are to take doubles seriously, the game's integrity must be respected. It would be great to see Sampras and Agassi play doubles on the tour more frequently, but when they do, it should be in a serious fashion with active players. Frankly, we'd rather watch the pro-celebrity charity match featuring Robin Williams and Billy Crystal than have to sit through Carl Chang and Brad Gilbert huffing away.

--Aug. 1, 1999

TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR SELES: Monica Seles might not have been 100% during her loss to Sylvia Farina during the U.S.-Italy Federation Cup tie July 23-25. Luckily for the U.S., the Williams sisters, participating for the first time, took care of business.

Seles is, without a doubt, the player for whom we have the most compassion here at Vitartennis. People seem to forget that she suffered a stabbing on the tennis court that if not for a couple of inches could have been fatal. Then she had to watch as her assailant walked free. As she was trying to recover physically and emotionally from the attack, her father was dying of cancer. Seles served as caretaker, translator and everything else for her father. And when he passed away last year, Seles lost not just a father, but her tennis coach -- the man who made tennis fun for her. And just this year, the city where she was born in Yugoslavia was bombed to bits. Everyone else's problems on the men's and women's tours pale compared to Seles' tragedies. While most players are living in a cocooned world, concerned only about practice times and endorsements, Seles has lived a very real and extraordinarily difficult last six years.

At the time of the stabbing, in 1993, the then-19-year-old Seles was the undisputed No. 1 in women's tennis. She had won an astonishing 8 of the previous 9 Grand Slam events in which she had played. She had totally eclipsed Steffi Graf, not to mention Gabriela Sabatini, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Jennifer Capriati. She looked to be on a path to becoming the greatest women's player of all time. People forget that.

The fact that her career was put on hold for more than two years just as she was tearing up the circuit made her stabbing even more tragic. Since then, Seles has won just one Slam, while Graf, the beneficiary of the stabbing, has won 11 Slams since then and is now considered perhaps the greatest of all time. Steffi is great, no doubt. But she certainly would have won fewer titles if Monica had never been stabbed.

Now, at age 25, Seles is losing ground to the youngsters of today's game. She is badly out of shape, and her mental toughness -- her trademark when she was at her best -- comes and goes. This summer will likely determine whether she will still compete for Grand Slams or will fade in the rankings. It's obvious that she needs to get into better physical condition -- and fast -- if she is to remain a contender. We'll be rooting for her.

--July 25, 1999

DAVIS CUP TAKES A TOLL: Gustavo Kuerten simply ran out of gas in the first set of his first match in Stuttgart on July 21. Trailing 5-2 to Magnus Norman, Guga had to retire because of exhaustion. How, one might ask, could he be so tired after just seven games?

It's not that simple. Kuerten had come off a grueling Davis Cup loss to France the previous weekend. In his first match against the French, he played nearly five hours to defeat Sebastien Grosjean. At one point against Grosjean, Kuerten actually cried from a combination of his intense cramping and frustration. We're talking real tears. Though he survived the match, it took a lot out of Guga. The next day he lost his doubles match in straight sets, and on final day of the tie he was taken apart by a much-sharper Cedric Pioline in the match that clinched it for France.

Although the players are often rightfully accused of being whiners, playing Davis Cup -- which doesn't offer rankings points -- can indeed have a negative impact on a player's ranking. The No. 5 Kuerten had won Stuttgart last year, so he will lose a couple of hundred points. He could easily argue that Davis Cup has hurt his chances to finish the year in the top 5. That's not to say that he and other top players shouldn't continue to play Davis Cup. They should. It's good for tennis, and for the players' exposure. But when someone like Sampras says that Davis Cup is a sacrifice, his remarks shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.

--July 21, 1999

FOLLOWING AGASSI'S FOOTSTEPS: Guess who was playing the Safeway Challenger event in Aptos, Calif., last week? Michael Chang. Remember him? He was the No. 2 player in the world less than two years ago. Now he's struggling at No. 59 and feeling like the modern tennis game has passed him by (it has!). Chang was hoping to get the same groove of confidence that Andre Agassi found on the Challenger circuit a couple of years ago. But so far it hasn't worked that way. Chang lost in the semis to 241st-ranked Herel Levy of Israel. Levy ended up losing in the final to Michael Hill of Australia. Hill is the first Aussie to win the tournament since -- believe it or not -- Patrick Rafter, who was too busy kicking U.S. Davis Cup tail to return to Aptos this year. Rafter, by the way, is the man who started Chang's downward spiral with his big upset of Mighty Mike at the 1997 U.S. Open semifinals. It's a small tennis world, isn't it?

FOOT FAULT: It goes to John McEnroe, who whined incessantly about Steffi Graf dropping out of the Wimby mixed doubles. As Mac once said, ``You cannot be serious!'' Steffi was just trying to win her eighth Wimbledon singles crown. No big deal. Mac, you're giving selfishness a bad name.

Because of the rains at Wimby, players had to pile on a lot of matches near the end of the tournament. The mixed doubles was a sideshow, to have some fun. No one was taking it seriously. Lindsay Davenport and Todd Woodbridge defaulted from their scheduled match with Mac-Graf because Davenport didn't want to risk injury while she was still in the singles (and women's doubles). If Davenport had played, Graf and Mac probably would have been knocked out, anyway. In all, there were four walkovers in the Wimbledon mixed doubles. It just isn't very important.

Patrick Rafter dropped out in the late rounds of the men's doubles -- a far more serious event than mixed doubles -- to focus on singles. This is at least the second time he has stood up partner Jonas Bjorkman in a Grand Slam, but you don't hear Bjorkman crying. The top players know that singles is top priority, and everything else is meant as preparation for the singles. Mac is on his own little planet.

IT AIN'T THAT SIMPLE, FOLKS: Wayne Arthurs, who went 111 games without losing his serve at Wimby, went nearly half that long again at the post-Wimbledon grass-court tournament in Newport, R.I., before losing to eventual champ Chris Woodruff in the semis. Arthurs' serve, according to both Andre Agassi (who beat Arthurs at Wimby) and Woodruff, is pretty much the best around. But he is still just a second- or third-tier player. What does that prove? It means that guys like Rusedski, Philippoussis and Ivanisevic, who are often criticized as one-stroke wonders, are getting a bad rap. You can't get to the top 10 with just a serve. Even Rusedski, who seems to be the most-maligned, has a terrific forehand and volleys well.