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Wednesday, November 11, 2009 06:35 PM

Agassi's book: Opening 'Open'

One thing is plain in reading Andre Agassi’s new book Open, which was released on Monday: what happens off the court in the personal lives of players significantly affects what happens on the court in matches.

Tennis isn’t a team sport like hockey or basketball where a 10 or 20 per cent dropoff in a player’s performance can be camouflaged by the individual being part of a greater whole.

In Agassi’s case, his crystal meth use, his relationship with his first wife Brooke Shields, the breast cancer that affected his mother and sister Tami at the same time, his own and other friends’ health issues, and his growing infatuation with the woman who was to become his second wife, Steffi Graf, all were huge factors in explaining the ups and downs of his results on the ATP Tour.

After reading the excerpts from Open that have come out leading up to this week’s publication – about drug use, about his traumatic relationship with his father, about his hatred for tennis, about his agonizing back problem is his last years on tour – the book itself can seem mildly anti-climactic. But it is a very good autobiography that touches on all stages of his life on and off the court.

It is especially good on his early life in tennis, his ill-fated relationship and marriage to Shields and his persistent and ultimately successful courtship of Graf.

There are some seemingly mean-spirited asides in the book, such as the way he describes how the relatively obscure German player Bernd Karbacher is bow-legged and “his ass is chapped,” and how “I leave him standing there like a Jehovah’s Witness on my doorstep” about Boris Becker waiting at the net for a post-match handshake.

As well, there is the frequent, sometimes jarring, use of the f-word in various forms in describing the inner conversations he has with himself. This particularly odd if he intends, as is implied, that the book is partly to be a record for this children, Jaden and Jaz, eight and six respectively, to read later in life.

Not surprisingly, because his co-author J.R. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize winner, Open is well written. At times, it is clear that it is Moehringer’s prose and turns of phrase that come through, even if Agassi has an undeniable ability to be eloquent on his own.

About the crowd for his first-round match at the 1999 French Open, the book reads, “There were sixteen thousand people in the stands, screaming like peasants overrunning Versailles.”

Also, the books later describes Roger Federer “with his suave agility, his shot-making prowess and puma-like smoothness.” Those sound a lot more like Moehringer’s words than something written by “double A,” as Agassi used to be known.

If the content of the book is virtually 100 per cent Agassi, then the style, feel and flow of the writing has to be at least 90 per cent Moehringer.

In the ‘Acknowledgments’ at the very back of the book, Agassi writes, “I asked J.R. many times to put his name on the book. He felt, however, that only one name belonged on the cover. Though proud of the work we did together, he said he couldn’t see signing his name to another man’s life.”

Still, it seems wrong that there is no sign of Moehringer’s name anywhere in the book except for in the “Acknowledgements.”

But all in all, prospective readers, especially those of the more hardcore tennis variety, will be pleased that the book focuses on the sport enough that it cannot be classified as a sell-out to the more sensationalist sides of Agassi’s tumultuous trek through life.

AD-IN

There are a couple of odd references to ‘Canadians’ in the book. Talking about the time he was defaulted in Indianapolis in 1996 for using obscenities against Daniel Nestor, the Torontonian is described as “Daniel Nestor, a Serb from Canada.”

A few pages later, about a loss in San Jose in 1997, he writes, “I falter in the semis against Greg Rusedski from Canada.” That was two years after the former Montrealer left for Britain.

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Monday, November 9, 2009 11:39 AM

Agassi opens up on CBS

After all the talk flying around about Andre Agassi since the revelation last week that he took the recreational drug crystal meth for much of 1997, and then lied about it to officials when he tested positive, the essence of his highly-publicized appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday came down to the last few images of the item he did with interviewer Katie Couric.

They were of the children, in caps and gowns, during the first ever high school graduation ceremony of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas.

Anyone looking at those children, from a disadvantaged area of Agassi’s hometown, all of whom were reported to be going on to college, would have to say that what Agassi has done in starting that school vastly overshadows the human fallibility he showed by taking crystal meth and then lying about it.

Put simply, he is like many professional athletes who have fallen for the temptation of recreational drugs, but he is unique in giving back to the community in a way that will so directly improve the lives of the 623 kids at his school. His foundation has raised $140 million (U.S.) to build and run the school, something that looks awfully good on a man who didn’t go past grade nine himself.

Couric’s interview touched on several of the hot topics in Agassi’s new book ‘Open,’ done with Pulitzer prise winning writer J.R. Moehringer, that have appeared in excerpts ahead of its release on November 9.

Agassi talked about hating tennis, something that went back to his childhood when his domineering father Mike drilled him mercilessly in hopes of making him a champion. That feeling was described as being “a deep part of my life for a long, long time.”

The drug use was attributed to being “in a life I didn’t want to be in,” as well as being conflicted about his pending marriage to actress Brooke Shields.

Maybe the most touching moments involved his father and the criticism that has recently come from some of his tennis peers, specifically Martina Navratilova, regarding his drug use and subsequent lie about it.

When he phoned his father from the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida at age 16 to ask him if he should turn pro, Agassi said about the response, “it was like ‘hello, who am I talking to? What are you going to be – a doctor? You don’t go to school – take the money and turn pro.’ While he was right, and I probably knew I would make that choice anyhow, I just didn’t quite like the way he put it.”

Agassi, 39, teared up when Couric mentioned Navratilova’s criticism, particularly that she had compared him with disgraced baseball pitcher Roger Clemens. “When a person takes a performance inhibitor (as opposed to performance enhancer), a recreational drug,” he said, “the one thing that I would hope is, not that there aren’t rules that need to be followed, but along with that would come some compassion. That maybe the person doesn’t need condemnation, maybe this person could stand a little help. I had a problem and there might be a lot of athletes out there that test positive for recreational drugs that have a problem. So I would ask for some compassion.”

Agassi also spoke about the 1990 French Open final when he claims he spent the match worrying that a hair weave he was wearing, which had come apart the day before when he took a shower, would come off. It all sounds humorous now, but in it there was an element of disrespect to Andres Gomez of Ecuador, who won that final and became a national hero in his homeland.

In storybook fashion, Agassi cited falling in love with tennis great Steffi Graf, whom he calls Stefanie, as something that has helped redress his hatred for his sport. “When Stefanie came into my life,” he said, “I realized that tennis gave me her. That in itself... the scoreboard was getting more balanced and gave me reasons to appreciate it.”

Couric didn’t mention the reported $5 million (U.S.) advance he received for the book, but did ask him if he regretted being so honest about his drug use, given some of the reactions. There were equal parts candour and calculation in Agassi’s response: “It wasn’t an option for me to write a book about my life and leave out the central points of it – one of the turning points of it. It certainly it wasn’t an option to write a book called Open and not be.”

AD-IN: During television coverage of last week’s ATP 500 event in Valencia, Spain, Tommy Robredo went wide for a ball to his backhand side and, in a desperate effort to reach it, transferred the racquet to his left hand as is sometimes done by Maria Sharapova.

Commentator Jason Goodall remarked, “Robredo is doing his Sharapova...but he does not look quite as nice is a dress though.”

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Sunday, November 8, 2009 11:39 PM

Dwarfed by Nadal and Federer

Novak Djokovic is the forgotten man of the Big Three of men’s tennis, dwarfed by the holy duality of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

But since the middle of August, he has been the most consistent player on tour, going 19-3 at Cincinnati, the US Open, Beijing, Shanghai and, this week, in Federer’s hometown of Basel.

His only losses have been twice to Federer – Cincinnati final and the US Open semis – and to Nikolay Davydenko in the semis of Shanghai. He lost that one 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) to the inexorably efficient Russian, battling as best he could despite playing his ninth match in 11 days – he had won the Beijing event the previous week.

On Thursday in Basel, he recorded the fifth “double bagel” on the ATP tour in 2009, defeating No. 59-ranked Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-0.

In the final game, he showed his sense of fair play by conceding a Hernych ace, which had been called out at 15-30, by simply walking over to the deuce side to play the next point.

Afterward, at the net, Djokovic didn’t offer any bogus “aw shucks” sympathy, or smile at Hernych, feigning compassion. There was just a business-like clasping of the hands that appeared in no way to reference the one-sidedness of the contest. “It’s hard to talk about a 6-0, 6-0 result,” he said later. “The win is what counts. He didn’t play very well today. Actually he made a lot of unforced errors and didn’t put any pressure on me, so I just kind of cruised through the match.”

Djokovic started 2009 by trying unsuccessfully to defend his Australian Open title. He was beaten by Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals when he had to retire because of heat-related issues.

The Serb, 22, had been complaining a lot at the time about his trouble adjusting to his new Head racquet after accepting a big-bucks deal to switch from his former Wilson model.

But he has gradually got back his old form and posted a tour-best 68 wins, which includes titles in Dubai, Belgrade (an event owned by his family) and Beijing. He has also regained the No. 3 ranking from Andy Murray.

In keeping with his reputation for being fun-loving and mischievous, Djokovic memorably declared in Shanghai three weeks ago, “nothing, nothing, nothing is better than sex. It is what God created us to do.”

While he looked strangely resigned in his losses to Federer in Cincinnati and at the US Open, lately there has been a renewed confidence and spark in his game. It indicates that things could be different if he is to meet the great Swiss in Sunday’s final, even if it’s in front of the Federer faithful at an event where he used to be a ballboy.

The one-year suspension to US Open semi-finalist Yanina Wickmayer, announced on Thursday by a Belgian anti-doping tribunal, brought to mind a story Daniel Nestor told during Flushing Meadows. Wickmayer, who can appeal, was suspended for not making herself available for three different drug tests.

Nestor recalled how this past summer, after being awake at about five o’clock in the morning with his seven-month old daughter, he took his phone off the hook to try to get some sleep.

A representative of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) drug testers showed up at his downtown Toronto condominium but could not reach him by phone. He was disappointed that the representative stayed in the lobby and did not make the effort go up to his condo and knock on the door.

The result: Nestor has one mark against his record for not being available for testing. He is only

allowed a total of three before being suspended.

Mike Bryan, half of the top-ranked Bryan brothers doubles team, has twice failed to be available for ITF drug testing. Once, according to him, it happened when he got up early and went out to have breakfast at an eatery in his hometown of Camarillo, Calif.

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Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:23 AM

Finally, some respect for the scribes

From the ink-stained wretches of forty years ago to the keyboard-tapping zombies of the modern era, there has been an impressive stream of sports reporters through the press box at Jarry Park stadium in Montreal.

They covered the beloved Expos baseball team from 1969 through 1976, but since 1980 it has been tennis that been played out below the creaky crescent-shaped balcony atop the west end of what is now known as Uniprix Stadium.

Anyone curious about the working conditions of Montreal baseball writers way back in 1969 need only take at look at the current quarters used by reporters covering tennis. They are almost unchanged – and there’s the rub. The old Jarry Park press box is clumsy, cramped and crowded, and in need of a serious makeover.

About 10 years ago, the ATP tour threatened Tennis Canada with losing the sanction for its men’s event in Toronto if the York University facility there was not brought up to the standards of other North American Masters Series events – i.e. Cincinnati, Miami and Indian Wells, Calif.

Tennis reporters at the Montreal tournaments don’t have that kind of leverage but would surely like to not have to contort their bodies just to get into their seat, trying to find a position that is suitable for working once they are wedged into rickety chairs in the front row or perched on awkward bar stools in the second row.

Prominent names in Canadian sports journalism, and man-sized guys to boot, Rejean Tremblay, Pat Hickey and Mario Brisebois will be happy to learn that change is finally on the horizon.

Tennis Canada hopes to rebuild the press box as part of a $12-million renovation that could begin as soon as after the women’s Rogers Cup event next August.

There was a presentation made to Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay in March, and the plan is to have the project financed with $1.6-million from Tennis Canada, $1.6-million from the City of Montreal as well as $4.3-million from both the federal and Quebec governments.

Included in the overall construction plans are the building of four clay courts, a restaurant/storage area at one end of the Banque National Court showcourt, a photographers’ pit in Uniprix Stadium and other renovations including an upgrading of the main stadium’s luxury suites.

But there remains one thing that reporters do not want to see changed – namely the longstanding practice of having the press-box fridge stocked with beer at about 6 p.m. every day. It’s a pick-me-up that doubles as a camaraderie booster for the hard-slogging members of the fourth estate .

Sadly, the tradition has never been copied in the media centre at the tournament in Toronto.

Vive la difference.

And furthermore

It was a streak – four losses in a row – unbecoming of a man, Daniel Nestor, who is co-No. 1 in the ATP’s individual doubles ranking. It ended on Tuesday at the ATP 500 event in Basel, Switzerland, when Nestor and co-No. 1 Nenad Zimonjic defeated Lucas Arnold Ker and Fernando Gonzalez 4-6, 6-3, [10-5].

Since the changes (except for Grand Slam events and Davis Cup) in doubles to no-ad game scoring, and a champions tiebreak instead of a third set, Nestor has often said he finds the game has become much more of a crapshoot.

Oakland-based tennis writer Matt Cronin reports that Maria Sharapova, 22 and 6-foot-2, has a new boyfriend. He is Los Angeles Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic of Slovenia, 25 and six foot seven.

Sharapova apparently has moved on from film business type Charlie Ebersol, son of Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports.

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Monday, November 2, 2009 10:29 AM

Tough week for the women

The women’s tennis year will be put out of its misery this week with the final two events on the calendar – a sort of best-of-the-rest 12-woman tournament in Bali, Indonesia, for players who won lower-tier WTA Tour events, and the Fed Cup final in Reggio Calabria, Italy, between the host nation and the United States.

For the top players, the year effectively wrapped up with the Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar, which concluded on Sunday when Serena Williams defeated her sister Venus 6-2, 7-6(4) to take home a champion’s cheque of $1.55-million (U.S.).

That brought to an end a week that was as much casualty ward as competitive tennis.

Four of the 10 players involved (both alternates were called on to replace injured players from the original field of eight) – Dinara Safina (back), Victoria Azarenka (thigh), Caroline Wozniacki (abdomen) and Vera Zvonareva (ankle) – had to withdraw from matches. At various times, four players – Safina, Wozniacki, Zvonareva and Azarenka – were suffering and in tears on the court.

While neither Serena nor Venus lost their composure, or had to retire from a match, both were also ailing. Serena had wraps and/or tape on her left thigh, left wrist, abdomen and ankle, while Venus had a left knee problem that required a large wrap for Sunday’s final.

The end of the tennis year has, regrettably, become a survival-of-the-fittest exercise.

One of the problems at the tour championships is that the top eight in the rankings qualify and then play against each other for either five of six days (six players in the field) or five of five days (two players) if they make it to the final. It’s a gruelling schedule with the best playing the best with virtually no days off between matches – unlike the Grand Slams where there is almost always a rest day between rounds.

One simple solution would be to extend the event by a day, allowing the two groups of four in the round-robin phase to play on a day-on, day-off basis.

This year, Wozniacki played and won two three-hour matches in the heat of Doha on consecutive days, and had nothing left the next day (Friday) when she lost 6-2, 6-2 to Jelena Jankovic, aggravating an abdominal strain that forced her to retire against Serena in Saturday’s semi-finals. A day off between matches might have allowed the Dane, 19, to recover enough to continue.

It is also disappointing that this weekend’s Fed Cup comes down to a grand finale between singles players (rankings in brackets) Melanie Oudin (47) and Alexa Glatch (136) for the U.S. and Flavia Pennetta (11) and Francesca Schiavone (17) for Italy on the red clay in Reggio Calabria.

Venus did not make herself available and Serena, before her semi-final with Wozniacki on Saturday, pulled out, claiming she was too exhausted to play. She and Venus were the only players who could have added some real star power to an event that should be right behind the four Grand Slam tournaments in terms of prestige.

Finally, here’s a thought. The season-ending Championships in Doha managed to attract the top eight in the world, but there were four players absent who probably would have drawn more attention had they been competing in an event of their own – and all four are slated to be in the 2010 Australian Open. They are Maria Sharapova (still getting up to speed after shoulder surgery), Ana Ivanovic (poor results in 2009), Kim Clijsters (only played four events on her 2009 comeback) and Justine Henin, who is set to rejoin the tour in January in Australia.

Who would not bet that those four together would draw better crowds than the marquee names in Doha, basically just the Williams sisters, and maybe Jankovic?

Roger Federer, playing for the first time in five weeks since Davis Cup the weekend following the US Open, is on the schedule for Monday’s opening day of the ATP 500 event in his home town of Basel, Switzerland, taking on old junior pal Olivier Rochus of Belgium. The great Swiss would generally not play on the first day but, at 28 and considering his recent back troubles playing on hard courts (the surface in Basel), he obviously requested the early start because he’s looking to get some rest during the week – i.e. two days off before Saturday’s semi-finals if all goes as he hopes it will.

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Friday, October 30, 2009 10:58 AM

Some thoughts on Agassi's admissions

A common thread in the reactions of the American sports media about this week’s revelations that Andre Agassi used crystal meth in 1997 has been “why?” Why would he go public, in his “OPEN: An Autobiography,” with the information that he used the stimulant drug and then lied to an ATP tribunal to avoid getting a three-month suspension after testing positive?

Many will believe that money – sources have quoted $5-million (all currency U.S.) as the advance he received for the book – is the reason that he has come clean.

Pete Sampras, Agassi’s long-time rival and a superior champion though not nearly as charismatic a character, likely received no more than $1-million for his book “Champion’s Mind,” published last year. In it, Sampras documented his evolution as a player but there was no mention whatsoever of his love life – nothing about Delaina Mulcahy, the older woman whom he dated for six years beginning shortly after he won the U.S. Open as a 19 year old in 1990, and nothing about Kimberly Williams, the “Father of the Bride,” Hollywood actress who was his girlfriend and watched from the friends seats at Wimbledon when he won his fourth title there in 1997.

For a $5-million or thereabouts price tag, it was clear Agassi would have to divulge a lot more than just the subtleties of his remarkable ball-striking ability and a few war stories about his tournament triumphs.

While it is unlikely he needs the money, not all of Agassi’s ventures have been successful since he retired in 2006. He was the front man for a planned resort development in Idaho and did ‘touchy-feely” TV adds promoting the bucolic and family-friendly virtues of the project.

It subsequently fell through and he withdrew his commitments.

Agassi has always been very generous with his family members and friends, and an exemplary role model for a pro athlete giving back to the community with his Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in his hometown of Las Vegas, so an extra $5-million can undoubtedly be put to good use.

Beyond the money, there are compelling reasons why he would make the revelation of his drug use, and then lying about it, at this time.

As a deeply religious person, it allows him to cleanse his soul.

There is also the fact that at some point the story of the positive drug test, and his ensuing lie to cover it up, might come out. It is wiser to get it out there on his own terms.

Similarly, Agassi and wife Steffi Graf’s children, Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle, are currently eight and six years old respectively. It is surely better for this information to be made public now rather than in 10 years when they would be at a much more vulnerable age.

Past experience shows, despite individuals such as Boris Becker and others claiming to shocked by Agassi’s drug use and bewildered he would go public about it, that people tend to forgive and forget.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion (one less than Agassi) Mats Wilander tested positive for cocaine in 1995 and subsequently served a three-month suspension. Today, he is one of the most beloved and respected past champions in the game.

Likewise, Martina Hingis’s positive test for cocaine in 2007 and Jennifer Capriati’s troubled times with drugs recede into the past and are replaced by memories of their heroic accomplishments on the court.

A mere eight months ago Alex Rodriguez was disgraced when the news came out that he had used steroids in the past. Today, he is riding high as the New York Yankees play in their 40th World Series and all is forgotten, and maybe even forgiven.

Andre Agassi’s life story has all the elements of high drama, as people will learn in OPEN, destined to be a best seller. It is to be released on November 9, the day after he appears on CBS’s 60 Minutes, a show that will surely get huge ratings.

Meanwhile. . . on Friday at the ATP 250 tournament in Lyon France, seven of the eight quarter-finalists were Frenchmen – Serra, Gicquel, Llodra, Benneteau, Simon, Clement and Tsonga. Veteran Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia was the lone foreign interloper.

It’s the first time seven Frenchman have reached the quarter-finals of an ATP event. In 1991, all eight quarter-finalists at the ATP tournament in Orlando, Fla., were Americans.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:39 AM

Santoro reconsidering retirement

Reporters aren’t usually part of the story, but I guess I can take some credit for this one.

On Tuesday, after he was beaten at the ATP event in Lyon, France, Fabrice Santoro admitted that, after saying he would retire at the end of this year, he is reconsidering and may play the Australian Open in January.

Already the holder of the record for the most Grand Slam events played in the open era (1968-2009) with 69, if he enters the 2010 Australian Open he will have played a Grand Slam in four different decades. Santoro, whose double-handed wizardry prompted Pete Sampras to dub him the “Magician,” played the French Open in 1989, making his Roland Garros debut as a 16 year old. Though he has now played 45 Grand Slams in a row, he missed 14 earlier in his career. So, his current total could have been considerably higher.

I did a story on Santoro during this year’s French Open and, noticing that his first Grand Slam had been in 1989, realized that if he continued playing through the 2010 Australian Open he would have competed in Grand Slams in four different decades. A few days later, I saw him near the players restaurant and told him about it. He listened with a certain amount of interest to what I said but did not seen too convinced about going to Australia.

On Tuesday, after losing 6-4, 6-4 to Albert Montanes in Lyon, Santoro, who turns 37 in December, told French reporters, “It’s true, I’ve been thinking about Australia since a Canadian journalist put that idea in my head. But if I’m going to go to Australia in January, that means I can’t go skiing in December, it means I would have to train as I have every winter for the last 20 or 30 years. I don’t like to take tournaments lightly and not be prepared when I get there. Australia is not a tournament you can take lightly.

“I might take a little peek there in January. The record of playing Grand Slam tournaments over four decades is so remarkable that it even makes me want to spend another 45 hours in a plane for the return trip again.”

Santoro’s creative, clever tennis has been a treat for fans all over the world. One last tip of the cap in Australia, where he won the doubles title twice (2003, 2004) and reached his only Grand Slam singles quarter-final (2006), would be a big hit with tennis fans Down Under.

My favourite memory of Santoro, currently ranked No. 53, was his second-round match against Roger Federer in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the 2005 US Open. It was a magical night when the players and fans alike shared in the pure delight of glorious shot-making. Everyone knew, including the two players who are good friends, that Federer would win – and he did 7-5, 7-5, 7-6(2). But for two hours and 17 minutes the crowd was enraptured by the spirit and spectacle of the match unlike any I have ever seen.

One last thing, when I spoke to Santoro at the French Open, I also suggested that finishing his career having played a record 70 Grand Slams tournaments was a nice round figure and sounded more impressive than 69.

Ana on camera: From the “sometimes you gotta wonder” file comes this picture of Ana Ivanovic. Apparently, according to her official website, it was taken by “renowned fashion photographer” Lorenzo Agius.

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Monday, October 26, 2009 11:34 AM

Women's year to close. . . sort of

There is an old adage that says, “a woman is never in a hurry and a man is never surprised.”

It doesn’t apply to women’s tennis and the Sony Ericsson Championships, which begin in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday.

By having its season-ending championships finish on November 1, the WTA Tour is clearly in more of a rush to wrap up the year, a full four weeks before the men’s ATP World Tour Finals come to a conclusion in London on November 29.

But nothing is ever quite that straightforward in tennis, so it has to be added that the women’s calendar does have another week next week – a new, sort of best-of-the-rest event involving 12 players ranked roughly from 10-25 called the Tournament of Champions in Bali, Indonesia, as well as the Fed Cup final with the United States travelling to Reggio Calabria, Italy, to play outdoors on red clay.

This week’s $4,550,000 (all currency U.S. dollars) Sony Ericsson Championships, with a potential $1,550,000 to the winner if she wins all her round-robin matches, will also decide the No. 1 ranking for 2009.

After a full year of tournaments, it comes down to Dinara Safina vs. Serena Williams – with Safina having just this week regained the top spot when the points from last year’s Sony Ericsson Championships came off the rankings computer. In 2009, Williams won one match and Safina none in Doha.

Safina now has 155-point lead (7731 to 7576), meaning that Williams must outperform Safina, whether it’s one match better in the round-robin portion (with each win worth 160 points) or in the ensuing semi-finals and final to finish the year at No. 1 for the first time since 2002.

With the elite eight players divided into two groups of four headed by Safina and Williams for the round-robin preliminaries, the luck of the draw has certainly gone Safina’s way. Here are the two groups with the players’ rankings in brackets.

WHITE GROUP MAROON GROUP

Dinara Safina (1) Serena Williams (2)

Caroline Wozniacki (4) Svetlana Kuznetsova (3)

Victoria Azarenka (6) Elena Dementieva (5)

Jelena Jankovic (8) Venus Williams (7)

Despite being in a seemingly tougher group, Williams will still be favoured, mainly because Safina has gone through a tortured few months – winning just three matches at her previous four tournaments, and going down (the worst loss ever for a No. 1) to a No. 226-ranked Zhang Shuai of China at her last event in Beijing three weeks ago.

At the 2008 Sony Ericsson Championships, Ana Ivanovic and Serena Williams withdrew with injuries before the end of round-robin competition. With the number of injury retirements recently at WTA Tour events, the outcome in Doha may turn out to be more a matter of "last woman standing" than which one is playing the best tennis.

Good call

The on-screen TV graphics at the WTA Tour event in Luxembourg last week were done with noteworthy discretion. For the point-by-point scoreboard during games, the abbreviated graphic, located in the corner of the screen, used just three letters from the surnames of the players involved.

It looked like the examples below for matches involving Shahar Peer against Daniela Hantuchova in the quarter-finals and Peer against Sabine Lisicki in the semi-finals:

PER

HAN

and

PER

LIS

Obviously, someone thought the better of using the first three letters in Peer’s name.

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Friday, October 23, 2009 11:58 AM

Women take a back seat to men

It may be tennis’s favourite parlour game – could the No. 1 woman in the world beat some of the top men’s players?

It came up again this week in Jon Wertheim’s Tennis Mailbag on SI.com when a reader e-mailed, citing current No. 42-ranked John Isner’s claim that the No. 1-ranked woman would lose to anyone in the top 800 of the ATP rankings.

The reader, “Ruthie from Charlottesville, Va.,” wrote, “I think Serena (Williams, the current No. 1) would certainly beat Gaston Gaudio these days...”

Wertheim, one of the finest tennis writers in the English language and author of the superb “Strokes of Genius” book about the Federer-Nadal final at Wimbledon in 2008, replied to Ruthie, “I don’t want to impugn Gaston Gaudio (the 2004 French Open champion who is 30 and ranked No. 193 despite playing sporadically) here, but like you, I think Serena has a chance against a male outside, say, the top 200.”

It may not be the best week to reference Gaudio because he is into the quarter-finals of a Challenger event in Florianopolis, Brazil, but he, or virtually any other of the 1,801 men ranked in singles on the ATP computer, would beat Serena or Dinara Safina or Kim Clijsters or whoever is No. 1 in the women’s rankings.

In her day as the women’s No. 1 some 30 years ago, Chris Evert’s younger brother John, who was a decent college player at Vanderbilt University, could beat her.

Currently, as Wertheim mentions, U.S. Open sensation Melanie Oudin, 18 and ranked No. 48, loses to her boyfriend Austin Smith, who is 16 and just a good junior player.

Even Serena, not that long ago, admitted she could not beat one of her hitting partners.

In 1998 at the Australian Open, the No. 203-ranked Karsten Braasch, an eccentric (he smoked) German with an unorthodox left-handed game, defeated Venus Williams (then ranked No. 5) 6-2 and Serena (No. 20) 6-1 in single sets played on an outside court at Melbourne Park. Granted Serena was 17 and Venus 18 at the time, but Braasch admitted that he did not serve as hard as he could have because it was all for “fun.”

The bottom line, and it in no way diminishes the talent, skills and worth of the best women players, is that there are probably thousands of men worldwide – college players in the United States, guys who play league tennis in Europe etc. – who can beat the best on the WTA Tour.

Daniel Nestor, the world’s No. 1-ranked doubles player, cites the example of David Witt, 36, the retired American player who works as the hitting partner for Venus Williams. “David Witt hasn’t played the tour in more than 10 years,” Nestor said, “and he’s never lost a set to them (Venus and her sister Serena).”

Another Canadian with impressive credentials playing at a world-class level, wrote to Match Tough in an e-mail, “It’s unfair to compare men and women. Where would the best female basketball player rank (with the men)? (Hayley) Wickenheiser couldn't make a pro (hockey) team. (Michelle) Wie couldn't qualify for a men's (golf) event. You really can't compare. If you had to, I would say a 50-year-old John McEnroe would still beat all the women.”

While this may be an amusing discussion to have, there are guys playing in a Challenger event near you, Gaston Gaudio is only one example, who would beat the No. 1 ranking women’s player.

So, let’s keep it real.

In response to another e-mail in this week’s Mailbag, Wertheim suggests that basketballer Steve Nash may be the best tennis player among professional team-sport athletes.

Respectfully disagreeing, I’d put my money on centre Dominic Moore of the Florida Panthers. He comes from a good tennis-playing family in Toronto.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:48 AM

Gulbis gets caught in Stockholm

Latvian player Ernests Gulbis has developed a cult following since breaking into the ATP Tour's top 50 in the world as a 19-year-old in 2007.

A good-looking guy with russet-coloured locks, the 6-foot-3 Gulbis has an interesting family background. His divorced parents are Milena, a well-known actress and daughter of famous Latvian film director Uldis Puctitis, and Ainars, a very successful businessman and ex-basketball player whose own father, Alvils, was a starter on the Soviet Union team that won the 1958 European basketball championship.

Gulbis fans had hoped that Ernests (all Latvian male names end in ‘s’ – think of retired hockey goalie Arturs Irbe), who was named after literary giant Ernest Hemingway, would make headlines for his tennis accomplishments, not what happened this week in Stockholm. He was there playing in the ATP 250 tournament until being eliminated 6-2, 6-4 by Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez on Wednesday.

Ernests, 21, may have had other things on his mind after reportedly being arrested on Sunday night, and then spending time in jail before being released on Monday morning, for attempted solicitation of a prostitute. In Sweden, strangely enough, the criminal burden is on the person soliciting sex, not the prostitute offering the service.

Gulbis and a friend were apparently caught as they entered a Stockholm hotel in the company of prostitutes and eventually, according to Swedish press accounts, he copped a plea and was fined 2,500 Swedish Kronor ($382 Canadian).

An ATP official confirmed that Gulbis did not do any media after his loss on Wednesday to Lopez, and declined the single request for an interview.

Currently ranked No. 93, Gulbis, who was as high as No. 38 in the summer of 2008, shares an August/September 1988, birth date with emerging talents Juan Martin del Potro, the US Open champ who is ranked No. 5, and the No. 13-ranked Marin Cilic. But of late, he has been going in the opposite direction.

Canadian fans got a look at the inscrutable “Ernie” in the first round of the 2008 Rogers Cup in Toronto when he managed to blow a 5-1 third-set lead against one of the sport’s more better known ‘head cases,’ Jose Acasuso, eventually losing 6-7(1), 6-3, 7-5.

With a big serve and huge ground strokes, Gulbis seems to have the goods, except for an insatiable urge to hit excessive and often ill-timed drop shots.

Needless to say, there has been endless chatter on internet tennis sites about the Gulbis incident in Stockholm, with one of the most amusing comments referencing two of the sports best-known Casanovas, Marat Safin and Carlos Moya. It read, “Doesn’t the ATP have some kind of mentoring program. I would have thought that on day one, someone (Marat? Moya?) would have pulled Ernie over to the side, slung an arm over his shoulder, and schooled him on these matters. Oh well, I just hope Ernie at least had the sense not to try to pay with a credit card.”

Another kick to coaching rule

The WTA Tour’s ill-conceived on-court coaching rule took another blow on Tuesday when top seed Caroline Wozniacki, a prohibitive favourite, retired with a hamstring injury while leading host-country player Anne Kremer 7-5, 5-0 in the first round of the WTA Tour event in Luxembourg.

She did so after her father/coach Piotr visited her during the changeover when she led 3-0 in the second set. He told her to play two more games and then quit “to let them have some happiness,” referring to Kremer’s home crowd. Wozniacki is one of the eight players who has qualified for next week’s $4.55-million (U.S.) Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar, and did not want to jeopardize her fitness.

The catch about the televised courtside chat in Polish was that one viewer understood what was said. Realizing Wozniacki would stop in two more games at 5-0 ahead, the person was able to alert bettors to the opportunity to make money on Kremer, which reportedly some people did on the Betfair.com website.

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