27 posts categorized "December 2011"
 Good evening! Welcome to our annual TW virtual holiday party. Let me take your coat.
I hope you had a happy Christmas and holiday season so far. We're in the home stretch now, with New Year's Eve fewer than 24 hours away. This is no season for the weak of heart, or stomach.
Oh, that? Haven't you ever smelled roasting chestnuts?
Jackie is in the kitchen, she's whipped up a special surprise and won't even tell me if it's a beverage or some sort of baked goods. But we have plenty of egg nog, with or without rum, pigs in a blanket, a yummy fruit cake, deviled eggs and so on. Deviled eggs are my favorite, and not just because they're the central theme of one of the greatest television commercials ever.
Let me run out to the mud room to get some more wood for the fire. Make yourself at home, you probably know most of the people who will be here tonight, but don't be bashful - introduce yourself to anyone whom you may not recognize. Oh, yes. The mistletoe is above the door leading from the living room to the hall.
-- Pete
by Pete Bodo
When October rolls around next year and the players start to whine about the length of the ATP season, remind me to just whisper these two words: "Abu Dhabi."
And when hardcore tennis fans begin to justify the bad losses and leap to the defense of the notionally worn-out, limp-armed, dead-on-their-feet stars, remind me to just whisper these two words: "Abu Dhabi."
It's incredible. Some of the same men whom we thought might be numbered among October's dead are so eager to cross swords and mix it up by late December that they jump the gun on the New Year and show up at Abu Dhabi.
It's amazing. The same fans who would like to see the ATP season significantly shortened are running pirate video streams through X-boxes and even old Gameboy consoles just to get a peek at Rafa's buns and biceps, or Federer's feathery locks. It isn't even 2012 and we already have in the pipeline another installment of Roger v. Rafa.
Shorten the "season"? Are you nuts?
New ATP CEO Brad Drewett ought to go to the United Nations and petition that august body to add three or four weeks to the Gregorian calendar. That certainly would make his job easier. We don't need to shorten the year. We need to lengthen it. In fact we already have. Abu Dhabi.
You can two more words now: "Hopman Cup."
I'm looking for Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Mardy Fish to bring home the Cup for the U.S.A. It would be like winning the Davis Cup and Fed Cup both in the same year, even though the battle starts before the old year even ends. But getting that stuff out of the way would sure cut down on those complaints the players make about having to play Davis or Fed Cup.
Alright, I know that both of those events are exhibitions, attractive to the players mainly because of the big payouts and, in the case of Hopman Cup, at least partially because they're goofy, fun, and the WTA women and ATP men get to make goo-goo eyes at each other and get whacked on champagne on New Year's eve in Perth—not a bad little town.
Now why would men who make more money than God already want to go to Abu Dhabi to pick up an extra few hundred grand? What would the "Occupy" crowd think of such 1 percent thinking? I'll tell you why: Because in the end it's a fun, easy, stress-free way to celebrate the new year in a warm climate while bagging a huge check as a parting shot in the old one. The same goes for Hopman Cup.
This may disappoint or even disgust idealists, but I'm okay with it. I not only don't resent Rog and Rafa and Nole for scooping up the Arabian cash, I wish they'd offer me even a fraction of the till to jump on a plane and go write about it. And while we're at it, I wish they would offer a bunch of you airline tickets and a lot of money to go and fill those stands (this is a chronic problem for tennis tournaments in the UAE, but that's another story).
So don't get me wrong. Tennis players have every right to make insane amounts of money for doing something that has nothing to do with ending world hunger or curing cancer. If investment bankers, movie and rock stars, and guys who think up stuff like "Twitter" can do it, why not Ivo Karlovic? These turn-of-the-year exos underscore that the only calendar problem tennis has is a surfeit of opportunity—and demand.
Though it may sound counter-intuitive, I'd add appetite as well. Hunger among the players—and fans—for action. The racquet-a-racquet battles of which they never seem to tire. After all, it's been a month since Djokovic and company have blasted balls at each other for money, and even they get sick of laying around on the sofa and checking their Facebook pages while watching sentimental Christmas-themed movies.
The quick-start year proves just one thing: That the players' real problem is not how much they play, but where and when they are obliged to play to satisfy the demands of the tour, their sponsors, and endorsement obligations.
 by Pete Bodo
Here's a little Tony Roche story. In 1977, the stalwart Aussie Davis Cup doubles genius was approaching 33 and had gone a full decade without playing a singles for the green-and-gold. But he was unexpectedly called upon to open the final in Sydney's famed White City stadium against Italy's Adriano Panatta, who had won the 1976 French Open and was five years younger than Roche.
Roche upset Panatta, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, and Australia went on to win the Cup for the 23rd time.
In a way, this is also a Lleyton Hewitt story. For Roche is to Hewitt what Obi Wan Kanobe was to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, or Billie Jean King was to Martina Navratilova: mentor, role-model and, lantern-bearer on any dark path in tennis. Roche is "old school." Hewitt is the closest thing we have to that among today's players.
Hewitt wlll be 31 in February, he's ranked 185 places below his career-best no. 1 (the mark he hit in September of 2001), and stepping gingerly on a left foot featuring a big toe that, according to a specialist in a position to know, is more bruised and beat up than any he had ever seen. Perhaps they can put it on display in a medical school after Hewitt is done abusing it.
It's a pity, though, that Hewitt is gimpy. Because he's all fired up about the Australian Open and in all other respects good to go. As he told the Melbourne newspaper, The Age: ''The rest of my body feels great, so that's probably even more frustrating. If I was breaking down in a lot of different areas, then you can sort of put up with it. . .If I can get over this foot injury, I feel great at the moment in terms of my ball striking. It's as good as it's been in a long time.''
Is there a player out there who better embodies the zeal for competition - or one who's more able to play in pain? He won't even take pain killers, because they upset his stomach. Hewitt is no. 186 in the world, entered in his native championships only by virtue of a charitable act (a wild card), and yet if you didn't know better and just went by his prognosis, you could be forgiven for thinking, Hey, he could win the whole shootin' match.
As Roche reportedly said earlier this year: "Look, he'd be the toughest competitor I've ever seen."
This, from a guy who rubbed elbows on a regular basis with Rod Laver, tossed back beers with Ken Rosewall, and posted a 7-2 Davis Cup doubles mark playing mostly with multiple Grand Slam champ John Newcombe.
I don't know about you, but I'd love to see Hewitt make one more strong run. Among other things, it would make up for the tears Hewitt admitted he shed for only the second time in his life when he lost the fifth-rubber of Australia's World Group Playoffs tie against a Swiss team led by Roger Federer. Hewitt was beaten, 6-3 in the fifth, by Stan Wawrinka.
"Believe me, I'm still not over it yet," Hewitt said recently.
Did I mention that the only other time he says he cried was when Australia lost the final to Spain in 2000? On that occasion in Spain, on clay, Hewitt beat Albert Costa [note: corrected from original] in five sets in the first rubber but Spain then rolled; Juan Carlos Ferrero clinched with a win over Hewitt in the fourth match. It was a blow to Hewitt, who is 37-11 in Davis Cup singles, 47-14 overall, and prepared to lace 'em up any time the captain calls.
Hewitt's continuing appetite for combat is all the more noteworthy for two reasons: At 5-11 and 170-lbs, he was supposed to be one of those guys the game would leave behind in the new power era. But he won two majors and did a good stint at no. 1 while battling the likes of Sampras, Agassi, Safin, Kuerten, Roddick and others. And Hewitt was not only small, he proved somewhat fragile everywhere but in the heart.
In 2005, while struggling with a hip injury that would ultimately require two rounds of surgery, he won three consecutive five-set matches against, in succession, Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian (10-8 in the fifth) and Andy Roddick before he ran out of steam in the final. He lost to Marat Safin in what would be Hewitt's best chance to bag his homeland Grand Slam.
Hewitt got to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 2006 on a bum knee (it ultimately required surgery) and his second hip surgery cost him two months last year. Partly because of his hip injury, Hewitt played just 20 matches in 2011 (9-11). I decided years ago that if there's any justice in the world, Hewitt would one day win the Australian Open. Alas, the days are dwindling to a precious few.
by Pete Bodo
Ana Ivanovic may never win another Grand Slam title. She may never recapture her No. 1 ranking or crack the Top 10. She's struggled to find the right coaching combination, wrestled with service inconsistency, battled injury, and through it all she's been mostly spinning her wheels ever since she precociously won the French Open at age 20 and briefly held the WTA's top spot.
Ivanovic, while still just 24, is the closest thing to a Sisyphus in women's tennis, but that only makes me appreciate her even more, because of all the things she's become since she, along with Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic, burst on the scene at Roland Garros during that enchanting Serbian Spring of 2007. In those days, Ivanovic was just another pretty face, albeit a Grand Slam champion. She was the quintessential, anodyne "nice girl" who said and did all the right things, giggled through press conferences, and wore a bow in her hair (and her countrywoman Jankovic was always there to remind us of that).
In the two years after her big '08, Ivanovic elicited sympathy in her tennis-related trials, but often nothing more than an enormous yawn from most anyone who prefers peppery to pepperment personality.
Lately, though, it's become clear that she's matured significantly. Her personality hasn't really changed; she's still the girl every boy's parents would like their son to bring home for dinner. But she seems more aware of the world around her, and appears comfortable speaking her mind in a way many nice girls never end up doing, or are incapable of doing. The Telegraph newspaper in the UK recently published an interview in which Ivanovic made some eye-opening remarks about life in the WTA.
I imagine that these remarks made some women nervous or even angry, given that they compare men and women—to the detriment of the latter. There's nothing earth-shattering about what Ivanovic said; many others have made the same point.
The most startling thing, really, is that the comments were made by Ivanovic—one of the leading girly-girls on the tour, but obviously not one of the leading divas (Can you imagine Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams saying such things?). In spite of all those glam photos, the WTA marketing machine (such as it is), and all the temptations of her station, Ivanovic has developed into quite a down-to-earth lady—although it's more likely that's just what she was all along. It just didn't come through, or it wasn't the message we were looking for.
Let's face it, the media and its enablers at the WTA have chosen to present the sport in a way that works against fostering camaraderie on the tour. The relentless focus on the real or imagined glamor of the tour and it's various individuals (even the tour's designated hausfrau, Kim Clijsters) is more of a divider than bonding agent. It's like that in any "star" system, and that's just what the WTA has created despite its parallel attempt to embrace social promotion for all. I think Billie Jean King and other tennis-first women understand this but mostly keep their mouths shut because they know that WTA is trying to sell a product, and not all sales pitches are created equal.
Most of you are familiar with the theory of the Big Lie, which is that if you say something often enough and loud enough, large numbers of people will assume it true. It works that way in many areas of life. Immersing yourself in tennis, it's hard to avoid frequent references to the divas and prima donnas, and that helps shape not just your thinking, but theirs as well. How many young tennis-playing girls want to be stars, or assume that they will be stars when they act like stars? Like divas. It's unlikely the WTA locker room will become a less status and power-conscious place any time soon.
Ivanovic seems to have escaped the gravitational pull of diva-hood. She wasn't the first, or last, but it's good to be reminded that it can be done. A cynic might suggest that she didn't become a diva because her results and ranking stripped her of the fleeting opportunity, but I don't buy that. I think Ivanovic is just naturally a decent and honest person, and smarter than we've thought. A nice girl, winning the battle of adulthood more decisively than she's winning the skirmishes that define her tennis career. And she's a reminder of something very important in this sport, that it's a mistake to prematurely judge the young.
 by Pete Bodo
[two corrections made to original - ed.]
Every once in a while, you get a specific moment in tennis that seems to dominate the airwaves when it comes to all those blasts and broadcasts at the end of any given year. This year provided a great example: Did any specific moment sum up the year better, and also squeeze its main narrative into a single, nuclear moment, than that cross-court forehand blast Novak Djokovic unloaded when Roger Federer served the first of his two match points in their semifinal clash at the U.S. Open?
As theater goes, it was spectacular. And spectacularly simple. Moments like that are as rare in tennis as they are in theater. Write it into a play and a savvy producer will laugh you out of the conference room for daring to suggest such a cliché.
A moment like that is perceived as a game-changer, or in many cases the flip-side of one—the equally significant if less resonant but sometimes equally compelling moment that upholds the status quo. The moment when the game is saved from change.
Either way, though, the events are rarely "moments" in the strict sense of the word. Most of the time these realized or foiled turning points are entire matches (like Rafael Nadal's first triumph over Federer at Wimbledon), or tournaments (like Andre Agassi's failure to win the 1995 U.S. Open final).
Keeping all that in mind, I asked myself if there was a comparable moment in the WTA game in 2011. Li Na's win at Roland Garros? Nah. We won't know what, if anything, it really means for the future of Asian tennis for some years, or even for Li, who's already 29. It was a glorious moment, but not a game-changer—yet. Petra Kvitova's win at Wimbledon? Nope. The vacuum at the top of the game is obvious. She filled it nicely and now needs to demonstrate that she can continue to occupy it and throttle the three or four other pretenders to the throne.
The closest I could come was one of those flip-side moments that maintained the order of things in the WTA, and for the entire year—one which will go down in history. This game-extending moment occurred at Indian Wells, where Caroline Wozniacki was slated to meet Victoria Azarenka in a quarterfinal match.
Azarenka was just finding the game that would propel her to No. 3 by the end of the year, and coming off a three-set win over Agniezska Radwanska. But a strained hip forced Azarenka to abandon her match with Wozniacki after just three games. Recovering quickly, Azarenka would go on an 11-match winning streak (d. Maria Sharapova for the Miami title and Irina-Camelia Begu for the Marbella title) and never look back, ending the year on a high note.
Having dodged the Vika bullet, Wozniacki won Indian Wells. But she beat only the No. 18 and 17 players respectively in the final two rounds, Sharapova and Marion Bartoli—who would be the highest ranked player Wozniacki defeated in a final in 2011.
I don't want to trash Wozniacki, whose six titles are a great haul, and equal to the take of No. 2 Kvitova. But it's astonishing how few quality players she beat in those six events she won. And it adds further credence to the theory that Wozniacki has just been keeping the seat warm for a more imposing No. 1.
Here are Wozniacki's final-round victims along with their ranking at the time, in order, starting in January: Svetlana Kuznetsova (No. 23, Dubai), Bartoli (No. 17, Indian Wells), Elena Vesnina (No. 56, Charleston), Shuai Peng (No. 31, Brussels), Lucie Safarova (No. 38, Copenhagen), Petra Cetkovska (No. 40, New Haven). The blow is somewhat softened by the fact that Wozniacki won six of the eight finals she played, losing to Vera Zvonareva (in Doha) and Julia Goerges (Stuttgart). Okay, you can only beat the person who makes it to the final. But where was Wozniacki when the big cats were on the prowl?
Now, contrast that with Kvitova's seven-title hit list: Andrea Petkovic (No. 32, Brisbane), Kim Clijsters (No. 2, Paris), Azarenka (No. 5, Madrid), Sharapova (No. 6, Wimbledon), Dominika Cibulkova (No. 23, Linz), Azarenka (No. 4, WTA Championships). She won six of her eight finals, losing only to No. 9 Bartoli at Eastbourne and no. 72 Rybarikova at the Prague II ITF event (which she played only as a favor to the promoters and her countrymen).
Finally, had a healthy Azarenka beaten Wozniacki at Indian Wells (the head-to-head going in was 3-2 for Wozniacki, but Azarenka was on the cusp of her move into the Top 5), Kvitova would almost certainly have finished 2011 as the Wimbledon champ—and new year-end WTA No. 1.
Sure, that assumes many "ifs," but my point is that Azarenka's retirement in Indian Wells may well have been the key to Wozniacki's ability to limp over the finish line as the year's winner. Thus, she earned new status as the only player of either sex to rank No. 1 for two consecutive years—without having won a single Grand Slam event. I have a funny feeling that this non-game changer moment in the WTA has earned Wozniacki a place in tennis history that will never be equaled.
I wanted to wish you all the best for the holidays and the new year, and extend an invitation for you to join Jackie Roe and me next Friday for our virtual holiday party, starting at 6 pm EST. Put the date on your calendars.
I also want to extend my heartfelt thanks to you all for being such devoted readers. This is a great community of partisans, readers, critics, students, gasbags, teachers, idiot-savants, comedians, philosophers, and under-and-over-employed tennis nuts (with a few socio-paths, chain-yankers, insufferable fools and saintly, cheerful souls thrown in for good measure).
The personal element has slowly been fading from this blog (it still pains me to write that profoundly ugly word, "blog"), and I've been functioning more like the mainstream journalist that I've always been, less like the blogger I was curious to become, as an experiment. IMO, the blog in general has evolved from a a voice-driven vehicle into the simple, Internet equivalent of the kind of column you find on the op-ed page of most newspapers. The history of this blog reflects that.
It's been a very busy year here at TW and at TENNIS.com in general, and I hope you've been happy with the significant expansion of our features, the far greater breadth and depth of our content, and our greater reliance for that content on our staff and valued contributors. I especially want to thank Bobby Chintapalli, the two Andrews (Burton and Friedman), Hannah Wilks (aka Gauloises), and our "Mod Squad" for their help and loyalty. And I often wonder where we would be if it weren't for the likes of Master Ace, Ruth, Aussie Marg, Jewell, BP, Samantha, Slice. . . aw, there I go. If I try to name you all individually it will take me all day.
But you know what I mean. I'll be back on Sunday, or early Monday.
-- Pete
by Jackie Roe, TW Social Director
Seasons greetings, TWibe! I wish you all a heartwarming and restorative holiday season and a new year marked by good health, happiness, and loads of brilliant tennis. I feel so lucky to be a part of this fantastic community, and I'm ever grateful for your readership and friendship. Here's to more Deuce Club fun in 2012!
(By the by, have you seen the WTA’s holiday wishes? If not, check out the clip here. I don't think the ATP put anything together this year, but we still have these gems from ’07 and ‘08.)
Don’t forget about our annual TW Virtual Holiday Party next week. Here are the details again:
Date: Friday, 12/30
Time: 6 PM EST/TW time
Let me know in the comments if you plan on bringing any treats. :) Pete and I hope to see everyone there!
‘Til then, merry Christmas and happy holidays!
by Pete Bodo
Yesterday we had the news that the ATP has finally named a new chief executive, Brad Drewett. Today, we learn that Sony Ericsson is ending its tour sponsor relationship with the WTA at the end of the 2012 season. No great loss, I say, although the women may be up against it when they try to find a new tour sponsor.
The WTA has been jinxed ever since the end of its relationship with Viriginia Slims. Many of you will remember that the only problem with VS was the product — a cigarette produced by tobacco giant Philip Morris, whose makers aggressively pursued and recruited women who smoke. The anti-smoking crusade was just starting up when VS became the tour sponsor, and however you feel about the smoking aspect of this history, one thing is certain: the sponsorship worked.
We tend to forget now that at the time (the 1970s and '80) there was really no WTA. Virginia Slims not only sponsored the tour, it also created the entire extra-ITF women's tennis infrastructure. A fledgling WTA (the outfit was started in 1973 by Billie Jean King and her cohorts) never could have evolved into the institution it is today without the massive financial and organization backing provided by Virginia Slims. In fact, it almost went under when VS finally pulled out (was driven out) of the tennis sponsorship business.
As hard as it may be to imagine today, the sponsor and the client were a great fit for a variety of reasons starting with the quasi-feminist goal of linking up these independent, competent, highly trained female professionals named Billie Jean, Chris, Martina, Tracy et al with a product that had a similar, contemporary and liberated glow.
Virginia Slims was the brand for women who wanted to smoke, despite the lingering social taboo. It was also for women who wanted to assert their independence and rebel against old-fashioned notions and conventions regarding woman — like the notion that "proper" women didn't smoke. And, perhaps most interesting, VS targeted women who wanted to exercise those desires with something created specifically for women. The VS cigarette was slimmer, the marketing icon was not a cowboy (that was the brand's brother, Marlboro) but a flapper, with all that implied. Men did not smoke Virginia Slims. A woman who did was making a statement other than "I'm smoking my way to an early grave."
The entire thing worked, ghastly as it may seem. And I went into that history to make the point that Sony Ericsson accomplished nothing even remotely so successful. Nor have most tour sponsors, in all fairness to SE. Has anyone yet identified Sony Ericsson with tennis playing women, other than noting that Maria Sharapova is a paid shill for the brand's cell phones? I'm not sure any of the WTA women even use one of the company's products — unless they got it for free.
To me, and I assume to most of you, Sony Ericsson has been nothing more than this giant entity wallowing around in pro tennis, slapping its name on anything it could but for reasons nobody cared about, or didn't understand. Their staff was largely invisible, and not a single one of their suits or corpo-gals that I met ever gave the impression that knew, liked, or cared about tennis.
Anecdote: I was among a small group of reporters who met with SE staff two years ago at the Sony Ericsson Open (Miami), and quickly discovered that the purpose of the meeting was to introduce us to the new Xperia phone, which was — and is still being — billed as the world's first smart phone built for full-blown gaming. It was a very weird meeting. There was no product on hand. There were no tennis players involved, no real logical connection between the product and the pro tennis tour or any of its glamorpuss constituents.
I walked away astonished at how artless and half-assed the entire drill had been. What did those SE functionaries think, that we were going to run off and churn out breathless paens to the Xperia out of gratitude for SE's involvement in tennis? Or because we were slain by the idea of a phone for. . . full blown gaming!!!!! What did I look like, some Super Mario Brothers freak?
Anyway. SE did nothing I could see to move the ball forward for the WTA, and I'm assuming the WTA did nothing for SE — at least nothing that made the brand want to continue its investment in tennis. They appeared to learn nothing (not that they wanted to) and tennis appeared to benefit only at the bank teller's window. I guess SE's top salesmen and execs had great seats for Sharapova matches (she's an endorser) in Miami and elsewhere, and were invited to get sloshed in the corporate villages.
But in all fairness, that's business as usual in the marketing game. Perhaps Sony Ericsson could claim a win on the bottom line somewhere in bean-counter land, and that's about as good as it gets. Most companies fail to creates conspicuously successful, logical commercial relationships with the tour. Remember Sanex? How about Toyota? Two that fared better were Avon and Colgate, both back in the day (late '70s and early '80s).
Over the years, the growth of the WTA has greatly diminished the pool of potential tour sponsors, for only a multi-national company, or one whose products is commonly available in most of the world, gets the full benefit of tour sponsorship. The WTA has a full year to beat a new tour sponsor out of the bushes, but it's unlikely to be an easy job given the economic challenges of the global economy.
To borrow a famous line, Good-bye Sony-Ericsson, we hardly knew ye.
 by Pete Bodo
Just yesterday, I was chatting with John McEnroe Sr., who spawned the icon that shares his name, about the search for a new ATP CEO. John felt very strongly that the new CEO ought to be a trained lawyer, and he suspected that the silence out of the ATP in recent days suggested that one of the two ATP insiders up for the job would get it. They were Mark Young, the ATP's long-time top lawyer and CEO/General Counsel for the Americas, and former player Brad Drewett, CEO of the international group.
We learned today (there goes my story) that Drewett got the job, despite the fact that he has no law degree and almost all of his business experience has been within the ATP (I came across one mention of Drewett having worked in the tennis club business, but it couldn't have been a major resume item).
This seems like an extremely conservative move by the ATP, made less risky because of the cushion provided by the outgoing CEO, Adam Helfant. According to Bloomberg, Helfant boosted the ATP's revenues by a staggering 80 percent through sponsorships with a diverse menu of companies including Corona Extra, FedEx Corp., and Johnson & Johnson’s.
"I wish Brad the best of luck," John said today. "But I still think it's a job for a lawyer."
I pay attention to McEnroe's opinion on these organizational issues, even though his second campaign for the ATP CEO job came to naugh—much like the first, a little over three years ago. Despite still being of counsel in the corporate division of the Park Avenue law firm Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, his vast store of experience in the tennis business (as manager of his two sons), and over 50 letters of recommendation from everyone from Donald Trump to Ion Tiriac, he was never even considered for the job.
That's understandable, if not particularly wise. As John's wife Kay told him, and more than once: "You have the wrong name, and you're too old." The sad fact is McEnroe's day in this enterprise has come and gone and nothing is likely to change that. Which is too bad.
Always combative, McEnroe is 76 but still sharp as a tack. Among other things, his knowledge of all things linguistic is formidable, and his skills as an editor are in my experience unmatched. And "tough" doesn't begin to describe McEnroe's reputation as a negotiator and advocate.
I don't know much about how sponsorship deals go down and have no real opinion of what Drewett brings to the table as a dealmaker. But here's an instructive story for those of you who think this calendar issue (let's call it the chronic player-fatigue issue) can be successfully resolved now that the ATP has a relatively young (Drewett is 53) former player behind the wheel.
In 1978, Bob Briner was the head of the ATP (this was before the "parking lot press conference" and the subsequent birth of the ATP tour—in other words, it was back when the ATP was actually a player's union), and Marshall Happer III was the head of the Men's International Professional Tennis Council (MIPTC), which was the ruling body of the game and had representatives of the players (ATP), the tournament directors, and the ITF.
Anyway, the ATP decided to adopt X-number of "hard designations" for each of the top players, in order to build the tour by spreading around a degree of talent comparable to what we have today in the ATP. The players didn't at all like the idea of being told where and when they had to compete. At the time the top 5 were, in descending order, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Guillermo Vilas, John McEnroe Jr. and Vitas Gerulaitis.
John McEnroe Sr. got all five of them into the same room at the U.S. Open to discuss what, if anything, they were going to do to express their displeasure. They decided that they would agree to play X-number of those big (Masters-type) tournaments, but each of them—not Briner or anyone else—would decide which tournaments those would be. They went back to Briner and co. and presented the decision as a fait accompli. As McEnroe recalled, "We weren't looking for a fight. We told Briner to call them anything he wanted, including 'hard designations.' We had no desire to make him or anyone else look bad. As long as he understood that each player was ultimately going to decide where he would play."
In other words, hard designations became hard self-designations.
Does Drewett have the kind of personality and personal power of persuasion to pull something like that off—should the issue really make it onto his agenda? It's hard to say. You want to give the guy a chance, but the fact that the players are still fighting what is essentially the same battle (how often must they play, and who decides where?) is not a good omen. Nor is the fact that after all that crowing and complaining at the U.S. Open, the top players never got together. Not once.
One reason for this, McEnroe says, is because of each player's personal obligations and interests. "If you have a big contract with Nike or Adidas, with all those incentive clauses, you may not think it wise to challenge the system," McEnroe said. "It seems unlikely, but if the top players decide to take some kind of concerted action, it could jeapordize some of their other obligations. It isn't just the ATP demanding that they play certain tournaments."
Ever the player's guy, McEnroe said, "If the top five guys said, 'This is what wer're going to do,' it would happen. No question. And if they got the top seven or eight lined up, they could dictate whatever they wanted, but—that doesn't address all those other contract-related issues."
For what it's worth, McEnroe doesn't see any move to create a player's union on the horizon. "It would inevitably lead to litigation," he said. "I've heard that the one lawsuit over Hamburg (a few years ago) cost the ATP something like $16 million. Nobody could afford such a shake-up."
McEnroe believes that the present ATP tour rules are a violation of U.S. anti-trust laws. The players are required to play too many tournaments, he says, and if the tournaments insist on some kind of guaranteed participation (a critical component in the present system) then at least it ought be up to the players to work out how to make that happen—as they did in 1978.
None of this seems like rocket science, and that goes to show how much maneuvering and wheeling and dealing goes on behind the institutional facade. Everyone, including the voluble top players, has obligations, caveats and conflicts. It would take a true act of collective will and a fair amount of diplomatic skill and negotiation to effect any significant change. But something like that happened in 1978, and maybe it can happen again—if that's really what the players want. The ball is in Drewett's court now.
by Pete Bodo
The results of 2011 suggest that we're in a period of transition — on the WTA side, the four Grand Slam events produced four different champions, three of whom (Kim Clijsters, Li Na and Sam Stosur) are much closer to the end of their careers than the beginning. Stosur, at 27, is the youngest among them; Li, 29 is the oldest. This suggests that the future belongs to 21-year old Kvitova and others, perhaps including Victoria Azarenka, like her.
And on the men's side, Novak Djokovic has re-shaped the landscape at the top, Andy Murray emerged as a serious contender at the majors, Rafael Nadal's aura of invincibility is somewhat tarnished, and a host of youngsters including Milos Raonic, Ryan Harrison, and Bernard Tomic are developing well — and let's not forget what Juan Martin del Potro may do to upset the ATP applecart.
As further evidence that change is in the air, five of the biggest names in tennis — all Grand Slam champions — are facing severe challenges from father Time — and the rankings rat-race — as 2012 bears down on us. Let's take a quick look at their prospects:
Venus Williams (current WTA No. 102) — You undoubtedly saw the news today: Venus has pulled out of an Australian Open warm-up tournament, the ASB Classic in New Zealand. A spokesperson for Venus was cagey in a recent conversation with our Matt Cronin, who asked what Venus's decision to pull out of the ASB meant vis a vis the Australian Open itself. The rep would only say that she is "working toward that goal (to play at Melbourne)." That's not a very encouraging sitrep.
Venus is 31 years old, and still recovering from Sjogren's syndrome, an immune-system disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain — not symptoms easily navigated in the workplace by a 31-year old tennis player who's been injury-prone in the late stages of her career. So I'd say the prospects of Venus even swinging a racquet in Australia, much less contending for the title through two often brutally hot weeks, are indeed dim.
On the other hand, Venus didn't play any tune-up tournaments early last year, either. So perhaps she's just laying low and keeping her cards close to her vest. Still. . . Venus on the cusp of direct entry with her present ranking, but unless she plays and earns a few points soon, she'll probably have to qualify (although she'll be a highly-prized wild card at any tournament) once the 160 rankings points she earned with her two wins in Melbourne last year drops off the computer, or a few of the women ranked below her make a move.
Serena Williams (No. 12) — Whenever the Williams sisters are lumped together, a number of their fans will protest and (rightly) point out how it's inaccurate as well as somewhat demeaning to treat them as one unit; they're very different in many ways despite their closeness. But while Serena looks to be in much better shape for 2012, the fact that she's also going on 31 and failed to win a Grand Slam event in 2011 for the first time in five years ought to give even the most ardent Serena fans a slight sense of unease.
Granted, Serena had a near-death experience last winter, following on a nearly crippling foot injury — a combination of handicaps that kept Serena out of action for almost an entire year. That's a lot of time to give up, and when Serena returned to compete at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, she was unable to pull off the miracle that so many fans and pundits expected. That begs the question: Can Serena still do that neat magic trick, where she steps into the fray at any time she chooses and rips through the entire field to win a tournament?
I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but I know that the competition has changed and a transition is underway. And I know that Serena is 30 years old. You can't ever write her off, she's shown that. In that regard, the Australian Open might be a telling tournament.
Francesca Schiavone (No. 11) — Schiavone was the surprise champion at the French Open last year (and runner-up to Li Na this year), and she finished as the year-end No. 7 in 2011. But like Venus, she's 31 years old, and she plays a game that is both effetely and physically taxing (she takes great big cuts but has also profited handsomely from stealth attacks and general all-court play — tactics that are better pursued with fresh legs and a youthful recklessness).
Schiavone started this year strong, with a quarterfinal in Australia (l. to Wozniacki). The high-water mark was the French Open, where she pushed Li before losing 6-4, 7-6 (0). But she didn't survive a third round after that until New Haven (l. in semis to Wozniacki). She made the fourth round of the U.S. Open (l. to no. 17 Pavlyuchenkova), but she was just 1-3 the rest of the year, suggesting that she just plain ran out of gas.
 Andy Roddick (ATP No. 14) — He'll turn 30 next August, and it's mildly ironic that in this, his first year out of the year-end top 10 in a decade, he finished with the same annual ranking as in 2001 — a year before he crashed that elite company.
It would b be unfair to this superbly consistent player to predict a tailspin — Roddick is made out of better stuff than that. But judging by the events of 2011, he'll have his work cut out if he wants to be in the mix near the top again.
Roddick was 1-1 in finals this year (W at Memphis, L at Brisbane), a significant decline in his quality results. But of greater concern, he was not nearly as competitive at Grand Slam events as in the past, when you could count on him to be a force at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He lost to Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round at the Australian Open, missed the French Open, was beaten at Wimbledon in the third round by Feliciano Lopez, and in the U.S. Open quarterfinals by Rafael Nadal.
The disturbing thing, though, is that while he played very well in the warm-ups to those tournaments (final at Brisbane [l. to Soderling], semi at Queens [l. to eventual champ Murray], and semi at Winston-Salem [l. to Isner]), his resistance melted away at the majors, where each of his losses was in straight sets. That suggests a mentally tired tennis player.
Lleyton Hewitt (No. 186) — I have to include this quintessential "Aussie battler" despite his abysmal ranking, that woeful 9-11 record for 2011, and prize-money earnings ($147,443) that in one of his good years he would have made in an afternoon's work a dozen times during the year. The statistics suggest that Hewitt is finished, but in typical fashion he's having none of it. Just read his own thoughts on the matter. Although he's been plagued by injuries, Hewitt has always been fit and nobody, but nobody, has a greater appetite for competition.
You never, ever count out a guy like Hewitt. He's into the Australian Open with a wild card; if he remains injury-free, I think he's going to make a significant statement at least once again in his career. Why not next month?
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