With the Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals, aka the WTF (that's for you NISAJs, or Naughty Internet Shorthand and Acronym Junkies), just around the corner, I want to call your attention to the fact that it's "Finals" with an "s," thanks to the doubles championship that will also be decided in London.
One of the more memorable performances in the doubles protion of the event was recorded by in 1989, but a couple of fresh-faced American kids not long out of Stanford University - Pat McEnroe and Jim Grabb. That was in the period when the doubles WTF was held separately from the singles; in this case, it was also the last time the WTF was held in London's regal Albert Hall. You don't have to be a Beatles fan to appreciate that grand arena, and I'm glad they still play tennis there, the crisp pop of the ball easily confused with the sound of the champagne corks popping in the courtside boxes. How twee.
McEnroe and Grabb had bagged the French Open title some months earlier, but their win in the Masters was an even more significant accomplishment. In order to take the title, they had to face and beat some formidable doubles teams, including Rick Leach and Jim Pugh, Jim Courier and Pete Sampras, Darren Cahill and Mark Kratzmann, Pieter Aldrich and Danie Visser and - for the title - Anders Jarryd and John Fitzgerald. They won that last one, 7-5,7-6,5-7,6-3.
I have an ulterior motive for telling you all this: Pat and I are collaborating on a book about his two decades in pro tennis. It won't be an autobiography, a la A Champion's Mind (the book I wrote a few years ago with Pete Sampras). Rather, it will consist of war stories, opinions, and hard-core tennis analysis. It will draw on Pat's experiences on the pro tour, as an ESPN and CBS commentator, head of the USTA player development and - of course! - his Davis Cup captaincy.
Many years ago, John McEnroe, upon hearing that I would be at the now extinct but then wonderful tournament in North Conway, N.H., asked me to take his kid brother and his pal, Grabb, out to dinner. They were new on the tour, and not making much money. I don't remember much conversation from the evening I bought dinner for Jim and Pat; they both ate like it was the first time they'd ever seen food. But it was the start of a great professional relationship; Patrick and I would go on to collaborate on a variety of book and magazine projects (most recently, a captain's account of the USA vs. Switzerland Davis Cup tie that took place this spring in Birmingham, Ala.).
We're far enough along in the project for me to say I think this is going to be a great read from a guy who, despite his soft-spoken and calm manner, doesn't pull his punches - and has a good sense of humor. Our publisher is that classy outfit, Hyperion. I'll keep you updated going forward on the status of the project.
-- Pete
Meanwhile, keep gnawing those fingernails as you await the start of the WTF tomorrow. . .
Good afternoon, everyone. We're here to talk about the autobiography I recently wrote with Pete Sampras, A Champion's Mind. As you may recall, you're invited to post any reviews of, or comments about, the book. I will be here most of the afternoon (until I need to run and pick up at Cowboy Luke at school, for our pizza party with the Friedman clan), and will also be happy to answer any questions having to do with Pete and/or the book and how it was conceived, created, etc. etc. I'm going to give you about a 10-minute head start and then jump in to gab. You can post your thoughts in the Comments section. I'll answer as many questions as I can, in the order I receive them; if I've skipped your question, no offense meant - it just means I can't give an answer, or feel it isn't appropriate or necessary (if, for instance, you ask me how old Pete is, or how many Grand Slam titles he won, I'll pass). We'll take a break in the late afternoon, and then I'll jump back in this evening, after we return home from the pizza party and Luke's gone to bed. I'll probably be around from 9-ish for about 90 minutes, depending again on how much action we've got. Now I'm going to run and grab a bowl of cereal - be back in 10!
Mornin'. Wanted to drop in with a little book talk before I start packing for my trip to the Great Plains and Glacier National Park - remember, I'm away until the 14th.
Most of you are well aware of the eternal battle waged by doubles players to keep their branch of the two-pronged game from withering away. This struggle has been fought with mixed results, but doubles continues to hang in there - not quite able to stand alone, more than able to please and satisfy legions of spectators at every tennis event.
Marcia Frost, a tireless tennis advocate and commentator on college and junior tennis, does most of her work in the trenches of the game, far from the glitzy outposts of the ATP and WTA tour. She's written a book: American Doubles . . The Trials. . .The Triumphs. . . The Domination: What you Didn't Know about U.S. Tennis.
I haven't read the book, but I know Marcia and asked her to give me a list of 10 things tennis fans are not likely to know about the game. So here we go:
• American Elizabeth Ryan won 12 Wimbledon doubles titles (including 6 in a row between 1914-1923); one U.S. National Championship; and four French Open Women’s Doubles Titles, as well as eight Grand Slam Mixed Doubles Championships. Elizabeth never lost a doubles match at Wimbledon, making her the winner of more Wimbledon Ladies Doubles (12) and Mixed Doubles (7) than any other player.
• Becoming an American citizen bodes well for a doubles standout - Liezl Huber became No. 1 in the world after attaining her American citizenship, Martina Navratilova achieved her doubles Slam traveling on a U.S. passport.
• Vic Seixas and Tony Trabert (who would continue as a popular tennis commentator for many years), were the winners of 15 doubles titles in the 1950s.
• Arthur Ashe was an NCAA singles champ, but he also won the NCAA doubles title - as well 18 professional doubles tournaments.
• The only person to ever win a junior Doubles Grand Slam was an American -- Beth Herr. Brendan Evans and Scott Oudsema came within one game of becoming the only team to win the junior Doubles Grand Slam. In 2003, they won the Australian, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and had served for the title at Roland Garros.
• Boys representing the United States have won three out of the last four U.S. Open Junior Doubles Championships. They have also made the finals of half of all the Grand Slam junior doubles events since 1997.
• IN 32 years of NCAA men's doubles finals, only three contending teams that did not at least on US partner. In the women’s NCAA doubles finals (27 in total), at least one American was involved in every match.
• On the USTA Pro Circuit in 2007, American Women were in 29 of 41 doubles finals, winning 22 of them. American Men made the finals of an astounding 51 out of 53 of the events, winning 41.
• Americans are leading the Wheelchair Doubles circuit, with David Wagner and Nick Taylor on a three and a half year winning streak through the 2007 Masters. Beth Arnoult-Ritthaler and Kaitlyn Verfuerth won Gold in women’s doubles at the 2007 Parapan American Games.
• John McEnroe and Peter Fleming hold the Davis Cup doubles record for most wins (14-1).
We now return you to our regular scheduled programming - the Cincinnati Masters. This is your Crisis Center post for today; please keep posts on-topic until play winds down, and then chat away to your heart's content!
Greetings, everyone. I'm still trying to process all that happened at this last Wimbledon - the best Wimbledon, to my mind, in a long time. For example, I'm sitting on a Venus Williams interview that took place on the day of the men's final, in an informal setting with just a few colleagues on hand. I'll turn to that tomorrow. Today, though, I have good news for Roger Federer fans.
L. Jon Wertheim, of Sports Illustrated is one of TennisWorld's favorite journalists (When I introduced him to Mrs. Santa at Wimbledon, I had that sudden feeling of turning into chopped liver); he also contributes the monthly My Point column at Tennis magazine. El Jon is a great comrade-in-arms, and he's such a good journalist that my hard-charging colleague Tom Perrotta practically breaks out in hives when he sees Jon talking to someone across the player lounge (it's called Fear of Being Scooped). I don't think there's a journalist working in our field who has better "pitch" than Jon; his writing is lucid, easy, classically-proportioned and stylish. Plus, he never gets in the way of the story, and his judgment at every level is impeccable.
So that's all the more reason for all tennis fans to welcome the news that El Jon is writing a book on and about The Mighty Fed for the major publishing house, Houghton Mifflin. That a classy, mainstream publisher would throw its weight behind the project is already great news for tennis.
Jon's kept me abreast of the project since its infancy, and after Sunday's Wimbledon final the book suddenly has a "right place, right time" feel. I think the book is probably best described as, potentially, this generation's equivalent to John McPhee's Levels of the Game. For those of you who haven't read that classic (and if you didn't, get thee to Amazon), it's a lengthly meditation on two contrasting players - Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner - told within the framework of a single match they played at the U.S. Open.
Can you think of a match involving Federer that might have the legs to carry a comparable exploration of the man, the game, and the overall milieu of pro tennis circa 2008? Hint, hint. . .
Jon may not employ that same structure, butI have high hopes for this book, and in many ways I'm glad it isn't Roger Federer's autobiography (Federer isn't nearly ready to write his own book, and Swiss journalist Rene Stauffer has already done a definitive "unauthorized" biography). Thus, Jon will be free to paint a unique portrait of Federer, and the game today, with great freedom and latitude. And if you think it may just end up telling you stuff you already know, couched in persuasive writing, I'd hold that thought, for these reasons: Jon is an intrepid shoeleather reporter, he's covered the game for a long time and knows it inside-out, and he has a great grasp of all the nuances surrounding Federer's past and present - everything from racket and string technology to thebusiness of tennis. And you know how it all started? With Jon's simple question: We're looking at maybe the greatest player, ever, so how come nobody in the U.S. has ever given him the full treatment?
Anyway, I decided that the best way to disseminate this news to you hardcore tennis fans is by inviting Jon onto this blog, to communicate with y'all in a faux Mailbag setting. He'll select and answer five questions from the ones you submit below, in the Comments (maybe he'll throw in a bonus sixth, if the questions are sufficiently compelling). Feel free to be far-ranging, but try to remain relevant; I don't imagine he'll choose to weigh-in on whether or not Justine Henin will come out of retirement. On the other hand, he might want to tell you why, after earning a law degree, he chose to become a journalist (is there is a lawyer joke in there somewhere?).
The Comments will be open until Saturday, midnight, and I'll publish the questions and Jon's answers on Monday or Tuesday of next week.
Congrats, Jon - I just know this is going to be a great book.
Mornin'. Grab yourself one of those tiny paper cups (you know, the
ones that look like an inverted dunce cap) and join your friends here
to talk about the events of the day in tennis. Today, I have news that will please all of you L. Jon Wertheim fans: El Jon has a new book out, and the only thing even remotely disappointing about this is that it isn't a tennis book. In fact, you probably couldn't further from a tennis book than Running the Table (although that might be an pat title for a Roger Federer autobiography), which is making a living at pool the old-fashioned way - by hustling.
Subcultures are always fascinating, and this is one of the more compelling ones. It's kind of like small-time boxing, except less clean and above board. If that doesn't make you rush out to buy the book, you'd better stick with Needlepoint the Polish Way or Confessions of a Model Railroad Freak. Here's some of publisher Houghton-Mifflin's PR copy:
"The elusive world of the pool hustler is not widely known and is part of a dying subculture in today’s technologically savvy world. In RUNNING THE TABLE (Houghton Mifflin, October 9, 2007) Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim tells the true story of Danny “Kid Delicious” Basavich. You’ll be amazed how this overweight, bipolar kid with a voice like Wolfman Jack’s and an obsession with pool managed to stay incognito and hustle for as long as he did and win as much money as he did. RUNNING THE TABLE follows Kid Delicious and his setup man, Bristol Bob, on a four-year hustling odyssey in pool parlors and dives across America."
Pretty intriguing, no? I never had the pleasure to meet The Kid. I was invited to lunch with Jon and The Kid recently, but I was during my vacation so I missed it. But Jon told me quite a bit about The Kids story as he was working on the book, and all of it was fascinating. Jon recently did an interview for an on-line book site, and you can read that here.
Running The Table elicited some jacket-worthy praise from otherr authors, including the author of Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis. How's this for an endorsement: "L. Jon Wertheim is one of America’s best sportswriters, but Running
the Table is much more than just a sports book. Yes, this road story
about a bipolar pool hustler is filled with colorful characters, rich
detail, and rat-a-tat action. But it is also something more important:
an authoritative account of the last dying days of a great American subculture.”
You may remember a few months ago I heaped praise on one of the funniest, strangest, most oddly compelling books I've read in ages, Samuel W.Fussell's Muscle. Running the Table has the potential to be just as much of a literary bottle-rocket, and I look forward to reading it.
I spoke to Jon this morning and he sends his best - he actually refers to y'all as The Tribe. I'm going to lean on him to maybe give away a few signed copies of the book, perhaps via some kind of a contest here. Maybe he'll drop by and post a comment at some point.
PS - in case you didn't catch me the first time around, I will be off today and tomorrow, and watching Davis Cup over the weekend up at the farm in game-rich Andes.
Howdy. Been up to my ears, booking flights for Roland Garros and Wimbledon, editing a Tennis Life column, doing expense reports for my recent tournament trips. Why have I always hated – and put off - doing expense reports, when I’m being reimbursed for spending my own money? You’d think people would leap right into doing their expenses after a trip, but I have yet to meet someone who does. It's one of the great mysteries of life.
Because of a conflict, I was unable to attend a preview the other night for the HBO sports documentary, Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer. In my stead, the magazine was represented by our ranking expert on women’s tennis (and world-class bird watcher and hiker), Associate Editor “Tennessee” Tony Lance.
Tony reports that the turnout of tennis journalists was impressive – among others, he bumped into Jon Wertheim of SI Mailbag fame, Johnette Howard, Newsday columnist and author of The Rivalry, Frank DeFord, author and Sports Illustrated legend, Andre Christopher, editor of Tennis Week, Cindy Shmerler frequent Tennis contributor. The guest of honor couldn’t make it – apparently, BJK’s father is ill and she was at his bedside.
After woofing down some meatball and dumpling appetizers (the joint had a fully stocked open bar; how come it’s always just beer or wine when I go to these things?), Tony settled in to watch the 60-minute special. At the end, the audience rose in a spontaneous standing ovation. Tony says it was that good.
Billed as an exploration of the “personal and professional life of the landmark athlete and activist”, the documentary will debut on April 26th on HBO, with other playdates to follow. Apparently, the producers relied on a very small cast of commentators on King’s life; they included Billie’s parents and brother, former major league pitcher Randy Moffit, her partner and World Team Tennis officer Illona Kloss (a South African who played a fetching serve-and-volley game back in the day), her former husband Larry King and Chris Evert.
Tony told me there’s tons of exclusive family footage from Billie’s childhood and teen years, and some great stuff from Wimbledon the year Billie won the doubles there with Karen Susman. “There were things I’d never seen before,” Tony said, “And I thought I had seen it all.”
Apparently, the documentary isn’t fawning, and it doesn’t hype BJK as, in Ted Tinling’s famous construction, “Madame Superstar.”
“The story is sufficient,” Tony said. “What struck me most was how the struggle to establish women’s tennis, the general struggle for women’s liberation, all that basically paralleled what was going on in Billie’s life. It’s a very frank and honest treatment. It even has Billie admitting that in the 1970’s, she was ‘a mess.’”
It's hard for me to imagine anything on Billie Jean breaking new ground unless it was a revisionist treatment, challenging her iconic status. That would have to be something along the lines of that Ira Berkow New York Times column of a few years ago, in which he accused BJK of being a puppet of, and mouthpiece for, to tobacco industry (the Virginia Slims connection).
To me, the further you go afield from the game, the less interesting BJK becomes, and lest you think that's some kind of slight to her real - or presumed - impact as an "activist", I feel the same way about Muhammad Ali.
I'd love to know how you all feel about BJK. Is she "just another" former champ? A revered icon whose life and times resonate with extra-athletic significance? Do you love the main focus of her life these days, World Team Tennis? Wither Billie, in the pantheon of your own mind?
Some of you may remember that, a few months back, I posted, "Anna Without the Hype," an informal review of the DVD Anna’s Army. I thought it was a great effort by first-time filmmakers, Philip Johnston and Peter Geisler. But just the other day, I got a troublesome e-mail from Phil concerning the troubles they’ve experienced trying to distribute their film. Phil wrote:
Thanks again for your wonderful review of Anna's Army several months back. I thought you might find this legal matter interesting. It involves {Maria} Sharapova, IMG, and our small company and it raises serious First Amendment and antitrust/anticompetitive issues.
I imagine the phrase "David and Goliath" understates our odds. I have included a link to an article that ran on the front page of The Palm Beach Post on Sunday . .
After reading the story in the PBP, I found myself amazed that IMG would have gone to such lengths to suppress the distribution of a film that seems so benign, and so much more informative and worthwhile than most of the garbage churned out by the firm’s faceless, “yes, but how will it sell in Japan?” partners in spin.
I’m no legal expert, but if Anna’s Army violates Sharapova or her rights in any way, then I should be taken out back, blindfolded, and shot (I know some of you think that an entirely reasonable idea, but never mind that for now) for the things I’ve written. The material the moviemakers gathered was all garnered legitimately, during their investigation into Russian women's tennis.
If you can’t use film footage of Sharapova (or anyone else) legitimately collected during the creative process, you may just as well declare the creative process null and void, and make everyone watch music videos (they being the most insipid use to which film has ever been put) all day.
I talked with Phil today and this appears to be what happened: IMG, rankled by the fact that Anna’s Army might beat its own Maria-endorsed Sharapova DVD out of the gate in Japan (thanks to an earlier release date), figured that if it just threw enough money and lawyers at the little guys (Johnston, Geisler, and their start-up firm, Byzantium Productions, Inc.), it could intimidate the Japanese distributors into freezing out Byzantium.
And that’s exactly what happened, according to Johnston. He got a letter from his Japanese partners, saying they couldn't distribute his filim. When the distributor came down with cold feet, Johnston lost any chance to get a jump on IMG in the lucrative Japanese market.
Johnston's assessment: “IMG interfered with our business relations {in Japan} to prevent our DVD from coming out on our Dec. 9th release date. We got hip-checked out of the market.”
Firms like IMG have the assets to make life tough for firms like Byzantium. You know how that goes: The big guy, no matter how ham-fisted or dull, knows that if he bets enough chips, and keeps upping the bet, the little guy will have to quit the game.
Well, surprise, surprise. The little guys are going to stay at the table. They have their reasons, they have their resources. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens when Johnston goes after IMG.
The only leg IMG has to stand on, it seems to me, is this issue of how the Japanese have built up the role of Sharapova in their version of the DVD. As the Post story notes, the jacket has reduced the size of the Kournikova photo and enlarged the image of Sharapova, there’s a 10-minute “bonus” package of Sharapova footage, and the name of the film has been changed to the utterly anodyne Russian Women’s Tennis. Does that constitute an unfair exploitation of Sharapova and her image?
The obvious attempt to market the film more effectively in Sharapova-crazy Japan has been at least partly responsible for the conflict between Johnston and IMG. On balance, though, I think it’s crazy for IMG to have gone to the mat on this, and I have a feeling it’s going to backfire—if Johnston et al. can stick it out. Anna’s Army is a terrific documentary that doesn’t unfairly exploit anyone.
I know why your food doesn’t have quite the same flavor as it did a year ago, why the sky doesn’t seem as blue, and why those old Seinfeld reruns just don’t seem quite as funny as they once did. You miss . . . The Gates!
Well, I’ve got great news for all you performance art–loving, European movie–watching, museum-going, sushi-eating world citizens—Anita Klaussen’s "The Gates—2006" calendar is hot off the presses!
Klaussen is an amateur photographer and my colleague and friend Bud Collins’ companion, and she went bonkers for The Gates, taking a zillion pictures of them. Now she's made a deal with a printer in China, who has run off 3,000 calendars featuring Anita's photographs of those flapping orange sheets they erected all over New York’s Central Park (the fabric was flame-retardant; trust me, I know. . .).
Anyway, if you share Anita’s passion for The Gates, you can go to Bud's website and you’ll find ordering info right on the home page, right below the picture of Bud wearing—surprise, surprise—a pair of trousers that look like they were made out of Gates fabric. So why not go for the calendar—on the condition you get one autographed by Bud?
Incidentally, Bud has been on the mend from his second surgery of 2005—this time for a torn rotator cuff. As Anita wrote me: “It’s been no fun for Bud. Too much tennis over a lifetime. But the last shot was a winningforehand, he would want you to know!”
Just in case you haven't checked the home page of the mother ship lately, I want to let you know that our special photo annual will be available soon. You can learn more about it and order it here.
It's choc-a-bloc with arresting images and all kinds of eye candy for the tennis nut—and by that I don't mean an avalanche of Maria Sharapova pictures, either. Of course, it also would be remiss of us to leave her out . . .
I was talking to fellow press pariah and author Joel Drucker (Jimmy Connors Saved My Life) the other day and happened to mention that I was all fired up because TennisWife Lisa had just bought me a copy of the new Cormac McCarthy book, No Country for Old Men. I’m in that camp led by Harold Bloom that thinks Blood Meridian is the mythic Great American Novel.
So anyway, Joel’s response is: “Who, Mark McCormack McCarthy?” That’s how it is around U.S. Open time. It’s all tennis, all the time, as Tennis Festivus rolls on to the grand finale.
Also on the book front, New York Times sports columnist Selena Roberts' book about the King-Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” is out. I was surprised to see how badly it was panned in the Times by Jay Jennings, a friend of mine and former features editor at TENNIS.
Selena’s a very gifted writer and a comrade-in-arms. She’s a fierce liberal and feminist, so our chats about culture and politics can be somewhat—electric? I do know that this is her first venture into commercial publishing, and she had a lot of trouble trying to get this project researched and done. I haven’t read the book myself yet, but I hope that experience doesn’t put Selena off the idea of writing books. She’s smart, ethical, tough, and insightful.
I also feel somewhat guilty for having been so slow to act on a note I got from journo Paul Fein, who’s book, You Can Quote Me On That will be an amusing read for any tennis fan interested in great quips, zingers, and even insights.
And one more thing: Did any of you other book freaks see the New York Timesstory on Hunter S. Thompson’s memorial service? It struck me as an incredibly infantile exercise, filled with all the usual too-hip-for-thou celebrities. I really liked a lot of Thompson’s books. (In fact, during one hazy period in the late 1960s, I mistakenly thought they were either about me or written by me—it was, remember, the age of delusion and hallucination for more folks than HST!) But calling him one of the “great writers” of the 20th century? Comparing him to Joseph Conrad?
Please.
Thompson was a brilliant, inventive journalist. Isn’t that enough for the hagiographers?
Good afternoon, everyone. We're here to talk about the autobiography I recently wrote with Pete Sampras, A Champion's Mind. As you may recall, you're invited to post any reviews of, or comments about, the book. I will be here most of the afternoon (until I need to run and pick up at Cowboy Luke at school, for our pizza party with the Friedman clan), and will also be happy to answer any questions having to do with Pete and/or the book and how it was conceived, created, etc. etc. I'm going to give you about a 10-minute head start and then jump in to gab. You can post your thoughts in the Comments section. I'll answer as many questions as I can, in the order I receive them; if I've skipped your question, no offense meant - it just means I can't give an answer, or feel it isn't appropriate or necessary (if, for instance, you ask me how old Pete is, or how many Grand Slam titles he won, I'll pass). We'll take a break in the late afternoon, and then I'll jump back in this evening, after we return home from the pizza party and Luke's gone to bed. I'll probably be around from 9-ish for about 90 minutes, depending again on how much action we've got. Now I'm going to run and grab a bowl of cereal - be back in 10!
Mornin'. Wanted to drop in with a little book talk before I start packing for my trip to the Great Plains and Glacier National Park - remember, I'm away until the 14th. 
Mornin'. Grab yourself one of those tiny paper cups (you know, the
ones that look like an inverted dunce cap) and join your friends here
to talk about the events of the day in tennis. Today, I have news that will please all of you L. Jon Wertheim fans: El Jon has a new book out, and the only thing even remotely disappointing about this is that it isn't a tennis book. In fact, you probably couldn't further from a tennis book than Running the Table (although that might be an pat title for a Roger Federer autobiography), which is making a living at pool the old-fashioned way - by hustling.
I spoke to Jon this morning and he sends his best - he actually refers to y'all as The Tribe. I'm going to lean on him to maybe give away a few signed copies of the book, perhaps via some kind of a contest here. Maybe he'll drop by and post a comment at some point.
