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Tennis in turmoil It's such a good game, but it's so messed up at times
Posted: Friday June 30, 2000 07:55 PM
You have to wonder how tennis, a beautiful game with some truly superb athletes, can get any sillier looking. You have to wonder how in the world the people who run that sport and play the matches and force tennis into our consciousness a few times each year can muck everything up any worse than they have recently. In the opening week of its showcase event, tennis is sinking to new lows. Drunken parents, more charges of racism from Alexandra Stevenson, angry players smashing balls into the stands, players yelling at umpires ... If this were baseball, by god, Frank Robinson surely would have suspended someone by now. But, no, this is Wimbledon, where everything is supposed to be strawberries and cream, where officials still try to pass off the sport as genteel and civil and full of sportsmanship. Well, forget it. It's everything but. A 17-year-old player from Australia, born in Serbia, by the name of Jelana Dokic is the latest teen to be given the Jim Pierce Award for outright embarrassment by a parent. Her father, Damir, shouted at women's tennis officials, smashed a reporter's cell phone and had to be detained by police on Thursday for making a general ass of himself. A year ago, the elder Dokic called match officials in England "Nazis" and then went outside the arena and had a sit-down in the street, blocking traffic until police arrested him. Nice. Beautiful father figure. Just what a struggling sport needs. Dokic, of course, is not alone in trying to ruin the sport, or at least give it a good black eye. An Israeli player, Anna Smashnova, taunted from the stands by her opponent's husband the other day, hauled off and smashed a ball in his direction, striking a woman spectator in the face. Smashnova broke down in tears afterward, but c'mon ... And then there's the intrepid Stevenson, who set the tennis world buzzing last season with charges of racism on tour and is at it again at Wimbledon this year. The American lost in the second round but then, when asked by the media, stated that a Frenchwoman called her "a piece of ---- black girl" last month and that another French player bumped her in an argument over a practice court. Stevenson's charges are serious and need to be addressed. Coupled with everything else in the tennis world, they add to the image of a sport with some major problems. Tennis, of course, has never been as pristine as its handlers would have you believe. We don't need to click on the audio of an old McEnroe-Connors match to show that, do we? Still, it's too good of a game to be battered about like this. Who's at fault? Former No. 1 Jim Courier, in his new gig as a TV analyst, has blamed tennis officials for not promoting the players better. It's a bit funny coming from him, considering Courier regarded the media as slightly less useful than a de-fuzzed Penn during his playing days. Still, Courier is right in some ways. Even in America -- maybe especially in America -- Pete Sampras remains one of the lesser-known great players in his sport. Andre Agassi gets his due, the Williams sisters, maybe Lindsay Davenport. But no other Americans are on the radar. As for the faceless army of international players -- well, let's hope most of them come off a little better than Marcelo Rios. Or play a little better than Anna Kournikova. The players have to take some of the heat, of course. You hear about American Jan Michael Gambill's passion for collecting sports cars? It's a tad difficult to snuggle up to a guy who longs for a matched set of Jaguars. In the end, to promote the players, tennis has to identify players worthy of promoting. Tennis has to squash those who continue to smear its name unnecessarily, players or not. It has to address Stevenson's continuing charges. It has to take control. And if tennis officials aren't willing to do that, maybe a visit from Frank Robinson could do the trick. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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