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Talking Points 2004

Earth hijacked by Little Green Men! I always find conspiracy theories very appealing, don't you? My wife says I would find a conspiracy theory in a wet wristband. My latest is a conviction that we are witnessing an attempt by environmentalists to grab totalitarian control over the entire planet. The Little Green Men are taking over! One of the less-publicised occurrences in the build-up to the 2004 Olympics was a Memorandum of Understanding between the organisers and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Well, you might argue, where's the harm in agreeing to put rubbish in bins? Fair enough. But the document went further. Quite a bit further actually. And having planted a friendly green foot in the door, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer was soon declaring that the environment should be seen as "the third pillar of Olympism". He went on to describe the Olympic olive wreath as "a reminder of the precious link between humankind and the natural environment that we must learn to better preserve and cherish." But wait a minute. What happened? How did an Olympic symbol get hijacked by the UN's eco-agenda? UNEP has since contacted the five candidate cities to host the 2012 Olympic Games - Moscow, Madrid, London, Paris and New York - offering assistance "to strengthen the environmental component" of their bids. Does that not suggest that the UN is getting involved in the selection process? I don't know why, but it bothers me. It also bothers me that certain governmental groups and sections of the media have clearly been infiltrated by the Little Green Men and nobody seems to care. The case for reducing carbon dioxide emissions to avert global warming, for example, is continually misrepresented. I'm no scientist, but I've always been given to understand that carbon dioxide is responsible for roughly 3.6 percent of the greenhouse effect and that only 3 percent of that 3.6 percent relates to human activity (the rest being natural emissions). The Little Green Men conveniently overlook the significance of water vapour in this context. It accounts for about 95 percent of atmospheric greenhouse gases, but it's often completely ignored by those who want us to buy into the green agenda. Those who do acknowledge its relevance insist that the effect of increased temperature on water vapour is to amplify the warming process, but they often neglect to factor in the resultant cloud cover. Clouds tend to cast shadows over the best global climate prediction models. My untutored brain therefore suspects that human-related carbon-dioxide emissions are responsible for far less environmental damage than green politicians would have us believe. I have the greatest respect for the natural world, but I just think that the money wasted on compliance with the Kyoto agreement would be better spent on eliminating hunger and malnutrition and providing universal access to clean water and sanitation. The green tentacles of the eco-agenda are reaching into many aspects of life, including sport, and it strikes me that we should be on our guard against the hijacking of the Olympic Games by a UN quango. Equally, we should take steps to stop the hijacking of our planet by the Little Green Men. D.W. (13 December 2004) Back to the topics

Tilting at windmills? The last significant date of the 2004 tennis calendar takes us to a converted corner of the huge Olympic stadium in Seville for the Davis Cup final this weekend. The city that spawned Don Quixote is expected to witness Andy Roddick and his trusty squires and companions tilting at windmills while Jordi Arrese's matadors execute passes to the delight of 22,000 Spanish fans. Ole!!! But will it be that one-sided? Suppose Andy Roddick or Mardy Fish succeed in their heroic quest and the Americans go into the second day with a lead or with the match tied at 1-1? As with many Davis Cup ties, the doubles rubber should then prove crucial. The Bryan brothers have won all three of their cup rubbers this year without losing a set, and, given that they won their first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros in 2003, they have no reason to fear the red clay. They are a truly formidable team and, as Mike Bryan quipped during the build-up to the match, they've been playing together for 26 years! Spain's pairing of Rafael Nadal and Tommy Robredo boasts just one win and two losses so far in the 2004 competition. It's a record that might well prompt the Bryan twins to utter Sancho Panza's immortal words: "Pray look better, Sir . . . those things yonder are no giants!" D.W. (30 November 2004) Back to the topics

Dumbing down tennis Recently we've seen some dubious attempts to glamourise tennis and make it more attractive to spectators. The tournament directors at the Madrid Masters opted for models as ball-girls, prompting Spain's Secretary for Equality to criticise them for "reinforcing negative stereotypes that women are merely objects of decoration and entertainment". Organisers of the WTA Tour Championships in Los Angeles also came in for criticism for the way they focused their promotion of the season-ending event on Maria Sharapova. "The closer you sit the hotter she gets" was the tag line of the ubiquitous poster featuring the 17-year-old Wimbledon champion. Rock music during changeovers is now de rigueur at the US Open. It's sad that the sport is being trivialised and dumbed down in this way by those responsible for promoting it. Tennis doesn't need it. It's a great product that just needs a little tweaking in the rules department to make it more spectator-friendly and more TV-friendly. If you've ever tried to look up the origins of the tennis scoring system, you'll be familiar with bizarre references to clock faces and eggs and the french phrase 'à deux' (I'll bet you've never found a satisfactory explanation as to why 40 follows 30!). Truth be told, it's absolute nonsense, especially to spectators new to the sport. If anything in tennis needs dumbing down, it's the scoring system. The only major rule change of the last century has been the introduction of the tie-breaker in 1970. Despite the initial misgivings of the tennis establishment, there can be no doubt that the sudden-death nature of the tie-breaker injected a lot of excitement into the sport. I'd advocate a much simpler scoring format, building on the success of the tie-breaker. Each game should have a 0-1-2-3-game format (no deuce or advantage points). Each set should be first to four games with a tie-breaker played at 4-4. There would be no need for the sort of lame gimmicks we've witnessed in the last few weeks. The WTA could save on the posters and glue - the dramatic tension created by such a scoring system would have fans glued to the tennis. D.W. (16 November 2004) Back to the topics

Who is behind the Russian tennis mission? Anastasia Myskina Would it be fair to attribute the glory days of Russia's space programme to Nikita Khrushchev and his desire to assert the superiority of communism? Possibly not. That would be a disservice to the man who left his signature on nearly all of Russia's impressive space records (first man in space, first woman in space, first artificial satellite, first lunar and interplanetary probes, first spacewalk, etc). That man, Sergei Korolev, a brilliant pioneering engineer known as the "Chief Designer", was not responding to the demands of his political leaders. He was in the grip of an unrelenting ambition to find out "what is out there". Soviet leaders can be credited only with opportunism. They simply steered into Korolev's slipstream. By the same token, although the Soviet Union has been funneling serious funds into tennis development ever since the sport was reinstated in the Olympic games in 1988, players like Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova, Maria Sharapova, Vera Zvonareva and Elena Bovina must take credit themselves for the recent upsurge in Russian fortunes on the world tennis stage. They're not products of one system. Their stories are all different. Sharapova never even lived in Russia from the age of six. It's unlikely that these embryonic careers were forged in the desperate yearning to escape hardship. Indeed, Kuznetsova and others have acknowledged a debt to their parents for financial support and coaching, so they can't have been short of a rouble or two. To some extent, their success is the legacy of Anna Kournikova's profile in the game. Despite her lack of titles, Kournikova was the catalyst for the recent flourishing of Russian talent. She attracted girls to tennis and away from other sports (Kuznetsova, for example, grew up in an environment of world-class cycling). If the formidable Russian team win the Fed Cup later this year, there may be a lot of talk about what the Russian Tennis Federation is doing right, but I can't help feeling they're simply enjoying a ride in the slipstream of gifted young players desperately intent on finding out "what is out there". D.W. (1 November 2004) Back to the topics

Stop the Race! On its website, the ATP claims the Champions Race is a "simple-to-follow" system whereby a player's ranking is determined by his accumulation of points throughout the calendar year. Most tennis fans are probably not too bothered about the intricacies of how the points are earned, but, setting this aside, it's ludicrous to suggest that a system is "easy-to-understand" when it runs in parallel with another system. Because all the players start at zero at the beginning of each year, the Champions Race cannot be used for seeding purposes or to determine who gains entry to a tournament. So the old Entry System, a rolling 52-week calculation of points, is retained for this purpose. The Race itself is therefore nothing more than a litmus test of early-season form. With all due respect to the excellent Slovak who started 2004 in such fine fettle, it was ludicrous to imply, as the Champions Race did for several weeks earlier this year, that the best player in the world was Dominik Hrbaty! The Race makes no allowance for injuries, tempting players to compete when they're not fully fit. Above all, it simply yields misleading results. The WTA Tour also operates two parallel systems. The Porsche Race to the Championships is similar to the ATP Champions Race and its stated purpose is "to determine the eight singles players and four doubles teams that will contest the WTA Tour's season-ending Championships". The fact is, both the ATP and the WTA Races start off with nonsensical rankings in January, gradually acquire some validity over the course of the year and end up with virtually identical results to the parallel ranking system! By contrast with the Champions Race, the Entry System provides an element of protection for players who suffer injury. It's already relied upon for seedings and draw cutoffs. In short, it's a valid ranking system with no serious shortcomings - certainly none serious enough to warrant an alternative or supplementary system. Players are entitled to expect that their tournament acceptances and seedings will reflect their performances over a reasonable amount of time and that some account of injuries will be taken. Fans are entitled to know who is the number one (two, three, ...) player in the world by reference to a single, unambiguous system. It's time the Race was stopped! D.W. (18 October 2004) Back to the topics

Thoughts on the quiet "Mosquito" season Juan Carlos Ferrero When the Tennis Masters event in Madrid gets underway on October 18th, spare a thought for the defending champion. Juan Carlos Ferrero appeared to be on the verge of dominating men's tennis as he stormed to victory over Nicolas Massu in last year's final. He had lifted the French Open trophy, reached the US Open final, climbed to the top of the Entry Rankings and edged ahead of Andy Roddick and Roger Federer in the 2003 Champions Race. The claycourt king was rapidly extending his realm to include all the other surfaces (except grass). But instead of launching him into a period of supremacy, Madrid proved to be part of a draining end-of-season run from which the player dubbed the "Mosquito" has yet to recover. His withdrawal from this week's Shanghai Open was just the latest in a long series of calamities that have seen him all but disappear off the radar in 2004. He has tumbled out of the Top 10 and will probably miss this year's Masters Cup. Leg, arm, wrist, rib and back injuries, not to mention a bout of chicken pox, have all conspired to sap his confidence and competitiveness. In the meantime, Roger Federer has become the dominant force on the ATP Tour and Guillermo Coria has usurped the claycourt throne (only to find himself in possession of a poisoned chalice - the Argentine has been beset by injuries himself ever since the French Open final). "I am not happy with my year," said Ferrero after his second round defeat at the US Open. "This year is almost finished and I just want to forget it." The 2004 "Mosquito" season has certainly been a quiet one, but no one can afford to drop their guard in 2005. Players will be scrambling for the repellant again as soon as Ferrero gets some proper rest and takes a more judicious look at his scheduling. He'll be zipping from corner to corner again with the speed that earned him the nickname. Won't he? Or is there more to all this? Could it be that some kind of psychological dysfunction is involved here? Although most injuries have purely physical causes, some have a mental component as well. For some time now, sport psychologists have mooted the link between stress and increased risk of injury. The pressure applied to a player who suddenly reaches the zenith of the sport demands considerable psychological coping skills. If he works his way back to the top of the rankings next year, it will certainly be interesting to see if Ferrero copes better the second time around. D.W. (1 October 2004) Back to the topics

Serena advances the anti-Williams conspiracy theory When chair umpire Mariana Alves robbed Serena Williams of a point with an erroneous overrule during her US Open quarter-final encounter with Jennifer Capriati and then presided over a bizarre climax in which further dubious calls went in favour of Capriati, the former world number one saw red. "I thought it was another Wimbledon conspiracy," she complained. "I'd prefer she not umpire at my court any more. She's obviously anti-Serena." Conspiracy? Anti-Serena? Oh dear, paranoia is definitely beginning to set in. It's not that long ago that conspiracy theories involving the Williams sisters centred on the outcome of the intra-family finals. Mind you, it's understandable that she should feel aggrieved. No sooner had she brushed aside the memories of her 2003 French Open semi-final loss to Justine Henin-Hardenne, in which she was subjected to catcalls and boos by boorish spectators (not to mention gamesmanship by her opponent), than she witnessed the bizarre incident involving her sister at this year's Wimbledon championships. Umpire Ted Watts helped to confound Venus's ambitions of a third Wimbledon crown when he inexplicably awarded an extra point to Karolina Sprem in the decisive second-set tie-break of their second round match. Hence the Wimbledon conspiracy to which Serena alluded. Controversy all but obscured the battling merits of Capriati at Flushing Meadows and Sprem at Wimbledon, which is a pity. Serena and Venus were both sensible enough to acknowledge that umpiring errors were not the sole factor in their defeats. Nevertheless, Serena's perception that the dice are loaded against her and her sister will continue to be a feature of the women's tour for some time to come. And even if she is paranoid, it doesn't mean players, spectators, umpires and line judges aren't making life hell for her! D.W. (9 September 2004) Back to the topics

The danger of another IOC compromise Some people still seem to believe that the Olympic Games should be the exclusive preserve of amateur athletes. In the last few days, quite a few of my friends have voiced their disquiet about highly-paid tennis professionals besmirching the noble ideals of the Olympic creed. In fact, the International Olympic Committee deleted the words "amateur" and "professional" from the Olympic Charter back in 1986. The definition of amateurism had become blurred by a whole host of controversies. Issues such as cash prizes, reimbursement of travel expenses, compensation for time off work, scholarships, payments for product endorsements, coaching and so on had been giving the IOC a real headache. When state-supported athletes like Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson came on the scene, the pain rapidly became a migraine. Stevenson won three gold medals. He never accepted a salary or took a cash prize, but he was coached by the best in the business and was presented with a mansion in an exclusive residential area by Fidel Castro. By the 1970s it was widely acknowledged that Olympic athletes devoted the majority of their time to their sport. They simply couldn't compete if they tried to juggle training with a full-time job. The hypocrisy dubbed as "shamateurism" became rampant, prompting the IOC to abolish the distinction between amateur and professional altogether. The rules were changed to simply allow each nation to select its finest athletes. The official Olympic motto is "Citius Fortius Altius", a Latin phrase meaning "Swifter, Stronger, Higher". It has inspired athletes and coaches to find new ways to push the envelope, inevitably resulting in some compromises of the Olympic ideals that Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when the first modern Games were held. As well as compromising on the issue of amateurism, the IOC has had to address technological improvements such as spikes, specially-engineered cycles, aerodynamic clothing and equipment, etc. In recent times, attention has focused on the use of drugs to enhance athletic performance. It would be easy for the IOC to compromise over this issue as well. After all, drug testing is currently still off the pace - by the time a test is developed, the athletes have moved on to something else. Perhaps drugs scandals have contributed to the poor attendances in Athens and to the poor television viewing figures. Perhaps they haven't. Either way, it will be one compromise too many if we end up with a perception that the medals are won by chemists and not athletes. D.W. (18 August 2004) Back to the topics

Grasping the Olympic torch When Irishman John Boland travelled to Athens for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, he went as a spectator - a student with a keen interest in Greek culture and history - and returned with the tennis gold medal. Since then, Olympic tennis has had a rather chequered history, dominated by a 64-year exile between 1924 and 1988 while arguments raged over the inclusion of professionals in the Games. Many of today's Olympic tennis players are household names - high-profile athletes accustomed to travelling in style and living in luxury, but many of them are excited by the prospect of bunking in the Olympic village with the other athletes and pulling on a T-shirt bearing the Olympic rings. "It's the Olympic Games," enthused Andy Roddick. "Someone's going to have to drag me off the court not to play there. I want that gold medal. I definitely would cherish it just as much as a Grand Slam title." Although a spectator brandishing a borrowed racket is not going to win a gold medal in this year's tennis event, there is the prospect of a 47-year-old rookie making the headlines. Martina Navratilova is heading for the Games for the first time in her distinguished career. "That's why I really played one more year," she said. "It wasn't to play Wimbledon one more time, it was to play the Olympics." She and her partner Lisa Raymond will be among the favourites in the ladies doubles. Not that everyone is enraptured by the Games. "The Olympics is not for tennis," grumbled Marat Safin recently. "Tennis doesn't need the Olympic Games. We have four Grand Slams. We have a lot of tournaments. We have a pretty tough schedule. I have to play for Russia because I have to. But it is not my goal in my life to win the Olympic Games. I'm not excited at all to go there." There are also concerns about security and a number of sponsorship rows. However, the vast majority of the world's best tennis players are desperately keen to pursue the Olympic ideal of human sporting achievement. They have grasped the Olympic torch and tennis will be all the brighter for it. D.W. (1 August 2004) Back to the topics

Shouldn't tennis at the Olympics be more prestigious? When the 2004 Olympic Tennis Tournament gets underway next month in Athens, cooperation between the IOC, the ITF, the ATP Tour and the WTA Tour has ensured that rankings will be used as the basis for determining direct acceptances into the men’s and women’s singles draws. Even more significantly, both ATP and WTA ranking points will be awarded at the event (WTA Tour ranking points were not awarded at the 2000 Olympics). This represents a major step forward for tennis as an Olympic sport. But does it go far enough? The Olympic tennis champion will receive 400 ATP ranking points. If you compare that with the 500 points earned by Tennis Masters Series champions and the 1000 points available to winners of grand slam events, it raises a few issues. Surely, if the Olympics is considered to be the most prestigious sporting event in the calendar, the ranking points should reflect that. Certain top players will miss the Olympics this year because of its close proximity to the US Open. Injuries and sponsorship conflicts will account for other absentees. But one or two will just be apathetic towards it (though they'll probably cite injury, of course). If, in future, the ranking points on offer were to at least equal those applicable to the grand slams, we would see far fewer absentees and Olympic Tennis would shuffle off the semblance of an embarrassing sporting anomaly and transform itself befittingly into the greatest tennis tournament in the world. D.W. (9 July 2004) Back to the topics

The aftermath of a Henman defeat at Wimbledon Only a short moment after Tim Henman's 2004 Wimbledon campaign fizzles out on Centre Court, spots of rain interrupt the soporific pock, pock, pock of tennis balls on the outside courts. They smear the St George's flags on the fans' faces and draw a veil over a bitterly disappointing performance by the British number one. Yes, the Mexican waves have receded for another year. In the post-match interviews, Henman masks his inner darkness with the usual wry humour and stiff upper lip, while the sports correspondents sharpen their poison pens. There's an inevitability about all this - it's just part of some kind of natural cycle. If it were otherwise, it just wouldn't be right. If it were otherwise, in the words of Lucinda Williams (no, she's nothing to do with Venus and Serena): "How would misery know which back door to walk through? How would scars find skin to etch themselves into? How would broken find the bones?" Meanwhile, the hollow pock, pock, pock has started up again, reminding us Brits that maybe we're missing the point here. We shouldn't be grieving - wearing black is not appropriate at Wimbledon. We don't need the greatest player - we've got the greatest tournament. And the Championships is still very much alive and kicking. D.W. (1 July 2004) Back to the topics

The Mark Petchey School of Motivation The three British players who lost in the first round of Wimbledon qualifying at Roehampton had salt liberally rubbed into their wounds by Mark Petchey, LTA manager of men's national training, who described their performances as "rubbish". He criticised their commitment and attitude and reproached them for their failure to take the opportunity offered them. Petchey was instrumental in the LTA's decision to withdraw Alex Bogdanovic's funding after he refused to play an event in Athens earlier this year because of illness. Presumably, the theory behind the Mark Petchey School of Motivation consists of insulting, ridiculing and ultimately disowning students in an effort to provoke them into discovering their own intrinsic motivation (or an alternative career). Actually, it might even work. Witness the intriguing background to this year's French Open final between the two Argentines, Gaston Gaudio and Guillermo Coria. Coria, like David Nalbandian, is a product of the Argentine Tennis Federation coaching system, whereas Gaudio received no invitation to join the junior programme and had to motivate himself to get out on the practice courts in Buenos Aires. There was a bitter confrontation between the two at last year's Hamburg Masters and Gaudio admonished Coria for failing to appreciate how difficult it had been for him to break into the top echelons of tennis. Perhaps that just provided the spur for Gaudio's dramatic comeback at Roland Garros. So if Bogdanovic or one of the other three "rubbish" Brits winds up going it alone and winning a Grand Slam title a few years down the line, no doubt Mark Petchey will take the credit. D.W. (17 June 2004) Back to the topics

Cheers and jeers are the real impostors At some point when you're watching the Wimbledon Championships on television later this month, the camera will pan over London SW19 and the familiar landmark of St Mary's Church with its slender steeple will slide into view, evoking a sense of timelessness and spirituality. This pinnacle of leafy suburbia was the scene of a minor ecclesiastical spat a little while back when the PCC (Parochial Church Council) sought to block plans for the erection of a plaque commemorating Leslie and Kathleen "Kitty" Godfree. Twice Wimbledon Champion, Kitty Godfree was one of the outstanding women players of the 1920s and the only player to beat Helen Wills Moody in singles at the All England Club. She and Leslie won the Wimbledon Mixed Doubles in 1926 and remain the only married couple to have done so. The PCC argued that commemoration should be restricted to those who had worshipped regularly in the church, but the ruling went against them. Perhaps the only notable aspect of this is that the Church Council should have bothered at all. In a society increasingly obsessed with sport and, more worryingly, increasingly dominated by the cult of celebrity, it would be easy to argue that the cinema and the sports arena have replaced the church as the focal points of public worship. It's as if we've been replacing our old anthropomorphic vision of god with a new apotheosis of celebrities and sports stars. A few actively pursue this adoration and a few, poor devils, have it thrust upon them. The fact is, objects of idolatry often become victims of it, especially those who view their popularity as a gauge of their self-worth. The media whips the public into a buzz and players get bundled onto the roller-coaster ride of intemperate adulation and vindictive criticism. At this time of year, Tim Henman is invariably subjected to this behaviour. Fortunately, he's got the stomach for it. Kipling got it wrong. Triumph and disaster aren't the impostors - there have to be winners and losers in sport - it's cheers and jeers that should be treated just the same. Of course, I wouldn't want to pour cold water on the achievements of sporting champions, but I do think we should refrain from burdening mere mortals with mythological properties. It may do them even more harm than it does their misguided fans. Perhaps the PCC were right. Champions deserve recognition for their achievements, but their claims to posterity should be confined to perennial trophies and sporting almanacs. These days, modern tall buildings diminish the visual impact of church steeples. We get a completely different perspective from those that Kitty Godfree and her peers enjoyed. A sense of perspective - now that's something we should try to hang on to. D.W. (1 June 2004) Back to the topics

The LTA should make a name for themselves If the Lawn Tennis Association is really determined to shake off its stuffy, conservative image, it should start with a change of name. The word 'lawn' is anachronistic. It conjures up images of Victorian garden parties, croquet and bowls. It perpetuates the myth that British tennis is synonymous with Wimbledon and little else. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but this name reeks of elitism and must be replaced by something that will help attract more young people to the sport. Obviously, some care must be taken with the choice of a new name. Remember the UK Post Office's disastrous decision to change its name to Consignia? If possible, the name should be either catchy and positive in itself or produce a catchy and positive acronym, but something like GBTA (GB Tennis Association) would probably suffice. A change of name would signify a new attitude, a new credibility, a radical new approach to the presentation and organisation of tennis in this country. It's time they made a name for themselves! D.W. (12 May 2004) Back to the topics

The dark secret of Roland Garros One of the things that's synonymous with the month of May is tennis in Paris in the springtime. The mystique of the place clouds the senses - bateaux-mouches drifting along the Seine; red and white chequered tablecloths and trees laden with blossom; croissants and coffee, garlic and Gitanes; grunting and squealing from the courts and tiny clouds of red dust. It's the very stuff of art and music and poetry. And yet, Roland Garros bears a nasty scar. When Paris fell under German occupation during the Second World War, tennis was banished from the stadium, and, along with other sites like the Velodrome d'Hiver, a stadium designed for bicycle racing, it was used as a transit camp for Jews before they were transported East to concentration camps. The Velodrome d'Hiver was destroyed by the French after the war. Although the tennis stadium survived, its guilty secret still lurks underneath the red clay. There's no reference to this on the official French Open website. Although you can understand the French being uncomfortable with references to the Vichy administration's complicity in the Nazi Holocaust, surely the lesson of that whole tragic episode was that evil must be confronted to be defeated. Maybe they should erect a memorial to the victims somewhere prominent in the stadium. On n'oublie jamais rien. D.W. (30 April 2004) Back to the topics

Should Patty Schnyder refuse to shake hands with "nasty" Conchita Martinez? There could be fireworks a-plenty when Switzerland plays Spain in Fed Cup this weekend. The Family Circle Cup semi-final encounter between Conchita Martinez and Patty Schnyder descended into an acrimonious affair when Schnyder, incensed by the Spaniard's quirky routine of demanding the same ball after winning a point on serve, twice pocketed the offending object and, on another occasion, launched it high into the stands to keep it out of her clutches. The two openly taunted each other and Schnyder theatrically pulled her hand away when Martinez approached the net for the traditional post-match handshake. Martinez insists she has a routine and WTA Tour rules allow 20 seconds between points. "I can do with the 20 seconds whatever I want," she said. "With her, it's just nasty play," Schnyder complained afterwards. "She's showing no respect to the ball person. She's walking around between first and second serve, letting everybody wait. I don't think it's the way you should behave." Schnyder interpreted her opponent's behaviour as a deliberate ploy to annoy her and disrupt her concentration and rather naively expected the umpire to intervene. Unfortunately, there is only so much a player (and an umpire) can do when an opponent resorts to such tactics. Although gamesmanship is anathema to those who cherish the true spirit of sport, the perpetrator is often just exploiting weaknesses in the rules without actually breaking them. Many sports fans have an attitude towards gamesmanship which is at best ambivalent and at worst downright bizarre and hypocritical. Remember the antics of the bad guys like Connors, Nastase and McEnroe? Well, no sooner were they denounced as complete jerks than they were acclaimed as the great characters of the game! Anyway, you might think it unfair to cast Conchita Martinez in the role of the villain here. You might prefer to attribute her behaviour to some kind of superstitious compulsion. But the fact is, she cannot possibly be oblivious to the animosity she provokes. Patty Schnyder is obviously one of the players who feels disinclined to view these shenanigans in a charitable light. But refusing to shake hands is reprehensible. It reveals a lack of class and character. It's a serious breach of etiquette and it's disrespectful to the sport itself. Bad blood will doubtless still linger when these two meet again, but Schnyder should avoid bringing the women's game into further disrepute. Regardless of the provocation, she should accept the hand of her opponent unflinchingly, remembering the words of Mahatma Ghandi: "Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." D.W. (22 April 2004) Back to the topics

The Tao of Federer "Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain." There was a long silence. "I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything." I suppose I shouldn't really write a eulogy to someone who's just in the spring of his career, but what the heck. Eulogies always seem more convincing against a background of doom and gloom. So let's get into Eeyore mood: You know, it seems to me we live in an increasingly prosaic world - measured by statistics, stripped of spirituality. Our artists write and paint and dance and sing unobserved in the shadows cast by the commercial giants of mass culture. Our schools churn out children whose worth is defined by nothing more than their ability to pass exams. Our health service is obsessed with nursing performance indicators rather than patients. And our communities are policed in total disregard of Sir Robert Peel's insistence that "the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it." Our very thoughts and feelings are assessed in terms of percentages in opinion polls. The tennis world is not immune from it. "Playing the percentages" has become the mantra of players, coaches and pundits. Players are obsessed with chasing ranking points, even at the expense of their health. We all bounce around like Tigger in a pandemonium of benchmarks, quotas, performance targets and league tables. I guess that's what Tiggers do best. And after all, we're doing the bidding of some very wise people - Rabbit and Owl seem to know a lot of Important Things. The trouble is, they just can't see the wood from the trees. So it's refreshing that, just occasionally, someone like Pooh comes along blissfully ignoring it all. As Benjamin Hoff writes in his book, The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet: "While Eeyore frets and Piglet hesitates and Rabbit calculates and Owl pontificates, Pooh just is." Roger Federer is like that. Not on purpose. He probably doesn't think about aesthetics at all. But when he won the Australian Open earlier this year, it was almost as if the scoreboard had stopped and we just gazed in awe as he oozed around the court dispatching shots of elegance and effortless authority. "I guess it looks quite simple," Federer has said. "My movements are smooth and I guess people like to watch it, and it's nice to hear, but in the end I know how much work I'm putting in there." Okay, maybe the swan is paddling furiously under the water, but suddenly tennis is aesthetically pleasing again! And at the moment he's doing it all without any input from a coach. But then, as Eeyore would say: "What is Learning? A thing Rabbit knows! Ha!" D.W. (31 March 2004) Back to the topics

Lonely at the top As Tim Henman contemplates the sunset of his career, he may well reflect how his country likes to build people up and then, with the greatest of pleasure, likes to knock them down again. Of course, it's not just a British trait. They say it's lonely at the top. Well, in tennis, it can be lonely getting to the top and utterly desolate when you arrive. The total focus required to win major tournaments in an individual sport demands a level of independence that is sometimes incompatible with harmonious social interaction. The strong sense of camaraderie evident in Davis Cup and Fed Cup competition serves only to demonstrate how relieved some players feel when they are released from the blinkered constraints of self-absorption. Like it or not, champions find their heads sticking above the parapet and some of them don't like the draught. Pete Sampras spoke of getting the monkey off his back when he lost in the 1991 US Open quarter-finals after winning the title as a 19-year-old the previous year. He eventually mustered the courage to stick his head up again and again, but who knows how many under-achievers duck below the parapet and just stay there? The psychological dynamics of competitive sport are intriguing. Just as peer effect is often a strong influence on academic achievement in schools, aspiring tennis champions must be conscious of the fact that winning trophies can turn peer approval to icy disinterest or even overt antipathy as resentment sets in. So it's understandable that many winners blink uneasily in the glare of recognition. After all, peer perception becomes particularly fickle and unpredictable when you stand out from the crowd. Just ask Greg Rusedski, who drew attention to himself by fighting for his reputation in public after his positive drugs test. He perceived that he had the support of his fellow professionals, but Todd Woodbridge, the vice-president of the ATP's player council, warned that such a perception was ill-founded. "It's a pretty selfish world in tennis," he said. "Everybody is playing head-to-head and they want to have a leg up and be just that bit ahead." The Williams sisters appear to inhabit an alien world of their own. But do they do it out of choice or are they consigned to it by the envy and mistrust of others? Are they aloof or are they just proud and self-confident? It's a curious facet of social behaviour that people are often made to feel guilty or ashamed of their most virtuous aspirations. We encourage competition, but when we celebrate with the winners it's almost like kissing them goodbye. We empathise with the losers. There are, of course, popular champions. But we are very demanding of them. They are required to prove their worthiness. So the intensity of peer and public examination is turned up, magnifying blemishes in the effort to detect fraud. Only the most astute (or the most thick-skinned) survive. Applying too much pressure to those who succeed is deeply corrosive to the health of sport and to the health of society in general. Eagles don't flock with the rest of us, but they are magnificent and the world is a better place for them. May the pigeons rejoice when the eagle soars. D.W. (3 March 2004) Back to the topics

Unhealthy tennis calendar Household appliances improve quality of life by ensuring people have more free time. It befits the ATP to have secured a multi-million dollar sponsorship deal with Indesit, the manufacturers of fridges, washing machines, dishwashers, cookers, etc. Perhaps it will prompt them to give a higher priority to negotiations over a restructured tour, allowing players more breaks. If they had more time to recover from one season and prepare for the next, the players would be fitter, better motivated and altogether better equipped to entertain the humble tennis consumer, who according to Indesit's philosophy should be "at the centre of everything". The ATP has been beset by financial problems since the break-up of its ten-year marketing deal with ISL a couple of years ago. But there's another more serious break-up threatening professional tennis at the moment - the break-up of players' bodies! An increasing number of players have succumbed to chronic overuse injuries in the last year or so, and the WTA Tour has been decimated during the first weeks of 2004. If the ATP's new deal represents a financial tonic, the attrition of players' hips, knees, ankles, shoulders, wrists and backs threatens a relapse. The viability of both tours obviously depends on the availability of top players to draw the crowds. Indesit offer warranty protection in respect of their products. The ATP and WTA need to restructure the tennis calendar so that they can offer the same in respect of their players. D.W. (27 February 2004) Back to the topics

Marat, friend of the people Marat Safin So the raving racket-trasher made it to another Grand Slam final. Given that he was named after French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, whose vitriolic writings helped foment the worst excesses of the French Revolution, it's only fitting that Marat Safin should display a somewhat combustible approach to playing tennis. At the Australian Open four years ago, the mercurial Russian courted controversy when he received a fine for allegedly "tanking" a match. Nine months later, he pulled off one of the great upsets of all time by beating Pete Sampras in straight sets in the US Open final and went on to become the youngest man in history to hold the world number one ranking. He looked set to dominate men's tennis for several years. But a combination of unfocused performances and a persistent wrist injury conspired to deny him success commensurate with his talent. Although his candour made him popular with fans all over the world and his "just live, just enjoy" philosophy amused journalists in press conferences, the fact is, he was simply not winning enough titles. Safin, who has confessed to breaking 68 rackets in one year, doesn't so much wear his heart on his sleeve as boot it around behind the baseline. "Angry outbursts are part of my character," he once explained. "I have to let out of my body the negative energy. Otherwise it builds up and sometimes I get ill." He may have astonished the tennis world by reaching the final of the Australian Open, but it may not have been a fluke. If he's found a way of converting negative energy to positive energy on court, men's tennis had better brace itself for an unexpected new uprising from the revolutionary's namesake. D.W. (31 January 2004) Back to the topics

ATP in the dock Since Greg Rusedski broke the news of his positive drugs test to the world, he has been throwing plenty of mud around in defence of his situation. Some of it has blown straight back in his face, but much of it has reached its intended target and may well stick there. By concluding that its own trainers had been at fault in providing players with contaminated supplements last year, the ATP earned itself a disapproving stare from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) who grumbled that internal investigations, no matter how well done, would always be tainted with doubt. Unfortunately, the ATP's somewhat dubious investigations resulted in somewhat dubious actions (or inaction), in that disciplinary action does not appear to have been taken against any of the aforesaid trainers or their managers. We're talking about mistakes that seriously threatened (and continue to threaten) the careers, reputation and well-being of the world's top professional tennis players. No wonder WADA believes tennis is not doing enough to ensure fair play and to protect athletes' health. Given that they owned up to sabotaging the players themselves, and given the perception that they were acting as both judge and jury in dealing with the issue, surely the LTA needed to come up with a greater show of strength? Apparently, WADA has no direct authority to intervene. More's the pity. D.W. (23 January 2004) Back to the topics

No excuses for Rusedski Greg Rusedski's protestations of innocence after testing positive for nandralone are useless. Athletes just cannot be excused for positive tests. The thresholds set by the testers are well above the levels that can be produced endogenously, so his defence will doubtless revolve around inadvertent ingestion. But even if Rusedski could prove that he took a particular supplement containing a banned substance inadvertently at the time of the test, it would not preclude the possibility that he was also taking other illegal products at the same time. Unfortunately, he has a duty to be aware of banned substances and must be held responsible for everything that enters his system. If Rusedski is found guilty of a doping offence and the source turns out to be a dietary supplement or sports food, there are three possibilites: i) either he deliberately used a product containing a banned substance, or ii) he inadvertently used a product that contained a banned substance as a stated ingredient, or iii) he inadvertently used a product that contained an undeclared banned ingredient. Although even the last of these scenarios does not alter his culpability, surely something should be done to protect the sport from rogue companies who are guilty of mislabelling? Regulation of the production and marketing of supplements is inadequate despite pressure from sports governing bodies. So, given that increased surveillance of the supplement industry is unlikely in the short term, could sports bodies introduce some controls of their own? Could lists of "safe" products be circulated like the lists of banned medications? The trouble is, even if a product were to be tested in a laboratory and found clean, how could you guarantee that another batch of the same product would be identical? Testing agencies commissioned by sporting organisations would not want to be sued by athletes who trusted their findings but still tested positive. Maybe athletes should consider legal action against the supplement companies. That might force some changes. Sports bodies should plough resources into educating athletes about banned substances. It's easy to get caught out. Some cold and cough remedies, for example, include banned stimulants such as ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine. It's also possible to fall foul of inadvertent by-products of certain ingredients found in supplements. In the meantime, the buck stops with the athlete. The risk involved in taking a dietary supplement may be a very small one, but the price of a mistake is very high. As James Blake recently commented: "You have to be careful putting things in your body when your body is your profession." D.W. (9 January 2004) Back to the topics

© 2004 Dave Winship

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