ESPN.com - Wimbledon 2002 - Even a scorecard isn't much help

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Thursday, July 17
Even a scorecard isn't much help
By Curry Kirkpatrick
ESPN The Magazine

The defending champion, Goran Ivanisevic, can't win it. Last year's runner-up, Pat Rafter, can't either. Both of them won't even be there. Pete, what's his name? -- the guy who usually wins it -- is so over, they're lining him up to volley with Lennox Lewis. And Andre Agassi? Take another several thousand bows and get out of here, Daddy 'Dre, babe. Oh, say, along about the quarters.

Goran Ivanisevic
Goran Ivanisevic won't defend his title because of shoulder surgery.

Lleyton Hewitt? No hair left. Marat Safin? No heart to begin with. Gustavo Kuerten? No surfboard, another no show. And then there's your most recent thoroughly legendary Grand Slam winners, Albert Costa (the French), who just got married, and Thomas Johansson (the Australian), who just got recognized.

All of which says about all there is to say about the state of men's tennis on the eve of the sport's grandest event: John McEnroe Shilling Himself Again.

Naw. Only, uh, lobbing. Just because Wimbledon begins just as Johnny Mac exposes himself in an autobiography as a Difficult Human Being and a Snort Maniac besides -- whooooaaa, stop the presses! -- doesn't mean tennis has grown comparatively stilted, tedious and tending toward anonymous parity. Please -- to paraphrase that NBA slogan -- Love It, Dead. As the results of the eight Grand Slam championships since July 2000 manifest, you can hardly pick out the champs even with a scorecard. In fact, the eight different winners of the past eight majors have already been hidden between the lines above; match the champ with his event and win an all expenses paid trip to Colbert, Wash., home of still another journeyman who could turn out to be the ninth straight different player to take home a Slam trophy. Yeah, you got it:

Jan-Michael Gambill.

Well, why shouldn't the handsome star of Los Banditos and White Line Fever be The Next One. Ooops. That was Jan Michael Vincent? Oh yeah, Gambill's the Jan Michael who merely wants to be in the movies and whose pet lion actually was -- typecast as one of the raging stars of Gladiator. You can look it up.

While you're at it, you might also dig into the history books for the last time the former lord of this jungle, Pete Sa...Sa...Sa...Sampras (that's him), actually won a tournament. It was 29 appearances ago -- the historic Wimbledon of 2000 when The Pistol took hold of his record 13th Grand Slam title. (That's the same date, by the way, when all these different chumps started winning the different Big Four championships.) At the time, you could get even money from tennis aficionados that Sampras might actually beat Tiger Woods in the race to Jack Nicklaus' haul of majors. But since then, Tiger's won about 37 of those things while Pete -- who ducked the tougher Queens tournament last week to fly off to Holland and get a few wins under his belt, only to get dropped by Nicolas Reaver, uh Kiefer -- just keeps losing, getting consoled by the lovely Bridgette (Yoko) Wilson and changing coaches.

That's another epidemic running rampant in the game. In recent months, tennis has seen more coaching changes than Notre Dame. Sampras -- from Paul Annacone to Tom Gullikson to Jose Higueras. Agassi -- from Brad Gilbert to Darren Cahill. Hewitt -- from Cahill to Jason Stoltenberg. Tim Henman -- from David Felgate to Noboby to Larry Stefanki. Safin -- from Mats Wilander to Amit Naor to Mark Rosset (whom he called an "assistant coach" for godsakes.) It's a miracle nobody hired Jeff Van Gundy to string a racquet or two.

Not that there won't be some compelling story lines at the All England Club.

Lleyton Hewitt
After dominating on U.S. soil, Aussie Lleyton Hewitt looks to take over England.

Hewitt, a 21-year-old from Adelaide, Australia, who is Wimby's first No. 1 seed from his tennis-mad homeland in almost three decades (John Newcombe was the last), won the important London tuneup tournament for the third year in a row when he clipped homeboy Henman in the final last weekend. This would obviously earn him the title of King of Queens -- although don't try addressing him as such, unless you're ready for some full-throated F-bombs from the macho, feisty, now burr-headed, U.S. Open champion. Still largely unknown in America -- he and his agent, the otherwise likeable, cooperative Tom Ross, block access to the star as if he was The Twelfth Hijacker (which his opponents undoubtedly wish he were) -- Hewitt could sweep away with Wimbledon and become the breakout hero the sport desperately needs. If he would just lighten up and act like a true G'Day, Shrimp's-On-The-Barbie Aussie once in a while. Not to mention a Human Being.

Agassi, the former Las Vegas show rat and suddenly sage conscience of the game since he became the husband of Steffi Graf and the father of Jaden Gil, is again the oldest man (32) in a Grand Slam draw. In Paris he kept beating the youngest men in the draw until he ran out of gas against Juan Carlos Ferrero. But we remember ten years ago at Wimbledon. We remember Agassi coming out of nowhere (12th seed) to capture the first of his seven Slams by defeating former champs Boris Becker and McEnroe before taking out Ivanisevic in the five-set final. With a victory over the upcoming fortnight, Double A would make some more sexy history -- for the longest stretch between Big W titles, a record currently held by none other than Bill Tilden (1921-30). Far-fetched? Not if we follow the stars, all aligned. Speaking of a stretch, Agassi's cohort champion on the distaff side in 1992 was the girl known as Frau Forehand, the woman he would later marry.

The AWLs, the absent with leave finalists from last summer -- Ivanisevic and Rafter who contested one of the most terrific finals ever seen on the hallowed lawns -- may not be aware that the last Wimbledon champion who did not defend his title was Hilton Head's own Stan Smith (due to the ATP boycott) in 1973 and that the last champ who did not defend because of illness/injury was Musketeer Rene Lacoste (with a chest ailment) in 1926.

But this will hardly cheer up the star-crossed Ivanisevic, one of Wimbledon's most popular winners -- all three or four or fifteen faces of him -- who after hoping against hope to be ready in defense finally succumbed to his bum shoulder and underwent rotator cuff surgery in May. He will be sidelined until the end of the year -- about the time that 29-year-old Rafter's comeback from retirement should be in full swing, as well. "Mate, you've got unfinished business," Newcombe told Rafter recently, referring to his countryman's losing both Wimbledon and the Davis Cup -- and surely not to his relationship with longtime girlfriend, Lara Feltham, who is due to give birth to the couple's first child next month.

Without Ivo and P-Raft, speculation has run wild as to how Wimbledon will open the proceedings with the traditional pomp and circumstance. But what could be more wonderful than the All England inviting the formerly betrothed McEnroe and Tatum O'Neal to exchange charges about recreational drug use and pair off against Jennifer Capriati and Billy Jean King for some mixed message doubles?

Speaking of children, among the tots to tout at Wimbledon will be: Richard Gasquet, just turned 16, the French wonderboy who took a first set off Costa at Roland Garros then went on to dominate the juniors event. He is the brightest prospect from a foreign land since Becker. Andy Roddick, 19, America's Great White Hype, uh, Hope who must start performing up to his clippings in majors -- he retired from a second round match with Ivan Ljubicic in Australia and was served off the court in the first round of the French by Wayne Arthurs -- lest he become just another poster boy for the dread "sophomore jinx." And Roger Federer, 20, the pony-tailed Swiss with the matinee idol looks and the all-court game who stopped Sampras' 31-match winning streak at Wimbledon last summer but couldn't get Arotten set off Hicham Arazi in Paris last month.

Roger Federer
A major breakthrough in Roger Federer's career was his upset of Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon last year.

Picky, picky. Mark that down to one of the flashy Arazi's career highlights. Federer already has a marvelous history at Wimbledon -- in addition to the Sampras scalp, he took the junior title at the All England Club in 1998 -- and he is overdue for a huge Slam. It took a thrilling four-setter including two long tiebreakers before Every Brit's sentimental everyman, Henman -- three times a semifinalist, losing twice to Sampras and in 2001 to Ivanisevic -- finally eliminated Federer last July.

So let's recommend this: That the same two men meet in the semifinals this time -- and Federer prevails. And then of course, the Swiss will win the championship, beating Vincent, uh, Gambill.

As for the women: In the face of the divine non-secrets of the Venus and Serena Yaya Sisterhood, are they really going to bother with another yaya charade? After Anna Kournikova and Daniela Hantuchova scratch each other's eyes out over who's baring the most fabulous flesh; after Justin Henin steals the smitten Hewitt away from her Belgian countrywoman Kim Clijsters; after Jelena Dokic and Alexandra Stevenson forbid their parents from holding press conferences; after Monica Seles has finished grunting and Jennifer Capriati has concluded whining and Mary Pierce has revealed her recipe for strawberry shortcake; Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis will once again combine to save the tournament from another World WAR. (Williams' Annihilation Regimen)

What? Lindsay and Marty can't make the party either?

Never mind.

Curry Kirkpatrick is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at curry.kirkpatrick@espnmag.com.

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