MOST OF THEIR BATTLING IS IN MEDIA ROOM

Jennifer and Lleyton go to war with words

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

FROM THE U.S. OPEN – Lleyton Hewitt and Jennifer Capriati are two of the most ferocious
on-court fighters the tour has seen in the last decade so it should come as no surprise that they never back down off-court either.

On Tuesday, both the Aussie and the American went off in post-match press conferences; Jennifer took swipes at inappropriate comments made by the always ballistic Richard Williams and Hewitt again accused the ATP Tour of
lying about the Cincinnati affair, where the ATP fined him for blowing off an interview.

Jennifer has been thumping her chest regarding the Williamses dominance over the past three months and when a reporter read to her comments told to Inside Tennis magazine last month, she was completely disgusted.

The quote was: Richard said, “Jennifer doesn‚t listen to her father well enough. That guy
really knows the game. if Jennifer stopped and listened to him and stopped acting ignorant, cursing on court, she‚d be all right.”

It was an amazing comment from a confused man, whose own daughters don’t exactly heed every word he says. Richard takes a lot of credit for Venus and Serena’s Slam titles, but he wasn’t at either Roland Garros or Wimbledon this
year when Serena went back to back over Venus, so maybe the coaching credit
there should be give to their mother, Oracene.

And who says that Jennifer doesn't listen to her coach and father, Stefano? He coached her to three Grand Slam titles and Jennifer defends him to the death, to the point that she was willing to embarrass herself at the Fed Cup by being kicked off the team because she insisted on practicing with him. Jennifer claims that she and Stefano have a good relationship and are known to occasionally dine together.

“You can see how ignorant that sounds and how disrespectful that sounds,'' she said of Richard’s comments. “He should just concentrate on his daughters – and he's doing a good job. I don’t need his advice. He gets away with it. It’s too bad. It’s no class. I've never taken personal remarks. I've never said anything personal, just about the game itself. I could say things about them, but I'm not going to because I'm not going to lower myself to that.”

HER BIGGEST CRITIC
Jennifer is extremely hard on herself, which is why you frequently hear her admonishing herself when she’s playing badly. Unlike Venus or Serena, she does curse and is willing to take on any linesperson or umpire, but that’s her way and it doesn’t appear to hurt her play. What negatively affects Capriati is that sometimes when she gets down on herself, she goes to a place in her mind that is deep, dark and self-doubting that she can’t pull herself out of it. She doesn't try to understand what’s disturbing her and only knows one way to get out of it: rage. That’s why she’ll get wild on court sometimes and grow stubborn in her strategy, failing to change tactics when she needs to most.

Jennifer obviously sees the Williamses as her main rivals, saying that she enjoys hearing that she has the best chance to unseat the Williamses from their third Slam in a row.

“I like hearing it,” she said. “It‚s a good thing. Maybe I‚m not the only
one. Lindsay‚ back and playing well. But it‚s a lot of pressure to bear, too.
My goals to try and win the tournament. My goal is not to disrupt the
Williams final. That's taking away from the actual game and it‚s like they‚re
owning the game and trying to stop them from owning it. There‚s a lot of
other things that makes this game besides them.”

While that‚s certainly true, the WTA Tour has been revolving around Venus and Serena since February and has been locked into their orbit since Roland Garros, as they have won all but one of the tournaments they have entered. If Capriati wants to send them spinning into hyperspace, she’ll need to seriously turn her anger into a positive here, because she hasn’t won a tournament since February and hasn’t beaten and either Venus or Serena in a year.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO LLEYTON
Hewitt’s world revolves around Hewitt and there’s little room for strangers: fans, media, tour officials. He’s perhaps the most well-insulated No. 1 in history and perhaps the most paranoid one. He can be evocative and thoughtful, but he’s still too immature to take even fair criticism or offer a reasonabale perspective on a conflict he is involved in.

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

Yesterday, he again spoke out against the ATP Tour, the very same tour that has helped line his pocket with millions of dollars. Hewitt was given a $103,000 fine in Cincinnati earlier this month for refusing to participate in an interview with host broadcasters ESPN before his first round match, even though he was given three days to do it. Hewitt said the ATP is duplicitous.

"The ATP people were lying," said Hewitt. "It was always 'ATP spokesperson' … no one ever wanted to put their name to it. I think a lot of people lied. I think that is a known fact.”

Hewitt said that he had told the ATP he would attend the interview “just to get it all out of the way,”but that no one got back to him until it was too late. “I didn't really want to come out and make a big deal of it. But it was all one-sided coming out … it was just absolute lies coming out. I felt I was copping the brunt of it and the ATP was just sort of riding the wave. There were so many guys just making up stories just to … save their jobs, I guess.”

Whether it is Hewitt or the ATP who is right in this dispute, it is Hewitt who is acting irresponsably. by damaging the tour’s reputation. No one from ESPN or any other journalist have supported Hewitt’s version of the story, and why would they? He only does interviews because he is forced to, not out of choice. He is not a people person, so why he is trying to convince the world that he is defies logic. Just because he gets along with his girlfriend, Kim Clijsters, his parents, and his agent and spokesperson who are paid to paint him as a decent guy, doesn’t mean that he’s a jolly good fellow. What kind of person would threaten to submarine his own tour (and fellow players) just because he can’t follow the same rules that nearly every other player does?

“When things happen like in Cincinnati, when you think about the way everything has been run, it’s just not much fun," said Hewitt, who said he might not follow the rules about how many tournaments a player is obliged to compete in and could ignore the importance of the No. 1 ranking. “There are times when you feel like (walking away). … It is a great sport if the ATP would just get out of the way.”

Actually, the sport would be a whole lot better if it’s top player would stop spraying the room with negitivity. Men’s tennis would be in far better shape if Hewitt brought out the gentle, understanding side of his personality that Clijsters is so fond of talking about.

But whether that happens or not, defending U.S. Open champion Hewitt is at home in New York, madly honking his horn and racing to cross a bridge before the gate closes. Remember that last year here in his run to the title, he fought the entire world over the James Blake incident, when it was alleged that he made racial remarks toward an African-America umpire, a charge he vehemently denied. The incident seemed to propel him to new heights as he slipped on his warrior’s mask, blocked everyone out and sliced up the field.

Like Capriati, Hewitt loves to go to war and just two days into the Open, he's already charging toward the front lines.