Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

New WTA chief Kevin Wulff had an eye-opening introduction to the highly unpredictable and volatile world of women's tennis at the Championships in Munich last week. That's when Jennifer Capriati lost her No. 1 ranking to Lindsay Davenport after only three weeks and Davenport then failed to cement her new status as the queen of yellowball when she had to pull out of her final against Serena Williams with a bum knee.

Wulff also watched while his predecessor, Bart McGuire, held Venus Williams feet to the fire and threatened her with a $140,000 after she pulled out of the year-end Championships at the last minute with an alleged wrist injury. tennisreporters.net has learned that McGuire never spoke to Venus directly and only spoke her agent at IMG about the matter. Venus, who has a strong sense of pride, was apparently peeved.

Wulff, who used to work closely with Michael Jordan at Nike, said he will focus on creating Jordan-type icons in the WTA and attempt to steer women's tennis into the "jetstream" of sport. If he is to do so, he must first establish sound personal relationships with WTA stars and be able to pick up the phone and call them directly when there is a crisis brewing. "The greatest challenge is really building relationships with them, building the trust and also building their involvement and commitment to take the vision, share the vision and gain their commitment to the plan," Wulff said.

McGuire could have cleared the air with Venus before shaking a stick at her in public. Now, when the mistrustful Venus returns to play in January, she'll be without her favorite communications manager at her side (Brooke Lawer is leaving in December) and expected to join hands with a new CEO who wants to her to be like Mike. Not only does Venus lack MJ's complete obsession with winning at everything every second of the year, she also needs a lot more down time. As Venus said so revealingly in August, "I just wish everyone would leave me alone for a while." Wulff will have a better chance at convincing the spotlight-loving Serena to do a couple hundred public appearances than he will Venus.

RANKING PROBLEMS CLOUD LINDSAY'S STREAK
Pity Lindsay, who now becomes the lightening rod of the what's wrong with the women's rankings. She hasn't won a Slam in nearly two years and failed to reach a Slam final this year, but because she is the mark of consistency (sort of like former No. 1 Hingis was) and went on an impressive end of the year run by winning three straight titles, she took the spot from Capriati, who hasn't won a trophy since June.

"There's a huge debate in women's tennis about who should be No. 1 ," said Lindsay. "I've had a very consistent year and it's great to end it at No. 1 but I don't put a whole lot of emphasis on it. I'm not going to sit here and defend myself. I can't help it if Venus only plays nine or ten tournaments and if Jennifer didn't win more tour events. It's pretty obvious they would be number one then."

Does Davenport deserve to be No. 1? Sure she does, unless the WTA decides to change its ranking system and lower its minimum number of tournaments from 17 to 12 to accommodate Venus, who's the best player in the world when she plays – which isn't very much. This reporter feels that 16 tournaments is a fair number.
But when you are a marquee player like Venus, who has already banked millions because of her affiliation with the sport, 12 events is not enough to satisfy fans. Venus needs to give more back to her sport. If Venus doesn't want to be Bugs Bunny's Hollywood sidekick a la MJ, that's understandable, but the least she could do is play a serious schedule next year and grab the No. 1 ranking that should he hers.

Serena put on quite a show in Munich, whipping Justine Henin and Sandrine Testud after not playing for almost two months. She ended the year No. 6 and then said (for the third straight year) that she desires to leap over all her peers and will play a busier schedule. "There are a lot of players who are above me and shouldn't be," Serena said. "Being No. 1 is definitely my goal. [Next year] I'll be everywhere. You guys will get tired of seeing me. I'm on a mission. My next goal is to be No. 1. … I'm going to have to take down anyone who stands in my way (including Venus)."

Lindsay, Jennifer and Venus will finish the year as Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in the rankings, the first time since 1983 that U.S. women have grabbed the three top spots. Of course in '83, four American women finished at the top: No. 1 Martina Navratilova, No. 2 Chris Evert, No. 3 Andrea Jaeger and No. 4 Pam Shriver.

NO. 1? IT'S LISA RAYMOND
Applause for Lisa Raymond who won Munich for the first time, teaming with Australia's Rennae Stubbs over Cara Black/Elena Likhovtseva 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, in the final. The title was Raymond's ninth this year, her seventh with Stubbs. Raymond will now end the year as the No. 1 women's doubles player in the world, the first American to do so since Gigi Fernandez in 1993.