NOTES ON A DRAW SHEET

Agassi, Juan Carlos set to collide?
Lindsay vs. Justine; Dani v. Patty; WTA's search for leadership

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Siggi Bucher

Before we take a deep bow to Andre Agassi after every changeover like some of the TV analysts do, let's quickly review his gutsy four-set win over Nicolas Escude. While Andre was very impressive playing defense, his offense left a lot to be desired at times, especially his second serve. There's no way a 32-year-old man is going to out-slug a lanky free swinger like Escude, but if Agassi is going to grab his fourth Aussie Open title, he had better take a few more risks in his service games. Agassi's next opponent, Argentine Guillermo Coria, is on a roll and should he survive that contest, the Las Vegan could face his French nemesis, No. 12 seed Sebastien Grosjean, in the quarters.

For more than a few moments there, it looked like Juan Carlos Ferrero was going to suffer another ignominious defeat at a non-clay court Grand Slam, but he pulled out a doozy against Fabrice Santoro, winning 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5. Now he'll face Croatia's Mario Ancic, who's having a bang-up tournament. "I saw that he has a very good serve, no mistakes from the base of the line, and he goes a lot of times to the net, so is going to be tough," said the No. 4 seed Ferrero, who has clear sailing to the semis (and possibly Agassi) should he not fold up his tent or future injure his abductor muscle.

The fact that Felix Mantilla is still in the tournament while Albert Costa and Carlos Moya are gone shows that many of the Spaniards are still not preparing properly for the Aussie Open. Rebound Ace should be a very suitable surface for all the better hombres.

Lindsay v. Justine; Dani v. Patty
Lindsay Davenport will face Justine Henin Hardenne in the fourth round, a tough draw for both players. The last time the two played (in Zurich) Davenport won in straight sets and Henin said she thought that Davenport faked an injury. Justine has never beaten Davenport and has a lot of trouble with players who crunch a big, flat ball.

"I laughed about it a little bit because I won the first set, and then I got hurt, so I wasn't quite sure why she thought I would fake it," Davenport said. I think she was frustrated. If she had played a smarter game out there, there's no way I could have won. She couldn't hit a ball on the court all of a sudden when I called the trainer out twice. It's definitely something I'm not known for."

While many women's yellowball fans will be tuning in for Henin-Davenport, others will be wonking the Daniela Hantuchova-Patty Schnyder match, which should be a well-fought, emotional, up-and-down affair. Dani is a much cleaner ball striker, but Patty is more accomplished at grubbing out points. Both women have given their more-than-probable opponent, Venus Williams, trouble in the past.

Someone e-mail us and tell us at what moment Paola Suarez decided that her singles career was over and she was better off as a doubles specialist. How she lost to the very beatable Nicole Pratt is beyond us. It sounds like Gaby Sabatini was right when she told us a few months ago that Paola had already peaked as a singles player and she liked Clarisa Fernandez's prospects more.

WTA's search for leadership

Siggi Bucher

Lindsay Davenport hit the nail right on the head on Friday when asked what she though about WTA CEO's Kevin Wulff's decision to resign.

"It just seems that we cannot find the right person for that job," Davenport said. "We definitely don't want somebody in the job that doesn't love it and doesn't have their heart into it."

The WTA Tour's Board of Directors decision to hire Wulff back in October 2001 now appears to have been a very questionable one, because if things were going so swimmingly, why would Wulff resign from a well-paid, very high profile position at the helm of the women's sports most successful tour to take a management position with adidas USA? Because things weren't going so well and according to tennisreporters.net sources, Wulff was in constant disagreement with both tournament directors and the board over the future of the tour. Word has it that Wulff didn't dig living in St. Petersburg, Fla., either.

"Kevin will be difficult to replace," said board member Lisa Grattan, who is rumored to be one of the candidates for Wulff's job. "But the board is strongly committed to finding the ideal candidate to maintain our momentum and guide the Tour toward an even more exciting and prosperous future."

What truly hurts the tour is that Wulff's resignation comes on the heels of WTA COO Josh Ripple's decision to leave the tour. Now, the tour will be without senior leadership just as the season is beginning. Imagine being new communication hires Dave Larsen and Darrell Fry and not knowing who your new boss is going to be – or whether they will still want you around.

What can Wulff take credit for in 14 months? Nothing very concrete, save for aiding Ripple in securing Porsche as its North American sponsor, extended the tour's multi-year television contract with Eurosport/Regency and and losing Sanex as is title sponsor. Sure, attendance and TV rating were up, but given how many attractive personalities with eye-popping games now make up the tour, you could have stuck a mummified Helen Wills Moody in the CEO chair and watched fans run through the turnstiles.

What Wulff and Ripple didn't do was work out a strategy with the tournament directors whereby the tour was able to secure a few new lucrative overall sponsors without threatening the tournaments' sponsor base. Moreover, the tour's nearly negligible North American TV deals are unworthy of a sport that is so popular.

However, it's not easy to do the job properly when management giants IMG and Octagon constantly have their fingers in the pie.

Davenport says the players don't really care. "I think if we found somebody really great to fall behind, it could make a difference." she said. " But right now we're in a great position because of all the players, how women's tennis is doing right now. We just think it's a matter of time before we find the right person to kind of make women's tennis explode even more. … There's no question that we want to remain the leading women's sport in the world. You have to just keep up with the times and keep trying to get better and better. I think the players have really done a fantastic job with that, and now we just have to do more in the marketing standpoint all around the world."

Here's the tour's Catch-22: Stay within its ranks or go outside again. One approach that could work is to hire a responsible, fair-minded, well organized, ex-player to be the CEO and a marketing/salesperson to be COO. Potential candidates? Pam Shriver, Kathy Jordan or the soon-to-retire Todd Martin. And why not ask the likes of Gabriela Sabatini – who has been so successful marketing her perfumes – to help with sales?

"It's great to stay within the sport," Davenport said. "In the CEO job as it's described, I think someone with a business background that can be a great business person, man or woman, be a great leader and know the sport is what we're looking for. We cannot find that person. A former player would be great, although I think they would lack everyday sense in the business world, maybe not have as good of contacts as someone in the business world. But we struggled in finding someone who still understands women's tennis and still understands tennis as a sport and all the entities that are involved, and still be a great leader and great business person. … It's tough."