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THE
SCOOP: FRIDAY, MARCH 15
Notes
on a draw sheet: Lindsay's status, New 'fuzzy' balls, Santoro
overrated, the Martinas, and Seles' lack of strategy
By
Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net
Lindsay
Davenport showed up in Indian Wells on crutches last week. Don't
expect her back until late July.
MORE
'NEW BALLS' PLEASE
There
are "New Balls, Please" guys who have shown up in a
big way over the past seven months, Lleyton Hewitt, specifically.
Others have been very disappointing in big matches: Juan Carlos
Ferrero and Roger Federer, just to name two. Federer was buried
here by Thomas Enqvist on Thursday and as beautiful as he can
be to watch, he's strategically suspect at big events. He sometimes
gets trapped in his own webs. The same goes for Ferrero, who told
tennisreporters.net
the
other day that he needs to improve his mental toughness by Roland
Garros if he wants to win the crown. Both men should pay attention
to No. 1 Hewitt, who never gives up on a ball, nor match and is
seriously underrated when it comes to changing his game plan when
things are going awry.
HEARTLESS
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Fabrice
Santoro
Susan
Mullane
Camerawork USA, Inc.
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Marcelo
Rios may believe that he can get back to the top 10, but going
down 6-2, 6-2 to Rainer Schuettler is no indication of renewed
heart and a return to greatness. … With that said, Rainer has
improved a tremendous amount over the past year. … In the ATP's
Deuce magazine, tour active-player/genuis-in-residence Todd Martin
designed the perfect player and said that Fabrice Santoro not
only has the tour's best brain, but owns the most touch. After
watching Santoro go down 7-5 in third set to Pete Sampras on Thursday,
it reminded me that Santoro is also one of the schizophrenic players
on tour – lacking heart, weapons and mental toughness. He's
a great composer, but not the guy you want playing encores. He
seizes up when the blue chips are on the table. Todd must have
forgotten about Fabrice's 16 first-round losses at the Slams or
the fact that he has never reached a Slam quarterfinal. … Todd
also says that Lleyton Hewitt has the tour's best return of serve.
Yes, the Aussie has the best return when it comes to facing serve-and-volleyers,
but I'll take Andre Agassi against baseliners; he's much more
offensive and penetrating.
READ
IT HERE FIRST
Both
Guga "I'm an electric guy" Kuerten and Andy Roddick
are big fans of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books. Now that they
have read through her Challenger fantasy series, they might want
to step up to the Grand Slam level, J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the
Rings. … Guga's people say he aiming for a May 27 Roland Garros
return after hip surgery. That would be a remarkably fast recovery
and at least a month faster than Magnus Norman managed, who was
operated on by the same doctor
One
of the tour's most voracious readers, Natasha Zvereva, has returned
to the tour and is playing dubs with Martina Navratilova. As bratty
as Natasha can be, as least she can wax poetic on Dostoevsky.
… She and Martina N. lost in the first round to Brie Rippner/Melissa
Middleton. Navratilova came by the press area to chide a reporter
(not this one) about calling the Indian Wells courts medium fast.
She said she'd give the scribe $100 for every player who called
them medium fast and $1 for every player who called them slow.
The take here is that they are somewhere in between and that it
is 45-year-old Martina's serve that is slowing down, which is
why Brie and Melissa were crunching her second serves.
A
SURFACE ISSUE
Former ATP Players' Council Alex Corretja is never shy about taking
positions on the pressing issues of the day, which is why he is
so appreciated by his fellow players and the press. But Alex's
recent statements that the tour needs to go to a standardized
surface borders on lunacy. The last thing that men's tennis needs
is less color and that's exactly what would occur if the tour
eliminated grass and clay. Changing surfaces adds to the intrigue
of the sport, even if Sampras occasionally looks like a collegiate
player on clay and Alex looks like a junior on grass. The suggestion
here is to bring back cow dung, crushed sea shells and slick hardwood
laid over hockey rinks to tease more fans about the infinite possibilities
that might befall their favorite players away from their comfort
zones.
DANIELA
WITH A BULLET
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Daniela
Hantuchova
Courtesy of Pacific Life Open
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Daniela
Hantuchova: top-10 by the end of April. Thank god for the all-Slovakia
native final between Martina Hingis and Daniela, where brain cells
and not brawn will rule the day. … Monica Seles says that she's
not the type of player to change strategy, even though she is
4-15 against Hingis. Since she's never going to become any faster
due to her bad feet, how exactly does she expect to get over on
a healthy Hingis? She says she doesn't know herself. That's troubling.
… Seles says that women's tennis is much more exciting than
men's. There are days when the women rule and the men trudge along,
but how many times over the past year have we stood salivating
over an anticipated women's match up and then watched a blowout,
like Hingis' 6-3, 6-2 wipeout of Monica on Thursday night. Plus,
given that the Williamses, Capriati and Davenport weren't at Indian
Wells, it was a great time for the WTA to show its so-called depth.
But instead of having four to five kids like Hantuchova race into
the quarters, the only other youngster to show up in a big way
was Alexandra Stevenson, then she got tight against veteran Amanda
Coetzer. Thank god for the smooth, ambitious Hantuchova.
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