Notes on a Draw Sheet

Hewitt vs. Agassi highlights year-end finish
The fruits of Schnyder's labors; the lesson of baseball: tennis needs oncourt coaching

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane Camerawork USA, Inc.

The roads to Shanghai and LA are already littered with wounded soldiers who can't or won't make the trips, including Amelie Mauresmo, Martina Hingis and Pete Sampras. You can safely bet that there will be a few other no-shows either due to burnout (maybe Venus Williams), or injury (Tim Henman, Jiri Novak, Lindsay Davenport and Nathalie Dechy?).

Mauresmo's withdrawal is a big blow to the tour, given that she's the only top player now who frequently charges the net and adds a lot of flavor to her matches. Hingis going AWOL bleaches the color of the circuit a dull red, while Sampras' decision to skip the fall season locks away the men's circuit's best comeback story of the year.

Lleyton's Hewitt's loss to Raemon Sluiter in Stockholm on Wednesday is a clear indication that the Aussie No. 1 hasn't recovered form his rough-and-tumble loss to Andre Agassi at the US Open. Does the virus-plagued Hewitt have enough fire left to defend his ATP Championships title or will he be pushed around in China? The 21-year-old has been front running since the '01 US Open and now has his shin guarding the corner pocket with Andre the Eight Ball screaming down the right-handed cushion. Will see shortly how much heart Hewitt has left this year.

The sprint to Shanghai
ATP point standings
1.	Lleyton Hewitt*	767
2.	Andre Agassi*	679
3.	Marat Safin*	569
4.	Juan C. Ferrero*	468
5.	Carlos Moya*	466
6.	Roger Federer*	458
7.	Jiri Novak*	447
8.	Tim Henman	443
9.	Andy Roddick	409
10	Tommy Haas	404
11.	Albert Costa**	394
* Qualified for Shanghai ** Qualified for Shanghai based on winning Roland Garros

How exciting is the "fierce battle" for berths to the Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai? Not exactly scintillating when you consider that US Open champ Sampras won't play, Aussie Open victor Thomas Johansson is all but out and Roland Garros victor Albert Costa has had a lousy fall. Marat Safin and Juan Carlos Ferrero should both get in and both could use a Shanghai victory to spruce up their season. Madrid finalist Novak is hurt, may not qualify and even if he does, will unlikely be a factor with a bad groin. Roger Federer, new dad Tim Henman and Carlos Moya are battling for the sixth and seventh spots, but none of them have played lights out this fall.

Costa will likely claim the eighth spot, which is reserved for a Slam winner in the Top-20, but not in the Top seven. It would be nice to see the slumping Andy Roddick qualify, but to do so, he must make a serious run in Basel this week.

As my tennisreporters.net colleague Sandra Harwitt wrote, the most exciting thing in men's tennis now is the race to the year-end No. 1 between Agassi and Hewitt. If the Slam-less Andre ends the year at the top, he'll be the first year-end No. 1 withour a major since John McEnroe in 1982. Who says the tennis world doesn't go in two decades cycles?

The fruits of Schnyder's labors

WTA/Home Depot Championships qualifers
1.	Serena Williams
2.	Venus Williams
3.	Jennifer Capriati
4.	Justine Henin
5.	Kim Clijsters
6.	Monica Seles
7.	Daniela Hantuchova
8.	Jelena Dokic
9.	Anastasia Myskina
10.	Lindsay Davenport
11.	Silvia Farina Elia
12.	Chanda Rubin
13.	Patty Schnyder
14.	Anna Smashnova
15.	Magdalena Maleeva
16.	Elena Dementieva
Note: Amelie Mauresmo and Martina Hingis have withdrawn.

It's great to see Zurich winner Patty Schnyder spinning her way to the top again. The lefty has a load of talent and really began to waste away shortly after she became involved with the devil-eyed faith healer/coach Rainer Harnecker in 1999. The man was simply scary in person and had the glassy, zany gaze of Hannibal Lechter. Recall that Harnecker had Patty on an all-fruit diet and at one point told her to drink several quarts of orange juice each day, calling it "almost identical to mother's milk."

While Harnecker should take a lot of blame for Schnyder's weight loss and subsequent freefall, Patty was old enough to make her own decisions at the time and should shoulder some of the responsibility for her poor choice of teachers. It now appears that she has career firmly under control again.

CHECKMATE
Chess lover Elena Dementieva is having more problems closing out matches than Boris Spasky did in his famous head-banging World Championship loss to Bobby Fisher back in 1972. Elena's problems is that she's making every decent player look like Garry Kasparov – Daniela Hantuchova last week and Anna Smashnova in Linz. The next thing you know, Dementieva is going to be huddled on a cold bench in Washington Square Park á la Laurence Fishbourne in "Searching for Bobby Fisher," laying down bets on speed tennis matches against the likes of junior phenom Maria Sharapova.

TEAM CHEMISTRY
It's sad to see Lisa Raymond and Rennae Stubbs call it quits. They were an excellent, well-coordinated, smart team who made the most of their abilities. Whose got Next? Virginia-Ruano Pasqual and Paola Suarez, of course. Next-next? Slovenia's Tina Krizan and Katerina Srebotnik.

DOUBLES FOR TU
The Williamses and Davenport aren't the only SoCal natives who have secured a WTA championships spot at the Staples Center: Northridge's Meilen Tu has locked up a doubles spot with Dechy. Tu has been praying that Dechy's sore hamstring heals quickly.

HEROES
The Sanex WTA Tour is asking fans to go to www.sanexheroes.net and select the Sanex Hero of the Year. Twenty-five players have been nominated for the award which selects a player "whose self-belief and determination are an inspiration to others and a credit to the sport." When you call someone a hero, you are commending a very noteworthy act of bravery. Of the 25 players listed, I was hard pressed to associate the word hero with most of them in '02, with the exceptions of Lindsay Davenport and Chanda Rubin, whose impressive comeback from injuries were inspiring. I would also give Serena a shout-out for her sonic rise from the mental doldrums. Also deserving of consideration are those players who come from countries where either tennis isn't popular and manage to make it as big-time competitiors (like Greece's Eleni Daniliduo), or players who hail from countries where women are discouraged by conservative elements in their culture from pursuing pro sports as career choices, like Taipei's Su-Wei Hsieh and Indonesia's Angelique Widjaja.

The lesson of baseball: tennis needs oncourt coaching
Some of our readers have written me about my World Series coverage for Reuters, a few throwing corrections my way. (Thanks.) One reader asked how I liked covering "America's pastime vs. tennis." I like baseball just fine, but I'll take fuzzy yellow balls over juiced up hard white pills most days of the week.

What has really struck me the past few weeks is what a terrible decision it was on the ATP's part not to allow coaches to come down to the court in between sets to talk to their players. I also tag the WTA for never seriously considering it.

One of baseball's most attractive elements is the huge personalities of its managers, who are integral parts of the game and many of whom are terrific analysts. They are always part of the story, where in tennis, it is rare to read coaches being quoted because the only role they play during a match is sitting in the friends' box biting their nails or shouting encouragement (this excludes Andy Roddick's coach, Tariq Benhabiles, who's so tighly wound that he rarely takes a seat).

Tennis does have its Dusty Bakers and Mike Scioscias, but they are hidden behind an arcane and highly unnecessary rule that clings to the specious belief that dumb players will gain an edge over smart ones because they can be instructed on strategy a few times during match. If oncourt coaching were allowed between sets (say for 90 second each visit), perhaps some matches might turn in the favor of big bangers with smaller intellects, but for the most part, the smarter, guttier and mentally sounder players will end up prevailing most of the time anyway, because they know how to switch tactic within points (not just every hour or so).

By bringing coaches more to the forefront, both tours will help create new personalities and bring into the fold more mature voices, which is especially needed on the WTA Tour, given how many of its top players are either teenagers or in their early 20s and aren't always articulate or interesting.

If the public was able to frequently hear the voices of well-spoken and engaging coaches like Paul Annacone, Darren Cahill, Jason Stoltenberg, Larry Stefanki, Robert Van't Hoff, Nigel Sears, Melanie Molitor and Oracene Williams, they might be more apt to keep their dials tuned in after the completion of matches. Moreover, if coaches were allowed to come down to the sidelines and were visible to the public eye, they would be held more responsible for their players failures and given more credit for their victories.

By nature, most players are conservative and don't like change, but they rarely look at the health of the industry, only at meeting their own needs (such is the fate of a highly individual sport). Oncourt coaching would raise tennis' profile, an occurrence that should be welcomed in all quarters.

Here's a vote to put on-court coaching back on both the WTA and ATP's 2003 agendas. Let's see who's listening.