Notes on a draw Sheet

Hingis, Capriati wrong on age eligibility rule
Hewitt turns down Scottsdale wildcard; The presence of oil money

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA

Martina is worried that the juniors won't develop enough variety.

Maybe I’m lost in translation, but I have little idea what Martina Hingis’ point was when vocalizing her opposition to the WTA’s age eligibility rule. And Jennifer Capriati should know better, too. Hingis’ take was something along the lines that players don’t technically develop fast enough when they spend too much time in the juniors and would be better off facing the more high-variety games of the WTA Tour early on so they know what they really have to improve on.

That’s makes little sense. If juniors want to add more flourish to their games, they can do so in practice. If they desire to get a look at what the pros are doing, the can watch pro matches. But the rule is essentially in place to prevent child abuse and no one can argue that it hasn’t occurred or shouldn’t be stopped before it occurs again.

For every super positive example of a 14- or 15-year-old’s ability to deal with life on tour (Hingis and Serena Williams, for example), there are negative ones, such as Mary Pierce, Mirjana Lucic and Jelena Dokic. The reason why various countries enacted child labor laws was because children were being abused. In the United States during the beginning of the 20th Century, kids who should have been learning their ABCs in elementary school was virtually enslaved as miners, glass workers, mill workers, fruit pickers, cannery workers, etc. In Mississippi, seafood factories employed eight-year-olds to shuck oysters from 3:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Shocking oysters leads to bleeding hands, not into to Rhodes scholarships. When asked how old she was, one 51-inch-high girl mill worker was quoted by the History Place as saying, "I don’t remember. I’m not old enough to do the work, but I do it just the same." FYI: It was no better in Europe.

That has been the case with a number of tennis prodigies, who are too young to have a deep understanding of their fate. About six years ago at Indian Wells when Lucic was 16, her tyrannical father/coach Marinko made her run 10 miles in the searing heat down a dusty highway after an early-round loss. That is child abuse. When Jim Pierce stalked Mary and her mother and they had to take out a restraining order against him because they feared for their lives, that’s child abuse.

Just because a handful of 14- to 16-years-olds can play with the Top 100 doesn’t mean there should be no restrictions on the number of tournaments they can play. A number of poor parents will play their bread winner until she’s drop and we all know that crazed parents with stardom in their eyes won’t let up in trying to prove that their child is the best by entering her in events week after week.

LIMITS ARE NEEDED
With all that said, I do believe that the rule should be slightly tinkered with, but not done away with all together. Fifteen-year-olds should be allowed to work part-time and 16-year-olds should be allowed to work three-quarters time. In my book, 14-year-olds should not be allowed to play more than four pro tournaments a year period and should not be allowed to collect prize money until they are 15. That would deter money hungry parents, agents and coaches from pushing them too much.

Additionally, the attractiveness of the sport to the general public has already been put at risk due to the fact that too many big-time personalities – like Hingis and Steffi Graf – were forced to retire early because their bodies took too much of a pounding because they were constantly playing from such a young age. The same fate could befall marquee attractions Venus and Serena Williams.

In fairness to Hingis, here’s what she told Reuters and The Independent on Monday: "It was so good that I could have played [so much] that young [14], because you get all the experience," Hingis said. "Today, there's a lot of one-dimensional tennis, because the girls are playing bang-boom, and that's it. They don't have the time to really learn and play the better players, as I did when I was 14, 15. And I wasn't even tired of getting beat by Mary Pierce, 0 and 0. It's not like it hurts you, and that's when you learn, and you get stronger physically, and in better shape. Look at [Svetlana] Kuznetsova. It was fantastic what she did last week [beating Venus Williams and reaching the final in Dubai], but at 18 you wouldn't improve much any more at that age as a girl. I don't think so.

"At 14, 15, you can still change things technically and strategically, but when you're 18, 19, it's almost too late. The players today are almost not getting the time to learn the game, to practice and play matches as I did, and Steffi [Graf] did, and Arantxa [Sanchez-Vicario], Monica [Seles] and Jennifer [Capriati] did. All these girls had the time to improve and to learn.

"The thing I think could ruin tennis is if girls are allowed to play junior competitions for ever, and then they come out at 17, 18 and they're like, 'Wow! Okay, what am I going to do now?' A lot of the Russian girls got better, but they haven't reached the top. And the only players that are physically so strong are the two Belgians [Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters]. When I see some of the players in the semis, that's when I want to get my racket back and play."

Of course, Hingis was just kidding there, she really won’t come back, or will she? She says her feet are too troublesome to allow her enough hours on court, but this reporter can still see her lacing them up some non-Sergio Tachini shoes sometime next year.

Siggi Bucher

J-Cap wants no cap on players.

Now to Capriati, whom, ironically, the age eligibility rule is nicknamed after (aka the Capriati rule). Capriati said, "I don't think that it is the WTA's responsibility," she told Reuters. "I don't think they should hold a player by the hand and guide them. That is the job of family and friends. First of all, where are the so-called child prodigies? I don't see anybody on the horizon. Maybe there could be one or two exceptions, but that doesn't mean that you should stop someone from going forward by denying them the opportunity to play and learn from a young age. I think they should be allowed to play as much as they want. They should know their limits and emotional support and protection is the job of their family and friends, certainly not the WTA."

A fiercely loyal person, Capriati will always defend her family’s honor and won’t call her father Stefano to the carpet on turning her pro too early. But Capriati has admitted she burned out, which is why she was mostly off the tour for a good four years. What Capriati is missing here is that some of the youngsters have no real friends nor have families who are looking out for their best interests, which should mean long, prosperous careers along with long-term physical and mental health. That’s where the sport’s governing body does need to step in. Secondly, there are "child prodigies" around. Maria Sharapova is just 16, as is Tatiana Golovin. Ever hear of 14-year-old pro Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic, who won a Challenger last week?

IT'S A BELGIAN WORLD
For those of you who are not tennisreporters.net subscribers yet and can’t access the Kim Clijsters article, you would be very interested in her comments about the Williamses, especially her "friend" Serena, who has taken far too long to come back from knee surgery. Consequently, the Belgians are completely dominating the tour and it took a good measure of improvement from the briefly forgotten Svetlana Kuznetsova to make last weekend’s Dubai final interesting. However, Henin-Hardenne won her third title of the season with a 7-6(3), 6-3 victory. She improved to 14-0 for the year and has a great shot at winning her fourth title this week in Doha.

This week, Henin-Hardenne also Capriati for ninth position on the all-time list of No. 1 longevity at 18 weeks. Next to go is Tracy Austin at 22 weeks and then it’s Lindsay Davenport at 37 weeks sometime this summer. After that, it’s on to Serena at 57 weeks. By the way, neither Henin-Hardenne nor Davenport are playing Miami, but will play Indian Wells.

Down in Bogota, two of our favorite unsung warriors reached the Bogota final, when Fabiola Zuluaga won her third straight crown over Spain Maria "I’ve dropped the Antonia" Sanchez Lorenzo in three sets. Zuluaga is now ranked No. 23 and two-hands-off-both-sides Sanchez has reached a career high No. 36. Sanchez will play Acapulco this week, where 30-year-old Amanda Coetzer is defending champ at the fabulous Fairmont Princess Hotel.

Before moving to the men, it’s worth noting that WTA Tour has signed a commercial partnership with airport retailer Dubai Duty Free, establishing the company as a sponsor of the tour’s "Rest of World" region and it’s official global duty free partner ( I’ll take that fifth of Jack Daniels now). It will also be the presenting sponsor of a new tour magazine-style television show, which will focus on the " behind-the-scenes personalities and lifestyles of WTA Tour players, giving viewers a never-before-seen glimpse at the glamour and excitement of women’s pro tennis." We hope they already have some cuts of Serena at the Grammys. It’s that kind of oil money that took the WTA tournament away from Scottsdale, where it would have been played this week.

Hewitt turns down Scottsdale wildcard; The presence of oil money

Siggi Bucher

Blake need to bust his slump in Scottsdale.

The men are at the Franklin Templeton Classic at another Fairmont in Scottsdale this week, but like with the women, most of the stars decided to take the huge guarantee money offered by the Playground of the Euros that’s called Doha. tr.net will begin reporting live from the Arizona on Thursday, if this reporter doesn’t get diverted digging for gemstones off the I-10, hoping to find a diamond in the rocks that would propel IMG to give Arizona fans back a women’s tournament that they had showed decent support for.

After filling up my tank at the monopolistic price of $2.35 a gallon, I’ll kick back in my car and be glad that I helped contribute to Roger Federer’s $400,000-plus guarantee in Doha this week. However, after hearing that Federer was motivated enough to take down Marat Safin in the first round of Doha on Tuesday, he may be worth every penny. Fill it up with premium.

The Scottsdale men's draw pales in comparison to last year’s, without Aussies (and defending champ) Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis and second-seed Andre Agassi, who withdrew with a hip injury on Friday. Tournament director Gus Sampras did offer Hewitt a wild card, but he instead decided to stay in Belgium with his fiancée, Kim Clijsters. Alex Bogomolov got the wild card.

The hobbled Andy Roddick headlines a field that includes Martin Verkerk, the slumping Robby Ginepri and James Blake and revived German vet Nicolas Kiefer. Thomas Johansson has taken a wild card and given that's he’s been making decent progress the past month, this ’02 Aussie Open champ could be the most interesting story of the tournament.

Two men who made their names at Roland Garros won titles last week when Gustavo Kuerten claimed his 20th title – and his first clay court title since 2001 – when he rallied from a set down to defeat Agustin Calleri 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the Brazil Open final in Costa do Sauipe, and Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty claimed his third ATP title of the year with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 win over Swedish teenager Robin Soderling in the Open 13 final in Marseille.

Like the women, the men are also in Acapulco this week with a solid clay court field that includes Carlos Moya, Nicolas Massu, Calleri and Mariano Zabaleta.

Since we are giving commercial plugs today, Tennis Properties Ltd (TPL), the TV arm of the ATP Masters Series and the Tennis Masters Cup, has extended its broadcast rights pooling agreement with the Series’ nine tournaments and the ATP for the Tennis Masters Cup. The three-year agreement, for 2005 to 2007, also will see TPL continue its role as host broadcaster at each event, and result in the renaming of the series, previously known as the Tennis Masters Series, as the ATP Masters Series. As a result, the ATP Masters Series and the Tennis Masters Cup will be marketed, sold, produced and transmitted as a single series-wide package to broadcasters around the world through ‘07.