Dear Greg and Chrissie: Instant Karma and All…

...It’s a Bitch

You would think from watching the ABC golf talking heads over the weekend that the two blonde icons of the ‘80s, Greg Norman and Chris Evert, were living the Greatest Love of All Time. They apparently did. It was just a few weeks ago that they had a $2 million wedding in the Bahamas, where it rained (which Greg described as the spittle of heaven consecrating their union). The wedding featured cameo appearances by Bill Clinton and George Bush I. And the man with his half-a-billion dollar golf empire was able to send goons out to hassle the paparazzi and rent the sky over the wedding site to prevent anyone from taking pictures. (The better to preserve them for eventual sale to an Australian tabloid. At press time there was no word on any Branjelina charity donation)

And even better than Bahamian Godly Spittle is finding one’s Magic Driver in the shapely thighs—um, I mean closet…of an 18-time major tennis champion. As this year's British Openo began, the other famous golfing Animal was back home with a bad Tiger paw, and according to the Golden Bear himself, these young, non-mammalian golfers were weak candy-asses. So how about a Shark attack? Sure Greg hadn’t won a tournament in ages, only played in four during the last three years, and had almost stopped practicing altogether. (Greg claims to play more tennis than golf, which is why after three rounds he said he wasn’t tired, while fat guys half his age wheezed around the golf course like little blowfish).

So there they were, improbably back on center stage. Greg led the first round and it was a nice story, resulting in a good many columnists saying “Chris Evert married Greg Norman?!” After the second round the old guy was still the leader. Chrissie was seen dutifully lugging a gigantic diamond around the golf course after her man. The buzz became an avalanche after the third round when The Shark, assisted by the Ice Maiden, vanquished everyone on a day of 60 mph winds.

The Shark led for three rounds and now it was time, the people seemed to agree, for Norman to chase away all his demons by achieving The Greatest Golf Victory of All Time. The guy who did more for the game of golf than anyone since Jack Nicklaus had a chance to better his elder by becoming the oldest man to win a major. Norman has a tragic record in grand slam events, with just two wins and several horrifying, embarrassing losses. There are the ones he lost when other players made ridiculous, lucky-shot chip-ins. And then there are the ones he surrendered faster than Henri Petain in the Battle of France, by choking away huge leads. By the time he went into Sunday with a two-shot lead he had a non-stellar 1-6 record when he was the leader going into the final day of a major.

All of this might lead you to believe that karma was on Greg Norman’s side. A win would erase even the disaster at the Masters. 

But Karma, boys and girls, can be a real bitch. Norman collapsed and lost.

Once upon a time on the way to the wedding chapel…

…Chris Evert and Greg Norman stabbed their spouses in the back, a fact Evert is now acknowledging in a new interview with Vogue. Instant karma’s gonna get you.

Observers already knew the dirt on this one. Evert’s ex-husband Andy Mill was Norman’s best friend. Norman had been married for 24 years, Evert 18. The foursome vacationed together and it is said that Evert and Norman first hooked up during one of their fishing trips (in the middle of the night no less). Gonna look you right in the face.

Evert announced she was divorcing Mill in the fall of 2006. She accomplished the divorce in record time: about six weeks (lawyers can’t even clear their throats that fast), generously paying Mill $7 million to end it ASAP. He stepped aside gracefully, but the word around South Florida was that he was totally devastated. He told People magazine "Greg Norman at one time was my best friend, and a year and a half ago, I would have taken a bullet for this guy. But I didn't realize he was the one that was going to pull the trigger." With three kids to co-parent, he gets to tough it out with Evert over the long haul. Better get yourself together darlin.

Norman’s ex, Laura Andrassy, did not go quietly. At all. She took Norman to the cleaners. Alex Rodriguez, take note: They repeatedly denied the affair. Norman was fighting Andrassy tooth and nail over his golf empire.  Until Andrassy subpoenaed Evert for a deposition. Had that deposition taken place Chrissie would have had to produce every gift and love letter and discuss them in gruesome detail. Greg would not let this happen. He surrendered before the deposition could go forward. When it was all said and done he agreed to pay Andrassy $100 million to keep the truth out of the tabloids. Join the human race

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Evert is now confessing the affair to Vogue: the Teflon Twins took more hits to their respective images over this than they’ve ever taken before. South Florida and Australia covered the divorces closely. People in Florida were utterly shocked, there had been no rumors, Mill was extremely well liked. Evert is now a two-time loser, with both marriages being dogged by her affairs. How in the world you gonna see

If the respective exes are to be believed, they never saw it coming. Evert is now saying that it was “an irresistible force” that drew them together. “How do you explain something like that?” she said. Laughin at fools like me

Oh Chrissie, don’t try me. There’s always the hormones-and-Viagra explanation, or the public-attention-deficit disorder explanation. Or maybe, just maybe, even true love. Who in the hell do you think you are

Vogue probably can’t believe its luck. Had Greg Norman not gone out and almost won at major at age 53, their little revelation would have been mostly unnoticed. Instead of publishing a nice little article about glamorous has-beens living fabulous lives, Vogue is now sitting on a hot piece of gossip. A super star?

It’s a great story. Who are we to judge? I cheered for The Shark on Sunday. I always liked Evert and like her still. Well right you are.

The Karma Police would probably agree with me if it weren’t for the way they pushed the details of the affair in their exes faces. Airing this kind of dirty laundry in Vogue, for your kids and all the world to see? That’s a little much even for me, a feckless lawyer. And the damage control aspect of the Vogue article will now work in reverse, as a peak at the web today surely reveals. Maybe living well is the greatest revenge. (Ask Andrassy, she oughta know.)

American Sports-Mouths Strike Again

Ever notice how many “sportswriters” are busy clogging up the airwaves at ESPN? Of course you did, to watch that channel is to see sportswriters trying to make themselves famous by yelling like blowhards about things they know nothing about. At least when it comes to other sports, they may have a passing idea of what’s going on, but when it comes to tennis, it’s always ignorance on display. Take today’s episode of Idiots on Parade, I mean “Around the Horn.”

The topic was Elena Dementieva’s comments about the Williams family deciding ahead of time which sister would win the Wimbledon final.

This gave Kevin Blackistone the opportunity to get on his high horse by using a tactic beloved by tennis-hating media: the creation of a straw man that he can then knock down with his outrage. Blackistone asserted that no one expected the old Williams sisters to meet in the final and now people were just smearing them. Wait just a damn minute. No one expected the Williams sisters to make it to the final? Not true. I, like many observers, thought it was a virtual certainty that one of the two would meet in the final. They left the uncomfortable clay behind, and Serena has been playing well and is hungry to win Wimbledon again. Venus is the grasscourt player of her generation and the defending champ. But all this matters not to Blackistone, who then got on his high-horse about all of the horrible things the Williams sisters have had to experience over the years. Obviously I already have a well known position on this and it isn’t black and white (literally or figuratively). The Williams family is complex, their place in tennis can’t really be explained by a sound bite.

Just as I was about to call bull on Blackiston, Bill Paschke of the Los Angeles times weighed in from the opposite view. Plaschke’s role was to explain that Venus and Serena did a lot of questionable things, including throwing matches. WHAT?? The throwing matches allegation is far from proven. Yet here’s an allegedly responsible journalist running his mouth: “The sisters’ 1999 match at the old Lipton was rigged. Anyone who watches tennis knows it. They admitted as much. It’s a reality, it’s happened before. Indian Wells. They’ve thrown matches.” There were strange occurrences involving the Williams sisters. Their commitment to the game has been questioned with good reason. But I don’t want to revisit all that. It’s preposterous and irresponsible to state unequivocally that the Williams sisters throw matches.

Next up, Jay Mariotti from the Chicago Tribune, taking Blackistone’s side, said the Williams sisters were ok despite all the racism they faced from the tennis establishment, and noted that “the father was growing up as well.” Well I agree they are ok and they did weather racism. But I sure as hell don’t agree that Richard Williams has grown up. Not unless you consider these comments, made earlier this year to an Indian newspaper, something a grownup would say:

Tennis is a prejudice game. Well, I'm Black and I'm prejudiced, very prejudiced. I'll be always prejudiced as the White man. The White man hated me all my life and I hate him. That's no secret. I'm not even an American, it just so happens that I was born in America. People are prejudiced in tennis. I don't think Venus or Serena was ever accepted by tennis. They never will be. But if you get some little White no good trasher in America like Tracy Austin or Chris Evert who cannot hit the ball, they will claim this is great.

If Williams wants to call America racist, that’s his opinion and I often agree. But the comments about Austin and Evert were out of line. I didn’t print them at the time for two reasons: they weren’t even worthy of comment, and his daughters have already distanced themselves from dad’s more outlandish comments. I’m sure if I was a right-winger I would have declared that the sisters needed to comment, to “repudiate” their father altogether. But I’m not a right-winger. When Jeremiah Wright was saying similar things and making life difficult for Barck Obama my first thought was “Oh he’s Obama’s Richard Williams.” He doesn’t always believe what he says, you have to take it with a huge grain of salt, he loves attention. Richard Williams, like Wright, is not dumb. He has witnessed things I’m glad I’ll never see. He raised a family in Watts, Los Angeles. He raised two champions and good human beings. They’ve never had a public feud with Williams, but it’s been clear for a long time that he isn’t the omnipresent force he once was, mom Oracene Williams is doing as much if not more coaching, and they don’t need nor want his constant career advice (especially Venus). I just object to hurling epithets at Austin and Evert when neither deserve it.

This whole issue with the Williams sisters always revolves around people who perceive any criticism of them as rooted in race and therefore illigetimate; or simply unfair. The latter group of people are no different than other tennis fans – they take offense at the tiniest criticism of their favorite player.

Now Back to the Four Letter

Plaschke’s idiot comments made Blackistone defensive [because at least Plaschke knew some history] so Blackistone came back with “if you think they’ve cheated then call Congress and have them investigated.”

Then Mariotti had to get in a hit at tennis itself, or something, by pointing out that what he wanted to know was why there weren’t millions of people following in the Williams footsteps, why there were no good young Americans “why haven’t the Williams sisters made that happen.” So a variation on the American sports-mouths’ favorite theme: why aren’t there more Americans? Inn’t tennis more interesting when there are Americans? How come there aren’t black people playing tennis? How come no one cares about tennis?

You have got to be kidding me. You mean Venus and Serena haven’t cured cancer? Tiger Woods doesn’t have to shoulder the burden of why there are no additional Americans, African-American or otherwise, following in his limping footsteps. All he is responsible for is winning. It’s a shame that the same rules don’t apply to Venus and Serena.

It should go without saying that all of those questions were nonsense. The Williams sisters have inspired millions of people around the globe to play tennis. Their impact on the game in America has been huge. Tennis is a more diverse sport than football and baseball combined. There are more people of color in professional tennis than the sacred cow, golf. Two of the game’s brightest young stars, Jo Tsonga and Gael Monfils, happen to be black. But they’re French, so that doesn’t count, right? Keeping up with the idiocy of these sports-mouths is exhausting. I need a nap.

The odious Woody Page capped off the segment by saying “they fought hard every time they played each other.” This is one of those rare times when I will say Page is right.

Gentlemen, please. Focus on the play inside the lines and if you don’t know what’s going on out there then shut the hell up.

Oh by the way....Henin Retired

While I was watching and not writing, Justine Henin abruptly retired, just one week after waxing poetic about how much she was looking forward to the French Open. This one was a shocker, but somehow also not. Justine was always the type of player you couldn’t read, she was famously closed off from the world ever since falling out with her family after her mother died from cancer when Justine was a girl. Justine, the oldest, left to train with Carlos Rodriguez and didn’t talk to her four siblings or her father for a decade. In recent years Rodriguez’s hold on Justine became more and more svengali-like, even driving a wedge between Justine and her ex-husband. In the aftermath of that divorce from her husband, Justine and her family reconciled, about a year ago this spring. For much of the rest of the year Justine reasserted her dominance.

The Rationale

Why am I mentioning this now? It’s the reason she quit. She simply (she says) decided she wanted to spend time with them every day and not on the tennis tour. She said she wanted to be there when her siblings came and went to school. Hmmm… My first thought was “why not take a break?” She could easily have skipped the rest of the year and then reevaluated. True, McEnroe was never the same player when he did it, but other players returned after long hiatuses to claim grand slam titles (Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles). It’s hard for me believe that a player as young and accomplished as Henin won’t simply wake up two years from now bored out of her mind from waiting around for her siblings to come home from school.

“I Could Beat That Girl Like a Drum”

Plus there is the “I could beat that girl with my eyes closed” factor. This is the x-factor that drives athletes who quit too soon to come back. It even tortures those who quit at the right time. The reason Pete Sampras goes crazy during Wimbledon is because he sees these baseliners rallying eight feet behind the baseline on grass and thinks “that guy? I could beat him like a drum.” But he quit at the right time, so he will never comeback.

A Break from the Selfish

Many players, from Pete Sampras to Andre Agassi to Chris Evert, say that to be a great champion you have to be selfish. And when they finally jump off the train that is the pro tennis tour it’s because the price on their family has become too much. Everyone’s schedule depends on the player. You want to see your friends or parents? They have to come to you since you’re never home. You don’t play with your kids because you have to rest your back. You can’t go to the Eiffel Tower with your spouse because you have to save your energy. What’s more, athletes that truly devote their full powers to the game demand a lot from themselves. I thought it was shocking when Pete Sampras said he was so happy when he retired to just be able to drink a beer and not worry about it. He couldn’t drink a beer?? Well, people who are in truly peak physical condition live that kind of lifestyle.

Competitive Voids All Around

It’s hard for athletes to replace competition in their lives, even if they played past their prime. So we have people like Michael Jordan making a comeback, buying into two basketball franchises (and mostly failing). Even Sampras has opened up about the difficulty of transition between tennis and not tennis. When he retired he was spent, but he’s also said after the first year or so it felt abnormal to be retired at 32. The main reason he came back to play the senior tour was because, in his words “a man has to work. I don’t want my kids to think retiring at 32 is normal.”

Justine was more committed to tennis than any current women’s player (by a country mile). That’s why she was a dominant number 1. So it is perfectly natural for a woman who lived in an intense tennis-only training vaccum since she was 8 years old to want and need a break from endless travel, endless training, endless focus. But if I were to bet on whether Justine would make a comeback, I’d vote yes.

Her retirement leaves the WTA Tour with voids all around. With the demise of Henin they lose the one and only top woman who made tennis her priority. Later on in the week, if time permits, I’ll go into what a disaster this is for women’s tennis, if and how they can rebound and why I still believe pouring your all into the game is the way to go, even if it results in a few early retirements.

For now though, I would like to reflect on Justine’s game.

A Player’s Player

In some sense, Henin was a player’s player. In reading her tennis-obituaries this week I was struck by a quote from one of her first appearances in the US Open, when she beat Anna Kournikova. Henin was 18 at the time, and she said this:

I think I am here to play tennis, is the best important in my life. I think [Anna is] a really nice girl. She likes her look, and everybody likes her look. But I am not here to do cinema. I am here to play tennis and I think that's the best important.

As SI’s Jon Wertheim pointed out, in this she was true to herself until the end. Justine didn’t really care what you thought of her, didn’t care if in her rivalry with Clijsters she was referred to as The Mean One, didn’t care if her rivals were busy making cameo appearances on sitcoms or posing for Playboy. She already knew what some players, like Andre Agassi, take forever to discover: it’s ok to be just a tennis player. It gave you everything you have. Some players never learn.

Her game was wonderful to watch. People are saying she’s the last 5’5 champion. Probably, but then again I wouldn’t be too sure to rule out another shorty. Although her peers all played versions of Big Babe Tennis (term coined by Mary Carillo, not by me), Henin could hit the ball with great power. But she had variety and was teriffically accurate, and that set her apart from the others.

Mentally she was also steely tough. At least until a few years ago when all sorts of weird and unsportsmanlike conduct started creeping into her matches, much like the other women of her generation. Wertheim wrote that Henin looked steely one minute but looking to her coach in the stands the next, at once mentally tough and weak. I think he’s right but that’s overstating it. She was the only player on the women’s side who was steely and mentally tough. Looking to the coach was, in my opinin, more her way of letting off steam than anything else.

I’ll miss someone whose sense of professionalism – while not up to the standard we used to see in women’s tennis – was at least strong enough to get her to make tennis her priority. But above all, I’ll miss that searing one-handed backhand that was one of the best the women’s game has ever seen.