Stephen Bierley questions the sincerity of two potential tennis champions
May in Paris and the great names are lined up for the French Open: Chiroubles, Fleurie, Morgon, Moulin-a- Vent. And then there are the tennis players.
The intense heat of Melbourne, the mayhem of Flushing Meadow and the unremitting pressure of Wimbledon seem a world away within the elegant confines of the Stade Roland Garros, where sport and gastronomic pleasures will be interwoven during the next two weeks. Somehow the commercial side of tennis is less garishly prominent in Paris, perhaps because the long grind from the Australian Open accentuates the business elements of the men’s and women’s tours.
At the end of the fortnight one man and one woman may fairly claim to be the best clay-court players in the world – and they will collect a lot of money for it – but for a short while it is almost possible to imagine the game is being played for pleasure alone.
Players on the senior circuit, a nice little earner in its own right, come up with such phrases as: “If only we had known then what we know now, how much more we would have enjoyed ourselves.” But life on the tour treadmill is ridden with angst and anxiety.
It used to be said by the Soviet state that capitalism was rotten to the core. And the reply came from the Soviet people: “It may be rotting but what a lovely smell.” Prowess in sport was a means towards that voluptuous inhalation of Western decadence and the parents of both Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the French Open champion two years ago, and Anna Kournikova undoubtedly eyed the fledgling tennis talent of their respective children with thoughts not entirely altruistic.
Given different circumstances, these two might have grown up to be the tsar and tsarina of Soviet sport and thumbed their expensive noses at the West. Instead they are icons in a global culture of marketing hype and bankrolled stereotypes, a world where the 16-year- old Kournikova can say of her wannabe suitors: “They can look but they can’t afford it.”
It is hard to believe now that Kafelnikov and Kournikova, who deserted Moscow for Florida when she was nine, share any cultural background but, if Mother Russia no longer intrinsically binds them, then money does. And this prompts the most intriguing question: will their pursuit of the dollar ultimately outstrip their tennis achievements?
A summing-up of the 24-year-old Kafelnikov’s career might read: has earned large amounts (more than R48- million in prize-money alone) but plays too much; one Grand Slam title and 15 overall; potential unfulfilled.
Kournikova’s career, by comparison and because of the strict World Tennis Association Tour age rules, has barely begun, though she has already acquired an image (tennis’s Lolita) which has brought her enormous wealth via endorsements and advertising.
As Billie Jean King, winner of 12 Grand Slam singles titles, says: “The question with Anna is: how badly does she want success?”
In other words, will the young woman, who walks like a champion, walk out of tennis just as soon as she has made enough money? Many players from Eastern Europe have almost completely lost their competitive edge, at least at the Grand Slam level, once they have tasted the good life that tour success provides.
Champions, however, are motivated by something beyond dollars and, when Kafelnikov won the French Open in 1996, beating Pete Sampras in straight sets in the semi-finals and dropping only one set throughout, it seemed the man from Sochi, on the fringes of the Black Sea, might relieve Sampras of his number one spot.
“It’s hard for me to find the answer to why I have not done better in the Grand Slams since,” he said in Rome two weeks ago, while bridling at the suggestion that he plays too much. “I tried to cut my schedule a little and play less tournaments but then I began to lose my confidence. I need to be playing matches and to know that I am striking the ball well.”
Currently Kafelnikov’s confidence is not high, as his chewed fingernails betray.
Technically he remains one of the most accomplished players but, like many of those gifted post-war Soviet soccer teams, he often appears to lack the cutting edge at crucial moments and then gets down on himself.
“It was a huge occasion for Russia when I won the French title but after a while everybody forgot it. I feel the pressure because basically I am the only Russian on the Tour.”
Kournikova was signed up by IMG when she was 10 and has been pandered to ever since, thus acquiring a patina of worldly wiseness beyond her years and a press following which – like Madonna, whom she admires – is hype and marketing led.
“Sport is like the theatre. People like to see good-looking people who are dressed properly,” says Kournikova. “But I would not be here if I couldn’t play.”
And play she certainly can, although she has yet to win a Tour title, let alone a Grand Slam one. Her breakthrough came at Wimbledon last year, when she reached the semi-finals. Then at this year’s Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne she defeated four top-10 players before losing to Venus Williams in the final. Since then she has beaten Martina Hingis, the world’s number one, for the first time.
She enters her second French Open ranked just outside the top 10 and with high hopes. Clay is not her ideal surface but the speed of her racket head and her ability to hug the lines may be the undoing of many at Roland Garros.
Women’s tennis, not based on power, will never be as strong in depth as the men’s game but the emergence of five teenagers – Hingis, Kournikova, the Williams sisters and Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic – has caused a buzz in the game. Hingis, with four Grand Slam titles, is the established leader of the pack. The excitement centres on who might displace her. Whoever it turns out to be, women’s tennis can hardly lose.