Soap opera sub-plots means more attention on the women’s game at the Australian Open
Jon Henderson
At the end of last year, the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, wrote cloying appreciations of one another for an American magazine. At about the same time, only child Martina Hingis went off to South America and, according to eyewitnesses, almost ended up brawling with Anna Kournikova after an exhibition match in Santiago.
So, with their familial love to keep them warm, will it be the Williams sisters who march through the women’s singles of the Australian Open? Or will it be the incurably combative Hingis?
There are other contenders, notably the title-holder, Lindsay Davenport, but the most persuasive form pointers suggest that one of the Williamses or Hingis, the champion in Melbourne three times in the past four years, will win.
The men’s singles will no doubt gather interest as the tournament unfolds, but, not for the first time in recent years, the lack of soap- operatic subplots has meant it has lagged behind the women’s event in attracting attention ahead of the action.
The Australians, understandably, like the chances of their darting retriever Lleyton Hewitt, but some of the rest of us are starting to wonder whether the South Australian teenager will ever have enough meat on the bone to stay the two weeks of a Grand Slam.
If the editor of Tennis magazine expected some punchy copy when he commissioned Venus and Serena to write about one another he was sorely disappointed. The only attempt at serious analysis came from Venus when she wrote: “I know that I’ve had a big impact on Serena’s life, and I think it took a while before she started to realise that she wasn’t the same person as me. I think it took a while for me to realise this, too.”
Otherwise it was pretty frothy nonsense with Venus, who recently moved into a new house in the exclusive resort of Palm Beach Gardens with her sister, worrying about Serena’s “mild shopping addiction”. “Everywhere I turn there are new purses, unworn stiletto Gucci and Sergio Rossi shoes, rows of leather pants, taffeta gowns, silver chain belts, and even a few of my things that I’m sure won’t be returned.”
Serena revealed: “One of Venus’s favourite pastimes may surprise you: believe it or not, she’s a great cook. Her specialities are meat dishes and desserts, but she also makes appetising vegetarian meals. One of my favourites, along with her delectable braised pork chops, would have to be her vegetarian tofu burritos.”
Wow, indeed, and it makes you wonder with so many domestic chores to take care of how they ever get round to sharpening their competitive edge for matches against so committed a rival as Hingis, the world number one. The fact is, though, that the Williamses now come to the major championships as nothing less than serious title contenders. Between them, they have won three of the past five Grand Slam singles.
The details of Hingis’s barney with Kournikova are only just beginning to emerge. It took place in the Chilean capital on November 28. They played an exhibition match during which, for reasons neither player will disclose, the atmosphere became tense with Hingis, despite it being a non-competitive contest, continually querying line calls and Kournikova being reduced to tears.
Afterwards there were reports of shouts and screams from the dressing room, while there was broken crockery in the restaurant and a waiter who saw them said: “I thought they were going to come to blows.” Since then the two players have ended their doubles partnership and their denials that this has had anything to do with what happened in Santiago have not always made a great deal of sense.
“It’s not like a break-up,” Kournikova said last week. “It’s just that we both have different partners.” She added that her tears during the exhibition match were nothing to do with Hingis. “It was something else,” she said, but refused to elaborate.
The whole affair has clearly had more of a detrimental effect on Kournikova’s game than on the more ruthless Hingis’s. The Russian suffered a dismal 6-2 6-1 defeat at the Sydney warm-up event against the American Corina Morariu, who was previously best-known for falling and breaking her right elbow at Wimbledon last year. Hingis, on the other hand, looking in her best physical trim for some time, beat Serena Williams in straight sets in Sydney and is clearly of a mind to start winning Grand Slams again after a two-year drought.
Predicting the outcome of the men’s singles has been complicated by doubts over the fitness of Marat Safin, the 20-year-old Russian who won the United States Open last September but is being treated for an elbow problem.
Assuming Safin’s injury is as bad as it seems, there are six players who could win the men’s title and not cause a surprise Gustavo Kuerten, the world number one; Andre Agassi, the defending champion; Pete Sampras, who has won a record 13 Grand Slam titles; Yevgeny Kafelnikov, an Australia specialist who has reached at least the quarterfinals of his past four Opens; and Hewitt.
The likeliest champions are Kafelnikov and Hingis, former winners who know what is required to go the distance in Melbourne’s merciless midsummer sunshine. And if things get heated in the dressing room, Hingis has shown she can handle that, too.