THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 31, 1995 TAG: 9505310656
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The other day, former-champion-turned-TV-analyst John McEnroe complained that not enough touring tennis players smile on the court.
The marquee attractions, said Mac, should look like they are having more fun.
From his comments, I can only venture a guess that McEnroe is coming out any day now with a video highlighting those grinning, beaming, blissful, cheery, giggling, affable, mellow, Mr. Rogers moments he spent batting around fuzzy yellow balls.
McEnroe's video will be on sale at all participating psychiatrists' offices, but don't bother looking for it. The tape will be blank.
It would figure that only McEnroe fails to see the humor in his criticism of today's tennis millionaires. Johnny McNasty counseling players on court etiquette is like Larry King instructing people on how to choose a wife.
But, inevitably, these harebrained comments are what one hears when the subject is the alleged lack of personalities in tennis today.
As another French Open gets under way, tennis once again finds itself facing a break point in popularity.
If you're still with me, I have to assume you wish you could find a pair of crazy-quilt slacks like the ones Bud Collins wears at Wimbledon.
Because, let's face it, in many ways, tennis has dropped out of the popular mainstream to become not much more than a boutique sport.
Is tennis, as smiling John McEnroe once said about a Wimbledon official, the pits of the world? Or is the game in a momentary slump?
What we know for sure is that the sport's following in America began to wane with the melting away of McEnroe and, before him, Jimmy Connors, two paragons of petulance.
I'll say this much for McEnroe. When he was making the court his personal torture chamber, we at least thought we knew what pro tennis was - an arena in which infantile tantrums erupted from unstable individuals.
In many ways, the same observation applies to Connors, known as much for his scatological outbursts and loin-thrusting as his titles. Jimbo never fought off a match point as hard as he stonewalled maturity.
Now that the tennis racket appears to have stalled and lost definition, McEnroe and Connors are being held up as monuments to a golden era. Never mind what this says about them. What does it say about the age we live in?
People who grow wistful for McEnroe and Connors, or even a long-gone clown like Ilie Nastase, constantly plead for new tennis personalities. We know from experience, though, that ``personality'' is a tennis euphemism for creep. Or jerk. Or pond scum. Or phony.
The reason, I think, that the rivalry between Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras has not caught fire the way some thought it would is that neither champion displays an immature animosity toward the other.
In their prime, McEnroe and Connors could give a Wimbledon or U.S. Open final the air of a wrassling match. The crowd fed off their coarse, loutish behavior.
Sampras is simply a wonderful striker of the ball, and an elegant athlete. And in Agassi, who may not be the complete phony we first thought he was, we have detected actual glimpses of sportsmanship and grace. Better still, today's two best players express genuine respect for one another.
Tennis may be losing ground, but this is something worth smiling about.
Whaddya say, John? by CNB