Day 5, Sunday, Part 1: I Love a Parade
by Ken Kamlet

This afternoon, the WTA Tour Championships at the Los Angeles STAPLES Center presented one of the best lineups in the tournament history. Two great semifinal singles match-ups and a pair of tantalizing doubles semifinal showdowns sandwiched a much anticipated and much hyped “Parade of Champions”.

After the first match ended with a noteworthy mental collapse by the lone American standing in the draw, Jennifer Capriati, the next match out on court (newly crowned #1 Justine Henin-Hardenne vs. dangerous floater Amelie Mauresmo) was upstaged behind the scenes by a group of tennis journalists whose tempers and egos got the best of them and who clearly lost track of why they were in the arena to begin with.

For the past several weeks, credentialed reporters have been continually reminded by the WTA of today’s ceremony that was to feature a host of #1 players and the past winners of this event. Billie Jean King, who turns 60 years old in 2 weeks, and tour founder Gladys Heldman (who died earlier this year) would also be honored along with the rest of the “Original 9”; the players who launched the women’s tennis tour 30 years ago.

The WTA clearly felt that this would be noteworthy and of interest to the tour’s fans and supporters. In an effort to thank the players for their participation, a morning brunch was held and former players from all over the world attended this reunion. The large gathering reportedly included world champions (such as Martina Hingis and Billie Jean King), notable top ranked players (Rosie Casals, Betty Stove, etc.) and journeywomen (such as Peanut Louie Harper, Katrina Adams and many more).

The event was not open to the press (as far as we knew) and a number of “journalists” were bent out of shape as a result. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that the WTA had not organized an official post-Parade press conference of the returning former players. Most of these ladies are no longer competing and thus have no obligations to the Tour. Those interested in interviews were appropriately advised to make requests through the usual channels (agents, etc.).

As these reporters had not done their preparation by making these requests earlier, tempers flared. As the WTA Tour officials scrambled to see what they could do to accommodate these last minute demands (although they were not obligated to do so), impatience took over.

Meanwhile, on the tennis court Amelie Mauresmo was giving the new #1 player in the world Justine Henin-Hardenne all she could handle. As the two young women battled dramatically for a berth in tomorrow’s final, reporters ignored the action as they stomped feet, stumped out pencil points and plotted their revenge.

As Mauresmo and Henin-Hardenne entered a tiebreak that had the arena cheering in anticipation, a group of correspondents walked out of the workroom and demanded immediate action from the WTA reps.

Led by vocal tennis writers from major outlets such as Reuters, AP, the L.A. Times, SportsTicker and more, these members of the press ganged up at the media desk and announced that they would refuse to give any coverage to the ceremony. Their threat was evidentially serious and the WTA again assured them they were trying to oblige.

Meanwhile, Mauresmo had taken a major step towards a stunning upset. She won the first set tiebreak and Henin-Hardenne had her back to the wall.

Acting with impressive speed, WTA officials were able to get several former players to agree to chat informally with those reporters. Although the group who had made such demands on the WTA had professed to be speaking on behalf of the entire press corps, they kept this scoop as quiet as possible and only a handful of this clique made it back to the lounge area.

Later, this same group filed stories about the Mauresmo/Henin-Hardenne match that they had not really paid attention to. As they had done frequently this week, they accomplished this by “gang-writing”; they pooled each other for facts and voted on phrases and descriptions.

One wonders if their editors are aware of how some of these stories are constructed and that at a certain point these writers had threatened to censor coverage.



As for those players who agreed to the informal media opportunity, they were each gracious and appeared glad to help the WTA Tour.

Lindsay Davenport, with longer hair and looking slim and fit talked excitedly about how well she feels she’s recovering from recent foot surgery.

She praised Justine Henin-Hardenne for taking advantage of her opportunities but agreed with me that it was noteworthy that 4 of the past 5 #1 ranked players have been absent while the young Belgian ascended to the top spot.

Tracy Austin gave much praise to Billie Jean King and her generation for paving the way for the stars of today. Austin also talked animatedly about her children and husband Scott.

Billie Jean King remains ever passionate about the sport that she has devoted her professional life to. She gave credit to her parents for encouraging her athleticism during an era when most girls were not involved in sports. She said that her parents gave both her and her brother (baseball player Randy Moffit) equal support in their endeavors.

She also confided a little known story: she still knows the exact moment she realized she was going to devote her life to being a tennis player. At sunset, while playing on a court in Long Beach, California at the age of 12 she realized that becoming #1 in the tennis world would be her destiny. She called that moment, “an epiphany”.

King, who is more trim and youthful looking than she has appeared in ages, says she still plays occasional tennis and usually overdoes things and ends up with her knees aching again.

My conversation with her ended with King reminiscing about her extraordinary and historic match with Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome in the 1970s. That Battle-of-the-Sexes contest was clearly a watershed moment in women’s tennis. In fact, Pam Shriver later would call it one of the most significant occasions in women’s sports.

King’s memories are surprisingly scattered concerning that event. She called the whole day “an out-of-body experience” and admitted that she had never been more nervous or felt intense pressure like that in her entire career. She pointed out that in the same week she was also entered in the Virginia Slims of Houston and had to play a regulation match the very next day.

Surprisingly, she did not feel that overtures from aging male players like John McEnroe to face a contemporary player from the WTA Tour (such as Venus Williams) would be a dangerous area to revisit. As far as she is concerned, “anything that promotes women’s tennis is worth doing”.

She did say, however, that Martina Navratilova agreed that the tension of her match with Jimmy Connors several years ago took too much of a toll. King quoted Navratilova as exclaiming, “Not for a trillion dollars should anyone let me do that again!”

And finally, Billie Jean King spent much of the day reminding anyone who would listen of Althea Gibson’s accomplishments in opening tennis and sports to women and racial minorities alike.

The Ceremony was well presented, short and sweet and hosted by Hall-of-Famer Pam Shriver. There were many noticeable absences of former WTA Tour Champions and #1s (including both Williams sisters, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles) but the assembly of great players was memorable and had the packed arena on their feet with ovation after ovation.

Afterwards, Chris Evert was as cheerful and charming as usual. She showed this writer personal photos of husband Andy Mill fishing and her sons participating in motor-cross sports. Evert admitted that she has been very removed from tennis over the past year and is enjoying the increased time with her family after devoting decades to being involved with the WTA Tour.

Evert still speaks enthusiastically about Jennifer Capriati. She feels that Capriati’s inclination to find a new coach (to replace her father) is a smart one that could re-energize her game. She added that Capriati could still win grand slam events if she took advantage of some of the opportunities that she has.

Capriati is now working on a trial basis with former tour player and coach to Pete Sampras, Paul Annacone.

A final opportunity to chat with a legend came at the end of the eight hour session at the STAPLES Center. Following her doubles loss with Svetlana Kuznetsova, Martina Navratilova held court with her adorable Chihuahua, Chloe, climbing in her arms as she spoke on a wide variety of topics.

She admitted to being disappointed that a number of players expected at the ceremony earlier today were no-shows. She pointed out that Steffi Graf has long been reclusive and has not participated in these sorts of events since her retirement. In fact, she pointed out that Graf was the first major player to resist taking responsibility for tour publicity and politics and agreed that this pattern perhaps led the way for today’s players who behave similarly.

Navratilova did point out that Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport have been more involved in WTA leadership recently and hope that others will follow their example.

Martina also made a sage point when discussing the future of the WTA Tour. She was emphatic that the tour made most of its progress and advancement in the first 10-15 years. Things were new, players were involved, the format was inventive.

Over the past 15 years, Navratilova concluded, the Tour has been stagnant. While she feels strongly that the players are better athletes and better players than ever before, she feels the tour needs more energy and needs to continue to aggressively promote and reinvent itself.