Around the World with Mr. Ed (September 23, 2000)
by Ed Toombs



It's your fault, Mister President!
One of the more bizarre controversies at the Sydney Olympics last week involved a young man on whom we can always rely for the bizarre, former world number one Marcelo Rios.

Chilean fans looking forward to seeing Rios carrying the Chilean flag at the opening ceremonies were shocked when the cameras were trained on the Chilean flag-bearer. It was not Rios as expected, but the number two Chilean player, Nicolas Massu.

It seems that "El Chino" made a last-minute decision to boycott the ceremony. His mother and sister had flown to Australia to watch him compete, but were disappointed to discover that the Chilean Olympic Committee refused to issue them tickets to the tennis venue. An angry Rios ? some say after urging from his omnipresent father Jorge ? refused to perform the ceremonial duties, apparently as an act of protest (despite the insistence of the Chilean delegation that it has never been their policy to offer tickets to the athletes' family members). Massu stepped in to perform the honours just a few minutes before the Chilean athletes marched into the stadium

Marcelo's sulk was looked on with much disdain back in Chile, drawing a fiery roasting in the media. The politicians got involved as well: President Ricardo Lagos was publicly critical of his nation's most recognized sporting figure, saying Rios "owes his country an explanation."

Rios did not boycott the tennis competition, but he might as well have. After slumping to a first round defeat to his trans-Andean rival from Argentina, Mariano Zabaleta, Marcelo pointed to President Lagos's comments to explain his loss. "He could have waited until after the games. I couldn't concentrate under those conditions."

The only other time I can recall a head of state being blamed for a tennis defeat was the 1994 Davis Cup final between Russia and Sweden in Moscow. Then-president Boris Yeltsin arrived at the stadium during the fifth set of a crucial match between Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Magnus Larsson, and along with his sizable entourage took a seat without waiting for a break in play, causing an unscheduled break that lasted several minutes. Kafelnikov went on to lose the match, later saying he lost concentration duri ng the delay occasioned by the presidential arrival.

Kafelnikov may have had a legitimate complaint in 1994, but the only direction in which Rios's finger should be pointing is into the mirror. As is often the case in his tumultuous career, Rios only has himself (and perhaps his meddling father) to blame for yet another public relations disaster ?.

Dementieva pressures Kournikova to deliver
Following up splendidly on her surprising run to the U.S. Open semifinals, Russian teen Elena Dementieva is showing no signs of slowing down. As I write these lines she has smartly advanced to the Olympic quarterfinals, justifying her status as 10th seed.

The tall, athletic teen with the dynamite forehand is now threatening the status of fellow blonde and current Russian number one, Anna Kournikova. Like her more publicized compatriot, Elena has yet to win a tournament, but she is perhaps starting to look more likely than Anna to make a breakthrough. Dementieva's current ranking of 17 is just four places below Kournikova's. Given Dementieva's rapid improvement and Kournikova's appearance of treading water at the fringes of the top ten, Elena could be kn ocking at Anna's door in the weeks to come.

Kournikova, who passed on the Olympic experience, will attempt to pad her lead over Dementieva in Luxembourg next week, where she is seeded second. Luxembourg is a modest Tier III event, the type of minor tourney Kournikova has somewhat strangely opted not to play in the past few years but which would seem to offer her the best chance of tasting the thrill of a title.

However, the Grand Duchy is hosting a strong field for a Tier III, and an intriguing quarterfinal could pit Kournikova against the Belgian super-teen, defending champion Kim Clijsters. And her prospective final opponent would be the ageless top seed, Nathalie Tauziat, who discussed Kournikova in her controversial book published earlier this year. Her remarks about Anna were not exactly charitable!

I would say that a Kournikova-Tauziat final would be a grudge match, but Nathalie took shots at so many players in her memoirs that it seems like a grudge match every time she takes the court.


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