This week we reflect on the latest product of coach Rick Macci?s Florida academy/hype machine, and look at the race for men?s number one, which suddenly heated up in Madrid.
Lauren Albanese gets the hype treatment
High profile Florida coach Rick Macci has been working the phones, trying to drum up enthusiasm in the tennis community about his latest prospect, Atlanta native Lauren Albanese. The Miami Herald took the bait, and published a lengthy profile earlier this month of this girl who turned 13 on October 1.
Ranked number 1 in the U.S. when she was in the 12-and-under category, Albanese is currently in 20th spot in her country?s 14-and-under division. Already sponsored by Fila and Yonex, she is the object of fulsome praise from Macci. ?Cute kid, too. The whole package,? raved the coach. ?You really ought to come see her. Reminds me a lot of Jennifer Capriati at that age. In five years, she'll be a household name.'' We have heard this before from Rick Macci.
The Herald article positioned Macci is a tennis prophet of sorts. It is true that he was responsible for much of the Williams sisters? early development, and he is proud of having predicted greatness for Capriati when she was a young kid.
But it should be noted (and strangely, it was not noted in the Herald article) that Macci?s record for prophesy is a bit checkered. In the late 1990s he misfired about as badly as possible when he declared that one of his students, Monique Viele, would soon be setting the world on fire. "She brings more to the table than just great tennis: she does it all, and she might be the most marketable American player in the last 25 years," Macci told the New York Times in 1999. "She is the ultimate,
total package, a one-in-a-million can't-miss prospect." Like Albanese, Viele had a lot of success playing against older girls when she was a pre-teen, but has been an almost total bust as a player since then.
Unfortunately, Macci has not given up his habit of making breathless predictions of greatness for his pre-teen pupils. For the sake of young Lauren Albanese, we hope she turns out to be more Williams than Viele.
Agassi?s challenge livens up the final weeks
With the last major tournament of the season now a fading memory, the final months of the season can get a bit dreary. Nothing but ?money and points?, Pete Sampras once famously sniffed. Indeed, American stars such as Sampras and the Williams sisters have preferred to stay home instead of grinding it out under the assorted European roofs.
The major sources of interest in the final weeks of the year are the races for number one and for a spot in the prestigious season-ending ?masters? events, the Sanex Championships in Los Angeles for the women and the Masters Cup in Shanghai.
Serena Williams is of course unattainable as the women?s number one. We thought the same might be true of Lleyton Hewitt on the men?s side, but Andre Agassi suddenly stepped forward to put Hewitt?s status in doubt this week by winning the Madrid Masters Series tourney. With two tournaments left plus the Masters Cup, the 32-year-old American veteran is now just 43 points behind Hewitt, who did not play in Madrid. No doubt alarmed by his withering lead, Hewitt took a wild card into the Stockholm tournament
next week, while Agassi will attempt to keep his chances alive in St. Petersburg.
Should Agassi overtake Hewitt, he would become the oldest year-end number one in the open era. He would also become a rarity on the men?s circuit by having achieved the honour without winning one of the four major tournaments. Some seem to regard a ?slamless? number one as less than legitimate. Recall that after Lindsay Davenport achieved a similar feat last year, the WTA changed its ranking system to give more weight to the majors. But don?t think that Andre isn?t excited about the prospect. ?I'd put
winning grand slams at the top,? admitted the bald one after his walkover final win over Jiri Novak, ?but finishing number one is the symbol of a lot of work. So it would mean something to me, definitely."