Mr. Ed's Champs & Chumps (June 9, 2001)
by Ed Zafian



With the French Open finishing up this weekend, this week's column picks out some of the best and worst of the Paris fortnight.

Champs

Jennifer Capriati - As of this writing Capriati is heavily favored to win her second Grand Slam title of the year. While the American's remarkable comeback is surely enough for "Champ" status, this week we honor Capriati for taking time out during her French Open for one of her countrywomen. Prior to her quarterfinal match against Serena Williams, Capriati held up a sign to the television cameras saying: "Get Well Soon Corina." This, of course, were well wishes for Corina Morariu who continues to battle leukemia in a Miami hospital. Capriati knew the audience would be big for the most hotly anticipated women's quarterfinal match and timed her message well. "It puts everything in perspective," Capriati added. Coming from someone who has had to put quite a lot into "perspective" herself, one hopes that Morariu in some way can look upon Capriati's recent success for some inspiration.

Michael Russell - One may think it is odd to recognize a player who blew a two set and a break lead ? But when you are an American qualifier playing the defending champion in the fourth round of the French Open the circumstances are definitely worthy of some notice. While Russell failed to knock Gustavo Kuerten out of the Roland Garros, the diminutive (only 5'7" and 140 lbs) showed a whole lot of spunk.. The 23-year old Russell showed also showed his sense of humor throughout the week. Having been down a match point down himself in the first round of qualies, Russell comically responded to reporters "Who's that?" when asked about playing Kuerten. Russell also joined the USA Network crew in the booth after the loss. The American was ecstatic over his biggest pay day of his career and more importantly his ranking improvement (from #122 to 80's on the Entry System) that will allow him easier access into main tournament draws.


Chumps

Jelena Dokic - With her first tournament victory in Rome and her first seeding at a Grand Slam, one would have thought that Jelena Dokic would be a happier gal these days. Similar to her tirade against Rita Kuti Kis at the 2000 Australian Open, Dokic said her third round vanquisher, Petra Mandula, "?doesn't do very much. It was just a matter of getting balls in." Dokic went on to add: "This is a player I shouldn't have lost to. To lose to someone like this, at a Grand Slam, makes it even worse." While much of the media has wondered if Dokic is finally "coming of age," this continuing behavior only shows that she is still the holder of another title - sore loser.

John McEnroe/USA Network - One knows that John McEnroe is no fan of women's tennis. But after this year's coverage of the French Open on the USA Network here in the States, the WTA might want to ponder a slander lawsuit. With USA's regular women's tennis commentator Tracy Austin recently celebrating the birth of her third child, McEnroe pulled double-duty for the past two weeks. In other words, McEnroe was nearly on all of USA televised matches - both men's AND women's matches ("You can NOT be serious!"). While this Mr. Ed has never been a fan of Johnny Mac, one would hope any tennis fan would have found his unrelentingly condescending attitude towards the women's matches offensive to some degree. From impatiently waiting for the women's matches to end (to get onto a men's match of course) to engaging in mindless chatter and following it up with "Oh, we have a match going on here", his behavior just was plain unprofessional. So thumbs down to McEnroe, but more so to the USA Network for apparently not opting to find an alternative and putting him in the position in the first place.


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