Skirting the issue
By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun
MONTREAL -- In this the year that Annika Sorenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie and Hayley Wickenheiser chose to take on men and their sports, a question needs to be asked. Could it happen in tennis?
As the best women tennis players in the world prepare to descend upon Toronto -- at least those who haven't yet pulled out because of any variety of injuries and excuses -- you have to wonder if a battle of the sexes, and not some farcical old guy Bobby Riggs vs. female star Billie Jean King, be relevant. And more to the point, could it in any way be competitive?
No less of an authority than Serena Williams, the best female tennis player on the planet, has gone on record saying it's not possible or likely.
Williams has said that among her many goals is to one day be able to beat her practice partner, a former college player and middle-ranged talent who would rank somewhere in the Top 1,000 men's players in the world today.
But Andre Agassi, the No. 1 player in the world, welcomes any and all challenges. Maybe he has to say that because he happens to be married to Steffi Graf, one of the greatest female players in history.
He is ready for the challenge of a woman -- it's just a question of who and when?
"You've just got to step up and do it," Agassi said. "I think the great thing about discussions such as this is we can all hypothesize as to who is better between (John) Newcombe and (Tony) Roche, or (Rod) Laver or (Bjorn) Borg but you can't answer those questions.
"This is a question we don't need to guess about. We can just get out there and play. That's how I feel about it. You know, I pride myself at trying to be the best in the world. I don't care if you wear shorts or a skirt, I'm still trying to be the best at it.
"For me, if a woman is playing in a men's event, I would give her a lot of respect for that. I'm going to treat her like any other competitor."
Canadian Daniel Nestor, who for the record is neither married not married to a former tennis star, rolled his eyes when told of Agassi's words.
"Really," Nestor said. "He said that?"
Nestor uses a conventional argument in insisting that men are too big, too strong, too powerful and their games are too complete for the women to keep pace.
"I don't think a woman could beat a Top 500 man, I really don't," he said. "Almost all the men on the tour have huge second serves. Women aren't used to that in their game. It's not like golf where you're not playing head to head, the difference between men and women in tennis is significant.
"It's not something you can see by watching on TV. You can see it on the court when you're playing mixed doubles. They can't move side to side the way we can. They can't cover the court the way we can. The difference in size and mobility is significant.
"A lot of women on the tour have decent first serves, but their second serves would kill them. They would have to 80-90% first serves to even have a hope. Most women have terrible second serves, the men would eat those serves up.
"And they're not used to kick serves. You serve is up with a kick and they don't know what to do.
"There's a fine line between the top 100 players and the players ranked in the top 1,000 in men. You take a kid like Matt Klinger (of Toronto) who is ranked what 700 in the world and Serena Williams couldn't handle his serve and I don't think anyone else on the women's tour could either. So any talk of a man and woman playing is just talk, it's stupid."
John McEnroe used to think it was stupid and once upon a time, as a long retired player, challenged Serena Williams. He figured long after his career was over he could still handle the best that women's tennis had to offer.
All that was before his daughter started playing competitive tennis. Now he's from the politically correct camp like Agassi. He is open to the idea of a woman challenging a man at tennis.
Wimbledon champion Roger Federer also likes the idea of some kind of exhibition challenge between men and women, rather than in a tournament setting.
"Some women, they can challenge," Federer said. "Maybe not the big guys on the men's side, but it would be interesting to see.
"We have some small guys you know, they have some big girls ... that would be good.
"But if they get to play the men's tour, I want to play the women's. I like my chances on the women's tour better than their chance on the men's."
