Tennis Served a Double Fault

Try to imagine the travesty that would result if, prior to the baseball season, the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers and American League Champion New York Yankees decided they had grown bored of playing an entire 162-game stint. They preferred to spend less time on the ballfields and would instead endorse more bats and gloves to make up for the lost earnings.

Despite the apparent folly of this quandary, such a scenario is currently being played out in the otherwise quiescent law-abiding game of tennis. The imminent withdrawal of Bjorn Borg and Ivan Lendl--two of the game's reigning troika--from Wimbledon has confounded the complacent tennis establishment, Lendl and Borg's threatened decisions not to play in the game's most prestigious tournament highlight the damage single-minded prima donnas inflict on the sport's reputation. Formerly distinguished by its courtly respect for propriety and unwaivering adherence to time-cherishes customs, tennis now suffers from an image crisis.

Since the sport turned pre in 1969, it has become vogue for the tennis elite to misbehave, scream, and quit when things don't go their way. But most secondly, in addition to their ravings and histrionics in front of the paying crowd--many of whom actually come to enjoy a good argument--the glamour boys of the international circuit are treading the baseline of player responsibility, impugning the integrity all professional athletes should display.

No Ranking

Borg, whose five consecutive Wimbledon titles earned him the tennis world's adoration, is upset that the All-England Lawn Tennis tournament committee will be unable to seed him this year. In addition, he might have to play qualifying round matches because his seven-month layoff evaporated all traces of his world ranking.

To an extent, the tennis fan can sympathize with the world's heavyweight champion and understand how he might feel spurned, even betrayed. But when the 24-year-old Swede made his decision to take an extended sideline break--as many all-time greats such as Rod Laver, John Newcombe, and Chris Evert have done in the past--he fully understood the impersonal procedures of computer rankings and tournament seedings. Agonizing over his postponement to re-enter the ranks only frustrates his ice-man resolve, making a long-awaited comeback less likely.

Meanwhile, Ivan Lendl, the game's hottest player, decided to pass up Wimbledon to avoid a likely letdown after all the recent euphoria surrounding his six-tournament win streak. He has emerged victorious in five of his last six encounters with John McEnroe, the world's top-ranked player. But at Wimbledon, his payoffs are traditionally paltry. In a total of three outings, he has only reached the quarterfinal round once. Realizing that slippery, unpredictable grass courts are less hospitable to his power-paced grooved baseline game, the 21-year-old Lendl reasons. Why take two weeks off prior to the event to train for the sport's most demanding tourney, when my chances to improve my world ranking and pocketbook are dim. Can his single-mindedness be that blinding?

With Jimmy Connors dynamoed-out, Roscoe Tanner permed-out, and Vitas Gerulaitis sped-out, Wimbledon hardly promises the stellar quality of tennis it has provided in the past two years. After all, Mac Attack was pressed to reveal his shot-making legerdemain because of the fierce competition provided by arch-rival Borg.

That tennis is a highly individual sport, undeniably reflective of the personal temperaments quirks and the artistry of each distinctive player enriches the game's spontaneity and spectacularity. But, as a consequence, this game--without league regulations, season schedules and a structured format--also forgives too much unsportsman-like conduct.

After all, when tennis is allowed to be manhandled in this individualistic, perfunctory, and ultimately unprofessional manner, the attraction of the "sport" is undermined. Debased, it becomes just another job with Sunday workdays and Mondays off.