Outrageousness? Uh, not so much ...
Fifteen years ago, the great English writer and tennis fan Martin Amis wrote a "Shouts & Murmurs" humor column for The New Yorker titled "Tennis Personalities." In it, he responded to pundits' intermittent call for more "personalities" in the sport thusly:
"If, from now on, I can put 'personality' between quotation marks, and use it as an exact synonym of a seven-letter duosyllable starting with 'a' and ending with 'e' (and also featuring, in order of appearance, an 'ss,' an 'h,' an 'o,' and an 'l'), why, then 'personality' and I are going to get along just fine." He then went on to rail against the bad behavior of "complete personalities" Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and a pre-maturation Andre Agassi.
Point well taken. But let's tweak the debate and discuss "characters." Tennis has had some wonderful characters over the years. I'm thinking of German pro Karsten Braasch, who used to smoke cigarettes during changeovers and who once won a set against each of the Williams sisters after a morning spent in part drinking shandies.
There are the chest-bumping Jensen brothers, among whom the hyperactive, ponytailed one who served equally well with either hand (Luke) was the more conventional sibling. Speaking relatively and objectively, the odder duck was Murphy, no less hyperactive but also surely the only tennis player to date -- and conceive a child with -- one of Mike Tyson's ex-wives, Robin Givens.
Then there's my personal favorite, phlegmatic, Kafkaesque Miloslav Mecir, who once during a match with Ivan Lendl made fun of his opponent's anal retentiveness with regard to on-court towel placement. (Check it out on YouTube.)
You know it's bad when buttoned-down golf has it all over tennis in the "characters" department.
No doubt you have your own favorite oddball, goofball, anti-establishment tennis figure. Chances are ever more likely that he or she (more likely he) belongs to the ever-more-distant past. A glance through the ATP Top 50 reveals two, maybe three players you'd be curious to see on, say, "Late Night with David Letterman": Gael Monfils, whose hair and flair suggest a free spirit; the spectacled, pierced, fashion-forward Janko Tipsarevic; and Novak Djokovic (this is giving him the benefit of the doubt; the imitations of Federer, Nadal, Sharapova et al, were hilarious, but he often seems merely snide).
You know it's bad when buttoned-down golf -- the sport I've covered most closely since Amis' essay -- has it all over tennis in the "characters" department. There's hillbilly hero Boo Weekley. Mullet-sporting California dude Charley Hoffman. Headband-wearing Ryan Moore. Heartthrob Camilo Villegas, who contorts himself into a Spider-Man position to read greens. Bon vivant rookie James Nitties, who listed "clubbing, girls and movies" as his hobbies in his PGA Tour bio. These are just off the top of my head.
All of which begs the question: Why? Maybe it's just the normal ebb and flow of such things. But I fear that as the money in tennis has increased, and both the sport and its schedule have become more demanding, success requires single-mindedness antithetical to a loosey-goosey personality. Modern golf has evolved in a similar fashion to tennis, with more academy-trained, gym-going, diet-conscious players at the highest levels. But the game by its nature -- minimally aerobic, more taxing mentally and emotionally than physically -- permits considerable variance in persona.
It's wonderful that the Nadal-Federer rivalry has brought tennis back to center stage. Now all I want is a few more off-center characters as part of the show. Where is the next Karsten Braasch?
Evan Rothman is a golf and tennis writer who lives in Dutchess County, N.Y.
