Sunday, November 30, 2003 2003 Fed Cup - Moscow Why would anybody go to Moscow in the winter?  You can check with Napoleon and Hitler for “Never again!” statements. Maybe to see how Comrade Lenin was holding up in his 133-year-old body? Maybe.  But my motive was the always intriguing “cherchez les femmes” – les femmes being those two women who have given me so much pleasure over the years: Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.  Even though they’d done it numerous times before – 14 between them – they were, on behalf of the United States, in pursuit of the Federation Cup, the women’s world team championship. Oh, by the way, Lenin wasn’t seeing visitors. I thought he was being rude until  it was explained that he was undergoing a cosmetic touch-up (perhaps at a spa?), and wouldn’t be available for audiences for a couple of weeks.  Of course everybody needs some time off.  Particularly if you’re in the public eye as Comrade Lenin is at his Red Square residence, and has been since 1924 when he checked into the squat, burgundy-toned marble mausoleum. In 1995 my friend, Moscow tennis historian Igor Federovsky, took me to Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana, about four hours’ drive south of Moscow to show me the space where the great writer had played hackerly tennis.  Now Igor tells me  that Lenin, too, lived in a house with an adjoining court.  But did Lenin hack?  Doubtful.  Didn’t he have Nicholas II shot because the last Czar was a tennis player? If I couldn’t call on Lenin – I wanted to see if he was still wearing the snappy polka dot necktie of 1995 that had replaced a somber dark model of 1994 – was there any point in hanging around?  Well, I can never get enough of the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral, swirling in a wild array of colors, a hundred yards or so up the Square from Lenin.  Or the sumptuous breakfasts at the Hotel Baltschug Kempinsky  (as much caviar and smoked salmon as you can eat with your eggs and potato pancakes, among a variety of treats), a splendid hostelry with fine views of St. Basil’s, the golden domes of the Kremlin and the Moscow River. So much to see in Moscow, which I first visited in 1990 when Gene Scott, the daring publisher of Tennis Week who cut all sorts of Red red tape to found the Kremlin Cup, a pillar of the ATP circuit.  But I was principally  spending my time “embedded” (the currently fashionable journalistic word) at the roofed-over downtown canyon called Olympic Stadium where the 40-year-old Federation Cup was at stake in semifinals and final.  While some may call it the Fed Cup, a dumb contraction of a dumb, dull name to start with, I stick with the original until the determinedly unimaginative ITF (Inept Tennis Federation?) does the right thing and re-baptizes it as the King Cup for you-know-who.  Or the Billie Jean Bowl to humanize it even more. To this town loaded with icons, mainly hanging on the walls of churches, came that pair of live and lively sporting icons, King and Navratilova, to steal the show, if not the Cup. championship.  That went to France in the energetic persons of Amelie Mauresmo and re-dedicated Mary Pierce, 3-2 victors over the homebodies, Russia, in the semis, and 4-1 over Capt. King’s gritty-but-outgunned Grab Bag Gang (No. 17 Meghann Shaughnessy and No. 28 Lisa Raymond)  in the final.  Eternal Martina, who last graced the Cup in 1995, continued unscathed (20-0 in singles, 19-0 in doubles) with a pair of doubles victories accompanied by Raymond. Since the USA has won 17 times and lost eight other finals, and France has made only one other final round appearance – a 1997 victory over Netherlands featuring Pierce – it seemed appropriate for Capt. Guy Forget’s madamoiselles to go all the way.  Quick, nimble and exciting to watch with her gorgeous and deadly one-handed backhand, Mauresmo was the tourney’s MVP (even if there wasn’t such an award): 8-0 in singles for the campaign through Colombia, Spain, Russia and the U.S.  Amelie was the clincher in the last two – 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 6-4, over scrappy, skinny No. 8 Anastasia Myskina, and 6-2, 6-1, over Meghann Shaughnnessy.  Myskina had forced a 1-1 deadlock by dodging a match point to beat Pierce, 4-6, 7-6 (7-2), 7-5, after Mauresmo plowed No. 13 Vera Zvonareva, 6-2, 6-2. Not only did the French have the best team, they were backed by a fantastic flock of boosters, 70 men and women in French-blue shirts, a veritable Gallic Greek chorus.  Ordinary but devoted fans, they follow the Davis and Federation Cup teams with extraordinary verve.  Their cheering and singing routines, accompanied by drum and police whistle, were sensationally orchestrated.  Delivered constantly yet respectfully, they stopped instantly before a point was to begin.   Fitted out with pro-French lyrics, the tunes were startlingly wide-ranging, from Verdi’s “Triumphal March” to Stephen Collins Foster’s “Camptown Races.” When the U.S,’s galloping nightmare, Mauresmo, won her race to Cup point on Shaughnessy’s last error, the French 70 immediately serenaded her with “La Marseillaise,” a rendition that squeezed joyful tears from her.  “It was very emotional,” said Amelie, the highest ranked participant at No. 4.  “I really wanted to make that third point, to make sure that we got it.” In giving lungs and larynxes for their country, the tri-color flapping French vocalists performed a feel-good service that reached beyond Mauresmo, Pierce & Co.  Without their presence the joint would have seemed like Lenin’s Tomb.  Unless there were thousands of spectators painted to resemble empty seats, this four-day affair was a bust at the gate.  The vast arena, built for the 1980 Olympics, holds 18,000.  Although cordoned off into a neat 12,000 seat enclosure for tennis, few, if any, crowds exceeded 2000.  It was lonely, composed largely of deserts of unoccupied chairs.  In staging the Americans’ first round victory over hapless Czech Republic over two days in  April, Lowell, Massachusetts -- for heaven’s sake! -- outdrew Moscow’s four U.S, sessions: 11,564-to-about-8000. This was a far, sad cry from my most recent Moscow pilgrimage eight years ago.  Then, at one of the pinnacles of his career, Pete Sampras was a one-man wrecking crew.  Defying the clay court that had been laid to waylay him, and partisan assemblages of 16,000, he accounted for the U.S. points in a 3-2 Davis Cup-copping victory.  Outlasting Andrei Chesnokov in five for starters (collapsing, carried from the court), he was back the next day, joining Todd Martin for a doubles win over Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Andrei Olhovskiy.  Then he brilliantly applied the finishing third day touches to Kafelnikov.  Regardless of Wimbledon and U.S. Open successes, that, for me, was Pete’s defining moment. The Olympic, a deteriorating dump then, has since been primped up.  But the only sell-out was by the ITF (Incomprehensible Tennis Federation?).  In awarding the event to Russia rather than Belgium where large crowds would have turned up to cheer the girls from the ‘hood, the Nos. 1-2 “Brussels Sprouts,” Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters, Cup-grabbers two years ago, the ITF guaranteed that it would be a virtually secret, slightly-covered event. The Belgian federation bid $ 550,000 for the rights, but that was topped by Russia’s $ 700,000.  Short-sighted as usual, the ITF (Idiosyncratic Tennis Federation?) went for the dough, and lost the stars, plus fitting attendance and foreign journalists.  Peeved, Justine and Kim gave it a pass, enabling the diluted U.S. to beat further watered-down Belgium, 4-1 in the semis. Says USTA President Alan Schwartz, “The Belgian administration is furious at the ITF, justifiably so, for putting such a slight edge in money ahead of a probably better product.” Back together again after all these years, the icons Billie Jean in the captain’s chair and Martina, one of B.J.’s posse, waited more than two decades to team up again once more.  After lending a helping left hand to 35-year-old Billie Jean on  Wimbledon’s Centre Court in 1979, it seemed unlikely that Martina would do so again almost a quarter-century later.  That occasion was the doubles triumph that gave B.J. her record 20th title at the Big W. It also seemed unlikely that anybody would share that record, but there Martina was five months ago, alongside Leander Paes in the mixed, catching up with her own 20th.  With the American principals – the Williams Sisters, Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles – in dry dock, recuperating from various ills, there was still a chance for a stronger team and renewed hope as Navratilova stepped in. “I was invited, and I volunteered,” she grinned.  Linked to Raymond, they seemed a lock in both doubles, and delivered.  Lisa and Martina, among the handful of women on the tour who actually understand how to conduct themselves at doubles, will stick together in 2004, eyes on an Olympic slot. However, Jennifer Capriati and Chanda Rubin declined invitations.  “Jennifer doesn’t like me,” said Billie Jean, who pitched her from the team last year for conduct unbecoming.  “But she was invited” – and didn’t respond.   Reasonably, King felt that Rubin, a strong factor in the quarter-final win over Italy, was unwise to miss this opportunity. It’s a shame that few in the USA saw Shaughnessy’s gallant but losing run at Pierce, one of the year’s most gripping matches, 6-3, 3-6, 8-6. [The incipient Tennis Channel had rights, but hardly any viewing locations thus far.  Although the USTA sought to put it on ESPN, the ITF controls the rights and bungled that attempt.]    Lisa Raymond, too, had given her all in losing the opener to Mauresmo, 6-4, 6-3, unable to block Amelie’s five-game rush from 1-3 in the second. Meghann might have changed the complexion of the series.  Had she prevailed for a 1-1 first day split, it could have shaken the French.  But Pierce, who has moved to Amsterdam to be tutored once again by Sven Groenfeld, embrace hard labor and lose 25 pounds, stonewalled at the critical junctures. “I told her to go for her shots, not to care if she missed.  Just keep it up,” said her Capt Forget.  It worked.  “Mary was more aggressive at the end,” conceded Shaughnessy, who battled her way harrowingly out of three match points, chased down Mary’s heavy groundies and produced sweet shotmaking herself.  Serving for victory at 5-3, Pierce missed a couple of backhands and was broken by a nifty inside-out backhand return.  Banging two of her dozen aces, Meghann got to 5-5. But at 5-6, she was in a four-deuce thicket of three match points, their exchanges fiercer than ever as they used the entire expanse of the carpet.  Meghann escaped with forehand winners that closed 14 stroke rallies on MPs 1 and 3, and a service winner on MP 2 – one of four in the game, 16 in the match. Breathing easier at 6-6, the willowy American blonde pursued her Franco-American foe through a six-deuce maze, even had a break point after the third deuce – whereupon Mary delivered a service winner of her own.  She reached 7-6 on a ripping  backhand passer and another big serve.  One more blazing backhand took her to MP 4, and Meghann failed on a backhand. Shaughnessy had nothing left the following day, and fell to Mauresmo in 61 minutes.  She double faulted to 1-2, and the U.S, was done in. “I’m really proud of Meghann and Lisa’s improved attitudes, their fight,” said Capt. King.  “Despite their losses, the way they went at it was a very good birthday present for me.”  B.J, turned 60, had been an unbeaten victory celebrant at the Cup’s inaugural in 1963.  Will she, a party to 10 Cups as player and captain, return to take charge again?  “I don’t know.  I’m pondering.”  USTA prez Schwartz says the job is hers if she wants it. Considering that Meghann was up against a future Hall of Famer in Pierce, and “the responsibility of playing for my country,” it may have been the match of her career.  A career that looks even brighter now that she has split with long-time coach Rafael Font de Mora, who had become a negative presence. Belgium wasn’t quite the pushover you might have expected.  Watch out for Kirsten Flipkens, a 17-year-old, No. 495. but winner of the Wimbledon and U.S. Open juniors.  She pushed Shaughnessy all over for 3 hours 11 minutes, and had a match point, before the American’s experience barely prevailed, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (10-8), 9-7.  Shaughnessy was helpless to do anything but watch and hope as Flipkens’s bid for a match-ending forehand winner was a fraction wide at 6-7 in the second set tie-breaker.  Meghann walked off on a pair of winning forehands, terminating their 42nd game. To be accurate, there was a Clijsters in the house: Kim’s kid sister, Elke, 17.  Ranked No, 399, she replaced weary Flipkens and was jarred in the clincher by Raymond, 6-2, 6-1, after No. 76 Els Callens had defeated Shaughnessy, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5). The silly format (another misfire by the ITF), places the doubles last on the program where it seldom matters.  Before the slick combo of Navratilova and Raymond could influence the two series, the outcome was decided.  Still, they came on like the last champagne of a nice party, mopping up the Belgians Clijsters and Caroline Maes, 6-1, 6-4, and the French Emily Loit and Stephanie Cohen-Aloro, 6-4, 6-0.  Martina and Lisa, deftly demonstrating the forgotten art of volleying, made it a fascinating, if one-sided, farewell.  A bagel to say bye-bye to the Cup on its 40th birthday – not as glittering or mature as Billie Jean and Martina.  And there was more luscious caviar to spread on the bagel. <<<Back