Tennis : Players Usually Don’t Take Exhibitions Seriously, So Why Should Fans?

Lesson I: Jet lag eventually kicks in. John McEnroe knew Stefan Edberg couldn’t go three sets at the Forum in January, not after winning the Australian Open singles title barely 24 hours earlier and in a different hemisphere.

McEnroe was right. The grueling five-set final and subsequent 13-hour plane ride from Melbourne to Los Angeles took its toll on Edberg in the third set. Edberg fizzled and McEnroe won, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.

Lesson II: Money for nothing. Usually, exhibitions are seemingly orchestrated to go three sets. Sometimes, two tight sets will do.

Steffi Graf vs. Hana Mandlikova at Indian Wells in February didn’t even come close. The problem was that one played to win and the other didn’t play at all. Win or lose, Mandlikova was guaranteed a hefty paycheck for the afternoon. She lost, 6-0, 6-1.

Lesson III: Damaged goods. It wasn’t hard for McEnroe to get up for a match against his hated rival, Ivan Lendl. No one would question McEnroe’s desire on any tennis court.

Again, though, he was playing someone who had come off a final match of a major tournament and long plane flight. Lendl had lost to Miloslav Mecir, for the first time, at the Lipton International Players Championships in March. And, like Edberg, Lendl wilted in the third set at the Forum. McEnroe defeated Lendl, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, and two days later, Lendl had knee surgery.

And those, students of professional tennis, are three reasons not to take exhibitions seriously. Although people such as McEnroe and Lendl usually put on a good show, more often than not, at least one of the players is operating at some disadvantage.

After the Indian Wells match, Mandlikova put it in perspective: “This really doesn’t mean anything.”

She’s right. Promoters might try to disguise the exhibitions as, The Challenge or, if ticket sales are lagging, The Challenge!! And, really, four-man exhibitions or eight-woman tournaments are anything but the real thing. It’s kind of like getting a bunch of people named Kim Warwick, calling it Team Tennis and passing it off as a real professional sports league. But that’s a whole different column.

Tennis exhibitions come cut from the same bolt of cloth, though. What you see isn’t always what you get. And what you pay for is often tennis in name only.

Mac the Father, Again: Although his comeback has sputtered and stalled these last few months, McEnroe continues to keep the game from lulling itself to sleep.

In March, the ever-vocal Mac denounced Lendl as a person and as a tennis champion. Last week, he was fined $1,000 for a verbal obscenity, $1,000 for verbal abuse, and $500 for kicking a television camera at the otherwise dreary WCT final in Dallas.

Now, for some news off the court. According to this week’s issue of Time, McEnroe’s wife, Tatum O’Neal, is expecting their second child, in September. Baby No. 1, Kevin, will be 1 in May.

Tennis Notes Seventeen magazine will hold its annual tournament May 6-9 at the Marguerite Tennis Complex in Mission Viejo. California girls competing include Michelle Apra of Fremont, Debbie Graham of Fountain Valley, Cinda Gurney of Palos Verdes, Noelle Porter of San Clemente and Elly Hakami of Tiburon in the 18-and-under division; Cammie Foley of Bonita, Alysia May of Beverly Hills, Iwalani McCalla of Los Altos, Karen Lauer of Berkeley and Kim Po of Rolling Hills in the 16s; Akiko Kambe Gooden of Los Angeles, Laura Kimel of Goleta, Keri Phebus of Newport Beach, Tammy Robertson of San Jose, Courtney Rose of Beverly Hills and Laxmi Poruri of Upland in the 14s. . . . Some are calling next year’s college freshman tennis-playing class the best in 10 years. And so far, it looks as though Georgia may have had the best recruiting success. The Bulldogs got commitments from Al Parker, who holds the national record for most junior titles, and highly ranked Chris Garner. Carl Chang of La Costa made an oral commitment to California. Martin Blackman, an American who lives in Barbados, is deciding between Stanford and Cal. Blackman, widely considered to have the most potential of the class, qualified for, and reached the second round of the U.S. Pro Indoor tournament in February. . . . UCLA will hold the NCAA women’s team and individual tournament May 14-21 at the L.A. Tennis Center. The field consists of 16 teams, 64 singles players and 32 doubles teams. The final in the team tournament will be played May 17, the singles and doubles finals four days later.