TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : McEnroe Looks for Big Finish

Does John McEnroe have one more big victory left in him? McEnroe, who turned 32 Saturday, has taken some steps to find out.

“I’d like to go out on a good note, a great note for me, and win a big tournament,” McEnroe said.

But ranked No. 17 after ending 1990 at No. 13 and ’89 at No. 4, McEnroe said he may have to look for another line of work if he isn’t back in the top 10 by the end of this year.

“Then I’m going to seriously think about not playing,” McEnroe told the Associated Press.

McEnroe, who normally doesn’t play in the desert, has entered the $1-million Newsweek Champions Cup March 4-10 at Hyatt Grand Champions in Indian Wells. He has been working out with trainer Rob Parr, whose client list includes Madonna and McEnroe’s wife, Tatum O’Neal.

McEnroe, who said Parr has helped with weight training, cardiovascular exercises and stretching, explained why he didn’t hire such a training expert before: “It so happened that I was in a groove for nine years,” he said.

McEnroe won seven Grand Slam singles titles between 1979 and ’84 and reached the semifinals of Wimbledon in ’89 and the U.S. Open in ’90.

“I just played tennis,” McEnroe said of his prime. “I knew five years ago that I needed to do something different. It just took me until two months ago before I decided.”

Ms. Popeye: Monica Seles has grown four inches to 5-feet-9 in the past year and has discovered a new food--spinach. Seles also devotes time to pasta and milkshakes to try to add bulk to her 118-pound frame.

As unlikely as it may sound, this just might be the diet of champions. Seles, who is No. 2 in the world, could pass Steffi Graf during the Virginia Slims of Palm Springs, which begins on Feb. 25 at the Sonny Bono Racquet Club.

Seles can become No. 1 if she wins the tournament, but it also depends on which players she beats along the way. The reason is that players receive ranking points for how far they go in an event and also earn bonus points for defeating high-ranked players. Such players in the draw are No. 3-ranked Martina Navratilova and No. 4 Mary Joe Fernandez.

With so much at stake for Seles, there is a question about her health. Seles won the Australian Open, then pulled out of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo the next week because of a sore right rotator cuff. She played briefly in an exhibition last weekend in Dallas. Seles is resting at home in Sarasota, Fla., and has no further tennis scheduled until Palm Springs.

Graf’s hold on the No. 1 ranking begins its 184th consecutive week Monday. She has held the position since winning the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles on Aug. 17, 1987.

Old pro: Jennifer Capriati is back for her second year as a professional, which means she is soon going to relive her first pro tournament, the Virginia Slims of Florida at Boca Raton, where she made her pro debut at 13. Capriati said she is eager to return to the scene next month.

“Because I know, you know, you know, I did well there, you know, so it would be easier.”

Oh.

Capriati also said she is thankful her much-ballyhooed first year on the women’s pro tour is over. Want to know why?

“Actually, I am relieved that it’s over, you know, because I was waiting, you know, I wanted to see, I always thought in the beginning of the year how the year would turn out by the end of the year. So now, you know, I know how it did.”

Capriati, who will be 15 next month, is a ninth-grader at the Palmer Academy in Saddlebrook, Fla. Now you know.

Bjorn again?: Reports that 34-year-old Bjorn Borg, who last played full time on the tour in 1981, will accept a wild card into the French Open, are being greeted with some skepticism by former peers, as well as possible soon-to-be peers such as Aaron Krickstein.

It has been rumored that Borg, a six-time French Open and five-time Wimbledon champion, will return to the tour by taking wild cards to enter three clay court tournaments--the Volvo Monte Carlo Open, the Italian Open and the French Open.

“I think everyone is eager to see how he’ll do,” Krickstein said. “I think he’ll have a hard time playing with a wooden racket, though. In the last seven or eight years, things have changed so much into a power game, and the competition is so much tougher.”

But?

“If one guy can do it, he can,” Krickstein said. “Mentally, he was the best. If he makes the top 20--the top 50--it would be one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports.”

Jet lag: Last Sunday, Leila Meskhi played a match in Wellington, New Zealand. Two days later, she played a match in Chicago. This is pretty tough scheduling for a tennis player or anyone who only wants to speak coherently.

Meskhi went through a 19-hour time difference, an 18-hour flight, five hours in layovers and a mere 57-degree drop in temperature, from 74 in Wellington to 17 in Chicago.

Was it worth it? Meskhi wound up losing her first-round match in the Virginia Slims of Chicago, 6-2, 6-7 (7-5), 6-4, to Amy Frazier, which just goes to show that as bad it was, getting there was still all the fun.

Russian roulette: As college basketball coaches know, recruiting is a dirty business. And it may be no different in the tennis world, where signing players is a multimillion-dollar, high-stakes pressurized gamble.

A case in point involves Alex Medvedev, 16, of Kiev in the Soviet Union, one of the top juniors in the world, who recently signed a contract to be represented by International Management Group.

However, Christopher Boyer of Match Point Productions in Greenwich, Conn., said he had already signed Medvedev to a representation contract and IMG wrongly influenced the Soviet player to renounce that contract and sign another one of its own.

“I have signed contracts, I have signed letters, I have signed everything,” said Boyer, who claimed that IMG, a powerful figure in professional tennis and the world’s largest athlete management firm, hinted that it could make things difficult for Medvedev if he did not sign with it.

Last week, IMG released an announcement of Medvedev’s signing. Peter Johnson of IMG said Boyer’s charges do not deserve a response, and a spokesperson for IMG, who commented only on the condition that his name not be used, termed the claims by Boyer “sour grapes.”

At the same time, Boyer insists his version is correct and that while he is disappointed, he is thankful for the learning experience. Besides, Boyer still represents Medvedev’s sister, Natalia, 19.

Tennis Notes

Andre Agassi and Michael Chang will play in the Forum Tennis Challenge exhibition on Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. At 6 p.m., Nicole Hummel, 16, of San Marino will meet Sonya Jeyaseelan of Bradenton, Fla. Hummel is No. 1 in the Southern California girls’ 18 division, and Jeyaseelan, who trains at Nick Bollettieri’s tennis academy, is the 1989 Canadian girls’ 14 champion.

Boris Becker will play in an exhibition to benefit the National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis at 1 p.m. on March 2 at Hyatt Grand Champions in Indian Wells. Becker and top-ranked wheelchair tennis player Randy Snow of Austin, Tex., will play No. 2-ranked wheelchair player Laurent Giammartini of France and his partner. Tickets are $150. For information, contact the National Foundation of Wheelchair Tennis at (714) 361-6811.

Jimmy Connors has left Advantage International after one year and signed with Sports Partners International, a New York-based sports marketing company headed by former ProServ executive Ray Benton. . . . Anne Person, formerly operations manager of Virginia Slims Tennis, has replaced Jane Brown as managing director of the Women’s International Pro Tennis Council.