Redhead, Shoulders Over Rest

I can understand Swedes wanting to spend the rest of their lives in a profession where they could wear shorts all the time and sweat a lot.

How else to explain Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg, Mikael Pernfors and a half dozen Larsons and Gustaffsons making a living in the ad courts of the world’s tennis centers? If you lived in Stockholm, wouldn’t the French Riviera look good to you--and anything with the name Palm in front of it?

What motivates a young man born in Casablanca and raised in Marseilles? Shouldn’t he want to be a skier?

But what I would really like to know is, why do redheaded guys make such good tennis players?

Look at the record. Way back in the early days of the game, Maurice McLoughlin, the so-called California Comet, lit up the courts with his blaze of sunset-red hair.

Move up to the modern era. The great Donald Budge was a redhead. So was Rod Laver. So was John McEnroe. So is Boris Becker. Look up any Wimbledon champion and the chances are he’ll look like a cross between Little Orphan Annie and Eric the Red.

Which brings me to the final of the Newsweek Champions Cup tennis at the Grand Champions club down in Indian Wells Sunday.

You knew it was over as soon as Jim Courier removed his cap. There was this bright thatch of glowing strawberry hair.

In the far court wasn’t even a Swede but the left-hander, Guy Forget--a little riff of the Marseillaise, professor--France’s pride and joy.

Forget--pronounced For- jay --was ranked No. 5 in the world. He had just eliminated the world’s top player, Stefan Edberg, the pride of Scandinavia, in the semifinals.

But Jim Courier eliminated Andre Agassi, who isn’t anybody’s pride and joy but who is ranked No. 4 in the world.

Jim Courier is ranked No. 18 in the world. But he, after all, has red hair. And a wicked high-bouncing, two-handed backhand.

Like most redheads, he is inconsistent. His game can be as fiery as his flaming hair--or as erratic. The surface--not exactly slow but not exactly fast, either--was as ideal for him as his hair color.

But it was more his indomitability that served him Sunday. Down, two sets to one and 0-2 in the third set, and his opponent, Forget, on his own serve, Courier could have packed it in.

Redheads don’t do that. Not on the tennis court, as Budge, Laver, McEnroe and Becker brilliantly proved. Not in any sport, actually. Not on the football field, as Red Grange showed, nor the baseball field, as Red Ruffing did.

Red is the color for danger. And Red Courier rallied, not only to ward off defeat but to come on to win the set handily, 6-3.

Forget saw red.

It was hard to conclude whether Courier is going to become part of tennis’ Red Army or just another guy with a two-handed backhand. It was his first tournament victory in 17 months and his second ever. But he’s only 20 years old. He’s got the hair for it. Whether or not the game will follow suit depends on other than his red-gold tresses.

He can take comfort in the fact that he saved the Champions from the ignominy of another All-American tennis retreat.

It was a tournament that started out with one of the most promising calendars of home-boy fields this side of a Grand Slam event. Pete Sampras, the U.S. Open winner; John McEnroe, former Wimbledon and U.S. winner; Andre Agassi, earnings $3,342,838, were on the list.

Sampras dropped out first--injury. Someone with the improbable name of Jim Grabb, unseeded in the tournament and No. 73 in the world, dropped McEnroe out in straight sets. Courier eliminated Agassi after spotting him a set, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4.

The tournament seemed to be a crepe suzette for the gallant Gaul, Guy Forget, a serve-and-volley long-ball hitter, when he put the tourney’s last name player, Edberg, out in the semifinals. Forget just smothered Edberg’s so-so serves and blasted his own winners in at 121-m.p.h. velocities.

Courier was not so easily discouraged. A one-time baseball pitcher, he played Forget the way a canny old veteran would pitch to a free-swinging slugger. He never gave him anything good to hit.

Forget frequently looked like a guy trying to take off a too-tight sweater or open a stuck door. He never seemed able to extend his arms for the home run swing. Courier kept him tied in knots and, in a sense, taking called third strikes.

Besides, Courier seemed to save his best pitches, his service aces, for strikeouts. Of his nine aces, he got all but one when the score was 40-15 or 40-0.

An athletic type, he spent most of the rest of the day retrieving sure winners and, by the time the match had hit the final fifth-set tiebreaker, Forget was forgotten and tennis had yet another redhead to keep an eye on. Color him red.