TENNIS / THOMAS BONK : His Story Was a Cut Above the Others

The first week of Wimbledon goes into the books today and that’s probably a good place for it, provided they are joke books.

It’s comforting to know that as generally normal, genteel and predictable as Wimbledon can be in its first seven days, you can’t completely stamp out all the weirdness.

The strawberries and cream are still here--10 strawberries in a cup go for about $2.55--it costs about $7.50 to park your car on the golf course across the street, an official sweat shirt in your choice of four colors is about $90. But the tabloid newspapers--motto: all the news that fits, we print--are lunacy’s springboard.

For example, the biggest story of the first week was not Ivan Lendl’s tearful miss-and-run in the second round, Goran Ivanisevic’s near-disaster against somebody ranked 257 places lower before losing to No. 30 Todd Martin on Saturday, or even Martina Navratilova playing her first three matches in shorts.

No, the first week’s top story, in the Daily Star, was a pictorial spread showing Andre Agassi’s hairy midriff at last year’s Wimbledon next to a picture from his first-round match with Agassi sporting a hairless midriff.

The caption: “Where’s the hair-gassi?”

Not even close was Conchita Martinez being asked to change her tennis clothes because they were judged not predominantly white, or even Andrei Medvedev losing in the second round and blaming a heavy heart, presumably because he was spurned by Anke Huber.

It’s still, well, Wimbledon, though. The All England Club committees still have shortbread cookies and sherry at their daily noon meetings, blue blazers are everywhere and British players go about as fast as the pound notes in your wallet.

Here was the weather forecast for Friday: “The cloud will begin to break up, leaving a fine end to the day. Light winds and feeling pleasantly warm in any sunshine.”

Lovely.

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Odds and ends: Before the tournament began, the odds on the Loch Ness monster being sighted were 400-1, the odds on Elvis coming back were 500-1 and the odds on a British man winning Wimbledon were 1,000-1.

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Contentment award: In what could be a record for euphoria, short interview category, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario said the word happy six times in a seven-question postmatch news conference.

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Diet news: Last year, Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald said he would eat his shirt if Andre Agassi won Wimbledon. Pope wound up eating crow when Agassi took the title.

This year, Pope is even more confident Agassi won’t repeat. But if he does?

“I’ll throw in the shoes, too,” Pope said.

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Sod story: At your next cocktail party, win a trivia contest with this one: The grass on Centre Court at Wimbledon is a mixture of four varieties--55% rye, 20% chewing fescue, 20% creeping red fescue and 5% agrostus.

So there.

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New ballgame: Pam Shriver is part of a Baltimore group that will bid for the Orioles when the team is auctioned in August as a result of the financial woes of team owner Eli Jacobs.

The price tag? Best estimates are in the $140-million range.

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Pity Pete: Even though he is the No. 1 player in the world and the No. 1-seeded player at Wimbledon, it seems that it’s pretty difficult to work up much enthusiasm for Pete Sampras.

Not only is he rated only a 7-1 shot to win, Ladbrokes and William Hill, the major betting parlors, have had problems getting anyone to back Sampras.

It isn’t much better for Sampras in the newspapers. British writers are far from enthusiastic about him.

Mike Langley of the Daily Mirror offered this opinion: “A particularly boring clone from America’s assembly line. Over-coached, overrated, overpaid, and--like his GI forebears--over here.”

Tennis Notes

The Women’s Sports Foundation will honor Basketball Hall of Fame member Ann Meyers at a benefit reception Aug. 10 at the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles. Details: (310) 546-7753.

The Santa Monica College celebrity tennis classic will be held Aug. 19-22 at Malibu Racquet Club to raise money for the African-American Collegian Center.

The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy is holding a summer camp on campus at Northridge through Aug. 14. Details: (800) USA-NICK.

Defending champion Richard Krajicek will join former champions Pete Sampras and Aaron Krickstein in the Volvo-Los Angeles tournament Aug. 2-8 at UCLA’s Los Angeles Tennis Center.