U.S. OPEN : Jensens Have Tennis Fans Doubling Over

There was a grand show Sunday in the Grandstand. For once, this court came with jesters.

Their names are Murphy and Luke, the Jensen brothers of tennis fame or notoriety, depending upon whom you talk to. They are fun and funny, independent and irreverent. And they are loved by the fans who pay the salaries of the officials who barely tolerate them. At a time when the entertainment value of the game is being questioned everywhere, tennis appears to need the Jensen brothers, even if tennis doesn’t appear to be happy about it.

The Jensen brothers play doubles, sometimes quite well. They won the French Open last year, much to the disgust of much of the tennis establishment, and their road show plays weekly wherever the tour stops. That can be quite jarring to a sport that remains, for the most part, white shirts and whispers.

“Our goal is to play 52 weeks,” Luke said Sunday at the U.S. Open. “We are going to have our own tournament the week of Christmas so that we can set a record, 52 straight weeks. We’ll play ice tennis and we’ll win, because we won’t melt the ice on the court.”

Brother Murphy: “Ice, that’s our best surface.”

Luke: “It’s tough for the other team to get the balls out of the snowbanks.”

The Jensen brothers will go anywhere, talk to anybody, do benefits and clinics with 10 minutes’ notice, and sign autographs till the pens run dry. They are so bizarre, they even like reporters.

Their Grandstand match drew a packed house of 5,000. For perspective, it must be remembered that this was third-round doubles; normally, that goes on Court 22, even a week into the tournament. Perry-Budge versus Tilden-Vines wouldn’t have drawn like that, and people actually liked tennis back then.

More perspective: The Jensens were facing the team of Palmer-McEnroe, and the quietest player on the court was named McEnroe. In this case, however, the McEnroe was Patrick, brother of the last player before the Jensens who excited the general public about tennis.

McEnroe and Jared Palmer were seeded seventh, Murphy and Luke unseeded. McEnroe and Palmer won, 6-1, 6-2.

When the match ended, McEnroe and Palmer sat in the chairs courtside and busily packed their bags. Murphy and Luke, responding to squeals from all corners of the Grandstand, worked the crowd, signing and signing. It’s not that they didn’t care about “getting smoked,” as they later termed it. It’s just that this pair has a keen sense that the show must go on, win or lose.

And what a show it is. It’s Agassi’s rock ‘n’ roll tennis, times two; MTV with rackets. Other players get Grand Slams, the Jensens get groupies.

They dress alike, but sartorial splendor it is not. Sunday, it was white-with-red-stripes Tour de France caps turned backward, gray shirts with white stars and red thigh warmers under matching gray shorts. After the first game, Luke changed from the cap to a bright orange bandana.

In the news conference afterward, veteran tennis reporter Bud Collins asked the Jensens: “Just how many costumes do you have?” To which Murphy replied: “Not as many as Elton John.”

Along with the wardrobes comes a show. Luke serves, and sometimes plays, with both hands. Often, he will hit a first serve righty and a second serve lefty. To his friends, he is dual-hand Luke.

Have you ever served a double fault, one left and one right, he was asked.

“Did it today,” he said. “Do it all the time. I’ve cranked ‘em, shanked ‘em. . . .”

Luke served four times and never held. In his first service game, he served right-handed six times and left-handed five. In his last service, at 2-5 of the second set, he served right-handed 11 times, left-handed twice. He even had a foot fault in the first set.

“He might be really effective,” McEnroe joked afterward, “if he could make his toss and then decide which hand he’s going to hit it with.”

In Luke’s defense, it is not that easy serving with different hands while leading the crowd in cheers, falling flat on your back after missed shots, high-fiving the fans in the front row or imploring the heavens, arms extended skyward, to get you out of tight spots.

The Jensens are the Lakers of tennis. When they play, it is Showtime. Their opponents, no matter how good they are or how much they resist it, always end up being the Washington Generals playing the Harlem Globetrotters. That, of course, can’t help but bring some bad feelings.

“I can’t say that many guys didn’t come up to us and say, ‘Hey you guys, win this match,’ ” said McEnroe, who speculated that while most of the fans were rooting for the Jensens, most of the other players were rooting for him and Palmer.

“But yeah, I think they are good for tennis,” McEnroe continued. “You get a packed house out there for a third-round doubles match; it is great.”

The Jensens played at USC in the late 1980s, so it comes easy for them to express their excitement, over things like a packed Grandstand, in Southern California-speak.

“Like, it is truly awesome,” Luke said.

But the answer is serious, mature and to the point when they are asked what advice they’d give to the U.S. Tennis Assn. on improving the popularity of the sport.

“We could be here all night,” Luke said.

“Just keep putting us on TV,” Murphy said.