This Slap Feels Like Haymaker

Jeff Tarango was observing a tennis match in Japan one day that involved an old Stanford teammate of his, Patrick McEnroe, brother of John. Hardly anybody else was watching.

Patrick was having a terrible time of it, dropping the first set to some anonymous Swede who was serving-and-volleying him into a Johnny Mac-like tizzy. Between sets, Tarango took his friend aside and gave him some good advice. Tarango said, “Be patient. He can’t keep this up forever.”

Patrick was indeed patient and won the match. A few months later, playing singles at the U.S. Open for the first time, who should Patrick draw as an opponent but Tarango, the tough customer from California with the surname that sounds like a town where the marshal might have been Wyatt Earp.

It was one wonderful match. McEnroe won the first two sets. Tarango took the next two. Patrick came from a service break down twice in the fifth set to be the winner, 7-5. The match took more than 4 1/2 hours and Patrick needed an IV afterward to restore his fluids.

Tarango was a good sport. He congratulated his friend. Game, set and mensch .

I trust he would prefer to be known for this kind of tennis.

Instead, for the time being at least, Tarango’s claim to fame is that he and his wife abruptly turned into the Bonnie and Clyde of lawn tennis. In an outrageous incident, Tarango snapped his cap and stomped out of a match, whereupon his better half, Benedicte, went up to a Wimbledon umpire and slapped his face.

Ouch. Talk about a forehand.

There is a sign at Wimbledon that hangs above the entrance to Centre Court. It is a quotation from Rudyard Kipling that reads: “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors the same.”

Let’s hope the Tarangos can.

Something about tennis, a supposedly civilized recreation, brings out the worst in human behavior. Not in golf, not in boxing, not even in most team sports--baseball being an exception--do we see so many individuals going jaw-to-jaw with authority figures, calling them vile names and publicly questioning their qualifications.

I have no idea if Bruno Rebeuh is “corrupt,” to use Tarango’s word, but to accuse him publicly without proof is unconscionable and slanderous. That stiff $15,500 fine Tarango got slapped with, he earned it.

Rebeuh has seen it all. He once witnessed a match in Munich during which Brad Gilbert and David Wheaton went at it furiously, screaming at one another and even bumping during a changeover. The match was for huge money and 14,000 people were in attendance, including Wheaton’s brother, John, who was cursing Gilbert himself.

These two players had played a Wimbledon match decided in the fifth set, 15-13, in Gilbert’s favor, and their rivalry had intensified. Gilbert described it as blood in the air. Rebeuh eventually had to separate Gilbert and Wheaton, demanding: “Stop this! Gentlemen, please! Settle down!”

Gentlemen.

John McEnroe once was defaulted from the fourth set of an Australian Open match that he was winning against Mikael Pernfors because after chair umpire Gerry Armstrong and supervisor of officials Ken Farrar ruled against him on a call, McEnroe not only smashed his racket but called out an ear-blistering profanity that involved one of the officials’ mothers.

Andre Agassi played a match at the U.S. Open at which umpire Wayne McKewen overruled an out call on one of Petr Korda’s shots. Agassi’s language was audible and vulgar, but McKewen let it slide. During a change, though, Agassi spat at him.

Andre denied it and got away with it, being allowed to continue. But replays on TV attested to what he did, and a $3,000 fine was levied a day later.

Another time, Yannick Noah looked up at a young umpire and shouted for all to hear, “Why do they send me a boy to do a man’s job?”

I suppose it must take great restraint, controlling oneself. Prizes are at stake, and Patrick McEnroe once called to an official that he was keeping count of the money that man was costing him.

But there is a line, and tennis players have to stop faulting over it. Intensity is one thing. Indecency is another.