Tennis Rankings Definitely on the Blink

Lazing in a pleasant sunlit room near the beach at Ponte Vedra, Fla., is the most damned, derided--yet dominant--figure in men’s tennis: Blinky, the ATP computer. Hard of heart but soft of ware, Blinky unfailingly--52 weeks a year since 1973--belches out the worldwide rankings of the professional game.

This is the pecking order of a peckish tribe, the standings that can mean the difference between high life or anonymous death in the lower depths of qualifying tournaments. Blinky ingests the results of 268 tournaments in 61 countries, from Andorra to Wimbledon, over the course of a year. It munches and mulls, taking into consideration varying point values of victory and defeat--an arcane formula that few comprehend, and would likely have caused even Einstein a headache.

Then, without fear or favor, according to its keeper at ATP headquarters, Mickey Singh--”incorruptible,” he insists--Blinky issues the printout. Blinky’s order is law on the ATP Tour in determining seedings and who gets into what tournament. Most recently the lineup lists as No. 1 guy on this planet none other than the greatest Austrian since the Trapp Family, Thomas Muster.

Thomas Muster? Thomas Muster is the world’s best tennis player?

No sounds of music greeted that announcement, although Blinky doesn’t give a modem. Sounds of moaning, however, were heard from such former No. 1 players as Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. They thought it looked sort of bad for their trade that an unstylish dirtkicker from the edelweissed Austrian hills, a guy who made his rep and points largely on clay, was leading the pack when America’s No. 2 tournament, the 11-day Lipton, began March 20.

They smirked as No. 1 Muster was quickly dumped by No. 114 Nick Perreira, a Venezuelan, whose deed, Blinky confides, will earn him No. 90 on the next order of merit. Constant ups and downs are Blinky’s mouse and potatoes.

But Muster, who also crashed just as early in his previous gig, the Newsweek at Indian Wells, losing to a Romanian, No. 40 Adrian Voinea, remains No. 1 today. Moreover he will depart Miami as No. 1, unless Sampras wins the tournament, thereby returning to a position that most believe logically belongs to him, the reigning Wimbledon and U.S. Open champ.

Logic? Since when did that figure in the wonderful though wacko precinct of tennis? The ATP’s is a system that Abbott and Costello could have conceived:

“Who’s in first?”

“Who.”

“Who?”

“Right. Who knows. Who cares. Let’s talk about it in September, after the U.S. Open. Until then Blinky’s in charge.”

“Blinky who?”

“You got it.”

Muster’s grasp on No. 1, momentary, and about as meaningful as winning the North Dakota primary, nevertheless pleases his faithful, who point out that he won as many tournaments last year, 12, as the carping Sampras, who won five, and Agassi, who won seven, put together. And one of Muster’s victories was in the arduous French Open, which neither Sampras nor Agassi has won.

Sampras, who finished the 1993, ’94 and ’95 campaigns at No. 1, keeps saying, “The rankings only mean something at the end of the year.”

His colleagues tend to agree. But then why, at this stage of the season, have Sampras, Agassi, Michael Chang and Jim Courier ducked the U.S. Davis Cup engagement against the Czech Republic in Prague next week, quite possibly guaranteeing second-round defeat for their Cup-defending country?

It doesn’t fit into their schedules in pursuit of No. 1, say these hardy young men.

If that seems puzzling, well, tennis loyalists are used to being puzzled. In a game that appears dedicated to confusing the public, you have, after all, two alleged world championship tournaments, one right after the other at year’s end--the ATP playoffs and the Grand Slam Cup. Each has virtually the same cast and each is played in Germany.

But Bill Gates himself might be perplexed by the ATP computer, good old Blinky.

“Blinky does not lie,” declares his keeper and bunker-mate, Slingh.

But Blinky does have selective memory, just like the rest of us. You see, the program Blinky presides over is an imaginative fraud called “the best 14,” knocked publicly by most players involved but beloved by all of them. It is a nifty fire escape, a life preserver, the grandest loophole in sport, created primarily for the stars.

No athlete worth his trust funds ever met a defeat he didn’t detest, but if you’re a tennis-playing guy, you can pretend a painful beating never happened. And it works. Denial pays. Your ranking is based on your 14 best results. If you win, say, 14 tournaments over a 12-month stretch, but lose in the first round of 10 others, you just throw those defeats away, and Blinky will respect your wishes.

Wouldn’t Roger Clemens love it? Forget that loss and eight earned runs. Steve Young could get some incompletions and interceptions erased.

“It’s against everything in sports,” says Courier, a beneficiary. “You’re supposed to be hurt by failure.”

Not in men’s tennis, where some losses look very suspicious, especially when the loser has received a big guarantee up front.

Butch Buchholz, the thoughtful founder and promoter of the Lipton, doesn’t like it. He remembers too well that a year ago, Michael Stich lost in the first round here, bad-mouthed Miami and everything else in sight--and you knew he’d throw that loss out.

“In my days as a pro, there were very few of us, playing one-night stands for a few hundred bucks,” Buchholz says. “Not tournaments, but we tried like hell. It hurt when somebody said it didn’t matter when we lost. It mattered to me, and it ought to today with so much money involved.

“I realize that the ATP uses the ‘best 14’ to encourage top players to enter more tournaments and avoid exhibitions, but there has to be a better way.”

Buchholz also believes logically--uh oh, not that non-tennis adverb again, please--rankings should begin anew each January, rather than the current unending 12-month cycles.

“It’d be a race like you have in other sports, from start to finish,” he says. “Fans could follow it. They don’t know what’s going on now. I have trouble, and it’s my business.”

If that were in effect, No. 1 would be Goran Ivanisevic, off the mark quickly with four tournament titles this year. Instead he is an unrealistic for 1996--No. 6, a March-to-March decision by the computer.

Chang, the Indian Wells winner and Australian finalist, would be No. 2; Boris Becker, Australian champion, No. 3; Sampras No. 4, Mark Woodforde No. 5, Yevgeny Kafelnikov No. 6 with Agassi and Muster well back.

But don’t send Blinky nasty letters or try to get the poor hard-driven dear prosecuted for fraud. Averse to doing windows or heavy lifting, Blinky has been promised lifetime job security, microchip cookies and top-flight legal counsel by the ATP.