Olympic Team Qualification Rules Leave Many Bewildered

See if any of this sounds familiar.

“There are a lot of rules and regulations, a lot of politics involved in the Olympics. It was unfortunate for me that the rules played out the way they did. I’m disappointed and sad, of course.”

Common enough for near-Olympians, but not usual stuff for the still-fledgling sport of tennis in the Games. The words are from Mary Joe Fernandez, the defending gold medalist in doubles, and they came after she learned at the end of last month she was not one of four players named to the U.S. Olympic team.

On the women’s team are Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport and Chanda Rubin in singles and Gigi Fernandez in doubles, probably teamed with Davenport.

The controversy: The U.S. Tennis Assn.’s decision to select players strictly by ranking, rather than factoring in experience and contribution to Fed Cup and other national team competitions.

The reaction from players at the French Open was immediate. They wanted Fernandez named to the team, somehow.

“I think it’s very unfair what’s been happening,” Seles said. “I think the players should get together and do everything possible to get Mary Joe on the team. She’s the defending gold medalist. She’s No. 11 in the world. I think when you have a country with that many top players, they have to make an exception. I think in Mary Joe’s case, they should make the exception. I really believe that very strongly.”

In fact, Seles is the focus of much of the anger at the USTA’s selection. While the others on the team have played Fed Cup, Seles has not, because of injuries.

The Olympic eligibility rules don’t require Seles to have played Fed Cup, only to have made herself available. A possible rule change in the future might require that Olympians play at least one Fed Cup match in the required two years.

“I really hope Monica not only plays this Fed Cup but keeps playing Fed Cup,” Davenport said. “I don’t know personally if she’s going to. It would be really bad if next year she didn’t play at all. Mary Joe plays every time, has always been there, will still play.”

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Jim Courier rocked the French Open last week with this observation on women’s tennis: “Life’s too short to go around not being friendly with the people in the locker room. That’s the main difference, I think, between our tour and the women’s tour, that is we all get along and they really don’t, for the most part.”

Predictably, the women weren’t pleased.

Steffi Graf: “I don’t really think that’s totally true. Look at today, I was sitting with Conchita [Martinez] in the locker room [before their semifinal] watching almost all the whole match of Arantxa [Sanchez Vicario]. We commented, we were having fun watching it. I didn’t sense any difficulties. I got back after the match and I saw Arantxa in the locker room, we gave each other a high-five and congratulated each other, saying, ‘Saturday, another one [final].’ I don’t know, it seemed very friendly in our locker room.”

Sanchez Vicario: “I don’t think it’s true. We are friends off the court. [It’s a] little normal to have a rivalry when we are playing each other. We are also friends, I can tell you that.”

Jana Novotna: “How can he tell? He’s not in the locker room. I think he is very wrong because he doesn’t spend time in the locker room and he doesn’t know the players. It’s not really for him to comment on that.

“It just seems like we don’t have a very united image on certain issues on our tour. We are going through some changes right now. That’s why it seems that the players or the top-10 players aren’t as united as they are supposed to be on certain issues.

Otherwise, I think everybody gets along pretty well in the locker room. At least, I have no problem with anybody.”

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Asking for equal time and clearly miffed at comments made mostly by Thomas Muster suggesting the ATP Tour is run from the United States by Americans who ignore the interests of European players, Peter Alfano, the tour’s vice president of communications, responded.

“It can’t be an American versus European thing,” he said. “There isn’t support for Muster from the serve and volleyers like [Boris] Becker, [Goran] Ivanisevic or [Michael] Stich on increasing the number of clay-court tournaments. The argument really becomes someone’s agenda.”

Alfano noted that a year ago the tour opened an office in London to handle corporate marketing and television and that the European tour events are managed from an office in Monte Carlo.

Alfano said the Monte Carlo office exists because European events and player and media relations call for different strategies and a sensitivity to the European way of doing things.

“We have a corporate approach and policy, but it’s regionalized,” he said. “It’s not like us sitting in Ponte Vedra saying, ‘This is our American strategy.’ ”

Yet, the only concrete differences he cited between the way the Monte Carlo office does business and the international headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., was that news releases in Europe are produced in different languages and there are fewer references made to prize money.

Alfano said the griping by Muster about the short length of the clay-court season is nothing new and strictly a personal agenda. The Austrian’s other comments that tour management is American-dominated may be true but, Alfano points out, what difference does he think it would make to have others in charge?

“Everyone has an idea about what is wrong, but no one has concrete ideas about how to make changes,” Alfano said.

Meanwhile, the bickering continues.