Chang Survives Champions Purge

Wait a minute! WHO ARE THESE GUYS?! What’s going on here? What is this, the “WHERE IS EVERYBODY” Open?

Look, when you start out with a tournament draw that includes most of the Who’s Who of the game--and end up with most of the Who’s He--you had better check around and see which tennis god you’ve offended.

The Newsweek Champions Cup tournament at Hyatt Grand Champions resort this week looked on paper like Wimbledon West at the start of the week. It looked like a clay court at Indianapolis by the quarter finals.

Look whom they had. Want to start with Pete Sampras? The best player extant and one of the best ever?

Gone. Eliminated not by another candidate for the tennis Hall of Fame but by somebody named Bohdan Ulihrach. The Bohdan Ulihrach.

Well, now, you’ve heard of Andre Agassi? Right! Brooke Shields’ significant other. The “Image is everything” spokesman. Winner of the Australian and U. S. opens and Wimbledon. That Andre Agassi. Well, he was kicked out of here, image and all, by Mark Philippoussis, a player whose serve has been likened to a Scud missile but the rest of his game is more like bow and arrow.

How about Jim Courier? Winner of the French Open twice, the Australian Open twice, finalist in a U. S. Open. Courier couldn’t handle Francisco Clavet.

Hey! You’ve heard of Goran Ivanisevic. Big server. Leads the world in total service aces with more than 1,500. Plays the game like a guy who dares you to beat him. Goran got tumbled by the immortal Jonathan Stark. You know Jonathan. Sometimes makes it clear to the second round at Wimbledon.

The ribbon clerks have taken over this poker game. When you’ve got a tennis tournament that could have Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Goran Ivanisevic, to say nothing of a Thomas Enqvist, in the quarterfinals--and you end up with Jonas Bjorkman, Alberto Berasategui and Bohdan Ulihrach, you wonder where you can go to get your money back.

It’s anarchy, is what it is. On the other hand, it’s kind of heartwarming. If you don’t have to sell tickets.

Fortunately, Charlie Pasarell doesn’t have to sell tickets. His tournament finals are sellouts annually. The players could presumably play in masks.

This year, they might as well have, but for one thing: the presence of Michael Chang.

The great survivor, Michael Chang, as usual, found a way to creep through the draw, as hard to get rid of as a mosquito in a hot room. And right along with him was the stubborn Austrian, Thomas Muster, the most underrated player on tour.

It would probably not surprise you to know that the current ATP rankings list Chang as No. 3. But it should shock you to know that they list Muster as No. 2.

In a game that’s been taken over by the home run hitters, the serve-and-volley terminators, finding a Chang and a Muster listed as closest to Pete Sampras looks like a typo. It isn’t. In an era of 140-mph serves and volleys that flatten the ball when it hits the court, Muster and Chang play more of a shell game. Chang comes out of a match as if he had crawled under barbed wire and through bombardment and machine-gun fire for 2 1/2 hours. When Chang plays, you bring a lunch. Or a good book. He never goes quietly. He keeps returning the ball until the other guy is ready for a straitjacket.

Muster is craftier. He is like a gambler with his own deck. Playing him on clay is like fighting a jaguar in a tree. He is like a guy who pulls a quarter out of your ear. He doesn’t overpower you, he outsmarts you. If he were a baseball player, you would say he hits ‘em where they ain’t.

Poetic justice would have had these two to meet in today’s final. It would be fitting for No. 2 to play No. 3.

Alas, tennis doesn’t deal in poetic justice.

The trouble with tennis is it’s match play. There’s no tomorrow.

Golf used to be largely match play--until television came along. Match finals were OK so long as they had Hogan in them--but when they came up Chandler Harper v. Henry Williams IV, TV pulled the plug.

A double-crossing by the draw deprived the Newsweek of a face-saving final between Chang and Muster. Instead, they played each other in one semifinal Saturday.

So, instead of a final pitting the world’s No. 2 vs. the world’s No. 3, we’re going to get one featuring a mystery guest.

Because, the other semifinal pitted the world’s No. 35 vs. the world’s No. 43. Jonas Bjorkman vs. Bohdan Ulihrach. Only a few spectators knew which was which.

Not that it matters. One of them won, 6-3, 6-2. I’m not sure which. The blond one.

Michael Chang, of course, we knew. But the way this tournament is going, he’ll doubtless lose today to Bohdan Ulihrach. Or whoever that guy was who won the other semi in the Who-Are-These-Guys? Open, the Massacre at Indian Wells.