With Venus and Gimelstob, It’s Mix and Match

Justin Gimelstob said Venus Williams called him to play mixed doubles at the Australian Open in January.

“She called me out of the blue before the Australian Open, and we hit it off,” he said.

She tells a different story.

“No, I didn’t know where he was,” she said.

He said, she said.

Really, how many teenage girls admit they called an older guy? Even if it is for mixed doubles at a Grand Slam event?

Gimelstob and Williams probably will be going for three-fourths of a Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, which starts later this month in New York. They won the Australian Open and French Open and reached the semifinals at Wimbledon.

Winning Wimbledon were 16-year-old Serena Williams and Max Mirnyi of Belarus. It was the second Grand Slam mixed doubles final for Serena, who was playing with a different partner, Luis Lobo of Argentina, when they lost to Gimelstob and Venus at the French Open.

Gimelstob, the former UCLA Bruin, was joking the other day about what the mixed doubles draw would have looked like at the U.S. Open if he and Williams had won Wimbledon, guessing everyone would enter in an effort to prevent a Grand Slam sweep.

Venus clearly enjoys playing mixed doubles. At the French, the Williams sisters had a blast joking around with Lobo.

“I get to improve my volleys, work on my ground strokes and return of serve for my singles,” Venus said. “And I also like playing against the other guys. It’s not all guys. It’s just half of guys.”

Even though she would not admit to calling Gimelstob, Williams put a lot of thought behind the partnership. She saw enough of Gimelstob’s game to know he would be a good match.

“I thought he [Gimelstob] would be someone that wouldn’t give up during the match,” she said. “Some players, they get down and they might think they would lose or they might start trailing off.

“I wanted someone who would persevere.”

KING-SIZED NIGHTMARE

With the 25th anniversary of her famous match against Bobby Riggs fast approaching, Billie Jean King has been talking more about the match lately. It has been impossible to forget--even for a day.

“Sometimes, I wake up and I think I haven’t played it,” King said during a recent conference call. “That’s when I get a little nervous and sweaty in the palms. Then I realize it’s 25 years later. It’s OK, I did beat him, thank you, God.”

Even before Margaret Court lost to Riggs earlier in the year, King had turned down several approaches from Riggs to play a match.

“When Margaret lost, I knew I had to play him,” she said. “I was basically forced into it.

“But I also understood the consequences of playing that match. I knew the responsibility. I knew the match wasn’t about a tennis match. It was about social change. So there was a lot of responsibility and pressure.”

King said her nerves calmed about 20 minutes before the match and that she went to a cocktail party.

“Everybody about fainted,” she said. “[Tennis designer] Ted Tinling fainted. . . . The only person I remember seeing [in the crowd] was Pam Austin [the older sister of Tracy Austin], holding up a sign with the word “BYE” [goodbye to Riggs] on it.

“Walking out on the court, I went from Plan A to Plan B. Plan A was obviously serve, volley, be aggressive. I went to Plan B, which was to hit the ball as softly as I could, make him run, run, run.

“Bets were going on. It was quite a night. I’m just thrilled I won.”

NO. 2 AND TRYING HARDER

Lindsay Davenport knows the question will come at some point, whether it’s early or late in the interview. And whether it’s Paris, London, Indian Wells or Carlsbad, there is a fascination about her relative anonymity in the sports world.

How does the No. 2 player in the world feel about the publicity lavished on the likes of Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova and Venus and Serena Williams?

Davenport is always accommodating

“It’s funny, I’m asked that question all the time,” she said, laughing. “My answer is, always, no [it doesn’t bother me]. For me, I pretty much like the position I’m in and I don’t really love the spotlight or want to grab the attention anyway.”

So often, Davenport has been on the verge of breaking through at a Grand Slam. Twice this year, she has been one set from reaching a Grand Slam singles final, losing in three sets to Conchita Martinez at the Australian Open and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario at the French Open. Both were semifinal matches, and Davenport has been ranked ahead of both players all year.

One reporter this week jokingly asked if she would make a certain gesture--best described here as defiant--when she finally won a Grand Slam singles title.

“I would never go up to someone and go, ‘This is for all you guys,’ ” she said, laughing. “But, for sure, I feel that way. I’m sure if I ever won a Grand Slam, I would probably just go in the room and say, ‘I’m not going to say anything.’ Just, ‘I did it.’ And walk away. That’s what I would like to do. “A lot of players get criticized a lot and people say that I’ll never win a Grand Slam. And I don’t have the game or the consistency. My point is you can say that, but you never know.”