Coaches Are Set to Make Their Move

The sport might be on the verge of taking a brave step forward, achieving progress without tampering with the game’s integrity.

Actual on-court coaching.

It is done during Davis Cup and Federation Cup competitions. But other than that, tennis is unlike other sports, no coaching--well, legally at least--during a match.

The men’s tour is to consider the idea later this month. It has been tried on an experimental stage at smaller events, and feelings are mixed on the topic. As it stands, there would only be a couple of minutes at the end of each set when the coach could talk to the player.

Brad Gilbert, who coaches Andre Agassi, got a group of other coaches together and found resistance.

“There’s a lot of coaches in denial about it,” Gilbert said. “They say they don’t want it because the truth is it puts more pressure on the coach.

“It only adds to the game, it can only make it better. The person [watching] at home is wondering: ‘What am I talking about? What is Carl Chang talking about?”

Gilbert pointed out it may level the playing field too, since so much illegal coaching goes on anyway with some guys flashing more signs that a third-base coach, he said.

“The guys made these rules in tennis, probably 150 years ago,” he said. “And the same [bleep] still applies. I feel like when the sport is down a little bit, you try to create a little excitement.”

In the days of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, an extra element of a coach might have really made it more of a three-ring circus.

“I would have wanted my coach to come out,” Gilbert said. “At some point there were a couple of times I was a knucklehead probably. You would like to think there were plenty of times where I was watching Andre and he’s being a knucklehead. It sheds a different light.”

Gavin Hopper, who coaches Mark Philippoussis and Amanda Coetzer, is with Gilbert on the issue. In particular, he remembered a match at the 1998 Australian Open that Coetzer lost, a day he might have been able to help.

“I feel helpless at times,” Hopper said. “Right or wrongly, you get the credit but you also suffer the defeats. I would like to have some sort of say in that mind-set [of a player] when they’re actually playing.

“Amanda was playing [Anke] Huber in the fourth round, playing some great tennis, leading 6-2, 4-1. She lost the set 6-4. Then 4-1 up in the third, lost it, 7-5. Now that’s important, fourth round of the Australian Open. If she loses a game or two, then all of a sudden there’s a timeout and you can try to stop it.”

AND NOW, A FEW NET CORDS FROM KORDA

So far, taking the early lead for the sports country of 1998 is the Czech Republic.

It hasn’t even been close.

Petr Korda stepped up first, creating a heartwarming story when he survived angst and injuries to win his first Grand Slam, at age 30, no less, at the Australian Open.

This time, the skinny guy was the one kicking sand in the face of his younger, bigger and stronger peers.

Then came a bigger shock less than a month later at Nagano, Japan. Goaltender Dominik Hasek, in hockey parlance, stood on his head and walked out of the Olympic Games with a gold medal and the hearts of his fans back home in the Czech Republic.

Korda, who spent some time hanging out with Hasek last year in Key Biscayne, Fla., said the hockey gold medal meant a lot to him too.

“When the guys won it, I called him [Hasek] in Nagano and he was so thrilled and excited,” Korda said. “I just did something for them because there were 22 guys on the team, plus the three coaches. Each guy is going to have a Nagano ‘98, his name and his jersey. Hopefully, it is going to be ready in, let us say, five, six weeks. And I’m going to be able to present it to the guys.”

Post-Australia, Korda has struggled a bit--suffering some back problems--and he lost to Karol Kucera in Antwerp, Belgium, and to Cedric Pioline in London. Which means he hasn’t been able to trot out the scissor-kick lately. His victory celebrations are easily the most interesting on the circuit.

“If I am going to have a joy the way I am having at the moment, I love to do that [the kicks],” he said. “It is something--for me, it is kind of healthy to the game. Because people have something to talk about. I’m just not doing it to be popular. I just want to show them [my family and coach] how happy I am.”

And, as Korda knows, it’ll be easier to do cartwheels and scissor-kicks on the grass at Wimbledon.

FOREVER YOUNG

Michael Chang has packed up and moved north to Mercer Island, Wash., a place, presumably, where the fish are fresher and plentiful. He also said he is excited that Washington has a large Asian community.

It sort of came as a shock to some that Chang recently turned 26. That same day he lost in the finals at Memphis to Philippoussis. Because of his early brilliance, he still seems a perennial teenager hitting from the baseline.

Yet because of the energy he has had to expend all these years, Chang was recently asked if he felt like he was an old 26.

Chang laughed.

“Old 26,” he said. “I guess that depends on how you look at it. I think a lot of it is attitude, how you feel. I would have to agree if I was having a tough time getting up in the morning or had a tough time feeling good about going out and practicing and being excited about working out. But that is really not the case.”

CALL WAITING . . . AND WAITING

The South African media was waiting the other day to talk to native son Wayne Ferreira via a conference telephone call. And waiting. And waiting.

Evidently Ferreira was somewhere in California--maybe even in transit to Indian Wells--but not near a phone.

Then the 26-year-old Ferreira, who is ranked 36th, showed some maturity. He not only phoned the South African Tennis Assn. to apologize, Ferreira also got the personal numbers for each media member who had been waiting on the call and said he was sorry.