Tilling Over the 'Garden Soil

By BILL DWYRE

March 17, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES SPORTS EDITOR

INDIAN WELLS —

Serena Williams will play Kim Clijsters today in the women’s final of the Tennis Masters Series, and by then there might be some people actually interested in the match.

If Friday was any indication, the buzz that remained around Indian Wells Tennis Garden had less to do with matches played than not played. The talk was still on Thursday night’s default by Venus Williams to her sister, Serena.

It is well known that the sisters don’t like to play each other, and it is also frequently speculated that their father, Richard, orchestrates whether those matches are played and, when they are, how.

Which, if true, is bad for tennis and sports because it adds up to that dreaded word: fix.

So, from the moment the announcement of the default was made over the public address system, with a crowd of more than 11,000 settling into their seats, ESPN cameras ready to roll and 6 p.m. match time only minutes away, tendinitis has been a bigger topic than tennis.

As Pete Sampras, who was just arriving at 6 to prepare for his match to follow that of the Williams sisters, said Friday, “She pulled out and all hell broke loose.”

Questions and buzz:

* What is the stance of the Women’s Tennis Assn. the day after?

* What do the medical experts say about Venus’ knee condition, and what are the medical rules in these cases?

* Did many spectators ask for their money back, and did they get it?

* How upset were the tournament officials?

* How about ESPN officials, who went from having one of the hottest matchups of the year one minute to having doubles the next?

* And how much of this can tennis take before it really begins to have a negative impact?

About noon Friday, a statement was handed out from Bart McGuire, chief executive of the Sanex WTA Tour. It was not clear whether the statement came as a result of request from the media, or as a result of a perceived need to address the situation for the fans.

The statement, formal and predictable, shed little light on how many people in the operational ranks of the WTA really feel, which is (a) furious, (b) embarrassed, or (c) ready to seek employment elsewhere if this perceived Kelly Girls act by the Williams sisters doesn’t stop.

Is this a tour held hostage by the Williams family?

McGuire’s statement:

“The Tour is aware of assertions being circulated regarding Venus and Serena Williams’ head-to-head matches. We have seen no evidence to support those assertions, and both players have denied them. They are elite competitors who are driven to win. Along with other siblings who have played against each other, Venus and Serena have always said that head-to-head matches are difficult, but their competitive instincts and pride transcend their sense of family when they play each other.

“At Indian Wells, Venus’ injury came at a very bad time for the tournament, the fans and her own progress as a professional athlete. Tendinitis has been a recurring problem for her and has kept her out of many tournaments in the past. The tour hopes she will recover quickly.”

The statement seemed to beg for elaboration, and the media asked for a conference call with McGuire, who is reportedly on vacation. The request was denied by a WTA official.

Sam Reber is an orthopedic surgeon based at the Desert Orthopedic Center in Rancho Mirage. He has also been the medical director for this Indian Wells tournament for nine years.

His job, as he described it Friday, is to hire a staff and oversee the medical well-being of everybody on the grounds during this 12-day event, including the players.

“I was called at 20 minutes to 6 last night,” he said. “I went to the women’s training room, and Venus was there with the WTA trainer, Michelle [Gebrian]. . . .

“Venus said she was having some trouble with her knee, and I knew that it was tendinitis because she had been wearing the tape under her right knee in every match. I checked her knee, and it was obvious there was tendinitis in the normal places it occurs under the knee. She also had some above the knee, and she told me that was a new injury.

“And that was about it. I told her that it was up to her as to whether or not she would play, but she never brought up the issue of not playing. When you have an ongoing thing like this, there is very little risk of further injury, of a rupture of some kind. . . .

“When she left, I assumed she was playing. The subject of not playing never came up, and I heard about the default the same way everybody else did, over the loud speaker in the stadium.”

The injury rule on each tour is simple: The player decides. According to Reber, a doctor can step in if something obviously dangerous is going on, such as somebody trying to play with a broken bone. Otherwise, the decision is the player’s.

Unless you are Pete Sampras and it is 1993 in Hong Kong.

“I had a bad stomach, had the runs all day,” he recalled Friday. “I had played the first couple of rounds and had won, but I called the tournament director and said I was too sick to play. They said I couldn’t pull out, they’d paid appearance money and I had to play. They sent a doctor over, he poked at my stomach a couple of times and said I was OK, and I had to play.”

Sampras, furious, set his jaw, went out and played and eventually won the tournament, beating Jim Courier in the final.

The story has become somewhat of a legend on the tour. The Hong Kong doctor is affectionately known among tournament directors as “Dr. No.”

Ticket buyers’ outrage? Not exactly.

Shortly after the default announcement was made, about 50 people complained to tournament officials. Some asked for their money back, some just complained.

“We told them to go on out and watch the doubles we were putting on, then come back afterward,” said Charlie Pasarell, tournament director. “We wanted them to see that we were still giving them a good show, Pat Rafter playing doubles, Pete Sampras playing singles.”

Pasarell said that, though the policy is for no refunds unless no tennis at all is played in a session, he had his staff prepared to give any people still upset with the Venus default a ticket to a later session to make amends.

“When it ended, only four or five people came back,” Pasarell said, “and another group came just to tell us how great the tennis had been, despite her default.”

Pasarell was the only tournament official willing to speak on the record about the effect of the default, and he had to tread carefully.

The toughest thing Pasarell said was, “I wish she had at least gone out and given it a try.”

He also said, “At the end of the day, something like this hurts the game of tennis more than the individual tournament.”

ESPN was also put in a tough situation, but those from the network interviewed Friday were upset on several fronts, especially because the default wasn’t announced by Venus until only a few minutes before 6. There was no chance for a new plan.

“I would have played,” Sampras said. “When I heard about it, I figured they’d put me out there at 6:30.”

Instead, runners were sent to a side court to grab some doubles players, including Australians Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt, and move them to center court. ESPN opted to replay the match it ran earlier in the day, Clijsters upsetting No. 1 Martina Hingis in the women’s semifinals, rather than show the doubles. None of the Sampras match was televised.

A male player related Friday about a meeting the ATP players had in Australia, just before this year’s Australian Open. It is a mandatory meeting for players, and there were perhaps 200 of them in a big theater. One of the main speakers was Pasarell, the player said.

“He told us about things that we need to be aware of to make our game better,” the player said, “and he pointed out some things that can hurt it, like when players are quoted in the papers in ways that show they just don’t care that much about certain tournaments, or about the people who buy tickets.”

The player said Pasarell used some newspaper quotes from specific players as examples. Who were the players?

“The Williams sisters,” he said.

PLEASANT MEMORIES

Pete Sampras’ victory over Patrick Rafter reminds him of last year’s Wimbledon final.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Masters Series at Indian Wells

WOMEN’S FINAL

TODAY

* Kim Clijsters vs. Serena Williams, 2 p.m.

TV: 4:30 p.m., ESPN (delayed)

MEN’S SEMIFINALS

TODAY