Tennis Can’t Find Its Place in Grand Scheme of Things

Finally, and not a moment too soon, the U.S. Open Series gives way on Monday to the U.S. Open Serious.

The last Grand Slam tournament of the year. The crown jewel of the U.S. hard-court tennis season. A men’s field offering Roger Federer chasing glory and greatness for the ages and aging great Andre Agassi chasing one last moment of glory. A women’s field offering no less than a half-dozen big names capable of winning it all in prime time on a Saturday night.

And during a Thursday conference call to promote CBS’ and USA Network’s upcoming coverage of the U.S. Open, a good portion of interview time was devoted to ... how to get more people interested enough to watch.

“I think that’s an issue that has been addressed quite consistently over the last couple of years,” John McEnroe said, “and there’s no answer to that other than I think we should be trying anything and everything, like all sports should be doing.

“I mean, the NFL is the most popular sport we have on TV, I would say, the most TV-friendly of sports, and they’re always looking to change things or tinker with things. Just like NASCAR has been doing and they have exploded.

“It’s amazing to me how little has changed in tennis. I mean, the big innovation [this year] is having a blue court. That’s a major change in our sport. And that’s like putting a Band-Aid on things. That’s all well and good for a couple minutes to talk about, but I think we should be trying different things and we should be reaching out to people and try to go after them the way other sports do because we just can’t depend on the fact that it’s a great game.

“It is a great game. But we’ve got to educate people about it. The players need to get themselves more accessible, we need to market the sport better. All these things have been talked about. And certainly we should try different camera angles. There’s all different things we can try and I don’t see why we shouldn’t try them.

“Because if you notice, even the sports that are doing extremely well, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t change anything even if it was doing well. So we should absolutely be trying [new] things.”

Patrick McEnroe said tennis should devote less time to backstage political bickering and more time selling the sport to the fans.

“It would be nice to see tennis have a more centralized governing body,” he said, “because the problem is the powers that be spend so much time trying to convince each other about what’s right with the game and sort of fighting behind the scenes with all the politics that go on that they forget about what my brother is talking about, which is the fans.

“We need to get fans watching tennis and interested in it. People ask, ‘Well, how come there are no personalities?’ I say there’s tons of personalities.

“You’ve got Federer, who’s a [tennis] genius. You’ve got [Lleyton] Hewitt, he’s an Australian version of [Jimmy] Connors. You’ve got [Marat] Safin, who’s just a wild man. You’ve got [Andy] Roddick, who’s this American with charisma and personality and gets the whole thing. And you’ve got this [Rafael] Nadal.

“And on the women’s side, you’ve got just as many.

“So there’s plenty of personalities and interesting stories. But we’ve got to remember that we have to sell it to the fans, not one governing body or the other.”

Failing that, John McEnroe advised fans to resort to the default position with this year’s Open: Following Federer, whom he describes as “an artist” who “can hit any shot,” who might be the best tennis player anyone has ever seen.

“It’s a pretty awesome thing,” he said. “We should appreciate this, because we don’t want him to get hurt. We want to see what he’s truly capable of. And he’s already shown he’s capable of a lot.

“If he keeps this up another couple years, four years at the most, he’s going to be the greatest player that ever lived, this guy. You’re watching pure greatness right now. You’re watching like the Tiger Woods of tennis right now.”

Available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* Indianapolis Colts at Denver Broncos

(Channel 2, 5 p.m.)

Meaningless exhibition game between two AFC teams unlikely to reach the Super Bowl as long as Tom Brady plays quarterback for the New England Patriots. And it will be the most-watched sporting event in Los Angeles this weekend.

SUNDAY

* LPGA Wendy’s Championship for Children

(ESPN2, 10 a.m.)

Not to be confused with the Baseball Championship for Children. That’s on Channel 7 at 12:30 p.m.

* Little League Championship

(Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.)

Not to be confused with Children Playing Baseball, where one player refuses to accept a high-five at home plate and the other player whines, “How mature is that?” That’s on FSNW2 at 1 p.m.

* Houston Astros at Dodgers

(FSNW2, 1 p.m.)

The Dodgers, league leaders only in on-base squabbling percentage, play host to the Astros, who can’t be too broken up that Jeff Kent has carried his unique take on team leadership and bonding to Los Angeles. As a diversionary tactic, the Dodgers will celebrate the franchise’s 1955 World Series championship before the game, a time-honored strategy when the current edition isn’t within 10 games of .500.

Joining in on the nostalgic mood, FSNW2 plans to begin its telecast in 1955 black and white before gradually returning to modern-day color with bells and whistles. Funny, this Dodger season did just the opposite, starting off in vibrant hues, then gradually fading to dull gray by August.