COVER STORY: APRIL 2008

 

 

Mansour Bahrami

Henri Leconte

Yannick Noah

1 MANSOUR BAHRAMI
He’s got a greater array of shots than your favorite gunslinger. In fact, no other player has so adeptly used humor to craft a sidesplitting career. Born of challenging circumstances, the life-is-good wit fled his native Iran, lost his savings at a gambling table and reached the ’89 French Open dubs final. Since then, he’s induced gazillions of laughs, with Bobby Riggs-like routines, magic-wand racket wizardry or just by serving with about 200 balls in his hand. So it’s no accident that the prankster who’ll play with a frying pan, a broom handle or while lounging in a chair has been dubbed “tennis’ greatest entertainer.”

 

Read more … Funny Folks

2 Novak Djokovic
Who would have thunk it that Novak Djokovic, the serious, somber Serb who looks so straightforward and seems so conventional — is a cut-up: a mastermind with a devilishly keen eye for detail and a love of the stage. There were clear signs of Djokovic’s brilliance when he showed up on the BBC and YouTube. And it all came out in one delightfully whimsical moment. After a key late night U.S. Open win, broadcaster Michael Barkin coaxed the rising star to do his thing. So Djokovic gave us just a few of his many imitations. His take on a prissy, proper and preening Sharapova was priceless and he nailed the hyper semi-x-rated Rafa Nadal nudging his ever-present wedgie as he prepared to serve. He later claimed that Federer was way too perfect to imitate. But check out YouTube for Novak’s hilarious take on the proud and preening, overly elegant Fed waving royaly to the crowd. Unfortunately, Djokovic’s funloving performance drew heat from some uptight folks and all he has given us since was a brief reprise of his “Sharapova” early on at the Aussie Open. But the guy’s young, talented and a bit of a loose cannon. So stay tuned. After all, there’s something about a free spirit with a crew cut.

 

3 GORAN IVANISEVIC
With his exquisite timing and endearing Rodney Dangerfield-like sense of self-loathing, Goran could have been a stand-up comic. The man who at one tournament broke all his rackets and had to default, confided, “In every match, I have five opponents: umpire, crowd, ballboys, court and myself. It’s no wonder my mind sometimes goes to the beach.” So why doesn’t Goran just see a shrink? The Croat explained, “You lie on a couch, they take your money and you walk out more bananas than when you walked in.” Goran (who appropriately-enough played with a Head racket) loved to reveal the baffling inner-workings of his head. He explained, “Lately, my mind is like an orchestra. If you don’t have the conductor, you don’t know what to do. One guy is playing jazz, one guy is playing rock and roll - another, classical. It’s a big mess.” Of course, the best riff in tennis history came en route to Goran’s magical Wimbledon win, when at a press conference he shared the fact that there were three distinct Gorans: regular old Goran, the tennis player; the crazed Goran and the heroic “911” Goran, who, with great courage, would again and again rush in to straighten up the psychic mess when things got chaotic - as they always did.

 

4 HENRI LECONTE
Call this endearing man-child tennis’ answer to Marcel Marceau. The Frenchman, who married a bullfighter, is prone to complain that dogs can serve better than he can and, during a riveting Wimbledon semi, brought the action to a grinding halt in order to coax a stressed-out Centre Court butterfly onto his racket and out of harm’s way - is a hilarious mime who shamelessly mopes and mimics friends and enemies alike.

 

5 YANNICK NOAH
The French free spirit put it this way: “All the court is a stage and players are characters. When there are 10,000 people in the stands and the TV cameras are there, we are all actors. There is the serious one, the one who always screams at the umpire, the one who never says a word, the one who is a clown. I am the clown.”

 

6 MARY CARILLO
The quixotic wordsmith can do it all. For instance, she offers brain-warping player analyses (“Guga Kuerten hasn’t lost any of the surfer-dudeosity he showed up with when he first emerged. He’s a human slinky...His backswing starts in Kentucky and ends in Ohio.”) With ease, she concocts curious cross-sports comparisons (“Watching Elena Dementieva’s serve is like watching Shaq at the free-throw line.”). Or she can giggle amidst the ashes (“Security became so tight after the Seles stabbing that, even if you were carrying your lunch, they would take your fork away.”).

 

7 MARAT SAFIN
Never mind that some simply call him “Goran-lite.” The woe-is-me Russian who asserts that tennis saved him from a life of picking up bottles in a Moscow park, says he’s “not a complete nut case.” Still, he argues, “All the people who run the sport have no clue. It’s a pity that tennis is going down the drain...You try to make it fun. But they do everything possible to take away the entertainment. You’re not allowed to do this, you’re not allowed to do that.”

 

8 Jonas Bjorkman
After a bad string of performances by himself and his fellow Swedes at Wimbledon, Stefan Edberg famously noted that it was “because grass is an exciting game and we are a boring people.”  Not so with Jonas Bjorkman. With a surprisingly comedic sensibility, the versatile volleyer from Vaxjo will leave you rolling in any situation with his innovative brand of humor, including odd facial expressions, gestures and spot-on imitations of his fellow players (think John McEnroe’s lefty serve).

 

9 DMITRY TURSUNOV
He won Indy last year, plus his spirit is strictly indie. Sure, with those dazzling blue eyes and his chick-magnet mane of curly blonde hair, he looks like any other surfer dude on the way to the mall. But hold on, this quirky, inventive Russian Davis Cup hero (by way of Sacramento’s way-too-wacky suburbs) will get to you, whether he is claiming to have a walnut shell collection or sticking two tennis balls under his shirt as he parodies today’s squealing gruntmeisters. You’ve got to love “the Richard Pryor of the blogosphere” simply for having the guts to mock all those drippy, self-serving tennis award ceremonies. “First of all,” said Tursunov after winning in Perth. “I played really well. So I’d like to thank myself.”

 

10 ILIE NASTASE
Whether dropping his pants or dressing up as a control freak customs agent, few are more wacky than tennis’ favorite Transylvanian. Plus, anyone who got fined $1,000 for tying the shoes of a French Open ump has to make our list.

 

HONORABLE MENTION:
Murphy Jensen, tennis’ bald prince of chuckles, once disappeared in order to go fishing in Scotland rather than play his Wimbledon dubs match. Now as the Tennis Channel’s reigning sire of silliness, he orchestrates chuckles, whether belly-flopping into polluted Australian rivers or indulging the delights of Parisian chocolate…Sure he can still be mighty surly, but don’t forget that John McEnroe has many a go-to comedic shtick…Straight-laced Todd Martin usually was as somber as Arthur Ashe, Michael Chang or James Blake. But every once in a while his wry sensibility would bite you. When asked if he felt whether the aging Pete Sampras had finally “lost the ‘fear factor’ in the locker room,” he quipped “I don’t think anyone ever feared him in the locker room.” Then, after Martin endured a summer of injuries, a U.S. Open reporter wondered where he was at physically. He replied, “Physically, I’m right here. Would you like to know where I am metaphysically?”... Truth be told, anyone who crowds naked into a locker to surprise his fellow pros like Michael (“Clothing Optional”) Llodra has to make our list...Constantly wisecracking Andy Roddick may have the best frat-boy sense of humor in all of country-club sports...Vince Spadea’s caps can, on occasion, draw humor...Jelena Jankovic loves to laugh and giggle more than any other player. Plus, Whitney Reed, Torben Ulrich (intentionally or not), Art Larsen and Vitas Gerulaitis.