Women Stars Aren’t Chummy, But Hate
Is Hard to Find

By Matthew Cronin

When Nancy Lieberman was trying to motivate Martina Navratilova to turn her rivalry with Chris Evert around, the coach and ex-basketball star wanted to make sure that the Czech-American stopped making puppy eyes at the sport’s darling and adopt a “Kill Chris” attitude.
Navratilova soon distanced herself from Evert and it could be argued that, as a result, she was able to grab hold of their rivalry, an argument advanced in Johnette Howard’s well-researched new book, The Rivals.

”You have to want it,” Navratilova told IT. “You just can’t be nice, nice,nice, and say, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re such a great player. Go ahead, you beat me. Oh, well — too good.’ You’ve got to want it. You’ve got to get out there and want to win and want to take it back. It was like, it’s okay to want to take something away from somebody. I was brought up to be polite, and that wasn’t polite.”

Mean girls win majors and nice girls often finish second. Maybe that’s why, in today’s game, few top players pal around. Oh sure, they may share some off-court laughs and an occasional coffee, but they are not planning on taking vacations together.
After her stabbing at the hands of a deranged fan of Steffi Graf’s, Monica Seles never kept her resentment of the German quiet. During her heyday, Martina Hingis frequently went toe-to-toe off-court with the Williams family.

Even though they once shared the same L.A.-based coach, Robert Lansdorp, Russian-born and U.S. resident Maria Sharapova and Russian patriot Anastasia Myskina are not even fair-weather friends.
For many years, when asked about each other, Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati got as edgy as if they were contesting a third set tiebreaker.

Once childhood friends, Belgians Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne have grown apart as adults. At times, they have been involved in nasty spats, and now they have come to a cold detente.
Even though they both hail from Southern California, Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams used to pass each other in the hallway without so much as muttering a,”Hi, how are you?” They are now Fed Cup teammates who cheer for each other.

But the fact is, elite players rarely exchange Christmas gifts.

“Many players with the exception of Venus and Serena at the top aren’t super close,” said Davenport. If I had to go play singles against [her best friend and doubles partner] Corina Morariu, it would be awful. But that’s the only player who would really affect me. It affects Venus and Serena. Other than that, maybe one or two of the Russians are close. I’ve got to tell you, there’s not a whole lot of close love between the top players.”

But that doesn’t mean that any top players hate each other. It only means that if your ambition is to win Slams and be No. 1, you can’t be holding hands with your main rivals.

“Off-court, everyone has their own lives,” said Capriati. “We come to the same work environment, we’re seeing each other all the time, so there’s really no need to be hostile or have animosity.”
Take Henin and Clijsters. They once traveled and bunked together at junior tournaments, but in recent years have grown so far apart that they didn’t connect even when they were both off last yea, one battling injuries and the other, illness.

But it was in ‘03, when they were both battling to be No. 1, that their high fives became low blows. They began to distance themselves from one other at the ‘03 Acura Classis. After Clijsters lost to her, she accused Henin of faking an injury. Henin was infuriated, but Clijsters was sure that her foe was engaging in gamesmanship. Then after Justine thrashed Kim in the ‘03 U.S. Open final, Kim’s father, Leo alleged that Henin’s buffed-up physique could not have just come from hard training.

Henin said that Leo’s comments took a the bloom off the rose of winning the Open. “When you’ve worked so hard, given up everything and win two Grand Slams, you make people jealous,” Justine said. “But you don’t have to make it public.”

Henin — who has been estranged from her father and siblings for seven years — isn’t the forgiving type. Sitting just 10 feet from Clijsters one morning in L.A. a few months afterward, she said that she and Clijsters weren’t friends. “No,” Henin said. “Have we ever really been close friends? That’s the question. We have a lot of respect for each other, traveled a lot together when we were young. We do the same job and come from the same country. It’s not easy every day.”

Clijsters is rarely the confrontational type. Arguably the most popular player on tour, she considers making friends and maintaining those friendships to be her highest priorities. She never responded to those comments, saying she didn’t want to “blow things out of proportion.”

This year, she’s made an effort to be cordial to her rival. Even though some Belgian analysts don’t believe they will ever play Fed Cup together again, Clijsters says that for her part, she is more than willing to.

“I hope we will,” she told IT. “Justine and I get along now. Especially after last year with what we’ve been though. I talk to her in the locker room. But just because we’re from the same country, it doesn’t mean that we have to act like sisters.”

Henin agrees: “It helped that we were out last year. Now we understand each other more. It’s pretty human that when you’re going after the same thing — to be the best. It’s hard to keep the relationship like it was before. But we don’t hate each other.”

Sharapova and Myskina once worked out on the same court with Lansdorp, but they were never close. Myskina says she has nothing against Maria personally, but has engaged in feuds with Maria’s father, Yuri, which has affected their relationship. Plus, Myskina’s questions about Maria’s “Russian-ness” hurt Sharapova.

“I don’t have anything against Maria. She’s a great player,” Myskina told IT. “We didn’t become friends because of our difference in age. I’ve met her mother and she seems very nice. I don’t like fights off-court because we have to fight on-court. She’s No. 1 in Russia. That’s the tennis part. Off-court, I don’t think we can be friends because we have different lifestyles. She lives in the U.S. and I live in Russia. That’s a big difference.”

Myskina says she tries to separate her reaction to Yuri’s behavior from her views on Maria, but it’s not easy. Players’ attitudes toward their rivals’ coaches or parents can often get in the way of good relationships and that’s clearly the case with Myskina and Sharapova, just as it was when Lieberman convinced Navratilova to give Evert the cold shoulder.

Myskina was furious with Yuri during last year’s WTA Championships, where he reportedly made rude hand gestures toward the other Russians, cursed at them and laughed when Vera Zvonareva fell on the court. Myskina then made her feelings known, cheering courtside for Zvonareva against Sharapova, a very unusual sight. “I just don’t want to play with people who don’t respect me. I don’t want to play together, be in the same society with people who don’t respect me,” Myskina said at the time.

Consequently, Sharapova has yet to play Fed Cup for Russia and may never do so. Myskina once vowed not to play if Sharapova was on the team, butnow says she will reconsider her stance in ‘06 — if Sharapova becomes more of a “team” person. But she says she’s over the Russian-ness issue and doesn’t care if Sharapova has decided to live in the U.S., mentioning that one of her close friends, Svetlana Kuznetsova, lives in Spain. “Maria’s never played for us and we don’t know where her heart is,” Myskina said. “She’s never played team events, and if she did, maybe she would like it.”

Myskina will stick up for herself, but doesn’t like conflict. An emotional person, she has a hard enough time staying calm on- court without letting bad feelings get in the way of her tennis. “I don’t like conflict,” she said. “It’s too emotional. You want to prove that you are better and it’s not healthy for your tennis because you might lose easy points — you don’t like the other person.”

For her part, Sharapova prefers to live in a bit of a bubble, allowing her father to fight his fights and rarely engaging in arguments with others. She strongly defended her ties to Russia last summer, but largely stayed out of Yuri’s spat with Myskina.

“I’ve never really played having bad personal situations, but I’m sure it makes it a lot tougher when there are other things going on off-court,” she told IT. “When I go on court I just lock in. I haven’t been affected yet. So far, so good.”

But it’s not as if Sharapova has never been affected by off court trash-talking. At ‘04 Indian Wells, the young Bulgarian Sesil Karatancheva promised to “kick her ass off” and accused her not being “charming” off-court. Sharapova did beat the Bulgarian, but it took an emotional toll on her and she lost two days later.

But Sharapova is a fast learner, so when it came to the battle between Myskina and Yuri, she passed and then took down her elder for Russian for the first time at the WTA Championships.

Serena and Capriati arguably have the best on-court rivalry in women’s tennis, and because of their many fierce battles, there is little love lost between them. Part of that has to do with Capriati’s chest-pounding chase of the sisters back in ‘02, when she claimed that if she played her best, she could beat either Serena or Venus.

Both Jennifer’s father Stefano and the Williamses’ dad Richard have taken swipes at the opposing daughter, which hasn’t aided Serena and Jennifer’s relationship. Both camps have questioned each other injuries and ability to stay at the top. Plus, Serena gets up big-time for those she sees as major competitors.“I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna lose, no matter if I die. I’m going to have to wait until I get off the court to die. It’s exciting. I love it,” Serena said.

But as the two have matured, they’ve kept their rivalry on court and their off-court sniping is now minimal. “We’re not enemies. People would love to think that,” Capriati said. “But I’m not saying we’re the best friends either, and we’re going to go and hang out. It’s just a mutual respect. You just realize how stupid it is, how stupid it sounds. You learn from it. Really, it’s just a game. Just leave it at that and just make sure you always show class.”

While the outgoing Serena is well-liked by many of her peers including Davenport and Clijsters, Capriati has always been a bit of a loner and her last good friend, Iva Majoli, has retired.

Serena noted, “I never had a problem with Jennifer. An American commentator said, ‘You can just see that they don’t like each other.’ It was really never that. I admired her being able to come back, do so well.”

Davenport and Venus, who’ve played 27 times, are almost friendly. That wasn’t the case in ‘97 when a stone-faced Venus once ignored Lindsay’s greeting and turned from her. But Davenport said that their relationship is improved. “Venus is a lot more friendly now,” said Davenport. “She was trying to be so intimidating back then, but she’s eased up.” And Davenport now actually roots for Venus to do well, while Williams got misty-eyed when thinking about life on tour without Lindsay. “I’ll definitely miss playing her. It will be sad,” Serena confided.

One thing is for sure — rivalries between the stars draws interest to tennis. Fans sense when the players are more motivated, and the intensity level generally rises the more there is on the table.

Of all the aforementioned players, the only one who hasn’t won a Slam is former No. 1 Clijsters. She and Henin have played in three Grand Slam finals and the smaller woman has won them all. Kim largely attributes that to Justine’s conditioning andi ncredible defense. But without a doubt, the ultra-driven Henin is a mental rock, while Clijsters isn’t exactly blessed with a killer instinct.

Clijsters certainly has the on-court tools to topple her rivals, but whether her good nature will ever reverse itself and allow her to “kill her rivals” is debatable. Frankly, unless she’s willing to undergo a major personality change (or, for that matter, hires Nancy Lieberman) she might have a problem winning a Grand Slam. If she can’t beat her rivals while wearing smiling and extending warm hugs, she’d prefer to go into her tennis afterlife a Slamless former No. 1. “I get along well with a lot of girls,” she said. “When I stop playing, I want to leave the tour with friends. At the end of the day, I want to know I can call them. Friends are more important to me.”