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WHO SEZ MCENROE RESPECTS NO ONE? Luke Jensen asserted, “McEnroe respects one guy—himself.”

LEAST COLORFUL ANALYSIS OF THE YEAR: Linda Smith claimed Tim Henman was “the human equivalent of beige.”

MOST SOUND ANALYSIS OF THE YEAR: Mary Carillo said Maria Sharapova was “not hitting as hard as she’s sounding. She’s overgrunting.”

THAT’S ALL? Svetlana Kuznetsova said her goal in life was “to be perfect.”

MAKES SENSE: Explaining the qualifications of her coach and husband (a private eye who served a jail sentence for fraud), Patty Schnyder said, “He’s never played tennis, but he was really good at billiards and knows how to help me cope with the big points.”

WIMBLEDON, SHMIMBLEDON: Serena said, “You can’t really beat winning [an Oscar], but you can always win Wimbledon.” Venus added injury to Wimbledon’s insult, as she quipped that going to Serena’s high school-like “prom party” was a bigger deal than winning Wimbledon.

KNOWING THIS, WE CAN NOW ALL GO TO OUR GRAVES IN PEACE: Goran Ivanisevic is the only Wimbledon champ whose entire name alternates between consonants and vowels.

SPEAKING OF PEACE, ‘ALL WE ARE SAYING IS GIVE PIERCE A CHANCE’: Pam Shriver reflected on Mary Pierce’s tranquility: “I think it’s called inner Pierce...I mean, inner peace.”

TO EACH HIS OWN: The U.S. has an Arthur Ashe stamp; Japan has a Sharapova stamp...After Agassi pulled out of the Tennis Masters Cup amidst controversy, an AFP headline claimed, “Federer Backs Embattled Agassi Over Exit,” while a BBC headline asserted, “Federer Backs Shanghai Organizers”.

HEY JOE, THERE’S A NAKED FRENCHMAN IN MY LOCKER: France’s Michael Llodra—who once accidentally killed a bird during a match and celebrated winning the Aussie Open dubs by stripping down to his jock—clamored into the small Key Biscayne locker of Ivan Ljubicic. When the stunned Croat appeared, Llodra explained, “I’m trying to get positive energy from you. You’re winning a lot of matches.”

HEY JOE, THEY’RE FOUR BLOW-UP DOLLS IN HER FRIENDS BOX: Robert Lansdorp asserted that Maria Sharapova’s dad Yuri only cared about himself and Maria (and not even his wife, who Lansdorp claimed was the opposite of Yuri: educated, intelligent and well-read). He claimed that Yuri “goes nuts” in the friends box, where he feels he plays an important role in matches. Lansdorp told Maria that she should just put “four blow-up dolls” in her friends box.

PROBLEMATIC PARENTS: When reflecting on the lack of hunger and drive among young Americans, former Father of the Year John McEnroe joked, “I tried to starve my kids, but it didn’t work”…Russian-American Dmitry Tursunov, the son of a nuclear engineer, joked, “While other dads were working on their classic cars, my dad was down in the basement working on a nuclear bomb and was pointing it at you guys”...Laura Granville’s dad forgot to enter her into the ‘05 French Open.

NOT EXACTLY YOUR TYPICAL TENNIS DAD FROM HELL: Evgenia Linetskaya’s controversial father, is a former physicist and mathematician with a black belt in karate. So is it that surprising that she likes Tolstoy and escapes into the forests beyond Moscow to write poetry?

FATHER KNOWS BEST: After noting that Agassi brought his three-year-old son Jaden into his press conference, Jim Alexander observed, “Not many players enter the interview room carrying a ‘blankie’ and a sippy cup.”

NOW HERE’S A JOB WITH SIZZLE: Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpishchev noted, “Coaching is a thankless job. Sweating on the bench during matches is almost like sitting in the electric chair.”

I USED TO BE INDECISIVE; NOW I’M NOT SO SURE: Highly hyped Donald Young, 16, after losing in the first round of the NASDAQ, said, “I’m getting a little more confident, I guess.”

STUCK IN ‘NEVERLAND’: Justine Henin-Hardenne said, “My game’s better than it’s never been.”

Slow Blow: After playing Hingis, Henin-Hardenne confided, “I had a little bit of trouble on the return. It’s never been easy for me to return against a player who’s serving pretty slowly.”

SQUARE PEGS IN ROUND HOLES: Henin-Hardenne, who twice has won the French Open but hasn’t prevailed at Wimbledon, said, “My game is more suited for grass, but my personality is more suited for clay.”...Pat Cash noted that Lleyton Hewitt “has an aggressive personality, but he doesn’t have an aggressive game.”

BRUTALITY IN OUR TIMES: When asked whether he thought Hewitt (who had lost to him eight straight times) would now change his tactics, Federer quipped, “He could, but then again, he could run into the knife more brutally.”

THE INVISIBLE LAW OF CLAY: After Federer lost to Nadal at the French, he was asked, “Can we establish that there is an invisible law, like a law of gravity, a law of clay, that on clay even the most complete player has less chance than the first-class clay-court specialist?”

PSYCHIC QUESTION OF THE YEAR: After Amelie (“How Many Times Can She Fold at Roland Garros?”) Mauresmo added Yannick Noah as a coach just before the French Open, Lisa Dillman asked, “What’s next? Channeling the spirit of Suzanne Lenglen?”

WARRIOR OF THE YEAR: Don’t ever dismiss Wayne Bryan as just another tennis dad or a too eager cheerleader. After all, the unflappable, unstoppable enthusiast almost single-handedly spearheaded the quite successful campaign to save doubles.

MOST TELLING CAUTIONARY NOTE BY OUR WARRIOR OF THE YEAR: Churchill warned us about the Iron Curtain. George W. Bush tells us of the threat of terrorism. Wayne Bryan, at the height of the doubles controversy, cautioned us that doubles players “may be working at Taco Bell Monday morning.”

MUCH ADO ABOUT DUBS: Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman said, “I just hope and pray [the changes in the doubles game] are not going to happen...It’s going to destroy doubles completely.” But Bjorkman’s partner, Max Mirnyi, said, “We’ll never know unless we try. It’s worthwhile giving it a try and seeing whether we get some of the top [singles] guys playing.” Dubs vet Leander Paes suggested, “If the Bryans were not in the top four, they’d scrap doubles altogether.” But it was Charlie Pasarell who was most unsparing, claiming, “Doubles today is virtually worthless.”

LONE VOICE IN THE WIND I: As his “in doubles we trust” battle wound down, Wayne Bryan wrote to the ATP, “Before the door is slammed in our faces...one last shout-out into the wind before the hurricane engulfs us. Before the tanks drive over our collective faces.”

LONE VOICE IN THE WIND II & III: The ITF, the ATP and the WTA gave approval to an electronic line-calling system, which should be advancing in a big way in ‘06. Still, there were protests. Federer, who wants to keep “the human element” in tennis, said, “I wouldn’t feel great about being surrounded by robots.” Britain’s former No. 1 Andrew Castle said, “If we’re going to rely on a machine to decide calls, we risk losing some of the drama, conflict and arguments that these situations produce, which are all part of the game. Officials should be allowed to make the occasional error. Sport is about human beings, after all. Part of the drama of big-time tennis is the conflict out there between umpires, players and line judges. Every player loses from and benefits from bad line calls. A key part of sport’s appeal is seeing how individuals react to one.”

NOW HERE’S A (POWER TO THE PEOPLE) IDEA WE CAN REALLY COZY UP TO: Peter Bodo suggested that the USTA “give every spectator a huge cardboard thumbs-up or thumbs-down cutout, and when ever there’s a controversy over a call, let the fans decide.”

KNOWING ANALYSIS: Patrick Kidd began his Wimbledon coverage by referring to Donald Rumsfeld’s famous (or is it infamous) observation: “There are known knowns: things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Kidd then added that the first two days here “have indeed given us the usual selection on known knowns, known unknowns and more than a handful of unknown unknowns.”

CORPORATIZATION GONE WILD: During the U.S. Open awards ceremony, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Bill Harris referred to U.S. Open finalists Kim Clijsters and Mary Pierce as “two wonderful firms.”

GLOBALIZATION NOT GONE WILD: Reflecting on America’s resistance to the globalization of tennis, as well as our greater interest in the Vegas All-American Poker Tournament than the French Open, Frank DeFord noted, “We Americans, sensitive children of immigrants, are the most parochial fans on the globe. [But] there’s an exception to every rule. American sports fans—excuse me: male American sports fans—followed Kournikova and now watch Sharapova with passionate interest. Not even American jingoism can top sex.”

GOOD QUESTION: Navratilova asked, “Have you seen Michael Jordan make a statement about anything? Have you seen Tiger Woods make a statement about anything? No, because they want to be marketable to everybody. They don’t want to offend anybody.”

THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER GO INTO PLASTICS: When Jack Kramer told the L.A. Times, “After all this time, I now realize that golf is the ultimate sport,” Jon Wertheim responded, “That one hurts. It’s like hearing Che Guevara trumpeting the virtues of investment banking.” [True, but remember that Guevera once headed Cuba’s national bank.]

MARKETING 101: Agassi, who had a wildly successful but sometimes contentious 19-year run with Nike (which will be topped off by a $40 million balloon payment), switched to adidas...Nike, capitalizing on the popularity of Rafael Nadal, announced in their Spanish ads: “Tennis has changed—get used to it.”...At the Aussie Open, as Hewitt drained Roddick of his confidence with a devastating efficiency, American Express aired its Roddick commercial, in which Andy tells us, “My life is all about confidence.”...Sharapova reportedly earned more than $22 million and has more major contracts (10) than any other player. Her agent says that in a few years her name “will be a brand as universally recognized as Calvin Klein, BMW and Rolex.”

‘TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN’ EDICT OF THE YEAR: USTA Prez Franklin Johnson while reflecting on the group’s significant resources, told the L.A. Times, “We can see the logic in investing in our sport. Not just the stock market.”

A MOMENT FOR THE AGES: The high-stakes drama of the Blake-Agassi U.S. Open quarterfinal, which featured the young and aging Americans with their compelling back-stories and deep mutual respect, offered the roaring throng a battle of intense shot-making and athleticism with a Rocky II fifth-set tiebreak. It all ended just after 1 a.m., but the memories will long remain. After losing, Blake said, “I’ve never had so much fun losing a match.” Bill Dwyre noted, “It will be 120 years before we see another match like that. Agassi’s trainer/confidante Gil Reyes put it all in perspective, telling IT, “Just think about all the things that are so special, so good about sports—the human spirit, the human will, having a genuine love and respect for each other and the biggest respect you can give an athlete is to give it all you have against him. Andre and James brought everything they could.”

A GOOD YEAR FOR THE BENCH: Just when you thought the tale of the next generation of American men’s tennis was simply going to be Roddick (end of story), James Blake and Robby Genepri stepped up to the plate.

HOT TICKET: Frontrow.com offered tix for the Federer-Agassi U.S. Open final for $3,100. Ratings for the match doubled over the ‘04 Federer-Hewitt final.

SMILE EVEN THOUGH YOUR HEART IS BREAKING: After Blake’s singular U.S. Open match against Agassi, his mom Betty said, “This time last year he was half-paralyzed, watching this on TV and wondering if he’d ever play again...You don’t know how I feel when I see him smiling again without it being crooked. He would smile, and half of it would work, and you knew he wasn’t really smiling, because he was still wondering whether he’d ever play again.”

SAY WHAT: On 60 Minutes, James Blake said breaking his neck on a Roman net post was “the best thing that happened to me”, because it forced him to go home and hang out with his dying father...Upon receiving a $1,000 Raymond Weil watch after winning L.A., Agassi quipped, “That’s what I call an eBay watch.”

“ON CENTRE COURT FROM JAMES BLAKE UNIVERSITY”: Bruce Jenkins contended, “There is so much to be learned from Blake, they should make him a university. Anyone can attend; anyone with belief.”

LOOKIN’ FOR MOJO IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES: For American Express to put all their U.S. Open marketing eggs in Roddick’s problematic basket was a curious roll of the dice. One critic suggested, “AmEx had Roddick looking for his mojo when he should have been looking for his backhand.” AmEx’s Judy Tensor offered this curious spin, saying, “It’s not all about winning and losing. It’s about engaging your customers...There’s always a next tournament.”

FEELING GOOD: Aaron Krickstein is loving life because the tape of the fab Blake-Agassi U.S. Open quarterfinal will now be the go-to replay when rain suspends live telecasts of U.S. Open play...McEnroe is smiling too because Federer came up just one match short of equaling his best winning percentage in a year record of 84-3, and Ivan Ljubicic only tied his record of winning 11 Davis Cup matches in a season.

DEAR SIR, WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR REQUEST FOR A PURPLE HEART HAS BEEN DECLINED: Reportedly, Agassi pulled out of the Pacific Life Open final when he injured his toe while running around with his kids and withdrew from the ATP Masters in Shanghai with an injury he suffered while playing racquetball.

CAN’T WAIT: One tournament director promoted his upcoming event by saying that fans, en route to center court, might actually bump into Vince Spadea and Mardy Fish playing air hockey.

JUST WONDERING: Is there any sweeter sight in tennis than Agassi in bliss mode with his kids?...Will we ever see a player who combines Henin-Hardenne’s ethereal backhand and Graf’s laser forehand?…Will Federer renew his Wilson contract or go to Head or Yonex?

SPORTSMANSHIP IS DEAD! After losing to Nicole Vaidisova, Anastasia Myskina was asked if she was impressed with her 15-year-old opponent. She replied, “Not at all. I mean, that wasn’t even a big match. [Her] serve and volley was nothing.”

SPORTSMANSHIP IS ALIVE AND WELL! When Fernando Verdasco hit what looked like a double fault on match point at the Italian Open, Roddick insisted the ball was good and conceded the point to the Spaniard who, of course, promptly rallied to win the match.

MEDIA MOMENTS: ESPN is dropping its Davis Cup coverage…After being off the tour for two months, Agassi’s first press conference featured wide-ranging exchanges. Then, after 21 minutes, a writer had the temerity to ask, “Can I bring up a very odd subject—this tournament?”...A reporter asked Mark Miles (who before becoming ATP chief had negotiations relating to the Pan-American Games in Cuba), “Who’s scarier: Fidel Castro or Lleyton Hewitt?”...A reporter on his pressroom phone asked his wife, “How can you be bored? You’re not here”...60 Minutes asked Roddick whether or not Blake, America’s No. 2 player, had the potential to reach the top five in the U.S.

NOTHING GETS ‘PASTA’ THIS INTREPID REPORTER: The writer for the Desert Entertainer began his profile of Federer by recalling, “Last year, just hours before Federer won the final, I sat next to him at lunch at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. He ate pasta. I was wondering, why pasta?”

PRESS ROOM DIALOGUE FOR THE AGES:
REPORTER I: “Venus could lose anytime.”
REPORTER II: “She could lose even sooner than that.”

THE AGONY AND ECSTACY OF WOMEN’S LIB (MIDDLE EAST DIVISION): Of the 6,000 athletes from 50 countries who participated in the inaugural Islamic Games-Saudi Arabia, none were women, but the Dubai Open is only one of three tournaments that offer equal prize money for men and women.

‘I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR’: The Wall Street Journal contended that Sharapova was the “most public face of the new Russian woman—talented, self-assured, ambitious and independent. Until recently, there were almost no such women in Russia.”

MUCH ADO ABOUT MARIA: Sharapova contended, “Beauty sells...I’m not going to make myself ugly.” But Swede Thomas Johansson asserted that Maria wasn’t that good looking and he didn’t fancy her. Conchita Martinez contended, “What girls like Sharapova want to do is sell at any cost. But I would not act that way. If they told me that I must play in a bikini top to sell, I wouldn’t do it. I’d save my bikini wearing for the beach.” …Ana Ivanovic easily beat out Sharapova in TennisReporters.net’s poll of who was the sexiest player in tennis. Safin edged Nadal by one vote in the men’s poll.

‘BIZARRO’ RIDES AGAIN: Justin Gimelstob claimed that the WTA players live in a “bizarro” world, with more and more skimpy outfits, and predicted that “courts will resemble volleyball courts, with G-strings and bikinis.” Justin contended that players who looked like “beached whales” should keep their clothes on and suggested that the women were in competition with the supermodel types who often date or marry ATP players. He added that the women “have to share the players lounge with the 1 percent most beautiful creatures in the world.” Gimelstob’s friend Lindsay Davenport was quick to respond, saying, “I’m always curious about what the fascination is with men, and how they have to judge women constantly, what they wear, who they hang out with, what they look like.” Still, she said she has a higher hope for men: “I don’t think men are all that bad and judge women based on their bodies.”

COMEBACK KIDS: Venus, who hadn’t collected a Slam since ‘01, won Wimbledon... Kim Clijsters, who was out for four straight majors, won the U.S. Open...Blake came back from being ranked No. 210 to win New Haven and Stockholm and reach the U.S. Open quarters. He’s now No. 24...Mary Pierce, who hadn’t reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal since ‘00, reached the French, U.S. Open and WTA Championships finals...Jim Courier brought back the senior circuit...Steffi Graf returned to play World TeamTennis.

THE TYRANNY OF BEAUTY: GQ noted, “[Marat] Safin’s relationship to the game is fundamentally aesthetic...What he cares about most is playing beautiful tennis, which for Safin means playing perfectly. That he occasionally achieved this is sort of cruel...It’s like [what] Wilander said—that the U.S. Open final against Sampras in 2000 had, for a time, hurt Safin…‘Every time he stepped on a court, he expected to play that way.’”

TWO GUYS WHO COULDN’T AVOID BEAUTY: Reflecting on Federer, Simon Barnes wrote, “It is becoming increasingly apparent that Federer was Leonardo da Vinci in a previous life. It is not just that Federer is a genius. It is the form that his genius takes that convinces me that the two of them have something important in common. Think of the famous notebooks: the mirror writing and the extraordinary drawings of helicopters, parachutes, submarines, muscle formation, plants and geological strata. It is not just the fertility of the mind that entrances; it is also the beauty of the pages. Leonardo was physically incapable of the unbeautiful...he was doomed to beauty, condemned to beauty, shackled to beauty...Leonardo was perhaps the last man on earth to understand the entirety of Western thought and culture. For Federer, it is enough to hit furry balls. Federer seeks only to defeat other tennis players, but to do so in a way that avoids beauty is beyond him.”

WHEN IN DOUBT, BLAME IT ON TEEN ANGST: After losing 6-0, 6-1 to Sharapova at Wimbledon, 15-year-old Bulgarian Sesil Karatancheva said, “I guess it’s the puberty’s fault.” She also said she tested positive for drugs because she was pregnant.

TOUGH LOVE: Coach Robert Lansdorp explained why he felt Nicole Vaidisova would never become No. 1: “In women’s tennis, you have to have made a mark by the time you’re 16—won a Slam, a big tournament or beaten the No. 1. If you haven’t, you will never become No. 1.”

SO WHY WOULD WE POSSIBLY THINK SERENA’S GONE HOLLYWOOD: When Serena was asked why there aren’t more up-and-coming American girls in tennis, she opined, “Everyone’s interested in becoming a pop star, American Idol, [or] becoming another Beyoncé. And Top Model, I watch that show. I want to be on it. I also want to be on American Idol. Everyone’s trying to do that.”

CROSSOVER CONFIDENTIAL: It was a pretty good year for tennis crossovers. Not only did Roddick’s American Express “mojo meltdown” create extensive buzz, but Woody Allen’s movie Match Point focused on a “not good enough for primetime” Irish pro who goes on to teach at a posh London club. The angst-ridden film, ‘The Squid and the Whale,’ focuses on the implosion of a dysfunctional family in Brooklyn, complete with a foul-mouthed McEnroe wannabe kid, a hip womanizing teaching pro, and vintage old Vitas and Nastase posters. The best crossover commentary of the year came from Sharapova who said that she was not interested in appearing on Desperate Housewives because she’s neither desperate nor a housewife. The worst crossover effort was Venus and Serena’s summer reality show. The L.A. Times wrote, “It’s not Venus and Serena’s fault that the show is a dud. They are intelligent, attractive, and energetic young women living out their dreams on a very large stage, and there should be something inherently dramatic in that. The problem is that the show fails to find a line that ties together the various elements, but it certainly is real—real dull.”

AND THE JANET JACKSON WARDROBE MALFUNCTION PRIXE GOES TO: Serena’s bling went bang as her $40,000 earring fell on the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

BLING FLINGS AND FASHION FOIBLES: Dominik Hrbaty’s pink-on-black, see-through, full-of-holes peekaboo (ugliest in tennis history?) threads prompted Lleyton Hewitt to say, “I just couldn’t lose to a bloke wearing a shirt like that.”...Kournikova wore a $5.4 million diamond ring given to her by Enrique Iglesias...Serena was ranked No. 6 on Blackwell’s list of Hollywood’s annual top 10 worst-dressed women...Tommy Haas said Rafael Nadal’s clamdigger pants were nasty: “I wouldn’t play with them if you paid me.”

FINE, BUT HOW ‘BOUT WORKING ON YOUR CONDITIONING: Serena said, “I have a fashion company. I’m working on a really intense line for the fall. I’m an actress. I’m working on an animation series. I’m working on so much stuff.”

DUH! NOW WE KNOW WHY SHE DOESN’T WORK THAT HARD ON HER CONDITIONING: Fred Haynes commented on Serena: “You wouldn’t run miles a day if you had millions in the bank.”

AND NOW ANOTHER EXCLUSIVE FROM THE FAST-LANE, GLAMOROUS WORLD OF THE WTA TOUR: Evgenia Linetskaya said she would celebrate her breakthrough win over Mauresmo at Indian Wells by going to bed early.

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE: Selena Roberts said that Hewitt is “unvarnished, irascible and impolitic. In other words, he hasn’t changed a bit.”

TROUBLE ON HEWITT’S HORIZON: Contending that Hewitt’s hollering and fist-pumping were obnoxious, Navratilova predicted, “It’s going to come to fisticuffs one day, either on court or in the locker room. There’s a line you don’t cross, and he’s crossing it.”

THE CAN’T-WE-ALL-JUST-GET-ALONG SPAT OF THE YEAR (MALE DIVISION): Guillermo Coria said, “Inside the court, you really feel like killing Hewitt...He cannot behave the way he does, abusing the captain, abusing players...[He] cheers for other people’s mistakes and is very aggressive. It is very difficult not to be provoked ... I would rather not win a single tournament in my life than be like him.” Hewitt countered that Coria lost the match and was looking for every excuse in the book. Not once did I have words with him ... he’s a sore loser.”

CAN’T-WE-ALL-JUST-GET-ALONG SPAT OF THE YEAR (FEMALE DIVISION): After Mary Pierce stretched the injury timeout rules to stop play for 12 minutes en route to winning her U.S. Open semi against Elena Dementieva, the Russian said, “I don’t think it was fair ... If that’s the only way she can beat me, it’s up to her.” Pierce countered: “I’m 30 years old, and I’ve been on the tour for 17 years. I would never do anything toward another player in that kind of way.”

ONE HECK OF A NASTY IDEA: Sick of all the push-pull questions about his retiring, No. 9 Tim Henman countered by saying he would indeed retire if all but the nine best journalists in the world would retire along with him.

THE SOMETIMES PAINFUL CHANGING OF THE BRITISH GUARD: Sue Mott wrote, “Henman out. [Andy] Murray in. Cruel business, this handing over of the baton to the new runner, 12 years younger, who inherits the hopes of a nation racked with nerves and emotionally disemboweled by the man who went before. What can you say about a Henman? He is a one-man rack, a thumbscrew on legs, but heroic in will if not outcome.”

EVERYTHING IN DUE COURSE: Sharapova warned us, “Wait until I get muscles.” Federer cautioned, “Wait until I have a really good year.” Roddick quipped, “I want another crack at Federer—until my record is 1-31.”

MOST INTRIGUING CAREER STRATEGY (PERSONAL DIVISION): In the first nine months of ‘05, Robby Ginepri acquired a new coach, a new fitness trainer, a sports psychologist and a clothing contract. In July he was No. 85. In September he was a much-celebrated U.S. Open semifinalist.

MOST INTRIGUING CAREER STRATEGY (NATIONAL DIVISION): Following China’s triumph in the Olympic doubles, a bigwig in the Chinese Tennis Association said, “After the breakthrough in women’s doubles, we will look to improve in women’s singles, then the men’s game, until we have orderly, full-scale reform. This is similar to the theory put forward by our former leader, Deng Xiaoping, to allow some of the people to get rich first, as this leads to the whole country eventually becoming rich.”

MOST CURIOUS REFLECTION ON REINCARNATION: Incensed that some felt that his fellow Indian and rival Mahesh Bhupathi had a better career than he did, Leander Paes claimed, “There can be no comparison between him and me. Let me put it this way: it will take Mahesh two to three lifetimes to achieve what I have.”

INITITIATION BY FIRE: New ATP CEO Etienne deVilliers was greeted with a trio simmering crises: doubles, drugs and perennial no-shows. (Christopher Clarey noted deVilliers was “a bright, personable fellow who is too new to the game to know how difficult it is to change it.”)

DAVIS CUP QUESTIONS: Has Agassi played his last Davis Cup tie?...Was Ljubicic’s three-day, three-match run through Agassi, the Bryan Bros. and A-Rod the most stunning Davis Cup performance since Sampras almost single-handedly won the Davis Cup against Russia in ‘95? And, by the way, was it the most imposing Davis Cup performance ever on American soil?...When has there been a more curious goat-to-hero Davis Cup season than Mario Ancic’s in ‘05? Throughout the year, Ancic hadn’t won one “live” tie and then turned around and won the decisive fifth match of the Cup final.

BIG BABE VS. LITTLE BABE QUESTION OF THE YEAR: How will the now unretired Martina Hingis do against the new Big Babes: (i.e. Clijsters, Sharapova, Ivanovic, Vaidisova etc.)

DAVID STUNS GOLIATH ONCE AGAIN: At the ATP Masters Cup in Shanghai, David Nalbandian brought Federer’s 35-match winning streak to an end, stopped his DiMaggio-like run of winning 22 straight finals and stymied his run at McEnroe’s record of best winning percentage in a year...In Miami, 5-foot-5 Olivier Rochus beat 6-foot-10 Ivo Karlovic. (Yeah, that’s a 17-inch differential.)...Tiny Croatia and Slovakia weaved their way through a Davis Cup minefield crowded with the usual tennis giants (the U.S., Russia, France, Australia, etc.), to reach the finals. The two small eastern European nations, with a total population of 10 million, were the two smallest to meet in a Davis Cup final.

UPSETS OF THE YEAR: In the first round of the U.S. Open, Luxemburg’s Gilles Muller, No. 68, knocked out Roddick, who confided, “I don’t remember a loss where I felt worse. I’m in a little bit of shock. I’d give anything to go back four hours.”...SoCal’s Jill Craybas, who had never beaten a top-10 player before, dismissed Serena at Wimbledon... The unseeded duo of Wesley Moodie/ Stephen Huss emerged out of the frigid backside of Planet Zluto’s Third Moon to win the Wimby dubs.

THE BOSTON LOBSTERS CRAWL AGAIN: Is there a team in tennis that has a more bizarre heritage than the Boston Lobsters? Years ago, their player/coach Ion Tiriac infamously munched on cocktail glasses. This year, the Houston Wranglers provided free lobsters to the first 1,000 fans who came to their match against the Lobsters.

BEST VINTAGE EVER? The ‘05 Aussie Open was packed with fab matches. The French Open featured the stunning emergence of Raphael Nadal. Wimbledon’s (Venus vs. Lindsay) was the best Wimby woman’s final ever, and both Agassi’s and Blake’s U.S. Open runs were captivating.

MILESTONES: Bridgette Wilson and Pete Sampras welcomed their second son, Ryan Nikolaos…Bakersfield native Larry Easley, who coached at UNLV, died at 57...Bec and Lleyton Hewitt welcomed their first child, Mia.

ON DEATH AND DYING: Yannick Noah confided, “I think about death all the time. That’s why I love life so much.”...The late Pope John Paul II was a Polish table tennis champion...Johnny Carson, who sold his Malibu house to McEnroe and built a mini-tennis stadium at his new place, loved the game. Mike Wallace said of Carson’s tennis: “I served, he missed...His best attribute was his enthusiasm. Johnny was kind to everyone, but never on court. He didn’t know how to be good loser.”...Late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who played a regular doubles match with his three law clerks, usually chose the best player...The full name of the late great playwright Arthur Miller was Arthur Asher Miller...Minimalist poet Robert Creely wrote an obituary poem on Arthur Ashe for IT...Rosa Parks not only shared a surname with the pioneer of wheelchair tennis Brad Parks, the man she courageously refused to give her seat to on the Montgomery bus was named James Blake.

MOST INSPIRING BUMPER STICKER PHRASE OF THE YEAR: Hitting out at every chance, Aussie Alicia Molik, who reached the Aussie Open quarters, said her philosophy is “Don’t die wondering.”

THE IMPERFECT HUSH: John Jeremiah Sullivan observed that, “No other sport isolates athletes to a degree you find in a professional singles match. Not even a ringman or a caddie for comfort. So much time between each point—to think about what’s going wrong, to get nervous or mad, to doubt. So much physical space around each player. And there’s the hush, the always imperfect hush—it’s a game that can be disrupted by somebody coming back late from the bathroom. Not, in short, a game that is friendly to head cases.”

THE ULTIMATE CRIME: Asked why he founded his school for disadvantaged kids, Agassi said, “For children not to have hope and a dream is a crime.”

THE POWER OF LOVE: The French Open awards ceremony was more poignant than the final. After losing 6-1, 6-1 to Henin-Hardenne, Mary Pierce told the crowd, “The magic word is love. The power of love is amazing. The reason I’m standing here today is the love of God and the love of my family, my friends and everybody who’s been helping me and praying for me.”