SPORTS
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, June 28, 1995
58
Agassi, Graftop teen-agers at Wimbledon
Stich,'91 champion makes a quick exit after first-round loss
The Associated Press
WIMBLEDON, England — Top seeds Andre Agassi and Steff Graf wasted no time in disposing of overmatched opponents at Wimbledon yesterday.
Graf's highly-anticipated Centre Court encounter against 14-year-old Swiss star Martina Hingis fizzled into a mismatch as the five-time champion won 6-3, 6-1, in 49 minutes.
Agassi crushed Australian qualifier Andrew Painter 6-2, 6-2, 6-1, in just one hour. 17 minutes.
Painter, a 19-year-old Tasmanian with a world ranking of No.530, was playing his first match in a tour-level event. It showed.
Painter committed 17 double faults to go with his 13 aces. In one game alone, trailing 5-1 in the first set, he served six double faults and had four aces before holding serve. In the second set, he double-faulted on all four of his serves in the seventh game to fall behind 5-2.
in complete command as he took the ball early and ripped shots cleanly to all corners of the court
Agassi, looking completely recovered from the hip strain he suffered at the French Open earlier this month, over.
While Painter struggled just to win a game in the third set,
A gassi showed no mercy. On m at ch point, with Painter stranded at the net,
A gassi
the Wimbledon crowds bowed and waved to all corners of the Court One stadium.
Agassi, sporting a goatee and dan-
Sports facts
moved up on a short ball and drilled a forehand passing shot close to his body.
When it was over, the darling of
said it w great to be back at Wimbledon.
gling earrings, unveiled a new all-white outfit: knee-length shorts, baggy shirt and a pirate-style bandana over his closely-cropped head — emblazoned with his sponsor Nike's logo. A gassi, whose second-round opponent will be Patrick McEnoen, said it was
"I've grown to love it here," he said. "I enjoy being a part of history here ... Every time I come back here,
the emotion and the excitement seems to bring out some great tennis."
Graf played some of her best tennis to over.
power Hingis, the 1994 Wimble d on junior champion who has moved to No. 18 in the world rankings since turning pro last October.
Graf repeatedly took advantage of Hingis relatively weak serve. Hingis held serve only once — in the first game of the match.
Sports facts
What had shaped up as the most intriguing first-round match of the tournamen t turned out to be a one-sided affair
Hingis, who is more comfortable on slower surfaces, showed occasional glimpses of her promise but never mounted a serious challenge.
Agassi and Graf were a m o n g seven Wim b l e d o n champions in action yesterday.
his opening match at Winnipeg.
"He played like he's been out there a hundred times before," Stich said of playing on Centre Court. "I didn't
Knight-Rider Tribute Stich lost his growing match at Windsor
t Wimbledon.
Ninth seeded Michael Stich, the 1991 champion, was ousted in straight sets on Centre Court by Holland's Jacco Eltingh, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1. It was the second year in a row that Stich lost
do anything right today. I had no timing or feel for the ball. I didn't feel like I had a chance to break him"
Martinez, returning to Centre Court for the first time since she beat Martina Navratilova in last year's final, crushed Sweden's Asa Carlsson 6-1, 6-1, in just 47 minutes.
In women's play, defending champion Conchita Martinez, second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and No. 5 Mary Pierce all won in straight sets.
Sanchez Vicario, mixing her strong baseline game with occasional forays to the net, needed less than an hour to beat Slovakia's Katarina Studenkova 6-2, 6-1.
Pierce, making her Wimbledon debut, took 57 minutes to dispose of Sandra Dopfer, 6-1, 6-2.
"I didn't know what to expect, but it was a great feeling playing here for the first time." Pierce said.
Lori McNeil, who eliminated Graf in the first round last year, failed to knock out a seeded player in her opening match this time.
NHL on power play against baseball
Although McNeil was favored because of her grass-court expertise, she lost 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, to 14th-seeded Nakao Sawamatsu of Japan.
By Jim Litke
By Jim Litke
The Associated Press
If I am a baseball owner, I hate hockey.
If I am a baseball owner, the New Jersey Devils' sweep of the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup playoffs could not have come soon enough. I hate competition. I do not need another recipe for octopus. I cannot bear to hear any more about Lord Stanley's Cup, New Jersey's neutral zone trap. Detroit's Soviet imports, hockey's desirable demographics, its improving ratings, exploding merchandising, expanding markets... the whole ball of ice
But if I am a baseball owner, what I hate about hockey most of all is this: It reminds me of the things major league baseball used to be and may never be again. Hip, high-spirited, a sport on the make, fun.
But even as baseball is adjusting to a diminished status — distant third among the Big Three — it hears new whispers, a rumbling. The sound of more and more people talking about ... hockey. And why not?
Hardly anybody talks about baseball any more. People talk about the NBA all the time. And though training camps don't open for a month, people talk about the NFL as though it were already here.
Though last year's Stanley Cup boom was largely a New York phenomenon, this year's offered something for everyone. It required very little expertise to enjoy, a point driven home by those wickedly funny, widely imitated commercial spots on ESPN. For those who favored attacking, there were the Red Wings fluid, freewheeling skaters seemingly stuck in forward gear. For those who favored defense, the Devils were big, belligerent and opportunistic.
At the outset, the classic contrast in styles made a sweep seem unlikely. Yet so competitive was every game of the series that when a sweep did come to pass, it was not an unsatisfying finish. That was because hockey, like basketball and football, is learning to promote itself on several levels.
When the two sides fought their bitter labor war, they managed to do so without running down the product.
And when they came back, it was with a long-term agreement. Unlike baseball, fans knew pretty much
who and what they were getting back was going to be around for a while.
All season long, a ticket to a seat or a zap on the channel charger didn't just get you the play on the ice. It got you access to the sport in all its fullness and all its blemishes in a way that seemed so much less guarded
—and so much more authentic than baseball.
Take interviews, for instance. In basketball and football, it was called a breakthrough when a coach stopped in the hallway between halves of a game long enough to mumble a few cliches. In baseball, all the explanations are still saved for the end of the game — assuming the guys who figured in the crucial plays also happened to be talking that day.
Hockey, on the other hand, provides access to everybody just about any time: the commissioner, the coaches, even sweaty, out-of-breath, just-embarrassed players popped up practically every time television asked.
Want the guy whose goal put the Devils ahead going into the final period of the franchise's biggest game? Dentures in or out? How about the Detroit goleie who gave up the score? With tears or without?
It makes hockey look and feel real. That's why the NHL can get actor Matthew Perry from the hip TV show "Friends" to do a commercial in which he describes the winner of the Stanley Cup, without blinking, as the greatest team in the coolest game on earth.
That might seem like an overstatement at the moment, but there's no doubt hockey is moving up the charts. When Wayne Gretzky moved south from Edmonton, Canada, to Los Angeles, people scoffed at the idea that a game played on frozen ponds in Canadian winters would thrive in warm-wear towns; the league now includes a handful of such cities with sold-out arenas.
Hockey may never catch basketball and football. But the damage from baseball's last work stoppage has made it look like a game running in place. It may be more than just coincidence that John McMullen sold baseball's Houston Astros a few years back and bought hockey's Devils.
Either way, if I am a baseball owner right about now, I am pricing a pair of roller blades.
Knicks talk to Ford about steering team in 1995-96 campaign
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Fired Boston Celtics coach Chris Ford has talked with New York Knicks general manager Ernie Grunfeld about coaching next season.
Ford met with Grunfeld in New York on Monday after returning from a weekend trip to Bermuda.
Pat Riley resigned as Knicks coach June 15. Ford was fired as Celtics coach last month and replaced as coach by Celtics general manager M.L. Carr.
Former Golden State general manager and coach Don Nelson also is being considered for the Knicks coaching job.
"There's no urgency here," Grumfeld said. "We don't have a pick in the draft, so there's no deadline there. We're just going to take our time."
"It was a typical meeting in the coaching interview process," Ford said. "A good, long meeting. I thought it was a good interview. I was very comfortable."
Ford, 46, who had a 222-188 record with the Celtics, thinks the Knicks are still one of the NBA's better teams.
"I think they're still a very good, very strong team. Their defense is very good. And defense wins."
Asked if money would be a factor in taking the New York job, Ford said that was the territory of his agent, Lonnie Cooper. "I'm interested in being a coach," Ford said.
He will be paid more than $800,000 a season for two seasons by the Celtics if he does nothing. He will forfeit that salary if he takes another job in the NBA.
Ford played 10 years in the NBA.
Riley hires lawyer wants to invalidate contract, paper says
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Pat Riley hired a lawyer the day he resigned as coach of the New York Knicks to handle a potential breach of contract suit, The New York Times reported yesterday.
The newspaper said Riley, who resigned June 15 before leaving for Greece, was believed to have been represented by Stanley Arkin of the New York firm of Arkin, Schaffer and Supino.
Riley is attempting to invalidate the fifth and final year of his contract and free himself to coach next season without permission from the Knicks or compensation for his services.
"I do think he's got a lawyer looking into that," Madison Square Garden president Dave Checkettts
The Times said Riley could contend that significant changes in the Garden's corporate structure had altered the conditions under which he agreed to work.
Checketts said he had not been contacted by Riley's lawyer. He denied Riley's contract had been breached and said he would fight to prevent him from coaching next season.
said. "He's exploring it, and I think it will intensify when he gets back."
The Knicks claim Riley sought part-owned of the team, and Checkets said there was not a transaction Riley did not approve.
Riley said at the time of his resignation that he had stressed to management his need to be charged with ultimate responsibility for all significant aspects of the club.
Woman says Rodman gave her virus
Spurs player is accused of transmitting herpes
The Associated Press
ATLANTA — A former Atlanta Hawks cheerleader told a federal jury yesterday that she kept a memento box filled with souvenirs of her time with Dennis Rodman, who romanced her with cards and roses before giving her herpes.
Her lawyers introduced the cards and basketball game ticket stubs and plane tickets that Judd had saved in a memento box.
Lisa Bethe Judd, 24, is suing the NBA star for unspecified damages. She claims Rodman, with whom she'd had an on-and-off relationship since April 1991, gave her herpes on Jan. 14, 1993, when he came to Atlanta as a member of the Detroit Pistons.
Judd described herself in testimony as a trusting young woman who never asked Rodman if he dated other women and believed him when he told her he did not have a sexually transmitted disease. She said Rodman was a romantic suitor who gave her cards and roses he bought at a grocery store.
Lawyers for Judd claimed Rodman, now with the San Antonio Spurs, gave herpes to two other
"He was sweet. He was a gentleman. He was a kind person," she said.
women shortly before he transmitted it to her.
In a videotaped deposition shown to the jury yesterday, Rodman said he had tested negative for herpes in 1988 but was diagnosed with the virus in March 1993.
He said he took the test after another girlfriend accused him of giving her herpes.
Judd testified that the same Rodman girlfriend, who testified anonymously Monday on videotape, called her in January 1993 about Rodman. When she learned that she had heres, Judd said,"I felt angry; I felt sad: I felt hurt."
She said she had previously asked Rodman about his sexual history and he told her that he was tested for the NBA and was clean.
She said she believed him because she didn't think he'd do anything to hurt her.
He disagreed with several of his statements in his sworn deposition, telling Judd's attorney he had joked about his net worth and hadn't told them the truth.
He also made varying statements regarding an
Lisa Beth Judd
plaintiff in Rodmanlawsuit
In direct testimony, Rodman offered contradictory statements about whether he had the disease. He claimed his doctor told him he had a bacterial infection.
"Before March, I didn't know I had herpes because there were no visible marks. ... I've never had an eruption at all," he said.
earlier one, given under oath, that he hadn't believed he had gotten Judd pregnant or paid for her to have an abortion.
Judd, who now lives in Orange County, Calif., described their relationship as close and said Rodman often paid for her to fly to see him play.
She said he paid $3,000 for her to visit her sisters in California on vacation.
Judd claims Rodman was the only one of her sexual partners with whom she never used a condom.
"I trusted him," she said.
She said he never told her he had married the mother of his young daughter.
Rodman's attorneys said there was no evidence Rodman had ever herpes in transmittable form and no medical evidence that the women who said he gave it to them have the disease.
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