Men's tennis not at 'fault'

Parity defies explanation.\nTalk about parity with a National Football League fan and you hear about how it is good for the game. Even the Patriots can win the Super Bowl. Even the Bears can win 13 games. Even the Arizona Cardinals can rise up and win a playoff game every so often.\nTalk about parity with a tennis observer and what you hear is that women's tennis is better than men's tennis because of women's tennis' lack of parity. Every week, it is either one Williams sister or the other Williams sister. Meanwhile, the men's game supposedly suffers because of the lack of characters and supposedly boring Wimbledon finals matchups like Lleyton Hewitt vs. David Nalbandian.\nWell, apparently only a contrarian like me could think this because I cannot find anybody to agree with me, but men's tennis is the better game. Parity is part of the reason why but not the only reason.\nFor one thing, no big-name athlete ranks so highly on the "Insufferability Scale" than Jennifer Capriati. I think I liked her more on drugs.\nHer profanity-laced tirade at the chair umpire during the Australian Open was ignored for reasons due to flag-waving -- she's American and her opponent, Martina Hingis, was not -- and the fact that we want to root for Capriati given her much-detailed adversity. John McEnroe said less when he was defaulted from the 1990 Australian Open for a verbal barrage at a chair umpire. The Australian Open kept Capriati around because they did not want the championship match -- which fans supposedly paid big money to see -- called off like that.\nCapriati has dated Matthew Perry for a few months now -- "can I be any more dysfunctional?" -- and when he was spotted in her family's section at the French Open, the worst-kept secret in the history of sports-related gossip was no longer gossip. Apparently, they can share good rehab stories.\nCapriati even managed to get kicked off the Federation Cup team for violating team rules. The captain of the Fed Cup team, Billie Jean King, is perhaps the most dignified person in sport, and Capriati went off for a private practice session, which went directly against King's rules against practicing outside the team's setting. The U.S. had to forfeit a match it lost 3-2 to Austria. Essentially, Capriati blew the biggest international team event in women's tennis, and rumors swirl that the private practice session was just the tip of the iceberg.\nThen, there is Anna Kournikova. That's the punch line.\nActually, I must give her credit. At a press conference where it was announced she was going to serve as a spokesperson for a bra manufacturer, she gave one of the all-time classic lines. When asked about whom her boyfriend was at the press conference, Kournikova said, "I'm not here to talk about my personal life. Let's talk about bras."\nWhat is a shame is that Kournikova was a Wimbledon semifinalist at 16 in 1997. She shouldn't be washed up, but she is because of her lack of dedication to the game. If hearing the words, "I'll take Anna Kournikova to block," is something she looks forward to, I won't begrudge her that and if being just another journey-woman on the tour is what she wants, she has the right to that, too.\nAnd if I change my name to Nikolai and learn how to play hockey and she wants to date me, then we can work something out.\nBut the one word that comes to mind when I think of Kournikova is "silly."\nCapriati and Kournikova are the two biggest reasons why the women's game is something of a high school-clique/diva/who-are-you-dating gossip-fest, but they are not the only two reasons. \nMartina Hingis' lazy work ethic and her greater interest in men -- she's currently dating pro golfer Sergio Garcia -- than improving her game has left fans frustrated with her recently anemic play and curious about whether she will have the desire to be an elite player when she recovers from the ankle injury that will force her to miss the U.S. Open. \nParents -- be they Capriati's, Mary Pierce's, Jelena Dokic's or the Williams sisters' -- for some reason see their daughters as some sort of get-rich-quick scheme. Instead of sitting back and enjoying their incredible good fortune, they oppressively badger their daughters, pushing until there is nothing left.\nThe men's game features no such domineering parents, nail-biting, five-set matches, actual serve-and-volleyers and a greater variety of play. There are far fewer gimme matches. Furthermore, I have never seen a women's match nearly as good as last year's Sampras-Agassi match at the U.S. Open.\nWhen it comes to women's tennis, I have to stomach Capriati and the like. When it comes to men's tennis, I have to stomach parity.\nI can handle men's tennis. After all, I've gotten used to the NFL.