Too Much Tennis?

Bill Talbert, director of the U.S. Open at Forest Hills, was hot under the collar--and the weather was not to blame. As the nation's most prestigious tennis tournament got under way last week, six of the men players, including top-seeded Jimmy Connors, were not ready. The reason: they were worn out from competing in other tournaments that had ended only the day before. "Golf doesn't permit this," snapped Talbert as he announced the postponement of their matches. "You don't see Jack Nicklaus unprepared for the U.S. Open. Tennis is not structured enough."

Not nearly. As the game has soared in popularity--a survey indicates that 34 million Americans now play tennis compared with 10.6 million only five years ago--so many promoters, manufacturers and other assorted types have jumped into the act that professional tennis is becoming more show business than sport. The signs are unmistakable:

> Tournaments have sprouted so fast that the most ardent fans get fouled up trying to keep track of who is playing whom, and where, and when. Last winter alone, World Championship Tennis had two and even three tournaments going at once. No. 1 Player Connors played on yet another tour while the women trekked along on their own circuit. And there has been no relief. Since May, World Team Tennis has horned in to compete against an already crowded schedule of traditional tournaments.

>Television has become so enamored of the game's sales potential that a blur of live and taped tennis saturates the stay-at-home spectator. One weekend afternoon bewildered fans watched Billie Jean King, for instance, play against two different opponents in two different tournaments on two different channels.

> Innovators have loaded the game with enough gimrnicks to make it sometimes unrecognizable. The championship series in World Team Tennis, won last week by the Pittsburgh Triangles, was played on a court without white lines. Each section was a different color--from brown to blue. Scorekeeping can be perplexing, particularly when it comes to tie breakers. This year Forest Hills has dropped the sudden-death tie breaker, but the replacement, a twelve-point tie breaker in which the winner must beat his opponent by two points, could go on even longer than the set it is supposed to shorten.

> Commercialization has all but given the game to the hucksters. Billboards now hem in the courts at many tournaments and players often spend more time dealing with--or ducking --businessmen than playing.

Not all the changes in tennis tradition have been for the worse. The millions of dollars in prize money have attracted a gallery of international players. The game that was once dominated by Americans and Australians is now a polyglot sport with stars from Mexico, Argentina, India, Poland, Sweden and Spain. Such varied talent, combined with the switch at Forest Hills from grass to a claylike surface that does not favor the spasmodic serve-and-volley offense, prompted Wimbledon Champion Arthur Ashe to predict last week that multiple upsets would rock this year's Open. Indeed, former Open Champion Stan Smith was ousted in the tournament's first night match under newly installed lights. As last year's Winner Connors says: "Everybody's a challenger."

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