Kool-Aid? Moi?

Howdy. I’m feeling like 20 miles of bad road today. I just got over the flu while in Australia, and returned home to find my wife, Lisa, and son, Cowboy Luke, ill with the same. Naturally, I’ve now come down with it too. It’s the kids. They pass these things around; Luke has had some kind of cold or something for a solid six weeks. Poor little guy, his lips are so badly chapped that they’re scabbed and he coughs so hard I’m afraid he’s going to shake a rib loose.

I still feel fried, frazzled, and spent. On the night of the men's final, I left Rod Laver Arena at 3:15 A.M. Outside, a driving, misty rain was bathing Melbourne. Transportation was shut down, there wasn't a cab to be seen. So I had to walk back to the hotel, where I arrived, soaked through, at 4. I then booked my wake-up call for 7—three hours later. Glamorous, huh?

Blogging will be limited for the next few days, but I plan to be back on track next week. Here's a notebook issue: I never got to write a post on Kim Clijsters' win over Martina Hingis. I just didn't want to focus too much on Martina while the other girls were still battling away.

(Note that Hingis is rolling in Tokyo, with Maria Sharapova waiting—perhaps—in the semifinals . . .)

I’m a firm believer in the principle that if you live by the sword you’ve got to be prepared to die by it, too. I thought the reactions to my Hingis "Firekitten!" post below (and to previous Hingis ones as well) have been interesting and really well-informed—the critical as well as positive ones. I must say, this report on the Hingis-Clijsters match from The Australian makes a very powerful argument that flies right in the face of pretty much everything I’ve written about Hingis.

And before some of you get all fired up and accuse me of backing off my position on Hingis, remember F. Scott Fitzgerald’s assertion that the mark of a fine mind is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time. Still, I feel obligated to ask, am I a Kool-Aid drinker? Am I being way too positive and optimistic about Hingis’s comeback chances simply because I happen to like and admire her?

That wouldn’t be a big sin. I can hold any opinion I want on this weblog—it’s my vehicle. But I don’t think having a blog gives me license to make wildly insupportable claims. I’m a firm believer in the old saw, You’ve got a right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. The second-most worthy hunt is the search for truth (the hunt for God being Numero Uno).

It struck me as I read this piece that LeGrand and I are seeing the same glass of water, but mine is half-full—and his is half-empty. Maybe it really is that simple. I don't agree with him, but his analysis is sound and unsentimental—this isn’t just some guy with a pin, looking for a red balloon to prick in the midst of the Hingis lovefest.

I still think Hingis will be a consistent Grand Slam challenger. Size (substitute power) matters, but it isn’t all that matters. In the post-match presser, I asked Hingis if, knowing the issue that power (or lack thereof) is playing in the debate about her comeback, she had learned anything from facing one of the biggest hitters (Clijsters) on the Grand Slam stage. She thought for a moment and then gave me a three-word answer: Speed is important.

I also notice that some of you posted comments taking umbrage at my comparison of Hingis with Roger Federer because of the Mighty Fed’s superior degrees of athleticism and power. Well, I issued the disclaimer to that effect myself, but in any event, that issue is irrelevant. I wrote that Hingis and Fed shared the tennis DNA, and that has nothing to do with athleticism. It’s just my way of describing the special facility some players have for the game. That facility has a number of dimensions, most of them intangible, and none necessarily having to do with power or muscles.

Reservations about this idea of tennis DNA? Do you really think that John McEnroe, one of the greatest of all players, could have been, oh, an NFL wide receiver? Major League Baseball shortstop? NBA point guard? No way, I say. But Yannick Noah could have been any of them. Now, flip the equation around: could Santana Moss, Derek Jeter, or Jason Kidd have been great tennis players? Absolutely, although not necessarily. There is, to my mind, a unique organism called “tennis player,” and you can win at tennis with—or without—being that.

A final example: Serena Williams has tennis DNA, Venus does not. Venus is an athlete playing tennis; Serena is a tennis player.

So let the debate rage. I’m just looking at the half-full glass in my hand, wondering what the stuff inside is . . .