Columnist Dean Juipe: WTA smart in banning youngsters

Dean Juipe

Friday, July 7, 2000 | 10:37 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

When Lindsay Davenport won the women's championship at Wimbledon last year, her mother was playing a league tennis match back in California. It took Lindsay several phone calls to reach her and relay the good news.

Presumably, Miss Davenport's parents are extremely interested in their daughter's exploits yet they rarely attend her matches. They have made a conscious effort -- and taken it several lengths, given Lindsay's three Grand Slam championships -- to avoid interfering in her career.

They are the yin to tennis' yang, the opposite of the overbearing parents who maintain a steady presence as their child develops from prodigy to teenage sensation. Any book of tennis lore includes endless tales of parental interference.

As a direct result of problematic parents and the rush to push young people into professional tennis, the Women's Tennis Association instituted a rule two years ago that is designed to curtail the burnout syndrome that affected players such as Tracy Austin and Jennifer Capriati. The WTA outlawed players not yet 16.

It was a nervy yet decisive move and one that, thankfully, hasn't been challenged in court.

Pro tennis, at least on the women's side where exceptionally talented young players can be competitive with their elders, had tired of the heartbreak of players still in their teens hitting a figurative brick wall. Too many girls were flaming out too soon.

After what happened to Austin and Capriati, in particular, something had to be done.

Austin was 14 when she played her first pro event in 1977 and within a few months she was ranked in the top 10. At 16 she won the U.S. Open and she won it again in 1981. But by June of '83 she had retired, the result of mental fatigue and physical ailments.

Capriati, who has since returned to the pro tour, was 14 in 1990 when she became the youngest player ever to reach a Grand Slam semifinal and the youngest ever to win a match at Wimbledon. Within three years she was off the tour and had been arrested for shoplifting and, later, drugs.

They didn't need to be playing pro tennis at 14 and the fact that they did worked to their eventual detriment. Credit the WTA with recognizing this issue and having the courage to correct it.

Kids need diversity, a point emphasized this week by the American Academy of Pediatrics when it issued a new policy statement that advocates allowing children to naturally develop their own interests and pastimes. Their position is outlined in the July issue of "Pediatrics" magazine.

The WTA has also gone a step further and banned mothers -- even mothers who serve as coaches, as is the case with the mother of Martina Hingis -- from the players' locker room.

They've been banned because they're potentially a bad influence in those close quarters, and it's something all parents should take under advisement.

The Davenports -- whose 24-year-old daughter will play 20-year-old Venus Williams for the 2000 Wimbledon championship Saturday -- may be at an extreme, yet they're setting an interesting example.

They want Lindsay to succeed or fail on her own and it's their belief she'll be a better person for it, either way.