Columnist Ron Kantowski: There’s no truth in Fed Cup advertising

Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2000 | 10:19 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday. His page one column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

Just call it the worst example of false advertising since Kenny Kerr walked into a longshoreman's bar selling snake oil.

It has been a minimum of four days since Mandalay Bay learned the Williams sisters would not be attending the Federation Cup, its little international tennis shindig set for next week. Yet the resort continues to use the likenesses of Venus and Serena to sell tickets.

The Sun reported on Friday that the Williamses would not be playing in women's tennis' answer to the Davis Cup, each citing a different malady for withdrawing. I think Serena has a hangnail and Venus is sick and tired -- perhaps of playing tennis in meaningless events such as this one.

(Actually, Serena is said to have a foot injury and Venus pulled out of the Chase Championships at Madison Square Garden this week due to anemia.)

Yet Mandalay Bay continues to run print ads featuring Venus Williams, stating that the sisters were "expected to defend the Cup title for the USA."

On Monday night, a TV spot showed highlights of the pair and reiterated that both Williams' are "scheduled to play." And passers-by said the Mandalay Bay marquee still had the names of Venus and Serena up in lights.

It seems the hotel-casino is specializing in false advertising these days. After all, it billed Saturday's Lewis-Tua heavyweight title fight as something special.

All I know is that if I paid $75 for a Fed Cup ticket over the weekend based on those newspaper and TV ads I'd ... probably still go, at least if I were a tennis fanatic. After all, Lindsay Davenport and Monica Seles (who have committed to play here) aren't exactly bit players on the international tennis scene.

But Mandalay Bar should make them the focus of their promotional campaign immediately. It should correct this obvious double fault before the ticket-buying public starts complaining like John McEnroe.

Around the horn

Of course, many of them were smart. They just got in their cars and drove home, opting to watch the second half on television.

And here I said in last Thursday's column that the decision to put home games on local TV was a bad idea.

Conversely, it was 14 degrees at kickoff for Saturday's Colorado State-Air Force game at the Academy and much of the game was played in a blizzard with a wind chill factor of 25 degrees below zero.

Just before halftime, somebody spotted a Yehti running wide open in the CSU end zone. Yet, there were more than 30,000 in attendance at Falcon Stadium.

In retrospect, all those stories about the high academic standards at Air Force proved to be nonsense.

But he can guide my sleigh whenever he wants.

Rudolph's nose isn't red, but it's certainly hard. In 13 years of observing Rebel football, I can't recall a tougher back than the Rebels' No. 7.

Imagine the bed of a pickup truck filled with linebackers and defensive backs, with Rudolph tied to the front bumper, dragging them all for about seven yards.

That's Rudolph in a nutshell.

Little-known fact all but ignored in the postgame analysis: UNLV's 18-14 victory over New Mexico completed a 5-0 home season. It was the first time the Rebels ran the table at Sam Boyd Stadium since 1977 under Tony Knap. ... Kudos to the Sam Boyd grounds crew. Last year, the newly installed turf had more divots than the back nine at Las Vegas Municipal but it held up well this season, with nary a complaint from shifty running backs. ... John Robinson not only commands respect from the Rebels' players, but from UNLV fans as well. Did you catch the way those rowdy Rebel fans obeyed when the UNLV coach told them to "zip it" during his postgame interview on ESPN Regional? ... If he keeps catching passes at his present pace, glue-fingered Keenan McCardell may surpass Randall Cunningham as the greatest NFL Rebel of all time.