!201107141046388158737-p2@stats_com by Pete Bodo
I've always wanted to write a novel with the title Murder in Bad Gastein—you know, one of those $2.95 paperbacks. The cover photo will feature a lacey, red-and-black garter, an armband with a Swastika, and a Walther PPK pistol with bullets casually spilled alongside it. Old school.
I suppose it's kind of childish, but wouldn't it be just too cool to say, upon being asked where you're from. . . "Bad Gastein"? If you have to ask, "why?" you probably wouldn't get it anyway, but some of you on the fence about this also ought to know that part of the bada** beauty of that Alpine Austrian town's name is in the pronunciation. It's not, "Bad" as in bad, but "Baad." And it's not "Gas-teen," but "Gosh-tine." If Thomas Pynchon were a town, he'd be Baad Gosh-tine. Go ahead, figure it out.
Well, I had no plot for this Murder in Bad Gastein novel (**why sweat the small stuff?), but the WTA has done its best to give me one. Did you see that seven of the eight seeds fell in the first round, and the eighth (Ksenia Pervak) had to save six match points to get by a mere qualifier in the second round? Now add this twist: Also in the draw was 31-year-old mother Sybille Bammer, a more-or-less local girl who declared that this is her career farewell tournament.
Now you've got the makings of a real potboiler. Seven corpses, one on life support, and a 31-year old mommy chortling and rubbing her hands together at the prospect of winning the title, her last shot at fame! Would it be laying it on too thick to have 31-year Bammer survive match point to win her first-round match over an up-and-comer (Romanian teenager Simona Halep) in a titanic three-hour struggle, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6)?
Ha. That's just what Bammer did yesterday. The seven seeds will be boiled, not cremated (in Murder in Bad Gastein, that's the equivalent of "shaken, not stirred") in the Heilstollen, or "healing tunnel" that brought Bad Gastein its early fame as a spa and resort.
Julie Goerges was the top seed at Bad, and by the time you hit the No. 3 seed you need to consult the WTA web page to get a mug shot and fix on the player (for the record, it was Lucie Hradecka). But that actually makes the upsets that much more surprising. It must be fun to enjoy the minor celebrity offered by a No. 3 seeding, a position last occupied at a tournament (Wimbledon) by Li Na. That status not only greases the skids for you, it implies a certain amount of confidence that you've actually got a shot at winning the tournament, something a player like Hradecka might find very hard to believe because she's never won a main tour event. Bad was a Good opportunity, but nobody said anything about the pressure, being seeded No. 3. Hradecka must be bummed out, but at least her misery has company—multipled by seven.
You see, delving into these relatively obscure tournaments can be a lot of fun (I can only imagine the hi-jinx in Bastad!), and—in all seriousness—it has a message for us. Which is, lighten up. Not every tournament has to have life-and-death significance, and not every seeded player has to be fresh off a cover shoot for Vogue (or Vogue Homme, which isn't about houses or apartments but guys and fashion. Go figure) and trailed by security provided by the tournament promoter. Tap away on the desk with your fingernails, but would your life really be that much better if you were streaming a third-round match from Madrid or Beijing in your cubicle, and keeping one eye peeled for your boss? You know what would really would make your life better? Being at Bastad, or Bad Gastein.
You know, sitting there in the sunshine, near the sea or glaciers, still in your running kit after kocking off an easy 10k, followed by a bowl of yogurt with seasonal fruit (as far as I can figure, "seasonal" means it came straight from the walk-in cooler in the hotel restaurant) and strong coffee. There's a whole branch of the game that, for want of a better term, we can call "resort tennis." It's a dimension of the game that's almost vanished, thanks to the growth of the game and the increasingly harsh demands of the ATP and WTA when it comes to prize money and infrastructure.
Some years ago, I edited a book for Jim Westhall, who was the tournament promoter for perhaps the most successful of all resort tournaments, the one that began in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, moved to North Conway and then Stratton Mountain, Vermont, and ended up as the present-day event in New Haven. For most of its existence, the tournament was known as the Volvo International. Nonsense at the Net (Westhall insisted on the title; it does capture the corny, amateurish nature of the book, which I believe is part of its charm). I can't guarantee that you'll like it, but I can promise that it's a truthful book that really takes you inside a promoter's head and also exposes some of the unsavory aspects of the tennis business.
For our purposes, the important point is that as Westhall's resort tournament flourished, it gradually fell victim to a combination of its own success and the imperial aims and demands of the ATP and sponsors. But North Conway/Stratton wasn't the only, or last, resort tournament; Nice more or less lives on, although it may be a bit too big and heavily-traveled in comparison to Bad Gastein and others like it. The Family Circle Cup in Charleston was spawned in Hilton Head Island as a resort tournament, and Acapulco, Marbella, Gstaad, Estoril and Kitzbuhel (among others) probably qualify as such, I hesitate to say, never having visited any of them. The line blurs when you start talking about, say, Dubai, or even the new Winston-Salem event, neither of which can exactly be called a resort town or destination.
The thing with resort tournaments is that they're fun. It's easy for someone in my shoes to scoff at the starstruck tennis fan who dreams of attending the U.S. Open or Roland Garros. I get to do that all the time. But just as my most enjoyable moments at a major are spent on obscure field courts, at particular times of day (usually, when the light is mellow), watching relatively unknown players, I suspect that many fans who make pilgrimmages to majors or other signficant events in urban centers might have an equal or better all-around experience attending a resort tournament.
I'm sure these events are a good time for the players, too, despite their tendency to take their careers—or perhaps it's just their daily rituals, or grind—too seriously. I like to imagine that some of those fallen seeds stole out the previous night and ended up dancing, topless, on a banquette in some cheesy nightclub. I know it's asking too much, but. . .
Sure, there are ranking points at stake, and incremental increases in round-by-round prize money. But even the players are more likely to take that dreary, real-world stuff less seriously when their surroundings subersively suggest that ranking and money aren't everything. It's a lot easier to not obsess about money or status when the view from your window is of snow-mantled mountains rather than a Mercedes dealership and the corporate headquarters of a worldwide advertising agency.
The players also may take the stakes less seriously when they've been paid appearance money just to show up. I don't know what, if anything, that had to do with the bloodbath in Bad Gastein, and I don't much care. Let the girls make some dough. Let them have a little fun. Pretty soon they'll be in Toronto, having to explain how they choked away a 5-3 lead in the third set. Somebody's going to win that tournament in Bad Gastein and it's probably not going to make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme of things. In two weeks time, we may not even remember her name—nor will some of the people who will sit in the sunshine and feel good watching a couple of talented athletes whack the ball.
Somebody's going to win Bad Gastein, and it might as well be Sybille Bammer. In my imagination, I can see her being handcuffed right after the handshake, and her daughter crying and wailing, "Mommy, mommy!" as Sybille is led away by the police. Murder in Bad Gastein! (Alas, she lost today to fellow Austrian Yvonne Meusburger, ending her playing career.) All I've got to do now is that annoying writing bit.
But it's summer. It can wait. See you in Gstaad.