Tennis Hall of Fame is Hall of Shame

(Becker) established riveting rivalries with some of the game's greatest players starting with Ivan Lendl and ranging to his memorable meetings with Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. Becker has said Sampras is the best player he ever faced and regards Edberg as his greatest rival.
"In the mid 80s I came along when Lendl was at his peak so for a couple years he was main rival when he was No. 1 and I was No. 2," Becker said. "And then in the late 80s Edberg came and he was basically my main rival throughout my whole career, including the three Wimbledon finals."
The pair played in three consecutive Wimbledon finals from 1988-90 with the stylish Swede beat Becker in two of those three matches. The 1990 loss proved to be a particularly painful setback for Becker, who rallied from a two-set deficit and held a 3-1 lead in the final set only to fall 6-2, 6-2, 3-6, 3-6, 6-4.

This past week I had a chance to speak to Mark Stenner, the Hall of Fame's CEO. Mr. Stenner, who has visited my Edberg site ( The Stefan Edberg Column) and is aware of my passion for Edberg, very kindly invited me to speak to him (Stenner) on the phone about the controversial nomination of Boris Becker for the 1993 enshrinement. (If you have not been following the controversy, please see Stefan Edberg - snubbed by the Hall of Fame".) Stenner is a decent man who seems to be genuinely fond of Stefan Edberg, but it is apparent that he doesn't have anything to do with the nomination of Becker over Edberg, and he has no answer to my probing questions.

What I now understand is that the Hall of Fame is a business, not the institution for honoring sportsmanship as one might expect. If it were, Stefan Edberg, who more than any recent player symbolizes the tradition of tennis, would not have to wait on the sideline to be inducted to the Hall of Fame, a slight and an insult to a player of his stature.

Adding to the insult is that Boris Becker should NOT yet be eligible for the enshrinement. The Hall of Fame's own published rules stipulate that individuals eligible for the Recent Players category "are those who were active as competitors within the last 20 years, but have not been a significant factor in competition tennis during the previous five years." Becker played up to 1999 and, count your fingers: it's only been four years, not five. In his attempt to spin damage control, Mark Stenner resorted to a very contrived explanation to defend this transgression: "(W)hile Becker played until 1999, by the end of 1997 he was ranked No. 63. When a player falls out of the top 50, Stenning explained, he is considered 'no longer active.'" (See the 2/10 edition of the Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim mailbag. ) Well meaning as Stenner might have been, his remark inadvertently insulted all the 90% of tour players who are not in the top 50. By his reckoning, these players are inactive, and worse yet, by implication, not "a significant factor in competitive tennis."

In contrast, Stefan Edberg bowed out in 1997 with characteristic grace after a year of farewell on the ATP tour, and is clearly eligible for enshrinement. Stefan's qualfication is further bolstered by his impeccable behavior and sportsmanship on and off court. In any other sport, he would have been inducted to the Hall of Fame as soon as he became eligible this past year. His fans like me certainly expected the nomination.

That the enshrinement is run as a business is evident in this report published in the Jon Wertheim article: Tony Trabert was quoted as saying that "the (Hall of Fame enshrinement nomination) committee likes to nominate only one 'big name" each year because it doesn't need more than one name player to sell out the induction ceremony. Hence, the committee last year decided to nominate Boris Becker and not Stefan Edberg." This "one big name" only sentiment was echoed by the Hall's CEO, both to Jon Wertheim and also to me when I spoke to him on the phone. And yet in the next breath Stenner mentioned that next year Steffi Graf will be eligible, and Stefan may also be inducted. So what happened to the "one big name" only doctrine? And if Graf does get the kiss in 2004, with Stefan tagged on, who do you think will be in the spotlight when Mr. Agassi is around? The inevitable conclusion that I draw here is that Tony Trabert and his committee (more later) do not consider Edberg to be a big enough name, and so can be inducted as other lesser players in subsequent years once the all-mighty Becker has been enshrined. (To his credit, Stenner did sound genuinely distraught when I pressed him on this, saying that there are no bigger draw than Stefan Edberg. But apparently the sentiment is not shared by Trabert, whom I used to respect.)

In these days when we are surrounded with the real threats of terror, war, and disasters, I think I will just shake my head and walk away from this travesty called the tennis Hall of Fame enshrinement. The more I write about this sordid busines, the more I may be unwittingly contributing to the publicity of the Becker enshrinement. Big star that Becker is, he doesn't need my help.

In conclusion I think the enshrinement is a joke, a publicity stunt, an old-boy-old-girl network to curry/reciprocate favor and/or to make money.

For what it's worth: Here are the names of those on the nomination committee, headed by Tony Trabert. The list was provided by Mark Stenner at my request:

John Barrett, Mary Carillo, Bud Collins, Anna Dmitrieva, Richard Evans, Steve Flink, Gordon Forbes, Bjorn Hellberg, Nancy Jeffett, Alan Little, Ingrid Lofdahl-Bentzer, Frew McMillan, John Parsons, Pam Shriver, Stan Smith, Fred Stolle and Tony Trabert.

Ka-chink! Enough said.