Rain, Lori McNeil and the Joys of the Lipton Grandstand Marsha's Lipton Diary, Thursday, March 19 By Marsha Strong

    The "official" opening day of the Lipton Championships for 1998: hurray!

    When I awoke this morning readying myself for my two-plus hour commute to Key Biscayne, it was POURING rain. Great start! I decide to indulge myself in an extra hour of sleep, planning to arrive at the venue around noon. The trains, running on a delayed schedule, have other ideas and I don't reach Key Biscayne until 1:00 PM.  Fortunately (?), no play has begun. I silently curse my colleague Ed Toombs. I had spoken to him by phone the previous evening and he told me he was hoping for long periods of rain so that there would be more "action" left to be seen when he arrives on Saturday. He gets his way!

    If you are not familiar with the format of the Lipton, it is a unique tournament in that there are 128-draws for both men and women, in which the top 32 in each draw are seeded and receive first-round byes. An attempt was made in 1997 to pare the draws to 96, but partly because of pressure from the WTA Players Association to include as many lower-ranked players as possible in each tournament, and partly because, like most humans, we Liptonites are not fond of any changes, the full 128 draw was returned this year. I was glad.

    With all the byes, many fans seem to feel the won't be many high-quality matches to watch. Very, very wrong in my opinion! I had a very hard time deciding which of several matches I wanted to attend most.

    I finally settled on the Lori McNeil vs Patricia Hy-Boulais matchup on the Grandstand Court. I like both players, and the Grandstand Court is my favorite of all the Lipton courts. Located way in the back of the venue, it is a bit of a trek to get there, but well worth the effort. It has "festival" seating for all except box holders (who get their own special section). In other words, first come, first served on three of the four stands. It also has chairs with backs on them in the front-most ten or so rows, a "luxury" I have come to appreciate more and more with each passing year!

    Strangely, some "genius" site planner has decided it would be a bright idea to tie the chairs together in groups of three, four or six. You soon discover you hope you like the person(s) sitting next to you....

    I think I made an excellent choice in choosing the McNeil/Hy-Boulais match, which turned out to be a three-set thriller. Lori essentially controlled every aspect of the first set, keeping her groundstrokes deep and coming to the net often to finish off points. For her part, Hy-Boulais committed a parcel of unforced errors and seemed unable to find her range on any of her shots. Lori ended up taking the first set 6-0.

    The second set was the polar opposite. Hy-Boulais was finding all the lines and corners; McNeil's volleys started to be netted with alarming frequency. Hy-Boulais prevailed, 6-1.

    The third set was actually the match in its entirety. Both women appeared to be settled down and ready to play some ball! No more frivolities: each point was a battle royal, games often going to three or four deuces. In the end, Lori was able to hit a few more net winners and took the third set 6-4.

    I had read recently that Lori was using this year to re-evaluate her commitment to tennis. I know she had been playing some lower-tier and Challenger events to test herself. I hope her fine showing at the Lipton (she went on to defeat Barbara Schett in the next round and lose to Sandrine Testud in the third) will convince her that the talent that led her to upset Steffi Graf at Wimbledon in 1994 is still all there, and she will continue to grace us with that talent for a few more years.
 

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