The Tennis Curmudgeon

No, we here at the Tennis Curmudgeon are not talking about Marat Safin. No way we’re talking about Jeff Tarango. McEnroe? Not even close! We are talking about Marcelo Rios. Yes, Rios; quite possibly the most talented men’s player never to fulfill his potential.

Rios, a former #1 ranked player from Chile, was the first Latin American player to achieve that status of the top position in the ATP in 1998. Additionally, he’s the only player to ever achieve the #1 ranking without ever having won a slam. Was this guy too much of a loose cannon? Was he Jim Morrison and Axl Rose on/off the court? Capable of such poetry and yet such moodiness that led to his cold indifference to people.

Let’s take a look at some of the controversies surround his career which we culled from internet searches:

1. After achieving the number one in singles, an Argentine reporter ask him what it felt like to be at the same status as Guillermo Vilas; he answered “Vilas was No. 2 and I’m No. 1”.

2. He was fined US$10,000 for speeding during the 1998 Stuttgart tournament.

3. In a confusing incident, he ran over his physical trainer, Manuel Astorga, with his jeep, leaving him gravely injured at the foot. Astorga was later fired as trainer.

4. After a magazine published some photos of him dancing seductively with a woman at a Paris disco, his girlfriend (later to be his first wife), Giuliana Sotela, broke up with him. During a Davis Cup press conference, Ríos read a letter, asking Sotela for forgiveness. He ended the press conference in tears.

5. He was accused by his second wife, María Eugenia Larraín, of throwing her out of his car while driving to visit his daughter in Costa Rica. Larraín arrived to Santiago’s airport in dramatic fashion, in a wheelchair and showing multiple bruises on her legs. He claimed those bruises were caused by falling while skiing.

6. He was arrested in Rome in 2001 after he punched a taxi driver in the nose and then had a fight with the policemen arresting him.

7. In 2003, while training for a Davis Cup tie with Ecuador, he allegedly urinated on some men in a La Serena bar’s bathroom and was later expelled from his hotel after being accused of swimming nude. As a consequence, the Chilean team missed a flight to Ecuador the following day. He later apologized for the incidents.

8. In 2003, he and a friend were expelled from a Santiago bar after insulting other clients and being involved in a brawl with some waiters. Both were arrested and later released.

9. He reportedly told Monica Seles to move her “fat a$$” while on a lunch queue, but he has denied this.

10. During the 1997 Wimbledon tournament he commented that grass was for “cows and soccer” and not suitable for tennis play.

11. He was disqualified from the 2000 Mercedes-Benz Cup tennis tournament in Los Angeles, California during a first round match with Gouichi Motomura of Japan and fined US$5,000 for saying “f*ck you” to the chair umpire.

12. During a post-match interview at the Basel tournament, he insulted a journalist under his breath after she asked him whether he had Native American ancestry.

13. He tried to moon some reporters who were recording him while partying outside his apartment in Reñaca.

14. He fired his coach Larry Stefanki shortly after he became World No. 1, claiming that he wanted to go in a different direction.

15. He won the Prix Citron ‘award’ several different years (many in a row) for being the most disagreeable player on tour.
16. In April 2005, Ríos married model, María Eugenia “Kenita” Larraín, a former fiancée of football player Iván Zamorano. The couple subsequently experienced a very public break-up in September of the same year after an incident in Costa Rica in which Larraín was injured when Ríos allegedly threw her out of his car while he was driving to visit his daughter. Ríos claimed that marrying Larraín was “the biggest mistake of my life.”

Mark Malinkowski, who has written for Tennis Magazine, ESPN.com, and various other publications, wrote a book about him, “Marcelo Rios: The Man We Barely Knew” (published by CreateSpace, ISBN: 10: 1461162416) that came out last year or so. He was able to get some interesting quotes from others who were around him on tour that indicate he is/was certainly misunderstood, that there were so many sides to the guy:

Wayne Ferreira: “He was really good because he took the ball early and he had a lot of feel on the ball. He moved pretty well and he was a good competitor. But he was so good at finding where the ball was going and taking it so early…I didn’t really have a problem with him. I actually did pretty well against him…”

Ilie Nastase: “He’s the worst prick I ever met. The players of today probably have the same opinion of him. Ask all the players what they think of him, you’ll get the same thing. When somebody doesn’t sign autographs for the kids, that is a prick for me. (What about his game?) I don’t give a shit. I don’t look at him. For me, he’s an idiot. I don’t know what else to tell about him. And that’s the first time I say something about somebody like that. I think he was the worst thing for tennis. He did not deserve to be No. 1 — one or two days. To live with the other players like he did — terrible. He really was the worst. I never say anything about anybody else like this but about him I have to say this. Sorry.”

Angelica Gavaldon (Former WTA top 30): “My mom remembers him carrying my laundry bag in Sydney. I think he is a really sweet person. I really like Marcelo Rios. I know a lot of people had mixed feelings about him but I personally thought he was really shy .The first time I met him was at The US OPEN and my coach at the time, Pato Rodriguez, scheduled a practice session with him, we played baseline games and after he went up to Pato and said, ‘Wow, I did not know girls could actually play tennis.’ I thought it was funny. Later on in Australia we where at the same tournaments and I remember him waking up super early almost everyday to practice with me at 6:30 AM. I played okay that year and I think he didn’t win a match, so I felt guilty that it was probably because I don’t hit the ball like a guy.”

Michael Chang: “Why are you writing a book about Marcelo Rios?”

Marat Safin: “He had the talent to win ten Grand Slams.”

Roger Federer: “I was a big admirer of Marcelo.”

Thomas Johansson: “Rios could make you feel like it was your first time standing on the court.”

Mats Wilander: “I thought Rios was a ball kid.”

David Mercer: “I don’t think he respects many people in the media. I think he regards us as like parasites, living off his skills.”

Nick Bollettieri: “He was one out of a million. What he had you can’t teach.”

Mike Agassi: “In a way he was better than Andre because you could not read Rios’ shot.”

Michael Joyce: “He was serving down love-40. Triple match point. His first serve was a fault. Then he hits the second serve as hard as he can and it’s an ace. I walk back to the service line and then he says, ‘Now we win.’ I swear to God, then the guy hit like a winner on every ball.”

Mike Nakajima: “Marcelo cold-cocked him. We go into the bathroom and the guy is out cold.”

Peter Lundgren: “Marcelo said to me, I’m sorry I was like that. I thought you were a great coach.”

You play long enough, you’ll notice how weird some tennis player’s arms are. You know what I’m talking about. One arm is like a twig and the hitting arm is like a tree trunk! An Olive Oyl arm and a Popeye arm. That muscle around the elbow joints and all are oddly massive, they flare out like you’re looking at some sort of bowling pin. Now since I’m an amateur and recreational player, my hitting arm muscles aren’t that developed the way it is for the more serious tennis players.

Rod Laver was well known for being a one armed Popeye. Other notables are Guillermo Vilas. It’s insane. It looks like their arms got big from whacking off 8 hours a day instead of whacking at a tennis ball for 8 hours a day. It’s freakish looking, it’s so out of proportion. We’re not talking biceps, the upper part of the arm. I’m talking the forearms, the brachiordalis muscle that sits atop the elbow joint.

Roddick seems to have more evenly balanced forearms since he uses the double handed backhand a bit:

It all started back in the old Soviet Tennis Federation academy where the young Jerkhinov was rapidly ascending in his skill level. Great form, properly balanced, fluid and smooth technique, always in good position, according to one of his old coaches, Ilya Kostitsin.

In one of the “ten and under” brackets an 8 year old Jerkhinov was eliminating his other academy mates in competition. Of course, this was noticed by the federation officials responsible for cultivating the ones with pure, raw, innate talent. All of it meant “up and coming star” treatment by the staff, but the expectations were obviously higher. The pressure was higher, especially when Jerkhinov’s father was in attendance to watch, but the young Jerkhinov was given lots of praise by the federation staff that his father never doled out.

According to sources who worked in the former federation, it is believed the conflict that haunts Sergei began with one of those “ten and under” evaluation competitions. Sergei was 8 years old during one of these evaluation match ups, going against another promising up and coming star, Yuri Stroginov, from Uzbek, now Uzbekistan, who was ten years old at the time. It was clear that the younger Sergei’s talent level was much greater than Yuri’s, yet Yuri managed to take the first set 6-4. This didn’t sit too well with the elder Jerkhinov, according to sources who were there overseeing the evaluations. The elder Jerkhinov began yelling and screaming at Sergei that he would be a failure and a huge disappointment to him if he didn’t beat this Central Asian mongol from Uzbek.

The younger Sergei came back to shut out Yuri in the second set, 6-0. Early in the third set, it appeared that Yuri twisted his ankle. So Sergei decided to make Yuri run, drop shotting him. However, Yuri seemed capable enough to rush in and take the short balls and smash them for winners. It became apparent to everyone that Yuri was faking a twisted ankle. They wind up going to a tie-break, best of nine. They trade points, back and forth, until they reach a pivotal 4-4. And it’s now sudden death. One more point for the match. In the crucial and deciding rally, Sergei hits a screaming backhand, hot off his racket, up the line. It’s close, but it’s in. Yuri, standing in the center of the court, looks down, as if dejected and beaten. He slowly walks to the net but then his head comes up and a smile on his face. He points to the line and says, “It’s out.”

The federation didn’t have enough staff to have full linesmen and umpires, so they modeled it after the way it’s done in US juniors: players act as their own linesmen. The honor system. Yuri says the ball was out. Sergei is in disbelief. One former federation official who was there said that he heard Yuri smugly whisper across the net, “I guess your papa is right, you are a failure and a huge disappointment.” Bedlam breaks out among the parents, the elder Jerkhinov is going ape, Sergei is screaming “You cheated, it was in!” Federation staff are confused, they don’t know what’s going on.

And thus begins Sergei’s torment….

When we last left you folks, we had the opportunity to meet this Russian player no one ever heard of, Sergei Jerhkinov. He travels mostly in anonymity, attending ATP events here and there, showing up for junior events mostly. We further learned from him that he’s involved in charity work back in Russia, helping to run a private school for disadvantaged Russian kids. He also donates time to public run Russian tennis camps for kids as well. But we also learned that he is a little bit like Bobby Fisher—enigmatic at times, combative, moody, charming, engaging, and sometimes downright bizarre.

We last reported that in some of our initial talks with Jerhkinov, he became livid at the mention of his Soviet Tennis Federation rival, Yuri Stroganov. Wow. I mean, wow! We had no idea that he’d go off with such a fury. At the Pen Pilot tournament, he lashed out at us, “What do you know about Stroganov?!! Why are you talking to me about him?!!” He demanded to know why I had talked to Kostitsin and his wife.

When we mentioned we had contacted his old coaches, Ilya Kostitsin and his wife Iroda, that’s when the legal trouble came. Apparently, there was some court trouble between Jerhkinov and the Kostitsins that we were unaware of. Further complicating matters, Sergei’s father, was involved as well. All of this surfaced and we got dragged into the Russian court system. Apparently there were Russian gag orders that were possibly violated, agreements that were supposedly violated.

All of a sudden, we get summoned by some Russian legal authorities in Moscow to attend hearings. We’re just a small blog, what do we know about international incidents? So we had to put the story on hold until we knew what was going on and what would get us into trouble. There’s no point in going into this stuff, I don’t think we want to re-visit this legal nightmare.

So, what we CAN tell you is a little more background on Sergei’s father and go into a little bit of a character study of who Sergei is. What we found out through interviews with others who knew Jerhkinov at the old Soviet Tennis Federation academy is very similar to what we all hear about pushy parents, stage parents, the ones who argue and yell at little league games and soccer matches for their kids. You know who we are talking about. That was Sergei’s dad.

According to one academy friend of Sergei’s, who wishes to remain anonymous, Sergei confided to her that he hated the other sports and the only thing he wanted to do was to play hockey with his brother. Or even soccer, since his mom was an Olympic female soccer development coach. If he had to play a sport, he wished it was one that had nothing to do with his father’s ambitions for him. In fact, he told her, he’d rather be involved with team sports because if you win or lose, you do it as a team. In an individual sport, he had to bear all the responsibility for losing and face his father.

But again, dear reader, you’re asking us, “Tennis Curmudgeons, why are you going into background on the father? What about Stroganov?!! Answers, dammit, we need answers! Why did Jerkhinov go ballistic at the mention of Yuri Stroganov?”

Yeah, we wanted to know that as well too. More in the next post.