Inauspiciously, the Season Starts Anew With the Australian Open

Professional tennis has a contrary nature. It places four tournaments above all others, underscoring their status by giving them a special name: Grand Slam events. Yet the sport routinely abandons its season-opening Grand Slam event and strands the Australian Open in tennis’ backwaters with handfuls of ranked players passing it by.

What a way to start a season. The Australian Open gets under way today at Flinders Park in Melbourne and will set the tone for the long year ahead by affording the first look at players old and new. However, the tournament’s two-week course will serve as only a partial road map to the season ahead. Missing from the women’s side are defending champion and No. 2-ranked Monica Seles and No. 5 Jana Novotna. The men are missing three top-10 players--No. 3 ranked Yevgeny Kafelnikov, No. 7 Richard Krajicek and No. 8 Andre Agassi.

Seles is a victim of injuries new and old and, mainly, of an ill-advised season start last year. In 1996, Seles began her first full season back on the tour by winning the Australian Open and setting out on a punishing tournament schedule that led to a shoulder injury that remains a problem. More recently, Seles broke a bone in her right finger, which restricts the left-hander’s two-handed grip.

Seles’ fitness to withstand another season will remain in question. Novotna, who’s always fit, has simply elected to take time off. She said that her experience has been that the long trip to Australia saps her energy at the beginning of the season and makes it difficult to get to travel to the tournaments that follow.

Agassi is also taking time off, and few in the sport will fail to agree that the former No. 1 needs to do whatever it takes to get his game back on track. Agassi came to the Australian Open for the first time in 1995, unveiled his new closely-cropped hairdo and beat Pete Sampras in the final. It was the last Grand Slam event he has won. Some would argue that it was the first season that Agassi fully committed himself to tennis, and the last.

Agassi will play for the U.S. in the Davis Cup matches against Brazil next month and is expected to return to the Tour at Indian Wells in March.

The other two missing men were Grand Slam titlists in 1996--Kafelnikov won the French Open and has a broken hand and Krajicek won Wimbledon and is recovering from knee surgery.

The season promises the usual intrigue and the expected questions. The two No. 1 players, Sampras and Steffi Graf, remain as durable and consistent as ever, even as each overcame personal and physical setbacks to win in 1996. Sampras managed to win only one Grand Slam title--the U.S. Open--while Graf won every one except the Australian Open, which she did not enter.

Sampras’ dominance is being challenged by No. 2 Michael Chang, who lost to Boris Becker in the Australian Open final last year and to Sampras at Flushing Meadow. While everyone around him is either sinking or treading water, Chang continues to improve.

As does Tim Henman, the unimposing young British player. Henman, 22, began last year at No. 99 and will start this one ranked No. 14. His all-around game is beginning to develop power and, most important on the men’s tour, Henman is gaining confidence. Last week he beat No. 3 Goran Ivanisevic to win his first tour event at Sydney.

The women’s tour, led by a group of young players, can at last be said to be developing depth. Chief among them is 16-year-old Martina Hingis of Switzerland. Now ranked No. 4, Hingis started her year by winning her third tour title, beating Jennifer Capriati at Sydney. Hingis has victories over Graf and Seles and the confidence to face anyone.

Capriati is doing surprisingly well in her second comeback. At Sydney she beat Olympic champion Lindsay Davenport and Chanda Rubin. Capriati, 20, is moving well, hitting hard and seems to be ready to play a full schedule.

Rubin, too, looks good again, after missing the end of last season because of a wrist injury.

Players had better hope their injuries are behind them, for, even if they skipped the Australian Open, the season looms.