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Tennis-X 5 Questions: Jon Wertheim, SI.comView Comments (12) | View Discussions
Posted on June 15, 2005
By Richard Vach
Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim has built a giant following over the years with his weekly tennis "mailbag," an amalgamation of the week's results, comments on the game's leaders and players, and answering reader questions that range from the passionate to farcical.
In this first in a series on the web's prominent tennis bloggers, Wertheim talks about developing a thick skin over the years, keeping it fun, and to what effect blogging on the web is helping tennis, if at all:
Tennis-X: When did you begin your column and tennis mailbag on the Sports Illustrated website, and whose idea was it? Has it changed any over the years in response to criticism or what people want to hear more of?
Jon Wertheim: I guess it started in 1998, those halcyon, early days of the web, when "content" was king. SI's website had a "golf mailbag" and I was approached about doing something similar for tennis. Seven years later, I still have really mixed feelings about the 'Bag. The bottom line is that it's a lot of fun to write. I really value the interaction with readers, the sort of "virtual barroom" where you can just talk shop with other tennis geeks who also spend time wondering whether Kim Clijsters could be a Top 10 player if she stopped using her left arm or whether Nicolas Escude got a new tattoo. The web also offers the two things every writer craves -- virtually unlimited space and virtually no editing. Plus, the writing style is also a lot looser and more casual than the style of the magazine. (Basically, the web is anarchy. All rules are suspended.)
But the "Mailbag" only accounts for probably 5-10 percent, tops -- of my duties for Sports Illustrated. It's what I do late on Sunday after the 'Sopranos' is over. And yet it's sort of taken on a life of its own. There's nothing I hate more than being introduced as "Jon Wertheim from the Tennis Mailbag." You fear that your reputation as a journalist might be compromised when you're known more for your snarky, stream-of-consciousness on-line column, than for the books and magazine pieces, etc. in which you're much more professionally invested.
Anyway, as far as responding to criticism, I try to be open-minded, especially since a lot of the readers are extraordinarily well-informed. The nature of the criticism is really interesting to me: Time was, if you were upset by something you read in a magazine or watched on tv, you used to have to compile a letter of complaint, articulate your thoughts, fish for the correct address and the postage stamps, etc. By that time, your outrage had likely abated, or at least cooled. With the internet, you just click and fire. At first, the level of bile was jarring. One less-than-glowing remark about, say, Monica Seles and people were calling for your head. In time, though, you develop a thick skin and realize that the immediacy is both the blessing and the curse of the web.
X: What do you make of the evolution of tennis on the web over the last few years, with full-time tennis writers now blogging raw content they wouldn't normally post in their work-a-day submissions for newspapers, magazines, etc., in addition to other news/opinion tennis sites popping up?
Wertheim: I think it's great. First, tennis is such a natural sport for this kind of marriage. It's a global sport with no home team, a confusing schedule, sporadic television coverage and time difference to contend with. The web cuts through a lot of that. I also think that tennis' congenital quirkiness -- most everyone in the sport is a little nuts, but ultimately endearing and well-intentioned -- is particularly well-suited for the ironic tenor of the web. And given how few newspapers even have a full-time tennis writer, blogs have become a great way to stay "up" on the sport. If I can read Peter Bodo's work a few times a week now, that's a great benefit.
Personally, the web is a great outlet for "cleaning out my notebook." You go to a tournament, you make all these observations, conduct all these interviews, watch all these matches and then only 1,500 words or so make it into print. This is a way to use some of the material that would otherwise be on the cutting room floor. Also, Sports Illustrated is a general interest sports magazine, so the on-line column is a way to serve (hopefully) the hard-core tennis fans.
X: Where do you personally draw the line in regards to taking players, news organizations or tennis' governing bodies to task in your blogging/writing, or does anything go? Can you give examples of where you would go (or where you've gone) regarding your harshest critical commentary?
Wertheim: I think this is a constant challenge for bloggers across the board and the "rules of engagement" are still emerging. The internet is a obviously a different beast from traditional media -- different rules, a different tone, and different relationship with the audience. Because of both the casual ethos of the web in general and the way things work in practice (speed is the coin of the realm; there are not multiple layers of editing or hard-core fact-checking as there is at the magazine), it's easy to get careless. As a rule, I try to keep the blogging light and fun. That doesn't mean ignoring topics of heft, but I think of the Mailbag as entertainment, not journalism. If I were going to try and write that hard-charging story about, say, the USTA's ties to Salvadoran drug mules (hypothetically, of course) it would be for the magazine, not the web.
X: Do full-time tennis writers who do blog-type opinion run the risk of alienating their audience by showing their personal biases against players, organizations, etc.?
Wertheim: I suppose the potential is there. But how is that different from anyone who provides subjective commentary? Read your favorite newspaper columnist (or listen to cable news) and likes and dislikes become clear. To me, it's outweighed by the advantage of providing candid commentary and shedding some light on some of the nonsense that strangles the sport. As for burning bridges, I've found that there's a gratifyingly strong sense that "reasonable people can disagree." Administrative types, agents and players have taken issue with my comments on plenty of occasion, but I've never felt that it's threatened access of anything like that.
X: How do you see the evolution of tennis blogging and commentary on the web -- how will it effect tennis' popularity and can it change the game at some level, influence decision makers?
Wertheim: I think on-line commentary is entertaining and serves a real purpose. (One example: the fans in far flung locations not served by the tours who now only need a browser and a DSL line to get their daily fill of tennis.) My experience is that it turns fans into turbo-fans and ratchets up their level of knowledge and enthusiasm. But as far as blogs effecting tennis' popularity, I guess I'm skeptical. What tennis needs to do is convert that soccer fan or NFL fan to our sport. The web columns I read are pretty wonky -- addressing protecting seedings and Mariano Puerta's coaching change and the possible sale of the Indian Wells event -- and preach to the already-converted. As far as the poo-bahs, I don't know whether I'd be flattered or scared if they were basing decisions on what they read on-line.
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