Teaming Up Doesn’t Get Her Down

What would you think of a young lady who has won, at last count, 5 Wimbledon titles, 4 U.S. Opens, 7 Australian Opens, 5 French Opens--21 Grand Slam titles in all and, in fact, a Grand Slam itself 3 times?

You would think she has had one or more ticker-tape parades, her pick of magazine covers and trips to the White House, right?

Well, there’s a catch. Pam Shriver, who did all of the above, is none of the above. Because, she had partners. Or, more specifically, a partner--Martina Navratilova--in all but one of the championships.

Pam’s specialty is doubles. In singles, she made the finals of the U.S. Open once, the semifinals 3 times, and the semifinals of Wimbledon 3 times.

Not a bad career. The trouble is, the American public is not into partnerships. To the public, tennis is not a team game. To catch the eye of the public, you have to work alone. Burns and Allen, Martin and Lewis, Veloz and Yolanda might star in vaudeville but not at Wimbledon.

Which is too bad, because tennis doubles is an art form all its own. Throughout its history, tennis has had players who have been skilled in the singles game but world-beaters in the ad court.

George Lott won 5 times at Forest Hills, when the Open was played there, with three different partners. He won at Wimbledon with two different partners. Doubles specialists--Gene Mako paired with Don Budge, Ted Schroeder paired with Jack Kramer, and Johnny Doeg, and John Van Ryn--enriched and were an integral part of the annals of the game.

It’s unlikely that any doubles combination, male or female, played together longer than Shriver and Navratilova--8 years. Or had the success they had.

There is a school of thought that Shriver could be an even greater player on the tour, except she could never make up her mind whether she wanted to be in the tennis Hall of Fame or the State Department.

Pamela is the tour’s resident intellectual. When the tour hits France, the Louvre is safe from most serve-and-volleyers. But Pam might be there with a notebook.

When the tour hits Australia, others might come home with stuffed koalas. Pam brings back suitcases full of primitive art.

When the then future President of the United States, George Bush, wanted to make up a fourth for doubles with himself, the crown prince of Japan and the secretary of state, he chose Pam. She may be the the only tennis professional in the world to have partnered with a Mikado.

It’s because Pam Shriver doesn’t let tennis suffocate her life that she’s not the one-dimensional automaton some players become. She’s not living out some parental fantasy. Her father didn’t much care whether she became a tennis player or not.

Neither, as a matter of fact, did Pam. She didn’t take up the game seriously--if she ever did--till she was 13. The family did not move from Baltimore to some sun-belt venue and enroll her in a tennis factory. In the wintertime, she ice skated.

She was not using tennis to escape some repressive regime. Pam still lives in Baltimore. For one thing, it’s close to Washington and the corridors of power that fascinate her more than the finals of the French Open.

Tennis is the most formful sport there is. It makes a Soviet election look like a tossup, by comparison.

And women’s tennis is even more formful than men’s. Women’s tennis is a monarchy, not a sport.

The reigning monarch is Steffi Graf. She may rule longer than the Sun Kings of France.

Before her, there was Martina Navratilova. Before her, Chris Evert. Before her, Billie Jean King. And so on, clear back to Helen Wills Moody and Suzanne Lenglen. Molla Mallory.

Did Steffi Graf, Navratilova, Billie Jean just want it more than Pam Shriver? If the crown prince of Japan were on the phone, would they decline because they had to work out that day? Is Shriver resigned to being a permanent member of the chorus, never to get the lead in this operetta?

Pam Shriver was through here the other day, returning from her seventh Australian Open doubles win--she rapped out in the third round in the singles--on her way to Indian Wells to promote the $250,000 Virginia Slims tournament at the Grand Champions there March 6-12.

“(Losing) can become a state of mind,� she concedes. “You can go into a match just looking to win games, trying not to look foolish. But I never feel I’m overmatched. I feel I have the game to beat anybody when all things come together. I’m a very consistent player.

“Would things be different if I had made tennis the center of my universe? I don’t know. I have seen some people uproot families for the sake of tennis, make athletes think the world revolves around them, and gear their whole lives around a game. Not me. I’m too easily distracted.�

By things such as earthquakes in Armenia, inconsequentialities such as presidential elections, budget deficits, upheavals in the South.

“I’m addicted to current events,� she admits. “And fascinated by history.�

When she goes to Athens, for instance, Pam is apt to think, “Here’s where Plato taught,� instead of, “Here’s where Zina beat me in the semis, love-love.�

And when she plays with a future Mikado, she will know him as the ruler of 100 million of the world’s most industrious people and not some guy who’s a sucker for a drop volley.