said. “I wish [the first draw] hadn’t happened.” The seed tampering, indeed, never happened again at the U.S. Open—even in subsequent years when some in the tennis community were advocating for it. In 2002, Sampras was seeded a lowly 17th, though he had won the championship four times and had reached the final the past two years. (He went on to win the title that year.) In 2011, Chris Evert questioned the USTA’s judgment in seeding Serena Williams in the 28th spot, per her WTA ranking. (Williams reached the final.) Numbers are stubborn things, but 1996 taught the U.S. Open something that the world would come to realize over the next two decades. The computer is always right.
tournament, was demoted from fourth to seventh seed—and responded by boycotting the event. “I was completely shocked when I heard what they had done to me,” Kafelnikov said at the time, citing his better- than-average hardcourt record. “I’m going home because I don’t want to be part of a tournament that does things like that.” And so, in an unprecedented about- face, the tournament decided to keep its seedings but redo the entire draw, the sports equivalent of a jury purge. At a press conference immediately after the second draw ceremony, USTA president Les Snyder expressed his embarrassment. “The integrity of the tournament is the most important,” he
Joe McGovern is a corre- spondent for Entertainment Weekly magazine, where he writes about film.
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