Arthur Ashe's legacy all but ignored.(Chicago Tribune)

FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y._His presence is as unavoidable as the immense stadium that bears his name and dominates the grounds of the National Tennis Center. But Arthur Ashe's influence is nowhere near as large as it should be.

It was Ashe's hope, among so many other causes that aroused his passions, that grass-roots tennis in this country would produce a new generation of minority players and eventually a new champion.

So why is it, eight years after Ashe's death, that the only time race is brought up in tennis it is in the context of racism?

The very presence of Venus and Serena Williams on the cover of this week's Time magazine has to be a positive, although the article makes the point that it is largely the carping about them, by them and all around them in women's tennis that has dwarfed the men's game.

Whatever good has come out of having the sisters at the top of the sport is largely undone by the backlash against their father Richard, whose calls of racism have been so relentless over the course of their careers that no one is listening anymore.

In men's tennis, 21-year-old James Blake is currently the only African-American ranked among the top 100. After playing the match of his life Friday in a gutsy five-set loss to Australian Lleyton Hewitt, the story centered on the racial remarks made by Hewitt. In complaining to the chair umpire about his second foot-fault violation, Hewitt called attention to the "similarity" between Blake and the offending linesman, who is also African-American.

To no one's surprise, Hewitt was not cited by the International Tennis Federation, whose idea of discipline was to fine Michal Tabara a whopping $1,000 for spitting at opponent Justin Gimelstob last week. The ITF said it could not determine the intent of Hewitt, who claims he was merely referring to the linesman who had called two foot faults against him. Fining Hewitt anything less than $10,000--the standard NBA punishment over the last several years for saying mean things about the league, throwing stray elbows and being Dennis Rodman_would be meaningless anyway. And it hardly matters.