CAN THE DJOKER CARRY TENNIS?

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.", 

- Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare (Act III, Scene I)

First, it was the big story that wasn't - Serena Williams, poised to win her record tying 22nd major and the calendar slam, suffered a collosal case of nerves and lost a match that nobody thought she could.  ESPN did their best to turn the 2015 US Open into the Serena Show, but somebody forgot to tell Roberta Vinci, and instead of her coronation, we got a whole lot of very disappointed celebrities.

Then the Australian Open came with an attachment:  a story on BuzzFeed about the continuing problem of match-fixing and the (intentionally) dormant effort on the part of tennis authorities to address it.  There was no specific evidence, other than ill-defined, poorly explained statistical analysis that points to the likelihood of match-fixing, or compromised betting patterns.  But the stain is not easily removed, and in many ways, we're all still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Next Serena Williams lost the Australian Open final, and the Indian Wells finals - two tournaments that you probably couldn't have placed a bet on her losing if you wanted to.  One title lost to Angelique Kerber, who has since collapsed under the weight of expectation, and the other to Victoria Azarenka, who seems to have shed some of the excess baggage she'd picked up since winning the Australian Open in 2013.  Suddenly Serena doesn't seem so invincible, and the running story that isn't a story, makes another appearance at Roland Garros before genuine questions will start to be asked, which at the moment, everyone is too afraid to ask:  what's wrong with Serena?

Then Maria Sharapova, the most marketable female athlete in the world, a woman who is reviled and admired the world over, in equal measures, for looking like a prom queen who happens to play tennis, failed a drugs test?  There had been, for years, unjustified suspicion of Serena Williams, because...well..she looks like Serena Williams.  After all, it was Andy Roddick who joked that she was benching small dump trucks at age 11, so it shouldn't really come as any surprise that she looks like this today.  That's why it was all the more shocking that of these two racquet toting divas, the one snared in a drugs fiasco was Her Siberianess.  What the penalty will be for her failed drugs test, which she has neither disputed, nor satisfactorily explained to any and all, is as yet unknown.  But that has been a story that is just waiting in the wings to come back and haunt the game.  

Mark this space...

Rafa Nadal continues to struggle, despite making some progress in Indian Wells before losing tamely to his nemesis.  He has no titles in 2016, his last title was on clay in Hamburg after Wimbledon, and his spring clay court career victory lap around South America has elicited no silverware to bite, and little confidence on the part of his admirers around the world.  Most assume that his best bet to win his last another major will be at Roland Garros this year, but few would count on that given that somebody out there appears to be the best player in the world on the surface, and incredibly he is not from Spain.  If you're holding your breath for Nadal to add to his tally of 14 of the crowned jewels in the kingdom of tennis heaven, I would suggest you grab a canister of oxygen until you can find someone else to support.

Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka are still in the mix; two-time winners at the two majors that the other has not won (together they make an "other slam"...as in someone other than the real big 3).  But neither of them has exactly been burning down the house lately.  To be fair to Wawrinka, he is still the holder of the title at Roland Garros, but we see how heavy was the crown in Australia last year when the third installment of his Aussie trilogy went the way of God's chosen one.  Does anyone get the feeling that Wawrinka's best chance to win a major is to surprise everyone - not the least of whom, himself - lest he crumble under the immeasurable pressure to prove himself anew to the history of the game?  Don't look now, but Murray hasn't won a major in almost 3 years - it doesn't sound like much, until you remember that the likes of John McEnroe, Mats Wilander didn't win any majors after the calendar ticked off it's 365th day from their last.  Lendl and Edberg, by far greater champions than His Irascibleness, didn't go more than 2 years before adding to their major tallies, once they'd figured out how to win a big one...any big one.

Finally, after doing his best Serbian disappearing act 4 times on the trot, Roger Federer, who hasn't won a major in 4 years (that's four years), just had...wait for it...surgery on his knee (cue the melodramatic gasp and clutching of the chest).  Now that doesn't seem like much to shake a stick at, but I can tell you that one of the reasons the tennis world has continued to delude itself into believing that what passes itself off as a rivalry still walks like a duck, is that we are yet to be convinced that what we're witnessing is anything other than the dominance of one at the expense of the other.  We've done so because the unique combination of Federer's athletic prowess appears to persist, but for one glaring exception.  Not so much anymore, following a surgery that for a younger man would be difficult to recover from - let alone a man old enough to be his drunk uncle who just doesn't know when to quit.

When Ray Moore fell on his sword (in more ways than one) I was of the opinion that his comment was not directed at women playing professional tennis, so much as it was a diatribe against the leadership (or the lack thereof) at the WTA.  And when he said that the women ought to be down on their knees thanking God that "Fedal" are still making a nuisance of themselves, I tended to agree with him, or at least accept the proposition as a disconcerting one.  But something just occurred to me that ought to be way more disconcerting for the whole game of tennis, let alone the WTA:  exactly who will be minding the store when the Roger & Rafa show takes a permanent hiatus?

That's where the really scary question comes:  can Novak Djokovic carry tennis?  

It's not a scary proposition because of anything he has done...well, not exactly.  But it's not as if the man isn't playing tennis at the highest level it's ever been played.  He has, after all, contested 5 major finals in a row, won 4 of them - actually he has gone around the world and basically won everything he's entered since January of 2015.  He still makes jokes, he's still the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet, the kind of guy that would help you change a tire in the snow...literally.  He'll do any talk show you can think of, in any language you can imagine, including a couple that you can't.  He's a young, handsome 28 year old newlywed father, his parents (with fleeting exceptions) have largely removed the target from his back, his coach has shockingly done a job that I didn't think he had in him, and there are even jokes being made about the inevitability of his victories on that bloody 36 by 72 foot rectangle with the funny lines?

So why can't he carry tennis?

Is it a conspiracy against him?  Are the grey men of tennis looking down their noses at him, like the jury on Krypton, passing judgment on General Zod?  Has the (not yet) dominant PR machine of Roger Federer, Tony Godsick and Team8 laid the groundwork for his denial from the kingdom of Mount Rush(the net)more?  Does his messianic father still get under people's skin with one idiotic proclamation after another - causing even his own son to distance himself from the craziest of the crazy things he says?  Does he himself put his foot in his mouth, when a more nuanced, more diplomatic, more neutral and...dare I say...more Swiss approach would serve him better? 

My theory is this:  no single star can carry tennis.  It has never been the case that one single player can carry the game of tennis to greater heights, nor bear the weight of the tennis world on his shoulders like a racquet wielding Atlas.  

Big Bill Tilden had little Bill Johnston, Budge had von Cramm, Gonzales had Hoad, Laver had Rosewall, Billie Jean had Margaret Court, Chrissie had Martina, Connors had Borg, Borg had McEnroe, Becker had Edberg, Agassi had Sampras, Federer had Nadal.

But who gapes for the crown of Novak Djokovic?  Competitively, he has in the past been the chaser, and he has had rivalries that are currently diluted where an unjust escape and one competitive set in two played constitutes a good week, but can he alone carry the sport as it appears he may have to?  There is a myth out there that pencil pushers, marketing mavens and sporting bureaucrats can steward the game to success.  That there's some magic formula out there of sex, jokes, celebrity friends and fireworks that can make the game something that it isn't in spite of what it is.  But I have my doubts...I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't a little like the way the real star of the Star Trek franchise isn't James T. Kirk, or Jean-Luc Picard, or Kathryn Janeway...the real star is the Starship Enterprise.  

It survived years of going where no man has gone before, several captains, battles with Klingons and the Borg, and everything in between, and even in another space/time continuum, it survives.  And the guys Ray Moore and the rest of us are looking for to steer the ship are a bit like the passengers on the Enterprise - they may know where all the buttons are, but their fate is really in her hands.

Well, the rivalries, not the players, are the enterprise.  Try as we may to heap all the credit and responsibility on those at the head of the table, it's the ones at the foot of the table that make the ship sail.  And as it stands today, Novak Djokovic is alone at the top of the pyramid competitively, and may also find himself alone figuratively as well.  The throne is an enchantress for the boy who would be king, but as the saying goes:  be careful what you wish for.  There is an old Czech joke about an old man chasing a beautiful and seductive young woman being like a dog chasing a mail truck - even if he catches it, he doesn't have the first damn clue how to drive.  

And with Djokovic's missteps at Indian Wells taking over the news cycle, and subsequent apology and brief PR campaign tour to make up for it, there have to be more than a few people in the halls of tennis' bureaucracy that are wondering if Ray Moore's comments about the WTA could just as well apply to the ATP?  The truth is, they are no more responsible for the success of the game than he is, but the welcome perception, and indeed the unjust expectation, that Novak Djokovic will be, now that he is by far the best player on the planet (male or female), could prove a crown too heavy for his head.

INDIAN WELLS: "ISMS" AND "SCHISMS"

What exactly is sexism?  Is it like art, where you know it when you see it, or does it require a fixed definition?  I'm a firm believer in the idea that words matter and definitions matter; the one without the other creates a murky waterway of innuendo and obligations, driving people to their battle stations, without any sense at all of what it is they're fighting for.  Political polarization has never been greater in this country:  whether your red, blue, purple or green, the telltale sign of your political orientation is the camp to which you report any time an issue comes up that brings it into relief.  The same could be said of the blogosphere when it comes to tennis.  The minute somebody says the word, "women", one is required to declare their position on their place in the game, as if that is something to be determined thereby.

But what happens when definitions are ill-defined?

Indian Wells CEO Ray Moore made the following comments, universally derided as sexist, prior to the final between Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka:

"I think the WTA - you know, in my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA, because they ride on the coattails of the men.  "They don't make any decisions and they are lucky.  They are very, very lucky.  If I was a lady player, I'd go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport.  They really have."

Cue dramatic gasp, and clutching of the chest.  The words themselves could be interpreted offensively on a number of fronts:  from the reference to women getting down on their knees, to thanking God that two men were born that have been carrying the sport, to the very idea that the sport suffers from a disproportionate emphasis on the men even at joint events.  Of course, Serena was asked about his remarks and had this to say, right on cue:

"I don't think any woman should be down on their knees thanking anybody like that...I think Venus, myself, a number of players - if I could tell you every day how many people say they don't watch tennis unless they're watching myself or my sister - I couldn't even bring up that number...So I don't think that is a very accurate statement.  I think there are a lot of women out there who are very exciting to watch.  I think there are a lot of men out there who are exciting to watch.  I think it definitely goes both ways."

Curiously absent from this response, given almost entirely by rote, is the central complaint of Ray Moore:  it's not the women he's complaining about, it's the WTA, which at the moment is run by a man.  And the question of whether they are doing everything they can to add to the interest in the women's game, is an entirely separate question of whether the women are playing the wretched supplicants to the men.  That's because it is only viewed through the prism of an ill-defined notion of sexism, and incredibly gives a pass to an organization which must continually evaluate itself and the role it plays in promoting the game.  

Let us suppose for a minute that, in fact, the women's game were not entirely healthy, and the men's game did in fact bear some responsibility to uphold their sisters on the other side of the schedule?  What then would you make of Moore's comments?  Would he still simply be a sexist trying to denigrate the women's game, or someone concerned with the health of the WTA, because of the important role they play at the tournament of which he is CEO, and the paucity of promotion and proper management under which their great athletes toil?  You see, if your first and only reaction is to go to your battle stations and decry the messenger as a sexist, you won't even get to the more salient question of which you should truly be concerned if your concern is for the health of women's tennis.

When people decry the lack of racial diversity in tennis, does anyone interpret that as, in and of itself, the ravings of an out of touch racist, or someone who wants to deepen the pool of athletes and fans of the game?  When one decries the paucity of American stars in the game, the current crop of young yankees notwithstanding, is this seen as an anti-American bigot, looking to dismiss Americans from the game, or the very real concern that the traditionally most lucrative market for sports in general, and tennis in particular, may be lost to an entire generation?

Why then do we fall to our knees and pray to the Gods of political correctness that we might be delivered from the sexism of the grey old men of tennis, looking down on the world's center courts like the faces of the Kryptonian judges in "Superman"?  Is there an expectation that the WTA can and must raise the profile of the game with equal effectiveness as the ATP, or isn't there?  And if not, why not?  

That's the real sexism:  the assumption that by merely criticizing women, or more accurately those charged with the stewardship of their game, they are being denigrated as a whole.  In fact the opposite is true, the low expectations of sexism compels us to attack any genuine commentary on the direction of the game, with the WTA at the helm, rather than hold their feet to the fire and demand that they produce a product that is the equal of the men.  There are cases where the women's game outshines the men's, and to her credit Serena did point out the fact that the women's final of the US Open in 2015 was sold out before she lost her semi-final to Roberta Vinci, and more significantly, before the men's.  That's saying a lot given that the two finalists are two of the greatest players ever to whack fuzz off the ball in the history of fuzz whacking.  

But it was so obviously an anomaly that it has to be pointed out as a point of refutation.  How many times has that happened in the history of the US Open, or any of the majors, or any of the joint WTA/ATP events?  Serena has played her part, and for this she is duly compensated:  aside from her PR challenged blonde nemesis from Siberia, she is the highest paid female athlete in the world.  Most of the credit for this belongs to the two headed beast that forms her imaginary rivalry with Yuri Sharapov's daughter, and more importantly, not the WTA.

If you can find your way out of the camp, and if you care about women's tennis, there are a lot of questions about the decision making of the WTA over the last few years that can and should be asked.  Good questions that would inform the ill-formed, but no less pertinent comments of Mr. Moore, for which there are as yet few good answers:

• Why does the WTA continue to treat their Year End Championships (whatever the hell it's called these days) like a traveling circus?
• Where the hell was the WTA when Shahar Peer was being treated like a political tennis ball and denied entry to one of their premiere tournaments?
• Why do they distribute ranking points in a convoluted and irrational system, leading to majorless #1's that aren't worth the paper they're written on?
• Why do they persist with this obscene experiment with on-court coaching, when the coaching is clearly doing more damage than good?
• Why does the WTA continue to sell sex and get away with it, then decry sexism when they're called on it?
• Why is the blogosphere obsessed with men's tennis, if measured by its collective commentary, by comparison to the women's game?

You see, I care about women's tennis.  I grew up wanting to play like Martina Navratilova, I modeled my serve after Hana Mandlikova, and I still watch youtube clips of Justine Henin's matches where ever I can find them.  I'm not a sexist, and because I'm not a sexist, I don't falsely praise the quality of women's tennis out of a tacit and imminently sexist presumption that this is as good as it gets.  My expectation of women playing tennis is that they will be as athletic and skilled as the men, because that's what I grew up with, and that's what I've always enjoyed, and I know that's what they're capable of.

So please spare me the self-serving righteous indignation over sexist comments - the sexist comment that was implied, but unjustly ignored, is the assumption that the WTA has less of a responsibility to women's tennis, and by association tennis in general, than the ATP.  Nobody says boo when the same question is asked of the men, and the reason is more telling than the fact:  because everyone expects the men to carry their own weight.  When they don't, they get called out on it, and nobody runs to their battle stations to decry the sexism of criticizing men's tennis.  No, the only way to hold the WTA to the same standards as the ATP is to...well, hold them to the same standards.  

That isn't accomplished by hiding from an intellectual discourse on the state of women's tennis, and the role of the WTA, behind "isms" and "schisms" that are as facile as as they are useless.

SUDDENLY SERENA...

...doesn't seem so invincible anymore.  I mean, that's twice now that she's choked away her shot at #22 - no matter what she says, that number, daunting and simultaneously inviting as it is, is making her nuts when it counts. That's not something we're used to seeing from Serena...well, we're used to seeing her go nuts when she's down, but usually the result is more power, particularly on the return of serve, accompanied by a crumbling opponent who wilts under the pressure of her game.

Well, someobody forgot to tell Kerber that her role in the Serena Show is that of the wilting supplicant...she would make a terrible understudy, by the way.

To be fair, Serena's footwork has never been particularly good - you certainly couldn't compare it to Justine Henin for example, whose footwork was nearly flawless - and as such when she gets nervous, that is usually the first thing to fail her. Boy did it fail her here. Time and again, she was hitting off balance, and frequently hitting reverse forehands from the center of the court for no reason other than she couldn't get her body positioned properly to hit through the ball - the reverse forehand is designed to maintain racquet head speed through a point of contact that is late. But that's not supposed to happen from the middle of the court - it's a bad sign when it does. 

 
In addition to that, when she gets nervous her solution is rarely to dial down the power. Normally she just loads up and hits it harder, and that's exactly the wrong thing to do when you're nervous and your footwork isn't there. But here, one must give credit where credit was due - in the second set, she not only got a hold of her emotions, but she also began to massage the ball about the court more than just hit it. As a result, as well as Kerber retrieved, Serena wound up using that against her, because all she did was chase - i.e. no more attacking, no more short angles, no more flat shots up the line, she just chased. And it worked - despite playing her worst match of the tournament, she was able to get back on even terms by doing the exact opposite of her natural instinct to hit harder.

That's why I was so puzzled by her return to profligacy in the third set. The nerves must have struck again, because she was back to trying to out hit Kerber, and the result was, if not to be expected, certainly fitting. Once again, Kerber was able to surprise her with her defensive shots on the run that landed in strange places with weird spins, and when the moment came for Serena to kill the point she decelerated the racquet head and made errors. The worst feeling in the world is to miss being careful, which is exactly what happened to Serena. Unfortunately, when she tried to belt it, she also made errors, and by the end of the match I had the feeling that she was just confused.

As far as her forays to the net are concerned - I don't know why anyone would be surprised at how poorly she volleyed. But in this particular match, Serena was nervous, and that manifests in poor footwork. For the swinging volley you have to have your feet under you. You can't reach and stretch on that shot and get the proper combination of power and topspin - it's the only shot in tennis where you're encouraged to hit down on the ball. To do that properly, you have to be on top of the ball.  Because her feet were a split second behind her mind, she was too far behind the ball to execute and wound up hitting up and out. She then switched to conventional volleys but her naturally poor technique combined with her nerves made her make a lot of errors. She also doesn't defend the net well, in fact, her net play is poor in general. Her approach shots are frequently indecisive, and her court positioning at net was almost comical. Covering the cross court pass when the down the line was the most likely option Kerber would take and vice versa. To defend the net properly requires a sense of where to go before the passing shot comes. Serena was even more lost at net than she was from the baseline.

At the US Open, Roberta Vinci did a good job of varying the spin on her forehand, hitting some deep with topspin, other times short and either side spin or simply flat, forcing Serena to hit up on her passing shots. Unlike Serena, Vinci has excellent volleys, and combined with a backhand slice that was alternately short and deep, preventing Serena from taking up a good court position, I gave credit to the little Italian for eliciting a lot of errors. I'm sure Serena was nervous, but I felt that it began with how Vinci was playing her, and got worse as the match went along. Here, all Kerber did was retrieve, and surprise her with the pace and placement of her defensive shots...the rest of it was just a case of Serena choking, nearly from the very first point.

There were two more problem areas for Serena, to name a few: first her serve abandoned her, and she didn't get the usual 1 to 2 free points per game that allows her to load up and really belt it in the rallies. Like Roger Federer, her game has evolved to rely on the serve, in order to function normally - when it goes off the boil, the game that seems so invulnerable suddenly appears to be anything but. It's not (as) hard to knock the cover off the ball and bludgeon your opponent into (typical) submission when you're up 30-0 every service game. But when you're in a hole from the off, the calculus, and more importantly, the racquet head speed suffers the consequences.

The second area that really failed her was the return of serve - which is normally a big weapon for her, and contributes to the standard capitulation of her opponents. Normally she is able to put a lot of pressure on that serve with the ferocity of her returns, but I don’t think she ever picked up the strange dynamic of a lefty serve, which was probably exacerbated by her nerves.

So suddenly Serena doesn't appear to be invincible. As readily as her contemporaries are to concede that she is, it just isn't the case when nerves combine with an opponent who either wittingly or unwittingly presents Serena with a style of play that is likely to elicit the worst from her under duress. I've always wondered what her opponents think they're doing when they try to out hit her. Heather Watson nearly made the upset of the decade at Wimbledon by doing a lot of retrieving and hitting aggressively when Serena allowed her to by taking some pace off her shots to manage her nerves. But everyone else (read Sharapova) tries to do what she does better than she does. That's about as clever as welterweight going toe to toe with a heavyweight in the boxing ring, and normally the results are equally distinctive.

But like I said, somebody forgot to give Kerber the script that ESPN had been working on since last September, and she just refused to do what she was supposed to do...namely lose.  I think the clay will help settle Serena's nerves because even though she'll still be nervous, she will get more time to load up and hit with power when the opportunity comes, and she has enough power that she can hit through the slow surface. I'm guessing #22 comes at Roland Garros.

But I wouldn't call that bet into the bookies just yet...

A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE ON NICK KYRGIOS...PLEASE

Okay, I'll take the bait - I am a tennis fan after all, and even the silly stuff gets my ears perked up like a German Shepherd.  And if you're reading this, you've heard of the comment Kyrgios made on court last night during his injury driven victory over Stan Wawrinka.  If you missed it, here's a link to as much of the story as you can handle - believe me.  It's not the worst thing I've ever heard in the heat of a sporting battle, but as far as tennis goes, he may as well have hurled the n-word.

Don't get me wrong - he's been a right pain in the arse for a while now, and deserves the derision he's on the wrong end of, but this idea that he should be punished for a stupid locker room dig at Wawrkina (and Vekic, for that matter) strikes me as being more than a bit over the top.  And this got me thinking:  what is the worst thing I've ever heard on a tennis court?  Depends on your definition of "the worst", I suppose.  I've been watching tennis for 30+ years, and I've seen a lot - and that may be one of the cattiest things I've heard from player to player - but is it the worst?  I don't know.  

You be the judge...

Davis Cup 1987 - John McEnroe to a Linesman

This one may surprise you, because we've all heard the worst of the worst at Wimbledon and the US Open where McEnroe has told umpires and linesman everything from:

"You guys are the absolute pits of the world, you know that?" 

to

"...this guy's an incompetent fool..." 

to 

"What do you want, Mr....whatever your name is...Mr. Incompetent?"

to

"You're a disgrace, and everyone here is a disgrace..." 

to 

"You're pathetic, you know that?  You're the worst umpire I've ever seen in my life!  You're never going to work another match if I have anything to say about it!" 

to 

"Answer my question!  The question, jerk!"

...and that's just what I can post without deleting expletives(--rimshot--)!  

But honestly that was peanuts compared to what he said to a linesman in Davis Cup match with Boris Becker in Hartford, Connecticut in 1987.  

Earlier in Becker's career, in 1985, McEnroe had ironically been in the position of chastising a young player who had the temerity to argue line calls - just let that sink in for a second - McEnroe giving it to Becker for arguing with the officials.  That day, he told Becker to "...try winning something before you start complaining."  Three months later Becker won Wimbledon - McEnroe's Wimbledon to be specific, as he was at that time the two-time defending champion - so the relationship had a rough start to begin with.

On a side-bar, that probably wasn't the worst thing Becker would hear in his career - that could go to what Pat Cash said to him during their 1988 Wimbledon quarterfinal.  As the two last winners of Wimbledon (Becker in 1985/1986, Cash in 1987) the match was tense from start to finish - except for one moment of levity where Cash, chasing down a drop shot, fell face forward over the net, and Becker - in jest - did the same a second later.  Cash was having none of it, and as they each returned to their respective sides of the net, he muttered, loud enough for Becker to hear, "You're a fucking smart-arse Kraut."  Becker paused, momentarily as if he contemplated physically assaulting him, but settled for blowing him off the court in straight sets instead.

But what McEnroe said, not to Becker, but to a linesman, that day in Hartford, during his first match against Becker, a 5 hour 22 minute back breaker for players and spectators alike, was far worse.  He had already said to Germany's captain, Niki Pilic, "You shut up, Niki!  God damn it!  Shut up!", when the tension of the match really got the better of him...yet again.  Feeling that the (largely American) line judges had been unacceptably objective in their calls, McEnroe told a black linesman who'd called a Becker ball good, "I didn't know they had black germans."  The linesman had at once been insulted for his race, and had his patriotism questioned - all for doing what we Americans would say was his job that day - to dispassionately call the lines.  He responded by lowering his head in anger and admirably finishing his shift.

McEnroe's said some pretty mean spirited things on a tennis court, most of which, if you asked him about it now, I'm sure he'd double down on it...assuming he remembers saying it.  Bill Scanlon (who had for years been a thorn in McEnroe's side - his own personal Brad Gilbert, so to speak) claims that McEnroe, in the middle of a match in 1981 in San Francisco attempted, in a perfectly calm and rational way, to explain to Scanlon that not only did he not deserve to be on the same court as him, but that he should do everyone there a favor and lose the match because nobody wanted him to win.  If it weren't so crazy, I wouldn't believe it, but believe it I do.  And I'm sure that, to this day, McEnroe would double down on the sentiment.  After all, who the hell was Bill Scanlon (but an NCAA champion who won six career titles and beat McEnroe at the 1983 US Open when he was the #1 player in the world, Wimbledon champion and had won the title for the third year on the trot two years two year earlier...but I digress)

But this comment to an American, I'm certain he would recant...well, maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't...but it was pretty bad.

2001 US Open, Lleyton Hewitt

For me, the greatest irony of the whole hullabaloo about this Kyrgios kid is that, of all people on the planet, the one he's turned to for guidance and mentoring is Lleyton Hewitt.  

Huh?

I know it's 2015 and he's retiring this year, but has it really been that long since Hewitt was cited for doing almost exactly the same things as has drawn so much derision for his young compatriot?  The list of transgressions is too long to cite every incident, so there is certainly enough fill this column with plenty to refer to "His Irascibleness".  How did Hewitt irritate the tennis world? 

Oh, let me count the ways:

There was his favorite expression to abuse linesman, whom he felt were, "...weak as piss..", his defamation suit against the ATP in 2003, in which he sought $1.5M in damages for being accused of (and fined for) skipping an interview.  In 2005 he once drew the ire of tennis' significant gay community by calling an umpire he disagreed with, "...a poof."  That was in addition to the myriad of his opponents whom he referred to as, "...arseholes...", or specifically the two Argentines whom he 1) shoulder bumped on a changeover (David Nalbandian 2005 Australian Open) and 2) whom he told to "fuck off" (Guillermo Coria) after he directed an overhead smash at Hewitt in a Davis Cup match in 2005.  The Argentine Davis Cup supporters, known for their contextual xenophobia, then coined (and joyfully chanted) this cute little soccer stadium style song:

"Y que paso, 
Y que paso, 
Que Lleyton Hewitt se cagoooo!" 

(translation: "And what happened?  And what happened?  Llyeton Hewitt shit himself!"

But, I would say the worst thing Hewitt ever said on a tennis court was this little delight in the second round of the US Open in 2001, where in a match against James Blake, he demanded the removal of a black linesman whom he insisted was making calls against him, and in favor of his black opponent, out of racial bias:

"Change him, change him immediately!  I've only been foot faulted at one end!  Look at 'im, look at 'I'm mate, and you tell me what the similarity is?"

Let's set aside the idiocy of Hewitt removing a black linesman because he was playing a black player.  I mean, how would it work out if every black player wanted every white linesman removed every time he felt he was getting rooked?  Let's also set aside the stupidity of actually vocalizing terrible thoughts that, if we're honest, go through everyone's head at the worst of times.  You can't help what you think, but you can certainly think twice before expressing the worst of your thoughts.  Is this what he'll be mentoring Kyrgios about?

I would say that the best thing that Hewitt could mentor Kyrgios about is how to apologize for one incident after another...that is, if Hewitt had ever apologized for anything...except to actual spastics after he called an umpire one in 2006.  In fact, in that incident with Blake he simply feigned ignorance, and flatly denied having said anything racial - after trying to sell that mess to the press, he may as well have tried to sell them some oceanfront property in Nebraska.  Maybe he sold it to Kyrgios, because for the life of me, I can't understand the logic behind being mentored by someone who was hated more than you.

Maybe Hopefully the mentoring is entirely technical, in which case I say, "Good on ye' mate!"  Nobody squeezed better results out of their natural-born abilities than ol' Rusty.

Serena Williams, US Open 2009

I'm not going to lie - I wanted to love Serena Williams, I really did...honest.  And if I had a shorter memory, I might have been able to get past the litany of things she's done and said that has placed her right at the top (or bottom, depending on your perspective) of my list of least favorite players on the WTA.  

When she insulted Martina Hingis for a lack of formal education, I found it more than mildly ironic for someone who has a degree in nothing. When she made that hullabaloo over "The Hand", I sided with Henin, because I thought if Serena saw the hand up, she shouldn't have served, and therefore she got what she deserved:  a second serve.  When, after having an overhead smash rightfully directed at her feet, she glared at Maria Sharapova in their Australian Open final of 2007 and muttered "bitch", unlike the Rod Laver Arena audience, I didn't think it was funny. 

But when she threatened to shove a ball down a lineswoman's throat at the 2009 US Open semi-final with Kim Clijsters and was defaulted only for a third code of conduct violation, that really took the cake.  Actually I thought she got off easy, because she should have been immediately defaulted from the entire tournament, including the doubles final, which she played and won with Venus.  But to me, almost as infuriating as the arrogance of her comment to the lineswoman, was the shameless attempt by her supporters to couch her outburst as simply swearing, then call the media and the USTA to task for having a double standard when men do the same - as if the issue was swearing.  There's nothing I hate more than comparing two unlike things, bemoaning the unlike reactions to them, and then claiming some "ism" as a result - mostly because it distracts from actual "isms"...but I digress.

I also thought it was an act of pandering when the USTA chose to give her only a suspended fine and suspension, which actually didn't expire until the week after her 2011 US Open final, where she was again cited for code of conduct violations.  The "sentence" still wasn't enforced, and I wasn't surprised that she didn't cite being black, or a woman, or the player to beat, for that bit of leniency, even though I suspect all of those contributed to it.  I thought it was absurd that she had the audacity to do to Jelena Jankovic the exact same thing Justine did to her, both at the Family Circle Cup in 2013, and again in Dubai last year.  It was just another in a long list of examples of entitlement that she has, in her view, "earned".

Oh well, nobody's perfect, but I've not heard anything worse on the women's side in a long time...6 years, to be exact.

Jimmy Connors, 1991 US Open

For some people, it was the greatest thing that happened to the US Open - in fact to a lot of people it still is.  Just ask anyone who's made it through an interminable rain delay in Flushing Meadows, watching that match again and again, until the image of Connors hilariously neon yellow racquet is burned into your retina.  This despite the likelihood that the most impressive performance was his encounter with Patrick McEnroe, who will unfortunately be remembered best (as a player, that is) for that memorable collapse, and his ATP final against older brother John in Chicago, that same year.  At this time I could point out that Patrick McEnroe should be remembered for winning French Open doubles in 1989, and making the semi-final of the Australian Open in singles in 1991...but I'd digress.

Connors had been away from the game for almost the entirety of 1990, due to a wrist injury that just wouldn't go away.  There were many who were prepared to write his professional obituary, and despite the fact that Connors had developed a certain cult following (with a certain late night crowd at the US Open) generally he had never really been fully appreciated in the tennis world as he is almost universally now.  In the beginning of his career, Connors irritated a lot of people simply by virtue of who he was beating so mercilessly on his way to winning 3 of 4 majors in 1974.  The beloved Ken Rosewall, at age 39, had never won Wimbledon, and Connors did more to cement his reputation as a ruthless competitor, by obliterating the sentimental favorite in the last throes of his career.  Rosewall, for his part, was emotionally trying to etch his name on the wall, 21 years after he lost his first final there to none other than Lew Hoad.  

When he did it again to Rosewall at Forest Hills, what few fans he had at the time, Connors squandered by deigning to do what anyone in his position would have - win big.  The manner of the defeat was the coup de grace from which his popularity wouldn't fully recover until that fateful fortnight in 1991.  It didn't help that, having been raised by women to compete with men, he had something of a chip on his shoulder, which also had him grabbing his crotch, and telling himself to take his skirt off when he felt he wasn't hitting the ball well.

Connors had made no friends by saying about those contemporaries that were less than enamored with him, "Most of these guys are windbags; if any of them wants to start some shit, I'll be ready..." back in his heyday.  He once sued the fledgling ATP (having refused to join it or its boycott of Wimbledon in 1973), and its president Arthur Ashe in 1975, for the part they played in him getting banned from the 1974 French Open, which most assumed he would have won along with the calendar slam that year, had he not insisted on playing World Team Tennis.  Curiously, the same fate had befallen Bjorn Borg in 1977, but somehow the derision readily directed towards Connors, was restrained when it came to his fair haired nemesis.  Speaking of Borg, Connors once told an interviewer, whilst in the midst of a desperate 10 match losing streak to Borg, "I'll follow that son a bitch to the ends of the earth until I beat him again."

In 1984, while getting his ass handed to him by John McEnroe at the semi-finals at Roland Garros, Connors famously wagged his finger in McEnroe's face and told him his 8-year old son behaved better than he did, and that he should grow up and shut up.  Mildly ironic to those who remembered him telling McEnroe to, "...keep your mouth shut when you're out here," in their 1980 Wimbledon semi-final.  Furthermore, he endeared himself to nobody at the US Open in 1977, when he ran over to the other side of the clay court in his 4th round encounter with Corrado Berazzuti to wipe out a mark the Italian was in the process of questioning. He would go on to lose that final to Guillermo Vilas, poetically on an equally dubious call which was overturned based on a mark in the clay.  Vilas is still waiting for his handshake from that match.

But 1991 was his moment, and while the world were enamored of his memorable run to the semi-final of the US Open, losing to Jim Courier, the tournament reached a kind of anti-climax when the heir apparent to his competitiveness (if not his behavior) put him out of his sweet misery before losing to Edberg in the final.  Connors had played Aaron Krickstein in 4th round in Louis Armstrong stadium, where his young "friend" suffered the ignominy of being the most memorable of 5 losers to Connors that year in his run.  And it was during that match, Connors uttered one of the more memorably disgraceful things ever said on a tennis court to umpire David Littlefield.  To start, he took issue with an overrule that Krickstein had suborned, saying:

"Get your ass out of the chair, you're a bum - you're a bum!  I'm out here playing my ass off, 39 years old, and you're doing that?  Very clear, my butt, my butt, very clear!  You wouldn't 'a said anything if Krickstein had gone over!"

Later, after another ball had been called long, which he didn't overrule, perhaps out of fear of getting involved unecessarily, Connors had this to say:

"Get the fuck out of here, god-damn it - you are abortion...you are an abortion!  Do you know that?"

To me, that takes the cake - the worst thing a good catholic kid from St. Louis could say to an umpire, and he said it twice.  Littlefield, to his credit, behaved entirely professionally, and didn't respond in kind, although it was his right to do so.  He didn't even cite him for a code violation, which in my opinion was a mistake, but who would have had the courage to do so under the circumstances?

For my money, I've never heard anything worse on a tennis court.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

I think a lot worse things have been said on a tennis court than somebody slept with your girlfriend a year ago, who may or may not have been your girlfriend at the time.  It's a daggy thing to say at any time...but under your breath, facing the other way, 90 feet away, I hardly think Kyrgios was saying it for Wawrinka to hear.  In the worst case scenario, it was a stupid thing to say, and may get him "Penn 1" tattooed on his chest the next time he faces Wawrinka, but hardly the equal of some of the more unsavory things cited above.

A little perspective never hurts...

CITI OPEN: SUDDENLY SAMANTHA

I'm not going to lie - I love almost everything about Sam Stosur, and I have for years.  One look at the second most famous pair of guns in women's tennis, and knowing what she came through 8 years ago to recover from Lyme disease and to come back, like the bionic woman, better-stronger-faster, only the most cynical of cynics would suggest that she is anything but 100% committed to being the best player than she can be.  That may not seem like much if you assume that such commitment is universal, but from the mouths of (big tennis) babes in this piece, in fact, it is as refreshing as it is rare.  On the basis of this commitment alone, the level of admiration for her, from all corners of the sports world, ought to be very high indeed.

And then when you get a look at her game, it's hard not to appreciate that as much (if not more) than her commitment.  She hits one of the heaviest serves on tour, with a combination of pace and spin that is generally unseen in women's tennis.  It helps that her shoulders are broader than mine, so that she can bring the racquet head up and over her crown the way she must, to make the ball leap off the court the ways he does.  But the thing that really gets it done on that shot is her legs - nobody leaps up and into their serve like she does, and that's the main reason for its effect.  

Similarly, on her forehand, she has a modern version of the stroke that minimizes the all racquet head movement prior to the point of contact.  Whilst keeping the racquet head entirely on the forehand side of her body, she launches the full force of her legs and core into the stroke, with a follow through so full and violent, she finishes with a curl across her chest, or over her head, almost out of necessity.  Both of those strokes impart more top spin on the ball than any other player on tour.  And while her technical asymmetry, (a forehand far superior to her backhand) more characteristic of the ATP than the WTA I might add, presents defensive challenges for her, from an attacking perspective, no player is more capable of controlling the center of the court.  And because her stroke production is efficient, she can do it equally well on all surfaces.

I asked Sam, in her pre-tournament press-conference, whether she and her coach talked about or worked on any conscious adjustments to her game as she made an unusual transition, this year from grass to clay to the hard courts in the span of six weeks.  Her response was at once surprising and revealing:  she said that while the clay is best suited to her game, and adjustments have to be made regardless of whatever surface you're coming from or going to, the vast majority of adjustments are the result of a natural (but accelerated) evolution of her game, and that is, in my opinion a testament to her technical efficiency.  The fewer the moving parts, the fewer the adjustments that need to be made, and that bodes well.

Speaking of technical asymmetry, it didn't prevent her from pulling off one of the greatest upsets and most comprehensive major final victories, over Serena Williams, in 2011 at the US Open.  There, she used the slice backhand more effectively than I've ever seen her do before or since, and the result was equally unique.  Unfortunately that match is known more for this little tantrum from Serena, than for her brilliant technical and tactical mastery of the game, which I admired from start to finish, but the thing to remember in that match, is that Stosur had just lost to Serena in Los Angeles earlier that year, and earlier in Serena's comeback.  So if there were a time for her to sneak one in on her more illustrious rival, it would have been on the West Coast - but fortunately for Sam, she used the information from the first encounter, to great effect in the second.

I've always admired players who ignore the illusory impact of the overwhelming head-to-head record (one of tennis' greatest myths) and persevere with both their mind and their technical arsenal.  As the Romans used to put it, one should return from battle either with their shield or on it, and Stosur risked looking like the occasion had gotten the best of her (as it did in 2010 at Roland Garros against Francesca Schiavone), had her tactical approach caused her to fall on her face.  But to her credit, she left it all on the court, mentally and physically, and deservedly won.

Since then, Sam's results have been more reminiscent of the limited success she enjoyed prior to what has turned out to be the zenith of her career.  To the best of my ability, I haven't been able to figure out why.  And that's why her victory over Irlina Falconi today at the Citi Open, the 501st in the career best female Australian player since Evonne Goolagong, was so encouraging for me to observe.  Coming off of a comeback victory in the Bad Gastein final two weeks ago, Sam's game appears to have turned a corner, and the timing couldn't be better.  The pace on her first serve was everything you'd expect it to be, and would have been uniquely impressive had it not been for the placement thereof.  Time and again she hit spots on the court with pace 20 to 30 mph faster than her opponent.  And no matter how many times Falconi belted one flat cross court forehand after another, the tight production of her own forehand not only kept Stosur in the point, but allowed her to get a foothold in the return of serve that gave her an insurmountable edge in the match.

But what I really like about the way Sam's game looks right now is her movement - nobody in the women's game floats around the court like Sam does.  You'd think quickness was a strength, but that's not the same as having world class movement.  At the end of the day, the paramount objective of any player's footwork, but especially Sam's is to get in position to hit her shots.  And the most important shot of all is the forehand.  Sam's ability to shuffle around the outside of the ball, in order to go big on the inside out forehand, and set up the put away to the other corner, is her footwork.  And these days, it's as good as it's ever been, and then some.  I, for one, would be delighted to see her carry that through to the 2015 US Open.  

She'll need to if she is become (once again) the only player on tour to have beaten Serena Williams at her home major (with no asterisk attached) since Justine Henin did it in 2007.

ROTHENBERG'S GIFT TO SERENA (ET AL)

Recently, a New York Times article made a lot of people very upset for asking a very simple question - if Serena Williams' physique is key to her success, why don't others emulate her?  If one can ignore the chorus of the lunatic fringe, who censure the obvious (and coincidentally irrelevant) "-isms" of every comment about her that is anything less than superlative, you might notice that the question is actually a fair one - check that - it's a good question.

But just asking it has landed Ben Rothenberg in hot water with a striation of the blogosphere who conflate any perceived denigration of any individually great woman, with the denigration of all women.  As such, this reasonable question, asked with what I assume are good intentions (also coincidentally irrelevant) becomes a sideshow to the deluge of righteous indignation and dubious offense taken by many who wouldn't know an '-ism' if it slapped them in the face.  But this "-ism", the "-ism" of low expectations, where the pursuit of knowledge beyond the perfunctory is prohibited by a self-appointed moral police, is  counterproductive.  They are so obsessed with coming to the defense of those suffering from any "-ism", they won't even allow the pursuit of understanding to exit the womb.  This is the worst kind of "-ism" because it robs us of even the opportunity for analysis that might actually lead to eliminating the source of the offense it seeks to kill in the crib.

Take, for example, this parody of the above article, which replaces the female tennis players in the original, with American footballers, ostensibly to elucidate the absurdity of Rothenberg's piece, and the quotes therein.  Unfortunately, lost in translation is the irony of all ironies - the most absurd comments in the original article come, not from men, but from other women.  The culprit in the presumed disrespect the piece supposedly visits on Serena, comes not from the author, or some sniveling dark hand behind it all, but her fellow professionals.  Which begs the question - by eschewing a rational competition with her athletic prowess, for an irrational competition for aesthetic appeal, who really loses out on the former, and who is responsible for the subjugation resulting from the latter?  In my view, Serena is laughing all the way to the bank, and her contemporaries, if they are to be believed, have only themselves to blame.

Speaking of which, that is actually one contention in the piece with which I would take issue, not because it is offensive, but because I believe it to be the following false premise:  if other women in the game wanted to achieve a clearly advantageous (from a sporting perspective) physique, they could.  But the paucity of like-minded and like-bodied contemporaries is merely a matter of choice, rather than a limitation of their genetics. Now, discussing genetics runs the risk of bleeding into questions of race.  This has been the case ever since Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder contended back in 1988 that black Americans were "bred" by slave owners to have superior innate physical abilities.  In this context, black athletes (and their unsolicited defenders) are particularly sensitive about the discussion of genetics factoring into the prevailing success of black athletes as a group.

Despite the fact that many blacks make the same assumptions about their athletic prowess that others do, the offense comes from the presumption that, given their genetic head start, a black athlete who achieves athletic success is simply doing what they're supposed to do, and thus less deserving of praise.  After all, would you congratulate a male sprinter for defeating a female sprinter, given his predisposed advantage?  Conversely, any white athlete who is even remotely competitive, is lauded as a modern-day David holding at bay the innate advantages of an army of black Goliaths.

While these assumptions are offensive to many, resisting them of the sake of black athletes as a group, does not exclude recognizing individual black athletes whose athletic abilities are well beyond the sixth sigma.  Not all blacks are athletically gifted, nor are all black athletes relatively gifted to athletes of other races - and those that happen to be don't succeed exclusively due to their individually innate capacity with which they were born - it could just as easily result from hard work and training - which happens to be the case with Serena (and Venus for that matter) whose father compelled them to do push ups and sit ups nightly from a very young age, learn to throw a football, and other unique muscle building exercises...for women, anyway.

Therefore, citing Serena's physique as a factor in her success does not necessarily negate the other qualities that make her the champion that she is.  Conversely, try as we may, (with the best of intentions) we can bury our heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge those gifts.  But this omission will not necessarily elevate her other qualities, as the key to her individual success.  The answer is clearly somewhere in the combination of the two, but when we approach a great athlete from the perspective that there are only certain qualities we are allowed to discuss, we do ourselves the disservice of not fully analyzing all factors that contribute to success.  As such, we diminish our capacity to identify and nurture the same in others, whom we would seek to help achieve their maximum results.  That proverbial head we bury in the sand is metaphorically cut off.

I should also point out that Serena Williams is not the only black tennis player on the WTA tour.  Therefore, discussing Serena's achievements is an individual assessment, and the true racism lies not in honestly analyzing all the factors in her success, but in the assumption that any of those qualities are due to her race.  The failure of other black tennis players to achieve any success on par with hers (including her sister who shares a gene pool) plainly dispels that uncomfortable myth.  So whether one comes to her defense as a black woman playing tennis, or one launches an attack on her that is actually or just perceived to be, racially based, the results are equally pernicious, because both ascribe too much significance to her race.

Serena is a great tennis player, with an extraordinary physique, deep skills in her tool kit, and a competitiveness that has brought her to the pantheon of great players in the history of the game.  These are facts that are undeniable, and that she happens to be black is entirely irrelevant to that.  This is one of the most important things to take away, not only from Rothenberg's piece, but from her career on the whole.  Rothenberg does not ascribe her success to her race, but to her individual physical qualities - and of that ascription, would it were any other player of any other race, in all likelihood it would not be met with such vehement resentment.  It is only in the context of racial bias, or a desire to mitigate racial bias, that it does.  By this measure, the article and the question posed by it, can lead to the mitigation of racial bias, but only if it is allowed to be asked, which the lunatic fringe of Serena's supporters, by the fervency with which they attack the piece, ironically wind up preventing.  And the one who suffers that unintended consequence is...Serena.

The question of her femininity is almost entirely irrelevant to her record as a champion.  The author didn't even call that into question, either in intent or practice.  That can be blamed entirely on the answers of her contemporaries to the question of why others don't emulate her physicality - as if to be, or not to be, as strong, fast, flexible and resilient as she is is a boolean choice available to all her contemporaries.  But I would beg to differ.  There are certainly players on tour who might have the natural genetic template to build a similar physique if they chose to pursue it.  But I would argue that such a choice is not available to most players, and to assume that it is eschewed by competitors simply as a matter of aesthetics, even if players insist that is the case, constitutes a false premise that is neither probative nor informative.  The real question is why they don't bother to try?  Isn't it some failing of their commitment to compete?

In fact, the responses of her contemporaries bear some analysis of the irrational competitiveness of women on the WTA tour:  is their objective to succeed on the tennis court or in some ethereal realm of aesthetic appreciation - either within the game or in their personal lives?  One could argue that it is doubly irrational to be concerned with the latter, because it would translate into financial benefits, if (and only if) there is commensurate success on the field of play.  There are a lot of beautiful tennis players ranked 100 to 1,000 that most have never heard of - this is as it should be.  One can argue further, (and pointlessly, in my opinion) that Maria Sharapova is more beautiful than Serena because hers is a physique that is more in line with tennis fans, and not that of an elite athlete.  But this too is largely a matter of taste and largely irrelevant to their place in the competitive record of the sport.  Isn't this all that truly should matter?  So while the road is paved with good intentions, insisting that Serena be appreciated for her aesthetic appeal, as well as the functional qualities of her physique, leads, in fact, to a continuation of the problem of an irrational competition.

Furthermore, eschewing a competitive advantage that might result from a less aesthetic, but more effective physique, entails a misplaced priority on something that the tennis world ought to be the last place one might find it.  That speaks to the irrational competitiveness of the women on the WTA tour, and not viewers that may or may not find personally attractive, a certain body type.  Does anyone care if any women find the physique of JJ Watts aesthetically appealing?  Of course not, precisely because his physique is functional, and it is the function for which he is lauded.  The paucity of similarly superficial emphases on aesthetic appeal on the ATP tour is not the result of some insidious conspiracy to subjugate women to the demands of male-driven interest.

It is the result of a proper priority placed on functional qualities by the players themselves, who would grow an elbow straight out of their forehead, if they thought it would give them a competitive edge.  Collectively or individually, they would never in a million years indicate a preference to remain less muscular or less fit because it is more appealing in the abstraction of their chosen field of endeavor.  The men are almost monolithically committed to success on the court, and many would take any opportunity to achieve that success (up to and including illicit means - a subject for another post) regardless of the consequences, because the priority is on success, and not appeal.

I mean, can you imagine if Rafael Nadal's ATP profile photo looked like this:

Instead of like this:

He would be laughed right out of the locker room, not because the first photo lacks aesthetic appeal - to the contrary one could argue its only appeal is aesthetic - but that would be precisely the problem.  So what of the collective self-perception of his female colleagues? 
The website wtatennis.com has rightfully moved away from profile photos that look more like this:

...which I applaud, not because they are not beautiful, but because they have nothing to do with why we even know who they are.  As such, does it make sense to point the finger at Rothenberg for asking a question about athletic qualities, and getting answers that are right in line with the absurdity of photos like these?  I believe the WTA is coming to their senses and realize that because they are responsible for the impression the world has of women's tennis, they must lead from the front, and avoid the celebration of an entirely irrelevant point of judgement.

Count me among the supporters of the game who is hoping that the players will follow the WTA's lead.  Women who view the world of professional sports as unduly focused on the pulchritude of its female participants, at the expense of an appreciation of their athleticism, do themselves no favors by castigating articles like Rothenberg's - after all, his only crime was posing a question about functional body sculpting.  That the answers he got back were dripping with commentary perceived to be sexist or racist (neither of which can be assumed unless one attaches Serena's the individual qualities to all women - an absurd proposition), is damning of her contemporaries, and not their messenger - but boy have some tried to kill the messenger on this one.  

The truth is, somewhere in this conversation, in deep dark places, where we only talk about things at parties, the irrational competitiveness of these women, aspiring to intangible and ethereal qualities at the expense of the rational competition of their sport, must surely constitute a more salient question than the author's motives.  We should all be asking why in the world would a professional athlete care whether she is perceived as beautiful to the extent that she limits her athletic potential?  Rather than insisting that Serena Williams be perceived as beautiful because she's a great athlete, and thus feeding into this misplaced priority, would it not make more sense to address the irrational desire to be beautiful in a completely inappropriate context?  Either her own desire (with which she has, according to the article, come to terms - and hence the article should be celebrated) or her millions of female supporters who tangentially, vicariously and desperately hang on her every success and/or perceived appreciation thereof?

It is no more progressive to insist that Serena be universally embraced on questions of aesthetic appeal, based on her unquestionable pedigree in an athletic assessment, than it is to insist that a female athlete should be as interested in being beautiful as they are interested in being successful in their chosen field of endeavor.  Both are absurd, and both feed the absurdity of her colleagues body image.  I contend that for some, Serena Williams is a beautiful woman who happens to play tennis magnificently.  I contend also that for others, Maria Sharapova is the beautiful woman who also happens to play tennis - not as well as Serena, but pretty well.  

But the former part of each of those contentions, is a matter of personal opinion which we can no more morally oblige anyone to hold, than we could deny the latter parts thereof.  Insisting on anything else would side-step a rather obvious conclusion, alluded to by Rothenberg and universally ignored by all those who would (with either the best or worst of intentions) step into the "sexier" but largely irrelevant debate, rather than the reason we actually bother with sports.  For this is Rothenberg's gift to Serena and anyone reading the piece, if they'd actually read it with genuine curiosity, rather than prejudiced derision:

The records have leave no room for personal opinion - you either did or you didn't.  And it is the very freedom afforded by this underlying principle of sports, that we are judged by what we do and not how we look doing it, that could actually liberate those of us under the real, or perceived, yolk of one "-ism" or another.

Would it were so in all of life.