Tennis Held To Higher Moral Standard

On September 12, 2009, Serena Williams lost to Kim Clijsters of Belgium in the Women’s Singles semi-final of the U.S. Open, in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. This in itself is not the shocking part of the match between two former World No. 1’s. Clijsters had made her return to professional tennis, this summer in Cincinnati, after a new two-year retirement to start a family. This was the first time since Clijsters won the title in her last appearance at the U.S. Open, in 2005, so nobody expected her to be a contender for the title, in only her third tournament back. However, her natural talent and veteran status against a familiar opponent in Williams made up for her current lack of match play.
The shocking part happened within the last 10 minutes of the match, when Williams was serving to stay in the match late in the second set, having lost the first. She was down 15-30 when a lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams, giving Clijsters match point. An irate Williams turned around, waved her racquet and tennis ball and yelled obscenities at the lineswoman. After losing the first set, Williams had smashed her racquet, warranting a warning. According to the rules of professional tennis, the next course of action for “un-sportsmanlike conduct” warrants a point penalty. Once Williams received this next penalty, the match was over because it coincidentally fell on match point. The whole escapade is shown in a video on Youtube video entitled Serena Williams U.S. Open 2009 Freaks Out.
Williams’ behavior was blown way out of proportion in my opinion. I am in no way condoning cursing someone out and getting in their face while waving a tennis racquet, especially in front of children. However, for those like myself, who watched the match and the replay of the controversial call, the lineswoman was wrong in her decision. As an experienced and knowledgeable tennis fan and player, it is habit for a player to commit foot faults throughout a match and not have one creep in when a match is minutes from being over. If it had been called from early on in the match, I would probably be a little less tolerant of Serena’s outburst. In my opinion, she had a right to be angry, but she could’ve had a better reaction to the call of the lineswoman. This is especially true because of the fact that foot faults aren’t allowed to be “challenged” via computer generated radar, like whether a ball landed in or out of the lines on the court. The offense/punishment ratio isn’t fair.
The sports world has seen it’s fair share of “heat of the moment” tirades and emotional outbursts. While these received a lot of media coverage and criticism from fans, none it seems to me, were held as an example of how not to behave, like Serena was. Some examples that stick out in my mind are the recent fight between Boise State and the University of Oregon football teams, the 2004 Ron Artest vs. basketball fans fight, the 2003 fight between the Yankees and Red Sox and professional tennis’ own John McEnroe in well, most of his matches.
The first example of un-sportsmanlike conduct is senior running back, LeGarrette Blount. Blount was the main topic in Week One of the 2009 college football season. Blount hadn’t played extremely well or extremely poorly, though. All of the hype was about the post game fight that he initiated when he punched a Boise State defensive lineman. Blount then proceeding to take his frustration out on the fans, whom he claimed, were taunting him. All of this was because of their 19-8 loss. What was his punishment? A suspension for the rest of the season, issued by the University of Oregon and no formal police charges were filed. The fact that he was suspended for the rest of the season seems like a catastrophic sentence, seeing as that he was a senior and it would ultimately end his college football career. However, in my opinion, it could’ve been worse. Not being able to play college football anymore is a lot less devastating than serving a jail sentence for assault and having that put on your criminal record. Two popular sports news websites, ESPN and Bleacher Report, covered the game and the post-game fight. According to the BR article, Blount may not even receive the sentence handed down from the University of Oregon. This to me is ridiculous. I don’t care if he’s a senior college athlete. He should be punished like anyone else would, for assault.
On November 22, 2004, ESPN’s website reported that Indiana Pacer, Ron Artest will serve a 55-game suspension without pay for fighting with fans during a game. Detroit Pistons’ Ben Wallace, who started the fight when he shoved Artest, was banned for six games without pay, according to the article. All of these suspensions without pay were considered the harshest in NBA history. The fact that it’s a big deal for Artest to lose $5 million in a sport where you don’t even have to play to get paid is absurd. Considering that he had legal problems prior to the 2004 incident, I think it’s quite generous that he wasn’t suspended the rest of the season and/or didn’t serve a prison sentence.
Perhaps two of the most famous and certainly, two of the best Major League Baseball teams of all time are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. A month after watching a 21 year-old Andy Roddick win his first Grand Slam title at the 2003 U.S. Open, I watched a 32 year-old Pedro Martinez slam a 72 year-old Don Zimmer into the ground, by his head during Game 3 of ALCS. This was just one part of the action in what turned out to be quite a large brawl between the two MLB powerhouses. Since then, the status quo has been restored, the incident seems to have been forgotten and all of the star players who were involved are still idolized today, despite their violent behavior. All has been forgotten, except in the eyes of Jorge Posada, Pedro Martinez and I. I will never forget what I saw that day and neither will Posada and Martinez. In September 2008, Posada brought up the incident in an interview, saying that Martinez had no class. Martinez retaliated, saying Posada cursed his mother. I don’t know what to think about that accusation, but I do think that a serious punishment was not inflicted on every player, coach, manager involved, is an embarrassment to all of professional sports. In fact, I found a video on Youtube that is a sort of homage to the rivalry between the two teams and even includes images of the brawl from 2003. That says to me that it’s okay for professional sports industry people are allowed to act barbarically without serious consequence.
Now let’s get back to Serena. Former professional tennis player and current tennis commentator, Mary Carillo sticks out in my mind as her biggest critic, calling for a harsher punishment. This to me, is utterly ridiculous, considering that Carillo knows the “you don’t play, you don’t get paid” rule of professional tennis and also considering that one of her closest friends is tennis’s original “bad boy,” John McEnroe. One of McEnroe’s most famous tirades (of which there were many) was at the 1984 Stockholm Open and was featured on Tennis Channel’s series, “Best of 5: Temper Tantrums.” McEnroe was facing Swedish star, Mats Wilander in the men’s singles final and in frustration, McEnroe took his racquet and smashed all of the drinking glasses on a table into the first row, hitting spectators, including the king of Sweden. He went on to win the match and the title, despite getting several code violations from the chair umpire.
Of all these examples of un-sportsmanlike conduct, I am going to be bold enough to say that Serena’s is the least offensive, with the most drastic punishment. I realize that she was not suspended like most of the others were, but I think that the inconsistency of racquet abuse warnings needs to be addressed in professional tennis. The chair umpire was too quick to penalize her for that especially, since this is a frequent occurrence with an infrequent penalty. Also, her infraction was not violent toward her opponent, fans, or officials. She may have used threatening language, but what she did goes along with the age-old saying, “actions speak louder than words.” The infractions by the other athletes were not only physically harmful to others, in some cases; they could’ve been criminal offenses. An article published on the NBC website re-hashes the whole incident in clear detail, including a statement from John McEnroe.
The fact that tennis is seen as more prestigious and held to a higher moral standard is ridiculous. Not only are tennis players paid less, and actually required to play in tournaments to receive that money, but they are also more “fan friendly.” Yet they aren’t allowed to express their frustration during matches, tested more often for banned substances, and fined for small things such as skipping press conferences. Basketball, baseball and football players do not have to play their perspective sports in order to get their salary, they aren’t tested for steroids frequently and often only interact with fans at organized events that require payment to receive autographs. These factors alone should get tennis players, including Serena Williams, more respect.