WHEN THE SILENCE IS NO LONGER DEAFENING

 

I wrote this piece in January and my editor made some changes but life has got in the way and I just never got around to publishing the piece.  However, this morning after seeing a tweet from Alla Kudreyetsava I felt that now was an opportune time to perhaps publish this piece. 

We have all done and said things in the past and when we get older we sometimes have moments of self reflection.  We all need a chance to rectify the mistakes of our past and live changed lives. 

 That being said, it is time for tennis to put Ion Tiriac out to pasture.  This man will never change.  He will continue to be a racist, sexist person and no amount of time will ever change that.   His comments about Serena Williams from a few years ago was met with condemnation by the WTA and many tennis legends.  I can't recall if he ever apologised and I believed he was fined for his reprehensible comments.  However, he clearly has not suffered enough as he is back with even more racist and sexist commentary.  This time around though, unless I have missed it, I have not seen any condemnation from the powers that be in tennis regarding his comments. 

This time around tennis needs to allow Ion Tiriac to experience the consequences of his consistently poor behaviour as a professed leader of the sport.  His tournament in Madrid needs to be downgraded or he needs to lose WTA privileges for this tournament.  He already treats the women as if they don't matter at this tournament anyway.  I for one will refuse to watch particular tournament, if the pandemic does not make it obsolete.  The AELTC needs to revoke his membership and have him barred from ever entering the hallowed halls of Wimbledon, in the same way that they banned the father of Bernard Tomic. 

The time has come for tennis to step forward in a very forceful way to condemn behaviour that brings the sport into disrepute. 

 On the same note, I was sad to see the lack of support in relation to Olga Sharipova's story of abuse.  I am not quite sure which agents have told their charges not to respond publicly but this clearly does tennis a disservice when it seems as if incidents of abuse are met with silence and racist and sexist language by so called legends of the sport are also met with deafening silence.

 What does it take for tennis to drag itself into the 21st century and beyond?  

 I saw a tweet recently from WNBA players of the Atlanta Falcons, a team part owned by a politician. The team wore shirts supporting her opponent.  That takes courage.  To put your salary and job on the line in defence of something in which you believe.  I can only hope that tennis players will stand for something, anything, rather than how many likes and RTs or how well their social media is doing.

 Finally, woke up recently to a tweet from Heather Watson asking how she can follow live scores from Abu Dhabi.  If that does not tell you just how shitty and incompetent and worthless the leadership of the WTA is, I don't know what will.

Update:   So a few things have happened since I wrote the above piece in January.  Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times tweeted a piece from the ITF which showed the coverage of men's and women's tennis.  For the money that the ITF spent to do that study, they could have read my blog as it is filled with factual and documented cases of the sexism that permeates tennis commentary.  

As I posited on social media, even the time of day that women's matches are scheduled is usually when most folks are unable to watch a match.  If its the French Open, women's matches are usually scheduled during lunch time while conversely most men's matches are featured at a time when fans are more engaged.  Its not a bug of tennis.  It is a feature.  

Finally, I woke up this morning to the below tweets from Alla. 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2/2 20 year olds and a bunch of mamas that look fitter than ever... I gained a lot of weight during pregnancy and I’m struggling to shed those pounds. I’m trying, I’m working and I’m back on the tennis court... So f*** y** and leave me alone. <a href="https://t.co/JGHmQ4ORTW">pic.twitter.com/JGHmQ4ORTW</a></p>&mdash; Alla Kudryavtseva (@AllaK11) <a href="https://twitter.com/AllaK11/status/1381805685382479873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 Good on you for responding Alla, but maybe if your organisation had done something about what Tiriac did to Serena and maybe if other women had come out and condemned that kind of behaviour and maybe if organisations did not sit there smugly taking money from betting companies while condemning gambling in tennis maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't be experiencing what you experienced.