I recently witnessed, as I am sure many of you did, an extreme example of bad sportsmanship, and not just from one person.
I am talking of course about the recent US Tennis Women’s Final.
Sports people should always play by the rules and play in a sporting manner and the higher up the ladder they go the greater care they should take. Certainly once they reach the position where their performance is televised to potentially millions of people, including young aspiring athletes not just in their sport but all sports, they should be very careful indeed to ‘control their emotions’.
Ms Williams and her support person (to use the Racing Rules of Sailing term) broke the rules, then Ms Williams did it again, then again. 3 strikes = 1 game in the rules of tennis – no argument.
It should also be noted that by the time she received her 1st code violation she had already lost the 1st set.
People should also be very clear that if other umpires don’t enforce the rules as they should it is NEVER the fault of an umpire who does so enforce them.
At equal fault in my view was the ‘baying of the wolves’ as the partisan New York crowd booed the Award Ceremony – has America really sunk to this level? Sadly now when Osaka thinks of her first Grand Slam victory then the disgusting behavior of the crowd will be part of that picture.
Racism? Osaka was a non-American and also ‘of color’ so if anyone was displaying racist behavior it was the US Open Tennis crowd – shame on you!
For a more eloquent analysis of the whole situation, it is worth watching this.
It is always dangerous when sports celebrities think they are bigger than the sport that made them so. She lost much more than a tennis match that evening in my view.
Just Sayin’
SS
