23
votes
Naomi Osaka withdraws from French Open, takes break from tennis, one day after tennis’ Grand Slams threatened disqualification or suspension if she continued to skip press conferences
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Naomi Osaka withdraws from French Open, takes break from tennis
- Authors
- OlympicTalk
- Published
- May 31 2021
- Word count
- 832 words
Apparently when she beat Serena Williams in 2018 people were booing her?! What the fuck?!
Yeah, Serena got three penalties and threw a tantrum every time.
The first was a warning for coaching from the stands, the second was a lost point for smashing her racket on the ground, and the third was a lost game for arguing with the umpire.
Serena tried to appeal to the tournament referee to get it overturned, but it was upheld, and she claimed that the penalties were because she was a woman.
Even without the penalties, Naomi was already beating her and would have won, but because of how Serena acted, her win against her idol was really soured and when it came time to receive her trophy, she was greeted with a stadium of booing.
I just rewatched a bit of the trophy ceremony to remind myself of what happened, specifically this part:
The pain in her face when she tries to come up with an answer is just heartbreaking.
It's the moment that she's dreamed of, and it was ruined so thoroughly by her idol that she ends up crying and apologizing for winning.
espn highlights video showing the incidents
nytimes article about it
the trophy ceremony
You could have included that Serena went out of her way to make it clear that she wasn't just being unsportsmanlike and griping about Osaka. She defended her to the crowd in the moment and subsequently to the press, as well as congratulated her at the net and told her how proud she was of her achievement.
There was some definite bias against Serena in the controversy that swirled in the aftermath of the match, some of which is explained by the generally ridiculous expectations that athletes in America are generally burdened with, and some that runs deeper, as alluded to in the article spit-evil-olive-tips posted. I don't condone her behavior but I also don't condone all the judgment from armchair pundits who can't seem to let elite sportspeople be human in the moment. It's hard to conclude from your comments here that you don't hold some of that bias.
There are many articles about Djokovic throwing a tantrum over the course of multiple events.
Just looking up "tennis tantrum" seems to reveal that it's a pretty commonly used word in that sport.
Why not?
I say Tom Brady throws a tantrum every time he gets pissed when roughing the passer isn't called.
I'm not saying that this is necessarily what's happening in this particular case, since "tantrum" seems to be pretty commonly applied to both genders in Tennis... However, criticism and commentary that utilizes infantilizing and sexist language definitely seems to occurs far more frequently with women than it does with men, especially in sports (and politics). E.g. Referring to similar tier professional teams as the "girls" or "ladies" teams on one side, vs the "men's" team on the other. Attributing the actions of career-minded women to "hysteria", "frigidity", "nastiness", etc., and treating their ambition and competitiveness as if they're somehow profound character flaws, whereas with men the exact same behavior is often viewed as admirable and lauded. Etc.
Again, that's not necessarily what is happening here, but it's still something to try to be aware of, and critical of when it does occur, IMO.
I would absolutely describe arguing with the umpire for giving a penalty as throwing a tantrum regardless of who it is.
Even if the player believes it isn't a justified penalty, I cannot recall many instances in any sport where a player argued with a referee and the referee's response was "well gee, you've made a very convincing argument, so I'm going to remove the penalty."
So if you've gotten a penalty, arguing about it will change nothing and just looks bad in my opinion.
It's really not about reversing that individual line ruling, it's more about making them hesitate and lose confidence in their ability to judge where the line is so they hesitate before ruling against you the next time.
It always looks bad though. Especially in tennis where a big part of the culture of the sport emphasizes gentlemanly conduct.
Honestly high-level athletes whining about refs transcends sport or gender. I mean, here's an entire podcast episode on the subject [1]. Even after the NBA spent 15 millions dollars to build a replay center, players still continued to complain about referees, despite NBA referees being objectively fairer now than at any prior point in history. In fact, the most vociferous whiners are the star players, so it really shouldn't be surprising that Williams would also fit this stereotype. I won't attempt to psychoanalyze celebrity athletes except to say that some combination of hyper-competitiveness, privilege, and narcissism probably exacerbates their willingness to gracefully accept a referee's call.
(For what it's worth, Michael Lewis refers to these NBA players as "pitching [...] hissy fits", further reinforcing that infantilizing language doesn't apply exclusively to women in this matter.)
[1] https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/ref-you-suck-s1!c5106
I think it's awesome she's taking this stand. Many athletes are extroverts and comfortable with public speaking, but there's no reason we should expect every single one of them to be.
Reminds me of Marshawn Lynch's "I'm just here so I won't get fined" press conference before the Super Bowl a few years ago.
The lack of sensitivity for a person with mental health issues is appalling. There's an article on Deadspin that is basically a journalist bitching at her from start to end. Of course a sports journalist will complain about someone not talking to the press... fuck everything else. If you see it, don't read it. You might feel ill.
We're not the good guys
This article has some interesting points, especially around why we even have press conferences anymore, given that athletes have direct access to their fans now.
One of the main reasons is so that the larger organization (be it a team or an entire league) can make sure that the athletes stay on message and, more importantly, include the organization.
It helps keep the relationship in the organization’s control, rather than allowing a more direct relationship between the fans and athletes. Obviously it’s better for athletes (and arguably fans) to have a direct relationship but the team owners want everything to go through them.
I don't disagree, but it does seem a little strange for an individual sport.
The bigger organization here would be the organization that runs the French Open. It’s not just her doing press conferences, but all of the tennis players competing in the tournament.
But it does make a bit more sense for more team-oriented sports like basketball and soccer.
From Jemele Hill in The Atlantic: Naomi Osaka Is Part of a Larger War Within Sports