Tennis down under
I decided to take a break from reading about the historical development of states and rights in Europe to check in on the Australian Open women's singles final. Since I don't have ESPN, I tuned in to the on-line audio broadcast of the final just in time to hear Justine Henin-Hardenne forfeit the final, giving Amelie Mauresmo a 6-2, 2-0 victory, and her first Grand Slam title. As much as I enjoy Henin-Hardenne's game (lord, that backhand is a thing of beauty), I'm thrilled about Mauresmo's victory (she, too, has a lovely backhand; yeah, I like one-handed backhands (Roger Federer's is the most beautiful I've ever seen)).
Tomorrow, Mauresmo became (sorry, just had to do that since the final is played on Saturday but it's still Friday here) the first openly gay player to win a Grand Slam singles title since Martina Navratilova won her last Wimbledon title in 1990. (Amazingly, Navrativlova's last Grand Slam title--number 58--came in 2003, when, at age 46, she won the Australian Open mixed doubles title with Leander Paes. Navratilova still holds the overall record for professional singles titles--men or women--with 167.) While the fact that Mauresmo is a lesbian may not seem like a big deal, it was a big deal the last time she was in a Grand Slam final, the 1999 Australian Open:
In 1999, Mauresmo was 19, had just emerged on the tennis scene and had created a stir by being openly gay.
She was caught up in a minor scandal when [Martina] Hingis reportedly said -- in German -- that the strong, athletic Mauresmo was "half a man."
Hingis denied making the comments, but they were widely reported and Mauresmo later admitted it had been a distraction.
Ironically, the player who started that controversy made a come-back at this year's Open after having been away from the game for three years. Hingis made it to the quarterfinals in women's singles (she was beaten by Kim Clijsters) and is in Sunday's mixed doubles final (with Mahesh Bhupathi). Let's hope Martina's learned a few things--both from the player she was named after, and from her time off.
Openly gay athletes seem to be primarily confined to individual sports. My guess is that there are two reasons for this. On the male side, the masculine imaginary of athleticism seems to exclude the possibility of homosexuality. Indeed, when the topic of homosexuality in male team athletics is brought up, it's generally not received very well by the athletes on those teams, even hypothetically. Indeed, all of the male athletes I can remember (David Kopay, Roy Simmons, Glenn Burke, Esra Tuaolo) who were involved in team sports and came out did so after their careers were over.
Women's team sports seem to be a bit different. There is, of course, Cheryl Swoopes, who came out last year. Indeed, while there may not be many public lesbians in the WNBA, the league hasn't shied away from courting a lesbian fan base, a definite change in the marketing of women's sports. Historically, because of the cultural linkage between masculinity and athleticism, there was a general assumption that female athletes were "that way" and their professional leagues and associations took active steps to femme the ladies up. To win fans, they thought they had to de-gay their leagues (maybe the were, and still are, right...time will tell).
So, we're left with individual sports, for now, as the primary location in which it's "safe" for gay athletes to come out, and we're still counting on one hand for each sport (well, maybe other than figure skating). That's ok, for now. A decade ago, we were working with just a couple fingers total. When Martina Navratilove was playing, she waited until later in her career to come out, and lost endorsement money because of it. Now, we have a player who's been out her entire professional career. That's progress.
Beyond all that, though, we've got a young woman who was tagged with the label, "unable to win the big matches." The fluid, powerful groundstrokes were attached to a head-case. Not any more.
Congratulations, Amelie. You're no longer the player who "couldn't win the big match." You're a Grand Slam champion.
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Queer | Sports | Design
Didn't see any of the Open
Submitted by Jeffrey Langstraat on 30 January 2006 - 9:08am.
I don't have ESPN, so I didn't get to see any matches, which was more than a little frustrating. I'll take your word that she seems different (she also attributed it to winning in LA last month--finally beating everyone to win a big event and gaining confidence).
One of my friends is pissed at Henin-Hardenne for retiring. Pam Shriver's not too happy either.
If you don't like me, I'm going to make you hate me.
--Margaret Cho
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Power of Story Rant
Submitted by JJ Ross on 30 January 2006 - 12:07pm.
Oh, with that opening I can't resist a mini-rant. I saw Justine's 2003 "incident" as willful cheating to fell a worthy opponent, and her lack of remorse about it since as less star quality than sociopathy, like Tonya Harding's win-at-any-cost targeting of her rival, only without hiring thugs to do the dirty work for her.
Because that's the way I read it, I can't enjoy Justine's story. So I don't watch her. She may indeed be some great tennis warrior, a ranked and decorated officer, but she's no gentleman, and as an ambassador for women's tennis, she makes me cringe.
Shriver said:
[quote]I think Henin-Hardenne's reputation is tarnished forever. The tennis beat writers will never let her forget this. And it's not a first. Remember there was the 2003 French Open serving incident against Serena Williams, when she held her hand up on a Williams serve to signal she wasn't ready, then pretended like she did nothing.
She is going to be known as much for these incidents on the court as she is for all the Grand Slam finals she won. [/quote]
My husband though, never read her story as lying and cheating. He actually admired her winner's ethic -- valor in the heat of battle, giving her all, proof of her warrior heart and all that. For three years he's teased me about staying in my anti-Justine snit, rather than appreciating her scrappiness and tenacity, the set of her jaw.
But now, by wimping out in a Grand Slam final instead of soldiering on and probing every dark corner for some way to win, it seems like Henin-Hardenne violates her own storyline, the one fans like my husband chose to believe and enjoy. So she's lost us both but for opposite reasons -- like political parties do -- and will need to craft some new storyline that enough people can believe and feel good about, if she what she's trying to "win" is public esteem (it's getting hard to imagine a tennis script that could work, maybe saving a village or beating cancer or something?)
A "small, bespectacled 38-year-old Jewish man" cultivating an intellectual and very "unlikely expertise" in roundball bad boys puts it this way:
[quote]We always talk about sports, but the subtext is usually much more serious . . .when we bemoan free agency, we're really having a discussion on the merits of fidelity . . .sports is almost the American male self-help; it's the equivalent of Oprah.[/quote]
The ladies depend on public fidelity (to the culture of their particular fan base, if not to transcendent values like fair play) and how we see their stories integrating with their lives, just as much as the guys do. Martha Stewart, Tonya, Justine, even little Zola don't get to redefine sociopathy as lovable public virtue any more than James Frey, Iverson, Kobe or OJ can.
They can become rich celebrities despite our disapproval, but they can't make us believe they deserve their fame and fortune. Hoping that's still our call to make. . .
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Tennis down under
And she was looking GOOD this season, so lithe and light on her feet, did you notice? Dancer legs with long, slim girl muscles, coltish like a Sharapova or Hantuchova. Bet that was the winning edge for her, is she in love or maybe has some great new trainer? I saw part of her semi and was struck by it, having found her a bit clunky-looking and awkwardly disproportionate in the past. All without knowing her orientation! I watch tennis but don't read about it much, so somehow never picked up on her coming out, nor any head problems it might have caused her (or others.) You actually informed as well as entertained me with this . . .