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Name: Ed Lilly
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Name: Disgruntled in NY
Email: disgruntled.blogger1@gmail.com
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No love for women's tennis

Posted by Ed Lilly on Friday, August 15, 2008 9:19:12 AM
Here's the linkline from Fox News:

Wife Accuses James Bond Actor George Lazenby of Death Threat, Offering Toddlers Alcohol

Whoa.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled that George Lazenby wasn't just married to some nobody.  And sure enough:

It's getting ugly between former James Bond actor George Lazenby and his soon-to-be ex-wife, former pro tennis ace Pamela Shriver.

Shriver does tennis broadcasts for ESPN, and won multiple grand slam titles with Martina Navratilova.  I think she made it to a grand slam singles final (or maybe two) in her career as well.  She's probably in the Tennis Hall of Fame.  And it's just "Wife accuses James Bond Actor ..."?  I would have thought it would pack more punch and attract more readers to name both famous members of the pair.  I mean, I think Shriver is also part of the whole Shriver / Kennedy universe, and STILL she doesn't even get mentioned in the headline?  I suppose this is just another indication of how much of a niche sport tennis, and women's tennis, have become, though I would suspect that Lazenby's role as Bond in one movie would put him about on the same level of celebrity obscurity as a multiple grand slam doubles winner.

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Justin Gimelstob tries, fails to create interest in women's tennis? UPDATED

Posted by Ed Lilly on Sunday, June 29, 2008 8:31:37 AM
Professional tennis has had a long, slow decline in popularity over the years, but a link caught my eye the other day in the tennis headlines.  It said something about a U.S. tennis official calling women’s tennis players sexpots and bit¢hes.  I didn’t save the link at the time, but I have found the story again, from the website This is London.

From the link, it appeared that perhaps a women’s tour official was caught making some really outrageous remarks.  Turns out, it’s former men’s tour pro Justin Gimelstob, who is now an ATP (the men’s tour) director, who was shooting off his mouth.

The specifics of Gimelstob’s comments, made during a radio show interview in the U.S. before he departed to cover Wimbledon, are about what you might expect from a former professional athlete being outrageous in a radio interview when talking about female tennis players, and he has of course now apologized to pretty much all women past, present and future for his inartfully expressed comments.  I even saw one link that mentioned Gimelstob apologized to Billie Jean King, which I guess somehow makes her the women’s tennis equivalent of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton as the go-to person for apologies when the relevant minority group is insulted.

But what I really found interesting out of this whole kerfuffle was that the Gimelstob story came out on This is London’s web site on Friday, June 27.  As of this morning, June 29, even with the wave of stories about Gimelstob’s subsequent apologies (a search of Gimelstob and Kournikova, who was mentioned prominently in the article, gave me over 23,000 online hits, and it took me to about the 5th page of links to get back to the original story), the original story from This is London has ZERO comments on the web site.

How can this be?  Granted tennis is not the most popular sport in the world, but the whole point of running this story was to shock and draw attention, right?  So no comments at all in 2 days?!  My guess is they got a lot of comments from men that they didn’t want posted, and they simply haven’t allowed any posts to go up.

UPDATE:  I may have been incorrect in where I saw the original link/story.  Further down the online search results, I found essentially the same piece via the Mail website, where there are now 34 comments.  Most are taking Gimelstob to task, and a few are "supporting" him by saying he just spoke his mind and shouldn't cave into political correctness for exercising free speech.  So perhaps the lack of comments at This is London is because they don't get much traffic?  Don't know about that.  I'm a bit surprised at only 34 comments at the Mail site.

Tags: Media   tennis  
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My guess is that there's more to the story of the grunting tennis player in Australia

Posted by Ed Lilly on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 1:35:09 PM
From Foxnews.com:

A 9-year-old girl has been banned from playing tennis by her local club because she grunts too loudly.

Lauryn Edwards was told at the weekend that she could no longer play her favorite sport after a complaint by an opposition player.

The Mt. Carmel Tennis Club, in Sunbury, Australia, told Lauryn's stunned parents, Duncan and Ruth, that the grunting had become too much.

 

I've been no fan of all the grunting and shrieking that many of the top women tennis players on the professional tour have been engaging in for quite a while.  Monica Seles, the Williams Sister, Sharapova, etc. have all been pretty ridiculous in their noise making on the court.  I would have been in agreement with efforts by the grandees in professional tennis to have the players tone it down or face penalties in the way of forfeited points, games, etc. in a graduated punishment system.  There's no reason for making very loud noises when hitting tennis ball, other than trying to psych out your opponent.  It's cheesy gamesmanship that should have been slapped down at the start.  Unfortunately, no one tried seriously to stop it, and so it has only continued and encouraged young players like Ms. Edwards to follow in the footsteps of the pros.

That said, I have no idea how egregious Ms. Edwards' grunting may be.  Part of me is suspicious that the player whose complaint appears to have started the ball rolling in this matter is also trying to just get an edge, or has parents who have better connections than Ms. Edwards' parents.  I guess what I'm wondering is whether the player who complained has had a history of trying to get Ms. Edwards to tone it down, and just what the history and timeline show about the history of these two players at the very least.

In any event, I hope Ms. Edwards continues to play tennis, and continues to enjoy it.  I just hope she also plays it more quietly and that her parents somehow find a way to help her stop with the grunts and shrieks that have no place in the normal course of play.
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