Saturday, April 30, 2011

Passing shots

It's official: Vera Zvonareva has hired Karen Krotov to be her coach, at least for the U.S. hard court season; sources differ as to whether Krotov will work with Zvonareva in that capacity during clay season. Krotov did coach Zvonareva during the Fed Cup semifinals. The world number 2 parted with coach Sergei Demekhin because, she said, he didn't want to work with a team. Says Demekhin: "I have experience and I know girls' psychology, so let's wait for offers."

You can get to know Nadia Lalami.

"Neither as muscular nor as deep-voiced as she appears on television, she was strikingly normal, if that makes any sense." Yeah, Malcolm, we get it.

Rebecca Marino has begun taking Pilates classes.

James LaRosa has a fantasy about the WTA and on-court coaching.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read that Larosa article when it came out. I was hoping you'd weigh in on the blogger v. journalist comment.

I think there's (at least one) problem, as one blogger on your blogroll refers to Francesca Schiavone as "the tranny". When her readers called her out on it, she refused to remove the slur and says the WTA is well aware of her writing (which, sadly, is a true statement).

As a fan, I think the WTA endorses a journalist's offensive statements when it continues to give that journalist press pass access to the players.

Diane said...

Actually, the writer in question substitutes "Tranny" for "Franny." The entire blog is written tongue-in-cheek, so it isn't just Schiavone who is the object of such nicknames, puns, etc., but most of the top players. There is also a lot of thoughtful content on the blog, including content that supports every type of equality.

I'm just providing a context, not an endorsement, by the way. I can't operate without context. The joke has always been lost on me, anyway, because I don't see Schiavone as anything other than a gifted female tennis player.

As for the WTA, it gives press privileges to people who put down women, who ask players very inappropriate questions, and who don't even have a clue who the players are or what they do. I think the idea is probably just to get coverage, which is true of most organizations.

I'm sorry, but I don't have any knowledge of how bloggers were criticized during the Donald Young thing. In general, though, I can say that there are, in my opinion, bloggers who are better, more thoughtful, writers than some tennis journalists. I read both, and since blogging has become such a trend among jornalists, it's actually getting harder to make a distinction.

I do wish that someone would do something about the ongoing inaccuracy of wire stories.

Wayne said...

Vera Zvonareva is one of the most academically-gifted players on either tour. Perhaps fired coach Sergei Demekhin's "psychological reading" of this terminated partnership just wasn't cerebral enough. :)

Diane said...

Wayne, he just psychologically reads "girls"!

Anon, yes, I think writers are careful not to say anything that might be racially offensive (though they often wind up saying something offensive, anyway), but in our culture, you can pretty much say anything with regard to gender and sexual orientation. You might recall, when Serena first became ill, that I was sickened that the people who came forward to object to the horrible racist comments didn't even bother to object to the horrible sexist comments. (I don't think they even noticed, so normalized is sexism and misogyny.)

I do think that issues such as context and sub-cultures come into play sometimes. In general, though, I feel clueless about my own culture.

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spookyva said...

It won't really have effect, I think this way.