Wednesday, September 5, 2007

"She could walk into this studio right now and change the light bulb, and I wouldn't know who she was"

This said in a very cocky tone about Justine Henin by an ESPN "First Take" commentator whom I could not identify. Is this something to brag about?! I don't think so.

The panel was having an argument: Did Serena Williams lose or did Justine Henin win? I dislike this particular argument, for--as I noted in a discussion on a tennis blog recently--nothing in life, tennis included, is linear. Whenever one player's level slips, it is common for her opponent's level to rise, etc.

The other part of the argument had to do with Williams' seeming inability to think she ever does anything but beat herself in a loss. I am tired of that argument, too.

One of the commentators made a big deal about Henin's beating Williams in three Slam quarterfinals in a row, but please...can we really count the one in which Williams was playing with just one hand? Let's be fair.

And finally, a note to ESPN (and all the other networks): Henna is a plant, not a tennis player.

1 comment:

Diane said...

Serena does need to practice being a bit more gracious about her opponents, I agree. But I fail to see how observations about her anatomy (which many of us consider beautiful, by the way) are in any way relevant to criticism of her interview techniques.