Tennis – ugggh … ugggh… aaghh … SHUT UP!
Tennis has me confused. In fact looking for words to complete this blog entry is difficult enough. But for the sake of entertainment I will continue.
Wimbledon is currently consuming the tennis world for the next few weeks. The grass is mowed the tennis balls are in abundance and the ball kids look just as crazed and frenzied as ever. The commentators from the BBC talk as though they learnt their style from the most recent David Attenborough documentary.
But what really confuses me are two things:
Grunting - Mainly found in the woman's tour, grunting as spread through the ranks like a disease. The bigger the woman the louder and deeper the grunt, the smaller the woman the more it sounds like a exotic bird call. They make the sound when releasing their shots and in the average tennis stadium, it echoes and sounds plain annoying. I don't understand why they need to grunt. One tennis coach described it as exhaling. Well that's the same as saying farting is passing wind, it may be wind, but it smells like shit. Grunting is a form of cheating in my books. Golf outlaws any sound around a player, yet tennis seems to relish in the hilarity of players sounding like they are unloading in the toilet. Venus Williams sounds like she could rival a jet engine for decibels and Maria Sharapova puts fingers nails on a blackboard to shame. The men do it in a far smaller number, but that seems to be an even lower point. Should a man grunt when hitting a ball? Simply ban the 'exhailing' now or risk the sport causing another injury to add to the already common neck soreness, acute deafness.
Pay Day - Women have always played their finals the day before the men and have always played to the best of three sets in grand slams. Men play to the best of five and considering sets can last for 45-60 minutes that can equal more than a few hours of potential entertainment each match. A while back the women kicked their heals in, and demanded equal pay for the winners of the Grand Slams. They won, women now get the same prize money as the men. They play less each match and yet get payed the same. How is that fair to the men? The woman's argument stated that it was unfair on grounds of sexual discrimination. But how is it fair that men should work harder and risk greater injury and fatigue for the same money? Personally if someone in my workplace was working less and getting paid the same because they were a woman, I would be filing for sexual discrimination against me.
Tennis is a lacklustre sport, it demise is evident in the ratings. The UFC will be a bigger sport soon enough and then the tennis world will be hurting at the notion two men thumping the shit out of each other is a more interesting sport than grunters and equal pay complainers.
Whinging Aussies
I must admit I love watching sport and it generally doesn't matter what sport (except Golf and Board Game 'Sports'). In saying that I have obviously been keeping up to date with the Winter Olympics in Vancouver through our local network broadcaster Channel Nine. That has been the problem with the Olympics, not the events, the results or the location, but with the broadcaster. Eddie McGuire is the main host and has been keeping Australian's up to date with his nightly re-cap program Vancouver Gold. Eddie is a great host and a mover and shaker in the media industry but at these Olympics he has led an annoying charge of whinging Australian's. Starting with the results in the Men's Freestyle Moguls, when the adopted Australian entry Dale Begg-Smith came second in the judged event. Eddie was jumping at the bit to explain his argument that we should have won, I don't remember whether Eddie was a moguls expert or not but he did claim that we should have won. Next complaint came from the Women's Aerial Jumping, which saw three Australians make it through to the finals, but with a low score outcome. One of the girls claimed the judges were being soft on scores for the Australians, even though she should have been happy with making it through.
As a proud Australian I have seen many wrong doings against us, including the dive by the Italians in the World Cup which cost us a chance at moving to the next stage. But I don't get on the microphone and whinge, because we should be a nation of accepting sports people. We should show the world we are gracious in defeat and that we are professionals who are happy to see the best on the day win.
Maybe if Channel Nine stopped constantly referring to Samsung and upcoming shows to air on the network, I would be a little less annoyed. I want more sport when watching the Olympics, and I don't care what countries win and whether an Australian is competing, I love seeing the World's best do their thing. And next time an Australian wins a medal, we don't need to see replays for the next four days, it gets old.
Soccer/Football – Faking
As any Australian will tell you, faking in soccer ruins the game. We experienced a poor referee decision to award a penalty kick for a fall in the 2006 World Cup. It cost us the game and sent us packing earlier than expected. But that's the game so we've been told. Well that's a lack luster excuse, the game should not involve B-grade acting for free kicks.
My belief is simple, those who act for free kicks are not the best players on the field, they are just the same as quitters and any other form of cheating. They know they cannot and can't be bothered winning a play on their own merits. So instead they take a dive and usually hold the wrong part of their body in 'pain'.
How the referee does not see the blatant cheating is beyond me. I've seen players pretend to be tripped and on the way down they hold their head. Others will fall holding their shins, and I've worn shin guards in soccer before and never felt more than a slight thud when kicked, so even in a real situation it doesn't hurt.
Australian soccer is pretty much the fairest form of the game, you'll never see a Socceroo take a dive and more often than not, even when their is real contact, they get up and keep playing for the ball. That is the true definition of a soccer player with talent. Everyone else is over payed posers.
If soccer wants to gain respect from those of us who are not fully fledged fans, then rid the sport of its dark shadows.