What were your favorite parts of the U.S. Open tennis tournament?

by philg

I was disappointed that our fellow Floridian Frances Tiafoe did not win the U.S. Open.

The Science-following part of my brain was gratified that Novak Djokovic’s filthy unvaccinated Science-denying body was excluded by President Biden’s orders (not applicable to asylum-seekers, of course). It was also good to see that Stefanos Tsitsipas was punished with an early loss for his previously expressed lack of enthusiasm for the Sacrament of Fauci (see “Why So Many Tennis Players Don’t Want the Covid Vaccine” (New York Times, August 30, 2021)).

It was disappointing that Margaret Court wasn’t selected by ESPN to provide commentary. From Wikipedia:

Court has been a consistent critic of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage in Australia. In 2012, she opposed proposed same-sex marriage reforms. Court has been criticised for such statements by openly gay tennis players Billie Jean King, Rennae Stubbs and Martina Navratilova, and in 2012, an LGBT rights protest group called for the renaming of Margaret Court Arena.

Court was criticised in May 2017 after writing a letter to The West Australian decrying Qantas, the largest airline in Australia, for being a corporate supporter of same-sex marriage and saying that she would boycott the airline. … high-profile guests Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe paraded a banner calling for the Margaret Court Arena to be renamed in honour of four-time Australian Open champion Evonne Goolagong. In 2020, her Margaret Court Community Outreach charity was denied a Lotterywest grant for a freezer truck on the basis of her public statements on gay people.

Who better to start the much-needed dialog on these topics, which are important enough to the tennis world that the “This is Pride” banner was larger than the American flag at the Delray Beach Open (February 2022):

Out of principle, I watched only the open-to-all-gender-IDs ATP events that are, I believe, unfairly characterized as “men’s”. I don’t think that there is any requirement in the ATP Rulebook that a player identify as a “man”. I did not watch any of the “women’s” events organized by the gender-discriminatory Women’s Tennis Association. However, it would have been interesting to see a rematch between Serena Williams and beer-drinking, cigarette-smoking Karsten Braasch (“He was well-noted for … his habit of smoking during changeovers.”)

9 thoughts on “What were your favorite parts of the U.S. Open tennis tournament?”

  1. Thanks for that photo! Let’s celebrate the Axis of Pride between the EU and America as symbolized by the flag arrangement.

    • You’re welcome and thank you for tuning in from Europe. The 27 countries that remain in the EU after the departure of the UK are great, but, if we are to judge by banner size, not as great as Pride!

  2. I’ve only been an occasional and peripheral tennis fan – although I like the sport, have tried it a couple times in my youth, I’ve watched some very dramatic play on various media. I would like to play more of it some day soon if my health improves, because there’s a decent local outdoor court I can use. But I was disgusted this year by all the vaccine bullshit and just walled it off and compartmentalized it in a place far away.

    I don’t think many other people in my Deplorable Zone of Massachusetts watched it either (but I can always admit I’m wrong.) Instead there were some new banners popping up in various places but had nothing to do with tennis or the US Open.

    https://i.ibb.co/ZW0M75n/GOTTAGO.jpg

    • BTW the background vibe I get from reading various mainstream news reports is that instead of being independent contractors who represent themselves, professional tennis players need to unionize so that things like vaccine mandates can have the appropriate pressure applied and make them “stick harder.” Thus I believe that professional tennis in the future will be more like exotic dancing, where unions are increasingly making inroads, particularly in Las Vegas, which I heard all about on NPR this past weekend.

  3. Alex, you must be careful hanging around NPR in this comments crowd. And while I’m giving advice, avoid singles tennis over age 35 unless you have kept your training up. It’s a tough go on older skeletons and ligaments. (But a joy in youth!) I’ve been considering pickleball but the bicycle and walk-path are more age-appropriate.

    • @Donald: Thank you for the cautious words and believe me, it will be at least a year before I even try venturing out onto a tennis court to gently hit some shots around with another person who promises to be gentle with me. I think I like tennis because it’s never been much of a team sport (OK, doubles, I know) – it’s a one-on-one contest of individuals, and I like that kind of thing.

      As far as NPR goes, I would never stop listening – just as Philip gets most of his news from the New York Times, I rely on NPR’s various stations both on FM and Satellite Radio to keep me informed about what people in the Dean’s Offices at law schools and elsewhere are thinking about on any given day (it was the only station my former boss ever listened to, much of the time for Nina Totenberg’s legal analysis because they knew each other personally and were friends.) It’s an invaluable resource to me, both for the humor value insight into a certain state of mind. When I get tired of it, I switch over to “Hair Nation”, “Ozzy’s Boneyard”, “60’s Gold”, “50’s Gold” and a few others. I often find that Hair Nation has as much incisive commentary as NPR, just in a different vernacular.

      I do try to keep my mind open, in other words. I get several center-right to right wing newsletters and so forth also.

      I grew up in the NY/NJ suburban area and one of my favorite stations was an independent, non-network channel on TV – WPIX Channel 11. Their owner was unusually good – he ran a lot of Public Service Announcements at the station’s airtime expense to allow opposing views on controversial issues to be broadcast in a fair way. He always said (I’m paraphrasing): “We think it’s important for you to know what your neighbors are thinking….”

      And I still agree with that terrible indoctrination! 🙂

    • @Donald: Oh, and I do recommend FEE’s daily newsletter, which tacks pretty much straight down the middle of free-market economic thinking. But don’t worry! I also still read the commies over that New Republic fishwrap.

      https://fee.org/

    • @Donald: And just anecdotally….Nina Totenberg does not have a law degree, or at least didn’t at the time I’m talking about. Nevertheless she was and is still is one of NPR’s most valued and ‘tenured’ legal analysts. Met her in person! Hi, Nina!

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