ATP double faults with ‘sex sells’ antic
There’s a better way to draw in the younger crowd
IT’S Thanksgiving week. We should be giving thanks for a year, producing historic, as well as spectacular tennis – namely Wimbledon, in which the Big Three, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer locked horns and the recent ATP Finals in London, won by Next Gen Greek phenomena, Stefanos Tsitsipas, usurping all of the above on this occasion.
Instead we’ve been reduced to Black Friday – basically ‘sex sells’ antics in the recent ATP draw in Milan, in which the best of the Next Gen (under 21) compete, won by none other than Tsitsipas last year. Tsitsipas will be thanking his lucky stars, he was good enough to be selected for the grown up version, rather than be subjected, together with junior cohorts, to the humiliation of selecting a model from a leggy, lacklustre, line-up and walk down the catwalk arm in arm, with their respective chosen ones, who promptly lifted a skirt, or blouse, etc, to reveal group selections imprinted on thighs, backs and bellies.
I understand, Milan is synonymous with fashion and that the ATP are emulating the IPL, in are trying to make tennis more alluring, if not sexier to youngsters.
After all this is where new technology and innovations (headsets to communicate with coaches etc) are experimented with annually. However in a week, when the world at large is getting heated over women abuse, in any shape or form, this is poor judgement, on the part of some unimaginative, or ‘over’ imaginative official. I don’t have to add, that the usual contenders, commenting on womens rights in sport
– Amelie Mauresmo, Andy Murray’s former coach, and Judy Murray, his mother, were foremost amongst those leading the charge to over react.
The irony of this faux pas, from a pure tennis perspective, is arguably the sexiest asset in the ATP trump card box, the current under 21 WTA line-up! Who needs to hire po-faced coat hangers to strut their stuff, when you have the real, electrifying, thing – Bianca Andreescu, US Open Champion – Amanda Anismova, French Open semi-inalist – Danielle Collins, Australian Open semi-finalist? These are – college students, considered ‘hot’ on any given campus. Yes, these youngsters know how to make the smoke rise on - and no doubt off - a tennis court and they eclipse any Milanese model, when it comes to naturally creating a stir.
Lest we forget Naomi Osaka won the Fashionista Award for the Black and White, Chitose Abe for Nike, ensemble, with its bare back crop top, that she wore as defending champion, at Flushing Meadows. What the ATP should be doing is combining its best assets, the Top 8 young men, with the dynamo Top 8 under 21 women, in this same tournament. I guarantee it would produce an ‘IPL elixir’ to pull in younger fans in their droves.
Forcing a round, very thin peg (fashion models) into a square hole (a male tennis event), is merely a recipe for self combustion, in the current politically correct sporting climate.
Producers, who can take a bow, as opposed to wiping egg off their face, are the team making the documentary on Murray, ex British No 1 and Comeback Kid. They achieved the reality coup of the year, when in talking about pain and angst attached to a spate of hip operations, he without warning, divulged to the camera, that “Sport was my escape from the horror of Dunblane (a Scottish primary school, where 16 fellow pupils and a teacher were shot dead, while he and his brother Jamie, another multi titled tennis champion, survived) – and that’s why tennis is so important to me…”
Maybe the best summing up of why the ATP should avoid at all costs the risk, making a mockery of what tennis means to those aspiring young players, who make sacrifices in pursuit of greatness, by reducing it to a letter tattooed on some unknown girl’s upper thigh…