Bill Simons and Vinay Venkatesh
Paris
IGA SWIATEK NEEDS AN HR DEPARTMENT: Nick Kyrgios doesn’t have a coach and likes to travel light. Often, just his agent and his trainer are in his box. Iga Swiatek is at the other extreme. In a recent match, she had her physio, trainer, mental toughness advisor, agent, PR manager and partnership manager in her box. If anyone needs an HR department, it’s the WTA’s No. 1 player.
DOUBLES DEFAULT: Japan’s Miyu Kato and Indonesia’s Aldila Sutjiadi were defaulted from the tournament after Kato swatted a ball that went rather softly across the court and hit a young ball girl in the side of the head. The youngster broke into tears. The incident brought to mind the Novak Djokovic scenario at the 2020 US Open, when Nole was defaulted. Kato and Sutjiadi were initially given a warning by the umpire. But their opponents Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova actually protested and noted the ball girl was in tears. Then, after much deliberation, the tournament referee ultimately defaulted the duo. Many felt it was disturbing to see Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova chuckle as Kato and Sutjiadi left the court.
TENNIS MIRRORS LIFE: American Sloane Stephens came back from a 0-5 deficit in the first set against Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka to force a tiebreak, but then at crunch time she faltered, and she eventually fell in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-4. The only two Americans left in the singles draw are Bernarda Pera and Coco Gauff, who was last year’s finalist. Belarusian Sabalenka will next play Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, in a match that mirrors the Ukrainian war.
For the second time, Sabalenka refused to have a general press conference, saying she did not feel safe doing so. Her move to not take questions, for some, brought up a bevy of more questions.
She may have been uncomfortable and challenged by intense, passionate questioning. But was she ever not safe? And did she sign a letter in 2020 supporting the President of Belarus when he was brutally cracking down on protestors who said the election was rigged and who now is a key supporter of Russia’s war in the Ukraine which, it almost goes without saying, has impacted the safety of so many?
Is Sabalenka, who in so many ways is so charming, receiving $200,000 a year from Belarusian authorities, as a controversial Ukrainian journalist claimed? Has she been socializing with Lukashenko? And what did she mean, when earlier in the tournament, she said that everyone is against war and then added: “Why we have to go loud and say that things — this is like one plus one, it’s two. Of course we don’t support war. If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it. But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands. That’s the part about Ukrainians.”
And why did authorities twice permit Sabalenka to skip the mandatory press conference with the media and then not issue the standard fines? And what would happen if Aryna actually said “I would like my country to stop allowing missiles to be sent from Belarus?” Would that have impact on public opinion and would her family be endangered?
A “WILD” DISTURBING HITLER CONNECTION: What is it with this year’s French Open? Controversies just won’t go away. This weekend, Brazil’s big TV station “O Globo” revealed disturbing Whatsapp messages between the Brazilian player Thiago Seyboth Wild, who upset Daniil Medvedev in the opening round, and his girlfriend Thayane Lima.
Thayane asked Seyboth Wild, “Your mother doesn’t like gays, Blacks and Jews, is that it?” Thiago replied “Yes…my family on my mother’s side is Nazi. Literally. My great-grandfather, my mother’s father’s father’s father…was Hitler’s predecessor…He was the one who brought him over from Austria [to Germany] and taught Hitler the life.” Seyboth’s message also included photos of his great-grandfather posing with Hitler. Reportedly he also made derogatory insults of poor people and Blacks.
Thiago’s family then stated, “[We] vehemently repudiate” his comments.
Wild’s association with Hitler comes on top of accusations in a Brazilian criminal case which claims Thiago violently twisted his girlfriend Lima’s finger and said disparaging and racist things about her appearance and her friends. She claims Thiago called her “incapable, crazy, trash, slut and cheap whore.”
When a German writer questioned the 23-year-old Wild in his press conference about the domestic violence case, the Brazilian refused to address the issue and said that the reporter should have never brought it up in the first place.
After the press conference, Seyboth Wild’s agent then confronted the writer. Thiago also did not do the customary press conferences after winning his second-round match and losing in the third round.
On three different occasions, Seyboth Wild was not at the locations that he had given to Brazilian authorities who were seeking him out with legal papers.
It’s true that Seyboth Wild’s game draws raves. Veteran writer Sebastian Fest noted, “The dry power of his forehand is of boundless beauty.”
When reflecting on Thiago’s third-round loss to Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka, Fest observed, “There is also an angry, very angry tennis player. The number of times Seyboth shouted at himself, the number of protests he initiated, the number of times he raised his arms, the number of times he scowled at that racquet thrown to the floor and smashed…”
Thiago said the ongoing legal proceedings “are under secrecy. This means that I cannot make statements…But above all I want to remember and reinforce that there was no trial, so I cannot be considered guilty. I have not yet received the summons…because I no longer have a fixed residence in Brazil…[I am] confident that my innocence will be proven in due time.”
A REMEMBRANCE OF FAMOUS AMIS BY MICHAEL MEWSHAW:
Editor’s note: The following piece was written by the famed author Michael Mewshaw, whose 23rd book, “My Man in Antibes: Getting to Know Graham Greene” was just published:
Martin Amis died recently, age 73, of esophageal cancer, and tributes continue to roll in from fellow writers and literary critics around the world. The son of the equally famous novelist, Kingsley Amis, Martin was a consummate stylist, much praised for his dark comic vision and brilliant verbal fireworks. What has gone largely unmentioned is the prominence that tennis played in Amis’ life.
I met him 25 years ago during a rain break at Wimbledon. Afterward we began playing twice and sometimes three times a week. Although he deprecated himself as a “craven baseline retriever,” he had a more than competent club-level game, and while handicapped by his height, 5’6”, he committed time and money to his performance. He admitted to me having hired a pro and “bought a top spin backhand.”
Amis also covered tennis and was a keen observer of the pro game. In a famous, or infamous, article for the New Yorker, he puckishly commented that the men celebrated on the circuit as “personalities”—i.e. Nastase, Connors, McEnroe, should actually be classified as “assholes.”
By contrast, he himself was the essence of English fair play. In our hundreds of matches, he never made a bad call or accused me of giving myself the benefit of the doubt on shots near the line. Win or lose, he remained in character, an Oxbridge honors graduate with high intellectual standards and a penchant for lowlife idiosyncrasies. He arrived at the court in his car with Jimi Hendrix blaring on the tape deck, and with his racket in a grocery bag. No designer duds for Martin. During changeovers while I gulped water, he rolled his own cigarettes and sucked smoke into his lungs. Even in his mid-forties his hands showed a troubling shake. Surely that’s part of what killed him. But like his good friend Christopher Hitchens who also died of esophageal cancer, Martin would probably claim he didn’t regret his excesses. One day, I remember, he came to the court carrying a terrible review of his new novel. He urged me to read it and claimed that while it had ruined his breakfast he wouldn’t let it ruin our game. Poetic justice would have called for me to let him beat me, but I didn’t. Martin Amis wouldn’t have wanted me to tank.
Amis wrote in the New Yorker that if Tim Henman ever wants to win Wimbledon, he will have to do one simple thing: change his name. Amis contended that Henman was the first person named Tim to achieve anything at all. “‘Tim,’ I’m afraid, doesn’t have the ring,” Amis explained. “The name lacks gravity…. the Tims of the world had all their ambitions crushed, all their aspirations dashed, by being called ‘Timmy’ during childhood.
Amis also said that former No. 1 Thomas Muster “plays like a rogue elephant, but he sounds like Tarzan taking a succession of brief rides from branch to branch. There is something very human – very honest, very understandable – about his ululations…I sometimes feel that his Tarzanic yodels would help my cause.”
A PRESIDENT AND A GOAT: Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Novak Djokovic watched a French L1 soccer game together Saturday night between Paris Saint-Germain and Clermont Foot at Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris.
STAT SHEET: Djokovic surpassed Rafa Nadal and reached a record 17th French Open quarterfinal. His foe, Juan Pablo Varillas, was the first Peruvian to reach the fourth round at Roland Garros since Jaime Yzaga in 1994…Nole is now 47-1 in his lifetime vs. opponents outside the top 50 at Roland Garros…Coco Gauff, 19, is the youngest player remaining in the women’s draw. Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenka, 34, is the oldest…Beatriz Haddad Maia became the first Brazilian in 44 years to reach the fourth round of a major.
QUOTEBOOK:
“Novak Djokovic is my pick to win the championships, and, despite that, he’s playing very well.” – Eleanor Preston
“We want to see a healthy Rafa.” – Djokovic on his longtime foe, who reportedly will be sidelined for the next five months.
