After Atalanta

...women are still relegated to "gender-appropriate" sports and physical activities. I went to see the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit yesterday and because I was not all that into what I am guessing was the main goal of the exhibit--to look at body parts and learn more about what goes on inside us (and camels too which was actually more interesting to me!)--I had plenty of time to consider the things I like to focus on: gender and sports. Many of the bodies have been posed to illustrate how muscles look when they are kicking, throwing, stretching, etc. So many are in exhibit are engaged in sports and other physical activities. Here's what the male bodies are doing: playing soccer, ski jumping, and a male figure skater holding his partner. Here's what the women are doing: yoga, ballet, and being flung around on ice skates by a male partner. It was a little disappointing that even the dead bodies have been placed in positions/activities that not only are stereotypically "fem...

Because I need to hit my head on it repeatedly after reading this column by Arizona Star sports columnist Greg Hansen. Hansen is down on the decision by University of Arizona to add water polo to their list of women's varsity sports in an attempt to bring their numbers closer to proportional. Hansen doesn't like this idea because water polo isn't played in Arizona high schools nor does it generate revenue. There are plenty of holes in both these reasons (schools might start to add teams if they know they can feed their athletes to their own state university and it CAN be made into a revenue-generating sport with the right financial support and publicity). But the most egregious moments come when Hansen praises Title IX for offering opportunities --especially to Arizona athletes but then condemns Title IX activists for asking for too much saying that we should "stop digging for more." He has even found an alleged Title IX activist who says she thinks, given footba...

...I just cringe. Which is what I did last week when I saw some football team members standing in front of the grocery store with cans in their hands "begging" for money in their varsity jackets with the leather sleeves. I am not sure how widespread this practice of "canning" is but it brought back my own memories of standing there wondering how much eye contact is really appropriate when you're unabashedly asking for money. Or whether when someone asks your win-loss record (I was on the tennis team knowledge of our win-loss record was rare unlike football which many more people follow--but not in a Friday Night Lights kind of way--it was New England after all) if you should maybe pad it a little less they feel you are unworthy of a donation. Anyway I did not give money to canners because well it's football. I am not anti-football. I actually enjoy it once in a while. I was one of the few people in the band who actually paid attention to the games when we pl...

I witnessed a very strange hockey game last weekend. I went to a recreational women's league game and saw a level of aggression that I rarely see in women's hockey--I certainly didn't see it two nights prior at the Harvard-UNH match-up which, though they are not classic rivals, is certainly an anticipated match-up every season. Anyway, there was heavy shoving that fell just short of hitting and "dialogue" and flipping off the ref from the very first period. The ref, who admittedly was not that good, was giving out double penalties to members of both teams. It was bizarre and seemed to be a little contagious though certainly most of the women on the ice tried to stay out of the whole mess. Lest you think I am suggesting that women are not or should not be aggressive--I am not. But I was struggling, as I sat there watching this all, with the level of aggression that should be allowed or tolerated/condoned. This is an issue women's hockey has always had to negoti...

I saw my first women's hockey game in over nine months last night and it was wonderful. UNH, after being down two goals in the third, came back to tie Harvard 3-3. It was great hockey, great skating, and in what other venue can you can see an Olympian (Harvard's Julie Chu) for only $8? (And probably some future Olympians too!) Bright Arena in Cambridge was more crowded than I thought, but I still don't understand why more people don't come to watch women's intercollegiate hockey. You don't have to know someone on the team--you don't even have to be an alum. Just find a team and go. You can even be non-partisan and switch seats every period--trust me there will be plenty of seats for you to do so. And if you have some or know some--bring the kids in your life. Most arenas are pretty intimate and kids like to press up against the glass where they can really experience the action. And did I mention how economical it is? You can take your whole family to a game ...

Actor Tom Cavanaugh, probably most famous for his eponymous role in Ed, is currently filming a movie about an ex-pofessional hockey player who is gay. This article from the Toronto Star writes about the groundbreaking aspects of the film which focuses not just on the star's homosexuality but that of a young boy whom he and his partner have recently taken guardianship of. The big issue of course is a gay hockey player. No male professional hockey player has ever come out--during or after his career. Cavanaugh said he himself was shocked to read that his character, Eric McNally, is a gay man. But the more shocking aspect to the film, according to those involved, is that the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs agreed to let the team name and logo be used in the film. Some filming will even take place at the end of a Maple Leafs practice session. I agree with the general sentiment that this is pretty big news. The NHL and Maple Leafs could easily have said no and probably no mainstream p...

Because my research interest of late is in intersections of sport and activism, I was curious on this World AIDS Day, how the sports world was recognizing and addressing the AIDS crisis. A quick Google news search brought up news mostly from countries outside of North America like this one about a 3-day cycling event in Botswana sponsored, in part, by the Society of Men Against AIDS. Then there was a large half-marathon in Nigeria. In Burma a World AIDS Day Event included sporting events. And in South Africa, there were many campaigns and events including a Sports Heroes Walk . My initial search brought up only events happening everywhere but the US. But a few hours later I found these stories: One on Spencer Tillman , former NFLer and sports broadcaster whose brother died from AIDS-related illness. There were many stories, including this one , on what Magic Johnson has been doing. But that was pretty much it. Stories on individuals rather than organizations. [I found the same emphas...

Katie Hnida was on the Today Show this morning. I only caught the last bit of Meredith Vieira's interview with her so I cannot comment on whether Vieira actually said intelligent and non-offensive, stereotypical things which is too bad because I so enjoy commenting on such things. But I did learn that Hnida has written a book about her experience, Still Kicking: My Dramatic Journey as the First Woman to Play Division I College Football . No excerpts that I could find on the Today Show website but it may just be that they are not posted yet. But I am still very excited to read it. Hnida's story of harassment and sexual assault has been pretty well covered but her own take on it will be interesting and I am sure there will be many incidents and conversations from throughout her career that never made the news. After I read the book I will weigh in with my thoughts. [Note: the above picture was one of the few that I could find of Hnida in action--most are her in uniform (though...

I found this product on one my favorite women's athletic wear sites, lucy .com under the accessories section. I was aghast. In part because I read the product name first: Low Beams and then the catchline at the bottom: Headlights are for cars and ended with the smallest font that actually told me what the product was: Nipple Concealer Adhesives. The product itself is not inherently bad--I think. I haven't really thought through if women should be wearing bandaids over their nipples. Are we trying to pretend that we don't have them--especially when working out? Are we only supposed to have nipples when we have no clothes on? What is more troublesome is the way the product is advertised: equating breasts/nipples to car parts. I expected more from a women-centered company. Unfortunately I saw the product only after I had placed my order. But I do plan on getting in touch with their Customer Service department and letting them know the product is offensive and not what I expe...

Despite my guilty conscious I am still reading Harper's. But I am way behind and so was just finishing up the August issue last night and skimming through the Findings section that is on the back page of each issue. Findings is a compilation of the results of various studies--some are quite scary, others amusing--and covers issues like the environment, disease, human behavior, etc. Last night I read one on fan behavior, something that has piqued my interest lately. But this "finding" was somewhat obvious. I don't have the exact wording but I think my paraphrase is pretty accurate: Male spectators who act rowdy at sports events are compensating for their perceived lack of masculinity. Someone did a study on that? Doesn't that seem pretty obvious? Men watching sports are often witnessing displays of hypermasculinity and the only way they can "compete" is by being hypermasculine in their fandom. This is why I stopped going to men's professional hockey g...

This post is long overdue and for that I apologize but I believe it is still interesting. The NCAA ruled over a month ago that the College of William and Mary could keep their nickname, Tribe, but had to abandon their logo which is two feathers. [The picture is a mat for wiping one's feet on which is only slightly better than the UFlorida seat cushions upon which one can plunk his derriere on Chief Osceola's face for ultimate comfort during football games.] I found the NCAA decision to be quite fair. They took a pretty liberal stance on the use of Tribe as a nickname which school officials defend as "reflect[ing] our community's sense of shared commitment and common purpose." [from President Gene R. Nichol's October 10 letter to the WM community] I am not an expert in Native American history in the state of Virginia and specifically with W&M but I am guessing "community" was not always an inclusive term. And "common purpose"? Both the c...

Sadly, Amelie Mauresmo lost today's WTA Championships to Justine Henin-Hardenne. She had to fight so hard on her serve and although she was able to break HH a few times it just was not enough. It does not, in my mind, mar in any way her amazing year. And I think that JHH would probably give Mauresmo this win for say perhaps Wimbledon. But what really excited me about the match was the rainbow flag two fans were waving throughout the match on which they had written AMELIE. And what was amazing was that the camera repeatedly panned to it. Hmm...is this the product of Versus, the channel formerly known as OLN, that aired the championships? Not sure but I was excited since the commentators rarely mention her sexuality (which is both good and bad). I am not a huge rainbow flag-waver fan but in the context of women's tennis it seems fairly monumental. The tournament was held in Spain which may have something to do with the presence of the flag in the first place. In most US venues se...

The year-end WTA championships are going on right now in Madrid. The matches are being aired on Vs (formally OLN--the network that covers the Tour de France and NHL hockey and whose owners/execs made it very clear that OLN was all about masculinity; not sure if there is a new vision for Vs). So I was watching some of the coverage yesterday, not very closely as I was trying to multitask. That was why I was shocked when I heard the commentators say that male models were serving as the ball boys for the tournament. Over a hundred tried out for the gig usually filled by local teenagers. Madrid is the same location where a men's Master's event that used female models was held a few years back. Here is what the reporter of the above linked article wrote: To be fair and equal, this year the women's championship tournament decided it would employ male models for certain ladies matches in the tournament. This not a model of fair and equal that I would like to see perpetuated in spo...

[NOTE: I am not making fun of Canadians here. I happen to love the “eh” that comes at the end of their sentences. I find it much more appealing than Americans’ “huh” or “whatever.”] The other morning in my Vancouver hotel room I was surfing through the channels. It was very early and a Sunday so I wasn’t expecting to find too much. What I did find was a lot of yoga instruction. The first show I saw seemed typical to others I have seen on television or DVD. An instructor doing the poses and two others following. She stressed going at one’s own level and the “followers” exemplified this through their abilities to reach various stages in the poses, though they both seemed to be regular practitioners. I thought it was a good demonstration of individuals’ limits no matter their level of practice. So kudos to that program. But I was not really in the mood to practice or watch yoga so I kept flipping. It was then that I came across a very different type of yoga program. This one also had thre...

1. I knew there were a lot of regulations around the size of women's bathing suits in beach volleyball and also where logos can be placed, how big, etc. I did not know though that six centimeters is the maximum height for the sides of the bikini bottoms. Guess shorts--of any length--just are not an option even if it's a chilly day at the beach. Guesses on the maximum length of the men's suits??? 2. It was not until 1998 that a revision of the Amateur Sports Act (originally passed in 1978) forced the United States Olympic Committee to fund Paralympic athletes. When I went to Salt Lake in 2002 there was a lot of advertising of the Paralympic Games that were to follow the Olympics. I witnessed what I thought was a strong commitment to encouraging spectators to attend. For some reason I thought this had always been the case. Guess I was a little naive. Also, it seems that the IOC doesn't just dislike the gays using their name. The IOC has forced the Paralympics to change ...

The other day a friend who plays on a rec league women's ice hockey team showed me an email she had received from a fellow teammate. Part of the email referenced their coach's upcoming birthday. The team is trying to come up with something to give him. This was the suggestion of the player (I have edited out the names): As for [coach's] birthday, I think all the youngsters (X, Y, Z, etc) could give him sex. She goes on to explain how this would be a treat for the coach and also for his wife, another player, apparently so she could be relieved of her duty to "give him sex." I probably don't have to explain that my reaction was marked by extreme disgust and disappointment. My reaction was also likely made somewhat more severe by the sports sociology class I have been auditing this semester. It has been a very odd experience for me, coming from a women's studies background, to be in a class where my radical feminist views are in the minority. (I realize of c...

Sports scholar Jo Ann Buysse continues, in the issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online that I have been discussing here to employ the metaphor Catherine Stimpson created in her address that prompted this journal to devote the issue to The Cultural Value of Sport: Title IX and Beyond. I have, as I mentioned previously, enjoyed the way Stimpson’s respondents have taken her creation of the Atalanta Syndrome and expanded the mythological metaphor in productive and meaningful ways. Buysse is no exception. The Atalantan distraction, i.e. the golden apple that entices the contemporary female athlete, Buysee argues is the highly gendered—or femininized—“heterosexy” images of female athletes. Athletes see them but are, of course, also their subject. Buysse does not interrogate this latter aspect, the female athletes who pose for these images, which disappointed me some. I realize the term “choice” become a little blurry when we discuss whether female athletes, who have far less earning power t...

I received an email yesterday afternoon from a teammates seeking a sub for doubles last night. The reason: "My husband is working late and I don't want to leave the kids home alone on a school night." Studies show that women's participation in sports drops off significantly when they enter adulthood. Why? Because of husbands and kids. This is especially true when the women are in a lower socioeconomic class. (Not the situation of my teammate, however.) I am not blaming the husband or the kids or my teammate here. But it's important to remember that despite the enormous growth of women's sports, things haven't changed all that much in other realms of society that enable all women to participate freely.

This past weekend there was some naughty behavior on a football field down in Florida. No, not the usual bad behavior and unsportsmanlike conduct that is ubiquitous on football fields. In the game between University of Miami and Florida International a bench-clearing brawl--ok not everyone was involved in it-- more typical of baseball or hockey, broke out when UM took a 14-0 lead in the game. Surprisingly (well I was surprised anyway) the game was only interrupted briefly while "order" was restored. But the severity of the actions of the players involved drew one-game suspensions from the ACC commissioner. Later the punishments got a bit more severe with some players being suspended indefinitely. I don't know the timeline of the events but I suspect that the reasoning by the powers-that-be went something like this: bad behavior by football players in a public setting demands action but not too much action because this is a Div. I football program after all so one-game sus...

Watching the final round of the Samsung World Championship yesterday afternoon I realized that the commentators do not talk about the personal lives of the golfers all that much. I never hear anything about Annika Sorenstam's of the course life. Even when she was going through her divorce the commentators were very respectful of her personal privacy. Usually we hear about a player's siblings and parents, where they went to college (if they did so), and where they live and practice. I am not really advocating for more discussion about player's lives during tournament coverage, I am just surprised that there is so little. Why am I surprised? Because tennis commentators, who enjoy talking non-stop and unlike golf commentators, they cannot seem to stick to the game at hand. For example, every time Maria Sharapova plays one can hear the story of her childhood: her immigration from Siberia, the mother she left behind, showing up at Bollettieri's with her father and no money. ...

Yeah, I am not actually going to answer that question using my own personal thoughts on the matter. I remain pretty ambivalent about the debate. But the issue has come up again. This time in Darien, Connecticut which recently underwent a review by the Office of Civil Rights because a Title IX complaint was filed by a parent of a female swimmer alleging inequity in participation numbers and scheduling (the latter was deemed unfounded by OCR). OCR found a 1.9 percent discrepancy in examining the ratio of females in the district/female athletes and boys/male athletes. This is pretty small. Feeling the need to explain, the superintendent of schools said that if cheerleaders had been counted, the district would have achieved proportionality--one test (out of three) for measuring compliance. But cheerleaders are not counted. Darien is not alone in this. Many institutions would meet the proportionality prong if cheerleaders could be counted. So is cheerleading a sport? According to the articl...

Words uttered by...guesses? Some misogynist male perhaps? A man in power trying to assert his masculinity? Nope--it was our female coxswain who said this to our boat this morning during what otherwise was a quite enjoyable row on a very serene and mild morning. Yes, on our last push back to the dock we were instructed to "send this bitch"--the bitch being the boat I would assume. I couldn't think too long about it at the time because despite the ability of many Olympic-level crews to make it look nearly effortless, it actually requires an amazing amount of concentration--no matter what level. Thinking about it after I got out of the boat, I remained somewhat shocked, slightly offended and generally perturbed. I think it has something to do with the sexually charged atmosphere of sports. I had, until this point, not experienced crew as sexually charged but I figured that was because I escaped some of this because I am in a community rowing program. Our coxswain does both c...

This post is part of a "series" I am doing in which I comment on some of the articles in the most recent edition of The Scholar and Feminist Online whose theme was The Cultural Value of Sport: Title IX and Beyond. In my first post , I commented on Catherine Stimpson's address about the Atalanta Syndrome. In this one I turn to the essay by Margaret Carlisle Duncan entitled "The Promise of Artemis." I have liked that many of the authors have continued to employ mythological analogies as they respond to Stimpson's lecture. Duncan invokes Artemis, the woman/goddess who raised Atalanta after her father ditched her in the woods. Artemis taught Atalanta the skills--mental and physical--that she took back with her to her father's kingdom where she engaged in the foot races for which she is best known. (Alas Artemis did not teach her how to avoid the temptation of the golden apple--apples seem to be the downfall of many a woman in pagan and Christian mythology.)...

Anyone think that maybe the discussion about eating disorders needs to expand beyond the sports of gymnastics and figure skating? Hantuchova, who admitted to have some weight issues (I don't think I ever heard the words "eating" and "disorder" in the same sentence--I believe it was explained as a sort of accident--oops, look I forgot to eat while I was training intensely), looks pretty thin again. And I don't know Morigami so I can't compare this picture with anything, but she looks fairly frail as well. Besides Hantuchova's weight loss the only other time I heard about anorexia on the tour was a brief mention about Carling Bassett-Seguso (blast from the past, eh?) and I believe she mentioned it after her professional career had ended. (Here is an interview with Bassett-Seguso and Nick Bollettieri about Hantuchova's weight loss. I don't see it as a rampant problem, but still these women do not look healthy to me.

As I have mentioned previously, I recently joined a women's USTA league team. We haven't started playing matches yet but the schedule just came out which was the topic of convseration at an after-practice dinner the other night. The schedule is always a source of complaint. We have a long season (October to May) but there are only 8 matches because the USTA regional coordinator has divided us into two "flights" rather than having all 14 teams play one another. This is annoying but not especially egregious or gender-related, as far as we can tell anyway, at least not in comparison to the days and times we play. Our matches are all on Sundays usually in the late mornings or afternoons. Match scheduling has been an issue in the past. The women in the league do not always like playing on Sundays. The men play Saturdays--why? Because the men have to watch football on Sundays. This is ridiculous for so many reasons. First, all men and only men watch football? Second, you ca...

One of the big games in college football this weekend is the Big Ten battle between Ohio State and University of Iowa at Iowa. It is especially big for Iowa not just because they are currently undefeated, but because ESPN is coming to town and the game is a featured night time contest airing on ABC. It is the first night game at home for Iowa. Messages are out all over about students being on their best behavior and representing the university well. Today the coach himself, Kirk Ferentz, sent an email to the entire unversity community reiterating some of these same messages. But he added something that pretty much made my jaw drop and my head spin when I thought about how the university let this message get out: Please be sure to pace yourself through the day; we're going to need our fans to be at their very best at kickoff and throughout the game. Hmmm...what could coach mean about pacing oneself during the day? Oh maybe he's thinking about all the students studying in the lib...

When the e-journal The Scholar and Feminist Online came out with their latest issue last week I was very excited because it was devoted to women, sport and culture. When I read the title of the keynote address by Catharine Stimpson that inspired the issue, I was ecstatic. The Atalanta Syndrome: Women, Sports and Cultural Values is an excellent piece of scholarship that succintly and intelligently (while remaining very accessible) addresses the major issues in women's sports and the historical and current conflict between feminism and sport. Stimpson incorporates a healthy amount of memoir regarding her own athletic endeavors and her immerson in feminism which provides a frame for two critical issues: sport and its (in)ability to overcome gender norms; and the role of feminism in sport. The issue is entitled The Cultural Value of Sport: Title IX and Beyond. And so Title IX here serves in part as an historical marker. The articles all address issues in women's sports in what has...

I have only recently become a fan of women's golf. So I don't know much about its history. I do, however, know a lot about women's tennis which I see as similar to golf in some respects. So I always am using the status of women's tennis as the marker against which to measure women's golf. Perhaps this is not really fair, but it's the only frame I have right now. But it's an interesting frame because I see the disparities as huge especially as they relate to how the women's game has fared compared to the men's game. In tennis the women's game, I would argue, has as much visibility as the men's game. This is of course a recent development--5-10 years--and the visibility isn't always ideal (see my previous complaints about the characteriziation of the women's tour as "drama-filled"). But it's there. And sure there are many people who would rather watch the men's game any day--why I don't know--but there are plenty (...

Mothers who are athletes. It's a pretty new topic of inquiry. A few months ago in The Chronicle of Higher Education Stanford cross country coach wrote a piece (you need a subsciption to access the whole article; but it's the June 30 issue for anyone who can find a hard copy)about her struggles over coaching and being a mother. Was she being fair to her children? To her athletes? These issues are not so disimilar to ones mothers who are in any occupation face--unlesss your occupation is professional (or even amateur) athlete. For a long time, and of course there have been exceptions, female athletes had their athletic career and then after they retired they had children. This has been the norm. Chris Evert, Steffi Graf are a few who followed this pattern. Lindsay Davenport, when she talks about retirement, almost always mentions the desire of she and her husband to start a family. She, and others, are suggesting that a professional athletic career and a family are incompatible....

Justine Henin-Hardenne withdrew in the third set of the Fed Cup final yesterday in the match that gave Italy the cup. Citing knee pain, HH pulled out down 0-2 in the doubles the match which gave Italy the 3-2 win. This injury seems pretty legitimate. HH had had knee pain earlier in the summer. Plus her back is bad and she has some other problems too. Still the retirement raises some questions. After all this is the second high profile HH withdrawal this year. Her retirement against Amelie Mauresmo in the Australian Open final in January with a stomach ailment raised many eyebrows (my own were oddly arched for weeks). But this one is not generating as much speculation. For some reason because we see a bandage on the knee we are more likely to assume a legitimate injury--most of the time anyway. But a stomach ache is a little more suspicious I suppose even though both injuries are not really discernible to the audience. Again, I am not doubting HH's retirement really. But I suspect w...

Every Wednesday NPR's Morning Edition airs a three minute (or so) commentary by Frank Deford. In this morning's airing , Deford decided to jump on the boys-are-lagging-behind bandwagon. But not really... ...I think. It was hard to tell. It went something like this (my interpretation is in {}): Studies {dubious as they may be} show boys are lagging behind in school at all levels. More women enter college now than men. Deford claims it is because men, as boys, are pushed towards sport. They are rewarded for success in sport more so than success in the classroom. {Interesting hypothesis. I certainly agree boys are rewarded for playing sport and are very much encouraged to play sports more so than girls.} This has lead to the decrease in boys in college because girls--who aren't encouraged to play sports--spend time studying because they are not preoccupied with sport and thus get smarter. {Hard to tell at this point whether he is presenting this as a legitimate theory we shoul...

I joined a women's USTA league recently. We haven't started playing official matches yet but there has been lots of email contact among us as the start of the season nears. Today I received a forward advertising a charity tournament this weekend. In addition to the tennis there is a basket raffle. Teams create baskets. (Everything in yellow is from the email sent by one of the coordinators.) Some “basket” themes to get those creative juices flowing, but you can do anything you would like. Surprise me - BBQ; Golf; Romance; Pet Supplies; Caribbean Fiesta; Think Pink; Gourmet Dinner for Two; Housewarming; Virgin Olive Oil & Accessories; Beach; Lobster; Gardening; Get Away. Baskets get raffled off and the proceeds, in addition to the fees for entering the tournament, get donated to a local hospital's breast cancer division. But there are incentives to get people to make the baskets: Some Women's teams are entered into the fabulous basket fundraising raffle - they are c...

I missed the men's final this afternoon because I was being a good faculty wife at a function. But from what I have read it was pretty standard Federer Grand Slam final fare. Federer though had a new friend in his player's box: Tiger Woods and his wife were in attendance. Apparently they just recently met. I was surprised at Woods's very casual attire considering he must have known he would be shown on television: backwards cap, nike shirt, and jeans. He actually--when I first caught a glimpse looked like a teenager. Controversy continued to emanate from Maria Sharapova's box last night as she was making her way to the 2006 title. "Hitting partner" Michael Joyce held up not only a banana and also mimicked taking a drink but held up 4 fingers--a code no one has yet to break. Sharapova attempted to address the signals today while showing off her trophy by saying that she gets so wrapped up while playing she needs reminders about when to drink, eat, etc. Last nig...

Very good match in progress between Jelena Jankovic and Justine Henin-Hardenne. Well it was good until the third set anyway--we shall see what happens. When I tuned at the very start the first comments I heard were about all the "drama" on the women's tour. Mary Carillo called Jankovic a "drama queen" and John McEnroe said she was in good company. The genesis of the comments was the observation about all the injuries. Injuries of course seem to lead to a preponderance of trainers jogging out to the court during matches. I know this happened with Henin against Davenport but I hadn't seen Jankovic call a trainer (though admittedly I have not seen every match.) I object to the term "drama" as it has been applied acritically to the women's tour. I know I have said this before but I feel the need to reiterate. I also think it's interesting that the term is usually just applied to the pretty girls on the tour. Henin calls the trainer--whether out...

Maria Sharapova faced a tough test last night in the US Open quarters playing Tatiana Golovin. It was an interesting match with many breaks of serve and Sharapova pulled it out in the end in two tiebreakers. The match of course was not without its controversies. First, Golovin, down 0-3 in the first set tiebreaker, went to the chair, asked for the trainer and sat down in her chair quite resolutely. She had a large blister on the bottom of her foot and the trainer came out and taped it. Did I mention it was 0-3 in the tiebreak though? I thought this was appalling and certainly done as a form of games(wo)manship. Yes, I saw the blister; it was large and red-looking and I am not denying it was painful to play on even after it was taped. I have had large blisters on the bottom of my feet from tennis and they hurt a lot and the commentators were right: the actual taping feels odd and does not completely eliminate the pain. But I think unless you are unable to walk or swing your racquet or n...

There is one good thing about the commentator line-up this US Open--no Brad Gilbert. Since he got his coaching gig with Andy Murray the commentating has been just a little bit better. Now if only someone would hire away John McEnroe. But Gilbert's absence doesn't mean all is well in commentator-land. Last night Tracy Austin, in a discussion about Benjamin Becker, was dismayed by all the European players coming to the United States to play collegiate tennis--coming and taking up all the scholarships that should go, Austin reasons, to American players. She wants a limit of 2 "foreign" scholarships per team. Hmmm...interesting. Sport is, theoretically, a "may the best person win" kind of endeavor--so if the Europeans are doing the best job then they should get the scholarships. And given Americans' love of (the myth of) meritocracy, one would think Tracy Austin would appreciate that these young Europeans are coming over and working hard for their place on t...

I was one of the lucky ones. I had tickets to the day session on Friday. This meant I saw a lot of tennis and got out just as the rain that cancelled that evening's tennis began. Of course anyone down at the Billie Jean King USTA Center today must be psyched--great matches all day. But Friday was pretty good too. Here's my report: First of all, I have to admit that this trip to the US Open was a little different from my other excursions in the past. One, it was cold: pants and sweater all day long. No sun at all. And this was actually a good thing. Too often it has been sweltering down in Flushing and it just zaps your energy. You can't sit in the sun watching a match for more than 30 minutes at a time. So I was quite pleased--plus much time is saved not putting on additional coats of sunscreen. Another big difference this year: I never set foot inside Ashe Stadium. We had the tickets but didn't go inside. The matches scheduled were fine but the stuff that happens on th...