After Atalanta

In the lead up to Wimbledon, I read several pieces and saw even more headlines about the change in the all-white clothing rule to allow players in the women's draw to wear darker shorts/tennis underwear. (Does anyone wear those anymore? Wishing I had kept some of mine now.) There were no bones made about the fact that this change was to ease players' anxiety about playing while on their periods.  Point1: This change was subject to a vote because it is considered a rule change to the dress code. A vote. In 2023 that helps ease the anxiety of menstruating players.  Point 1a: This is not a new issue. Most of the stories mention that some soccer teams are eliminating white shorts from their kits as well this summer. This discussion has also emerged in regard to long-distance athletes (cyclists, runners, triathletes) who are not as bound by dress codes/team uniforms but affected by the nature of their sports which often do not allow for a bathroom break to change a tampon or pad or...

...a male commentator makes a sexist remark. Someone needs to start a blog or Tumblr or something entitled "Commentators Say the Darnedest Things"--and by darnedest I meant racist, homophobic, sexist. Last winter the BCS Championship was marred by a one-sided game and the comments of broadcaster Brent Musburger who spent some of the game's downtime talking about the quarterback's pageant girlfriend. At this year's Wimbledon, the comments focused on an actual participant in the event. BBC commentator John Inverdale noted, before the women's final on Saturday, that soon-to-be champion Marion Bartoli was not pretty. He surmised that Bartoli's father, who--like his daughter--has been considered somewhat of an oddity in the tennis world because of his style, told his daughter that she would have to work harder because she was never going to be a looker like Maria Sharapova. The comments caused discord immediately and Inverdale apologized before the broadca...

Some people I have spoken with don't like Maria Sharapova because they think she's too pretty--and not much else (besides a good tennis player). I think she's pretty smart and has a good sense of humor. I love the way she deals with the corps of media folk who ask her largely inane questions. And Sharapova continued to handle herself well yesterday when asked to respond to Frenchman Gilles Simon's comments about how tennis should go back to the days when women got paid less than men at the Grand Slam tournaments. Simon thinks men's tennis is more entertaining; that the matches are more interesting. Of course he didn't offer any means of how to measure entertainment value. He didn't note that the rest of the year women earn less at their tournaments than the men do at theirs. And he was forced to acknowledge that his straight-set loss at Wimbledon was probably not that entertaining. Simon was recently elected to the ATP Players' Council, which seems to...

I have largely stopped posting about the (mis)gendered language in sports. But language still continues to fascinate me. And I was particularly struck by the incongruity I heard at Wimbledon yesterday while watching Kim Clijsters's match. Wimbledon refers to female players as either Miss or Mrs (last name) depending on their marital status. While the formality is quaint, the practice seems antiquated--especially in this situation: Clijsters is married. She gets referred to as Mrs. But she never changed her name. So she is called Mrs. Clijsters at Wimbledon. It sounds so odd.

Everyone, it seems, has weighed in on the Centre Court sexism. But Wimbledon winner, 11-time Grand Slam singles champion, Serena Williams definitely got the last word (even if Dave Zirin wrote his column after Serena's win). Her shirt at the post-match press conference said it all. "Are you looking at my titles?" (You can see a pic of her wearing it at One Sport Voice .) It's appropriate given the attention women's bodies received this Wimbledon fortnight--not for their athletic ability but for their aesthetics. And especially appropriate for Serena Williams whose body is often the focus of attention [too muscular, too fat, too slow, too fragile (i.e. injury prone)]. This Wimbledon was the same for Serena. A columnist felt the need to talk about her butt--which he so cleverly (note the sarcasm) termed her "backpack." Jason Whitlock, writing for Fox Sports (which explains a lot) is overtly offensive in his treatment of the younger Williams. Example: Serio...

Various bloggers over at Women Talk Sports have already mentioned this issue, so--having been scooped--I'm simply adding to the discourse. In a one step forward, two steps forward kind of way, Wimbledon has stopped putting Miss (or Mrs.) on the scoreboard. (Though the umpires still use the honorifics during matches.) But in a move that is so very high school, the Wimbledon powers-that-be have decided to schedule women's matches on the show courts based on looks . And everyone has noticed-- even ESPN where columnist LZ Granderson writes: Doing so [selling sex] might hurt some of the players' feelings, but it's not undermining the integrity of the sport. Court assignments don't affect the outcome of the match or tournament. Well sometimes court assignments do affect outcomes--I mean there is a reason court 2 (the former court 2 anyway) at Wimbledon was called "the graveyard of champions." OK so that's mostly superstition but don't think that tennis d...

I have to admit I don't go to Wimbledon's official site to read the articles. I go for scores and schedules and draws. That's probably a good thing given the reporting the site did on Gisela Dulko's defeat of Maria Sharapova yesterday. The story, which was all about the sex appeal of the players, has been taken down but this columnist does a good job recreating and critiquing it. Players and promoters and agents have, for the most part, embraced the sex sells mantra in an attempt to legitimize women's tennis (hint: you're actually doing the opposite!). But the columnist is right to note that it should not be on a tournament's own site. The article seems to have turned a sports contest into a beauty contest--which player looked sexier in her all-white attire? It noted that Dulko has been named to lists of the sexiest players. It is especially unfortunate to see it on the Wimbledon site given that I have heard several stories now about how Wimbledon will not ...

Wimbledon starts tomorrow and the big news, rivalling the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal, is how loud it is going to be--more specifically how loud Michelle Larcher de Brito is going to be. Check out One Sport Voice for a recent post on the gendered nature of the grunting controversy. Yesterday's Boston Globe also highlights the grunting on the women's tennis tour. But they do mention the men. I don't know about all this. The tradition argument that Martina Navratilova is putting forth is little, well, hypocritical as the Globe hints at. After all, Navratilova was quite the non-traditional presence on the tour when she arrived and throughout much of her playing time. And sure, I like the quiet of Wimbledon, too. But I liked the crowd quiet. I don't really care what the players are doing. I heard de Brito from a court over at the French Open and yes, it was something new. But so was Seles's grunt when she came on the scene. And the biological arguments are interesting b...

She put up an amazing fight against reigning French Open (but not as good on grass) champion Ana Ivanovic. I didn't get to see much of it because I was having a very nice local foods breakfast downtown with some new friends and I had to distress my coffee table so the scratches from glasses, computers, feet, keys, etc. seem as purposeful as the ones I created today with a hammer and screwdriver. But I digress (if you want more info on the process and/or project email me). It looks like they're going to re-air it though so I may see some of the good points and drama. But Diane at Women Who Serve has a good recap . I saw Dechy last year, obviously as the above picture attests to, on an outer court. I have always liked her game and the way she moves to the net. She actually uses her doubles skills to construct excellent singles points.

Since I have all these pics of Wimbledon just hanging out on my hard drive I thought I would see how many I can post this fortnight. And because in an excellent example of karma Amelie Mauresmo, who is r ecovering from a quad tear, beat Ashley Harkleroad today at Wimbledon. The lesbian should indeed always triumph over the Playboy model.

Last year at this time I was in London and getting ready to head to Wimbledon. This year I am at my usual place--the couch--watching it on television. *sigh* Oh well, can't be there every year. I don't have too much to say about who's going to win, prospects, potential upsets, etc. Diane at Women Who Serve provides that kind of detail. Mostly I just complain. I think I will start with the score graphics on ESPN2. I don't like them. The horizontal banner across the top of the screen is poorly laid out. Now on to the commentators. I heard John Feinstein this morning on NPR giving a preview of the Championships. He mentioned that defending champion Venus Williams is only seeded 7th because that is the position she currently occupies in the rankings and Wimbledon chose not to alter the seedings as they sometimes do to reflect experience, or rather, success, on grass. Feinstein seemed to think this meant she only has some outside chance of winning the title--or at least that...

1. Some, um, unusual I would say searches of late, such as "Wimbledon braless." What exactly does this mean? That Wimbledon is in need of support? That the searcher is wondering whether Wimbledon will enforce a bra policy alongside its predominantly white rule? Hard to say what the searcher was looking for, but I doubt any answers were found here. Another answer not to be found here and frankly I can't believe even the asking the question "why naive has two dots in it?" even brought someone here. 2. Ana Ivanovic is in the semis at the Australian Open and has a good shot at making it to the finals. [ UPDATE : She made it by rallying from 0-6, 0-2 down against Daniela Hantuchova.] That means searches for her have picked up. Still getting the very odd "Ivanovic armpits" but also searches that seem to want a little more than just the armpit shot. Some searchers are getting lazy though. "Ivanovic body," for example is not going to get you very far...

NPR's All Things Considered aired a segment on Friday about The Championships in which host Melissa Block spoke with Bud Collins who was at Wimbledon. There were a few gaffs though in the coverage starting with the brief written explanation on the segment which reads: "Venus Williams beat No. 1-ranked Justine Henin to advance to the women's finals." Not that Venus Williams, winner of the trophy this year, didn't play well but she didn't beat Justine Henin. Poor Marion Bartoli, who had a fantastic tournament didn't get much credit. Also, Bud Collins, who usually does a good job pronouncing players' names (Block also provided correct pronunciations) called Amelie Mauresmo, Amelia. But worst of all was when the two started talking about Venus Williams and Bartoli and the final which would pit a 23 seed against an 18 seed. Block asked about Williams's level of play and noted that she was hampered earlier in the week by pretty severe leg cramps. Wow! Is...

Au revoir, Amelie. We'll miss you on Saturday. I missed about a day of Wimbledon to go camping/hiking but saw the Serena Williams injury drama and some of the Nadal-Soderling 5-setter. And alas I saw Mauresmo collapse against Nicole Vaidisova. I knew this would be a tough match but I thought if Mauresmo continued to play the way she had been, she would tough it out. She let Vaidisova, who was not serving well, off the hook and into the next round. The San Francisco Chronicle sports blog runs down yesterday's happenings where writer Bruce Jenkins gives Serena a hard time for breaking her racket. (I will get to the cries of games(wo)manship that have been swirling more furiously than the London winds in a moment.) I didn't think it was that bad. Certainly I have seen far more egregious behavior from other players--mostly men--who receive far less criticism for their actions. Marat Safin is notorious for bad behavior and I remember once Andre Agassi, in his bad boy days, brea...

View from Court 6--no rain . View from Court 6: the covers come off Given the forecasts we heard, and the flooding in other parts of Great Britain last week, things could have been much worse at Wimbledon, weather-wise, during the first week. But play is currently suspended across the pond so I thought I would share some pics of the rain delay process. Last Wednesday we experienced two rain delays. One was brief; the other ended play for the day. During the second one when the rain was heavier the grounds crew inflated the covers which takes a while but looks cool while it is going on. Inflating the covers.

Well I am kind of glad we left London yesterday given the bomb scare in the city's theatre district early this morning. Security at Wimbledon was tightened today. The security situation was interesting. Much more thorough searching of bags than at the US Open. They open them and take out things and look in all the pockets. My sister actually had to take the cap off her chapstick! But they let you in with almost anything--including one bottle of wine per person (or two beers). What was odd though was that we got onto the grounds the first day without tickets because ours we at will call which was located inside the gates. We did have to go through security before getting there, though. Still they seemed to be very on top of some things and quite lax about others. Anyway, today was probably the most interesting day in terms of match-ups. Jelena Jankovic was challenged by Czech player Lucie Safarova who I saw play Eleni Daniilidou on Tuesday. That was a very good match which I did no...

Not a drop of rain! Some of us are headed back tomorrow and probably will not be as lucky with the weather but we're going to persevere. It was an amazing day. My first time at Wimbledon and I got to see Amelie Mauresmo on Centre Court. It was wonderful. And I got to experience the atmosphere engendered by Tim Henman who has lived to fight another day--tomorrow in fact he is slated to be back on Centre Court. Navigating Wimbledon was not as easy as the US Open. First, Centre Court tickets only get you into Centre Court and outlying courts. So you miss all matches on Court 1 and can only stand on Court 2. This was disappointing, especially because Jelena Jankovic was playing there this afternoon and we were crammed into standing room space when there were more than half of the ticketed seats empty. But we did see some good outside court matches. Sam Stosur beat American Kristina Brandi. Megan Shaughnessy lost badly to a player I had never heard of before. Hopefully there will be som...

I made it. No problems. And there's wi-fi at the flat! Let the vacation blogging commence! Lisa Raymond, who has been writing a column at SI.com, previews the Championships , Wimbledon this week. Her top pick is Henin with Serena Williams running a close second. She talks about doubles as well but oddly writes about herself in the third person as a contender for the women's doubles title. Her column is only so-so, but she does try to convey the aura of Wimbledon during the fortnight and a good job describing the scene. It makes me very excited to head over the village.

Yep--I'm leavin' on a jet plane tonight and arriving in London at 6:30AM (their time--1:30 mine--uck). And yes, I am going to see Wimbledon when it starts next week. I'll be queuing up and all that. I have a brand new digital camera that has sport mode and hyper sport mode to take fast action shots--like Amelie Mauresmo's beautiful topspin backhand. And I will bring my computer and hopefully find some wi-fi and try to load pics and details as often as I can. That being said, it is vacation so my entries will not as regular as usual. Cheers!

What a week! Illinois retires their Indian mascot and Wimbledon has finally agreed to award equal prize money to women players . Now every grand slam has equal prize money for the winners. (The French Open still maintains a disparity in prize money up until the finals, though with the Wimbledon decision many believe the French Open will have to follow suit soon.) As happy as I am to hear the news, I am a little disappointed that it appears the decision was not really due to any feminist activism. This is in part because there has been little feminist activism around the issue. Venus Williams wrote a good editorial about it last year before the tournament began and every year the media gets a quote or two from a female player who says something along the lines of "yeah, it's not fair; we should be paid the same as the men." No one takes it any further or even discusses the possibility of taking it any further. Gone are the days of Billie Jean King organized boycotts. It ap...