In a sport which is just as much mental as it is physical, racist slandering could easily consume any player and seriously wound their confidence. Comments which are racialized, sexualized and dehumanizing have brought down even the greatest legendary players to tears. If history is any witness, tennis has been a ground of white supremacy vilifying players of color from Althea Gibson to Serena Williams. We look at Five instances when racism marred the game of tennis.
The racist tendency has spread across the globe like wild fire fueled by but not restricted to the fans of the sport. The former player and the game setters equally partake in the contumely regularly. The event are not isolated, they seem random and innocuous but are rather piercing and lethal blows masquerading as subtle, nuanced statements.
Tennis most certainly is a racist place to play and anyone who refutes that is in denial or just plain ignorant. In light of the recent most despicable racist attack on Serena Williams and her bi-racial unborn child, I give you 5 racist attack on tennis players from history. Unfortunately this is just the tip of the enormous iceberg that is racism in tennis.
5) Serena William in Indian Wells
Serena Williams is a one of a kind, most successful achieving players of all time and yet the most anathematized player as well. She along with sister has been on the receiving end of the blatant racism and sexism for their strong and aggressive demeanor which on a white skin would be lionized.
Serena has been compared to animals, gorilla and even a truck. She has been time and again criticized for having the ‘black’ advantage. Continuously berated for having muscular bodies and masculine bearings, the sister have been called ‘The Williams brothers’, giving in to the sterotypes.
The most infamous incident was in 2001 Indian Wells when she was the victim of racist heckling in the final against Kim Clijster by a predominantly white, predominantly American crowd. Her father, Richard Williams and Serena heard a man shout, “I wish it was ’75; we’d skin you alive.” Traumatized by the event, Serena boycotted the event for 14 years resuming only in 2015.
4) Lleyton Hewitt against James Blake
At the US Open in 2001, Lleyton Hewitt, who is notorious for being outspoken crossed a line when he pulled out the race card, insinuating the linesman was favouring American James Blake because they were both black. Hewitt denied that he had made a “racial remark” and insisted that he was “not racial”. Blake, former world number 4 player, dismissed foul play, but it became one of the most talked about “racial” moments in tennis. A simple incident of a player slandering another is a sad reminder of the situation of antipathy and hatred.
The story does not end here for James Blake who also faced another racist assault when he was viciously attacked by a plainclothes New York police officer outside of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in a case of so-called mistaken identity. Police Commissioner William Bratton stated that the person that Blake resembled could have been his “twin,” a reminder of the racist cliché that all Black people look alike.
3) Tsonga and Monfils
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a French player who has played in an Australian Open final, once told me he occasionally receives racist letters in the post. “I get some letters from a lot of people. Sometimes it’s nice, with letters from kids or from parents of kids who want to be tennis players, but I also get racist letters. It’s really painful to receive something like that because you’re not ready for that. You think to yourself, ‘That’s really bad’. But I realise that there are people like that.” But as Tsonga said of racists: “Stupidity cannot be controlled, only contained.”
Not restricted to Tsonga, his fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils has also been chided with comments. These top 20 players have their playing styles been called ‘wild’, ‘unpredictable’ and ‘athletic’, words that are right up there in the pantheon of reductive race based language. The aberration appears when in this crazy world the same quality among white players like Federer are credited as ‘spontaneous’ and ‘genius’.
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2) Michael Llodra
In 2012, French player Michael Llodra decided to direct his on court frustrations at a Korean American woman in the stands at Indian Wells, calling her a “Chinese whore” – a taunt that would have gone unnoticed if a French speaking Canadian presenter hadn’t been within earshot. In an attempt to apologize Llodra help up his attraction for Chinese women as evidence of his innocence. “I love Chinese,” he said. “I can totally make love with a Chinese Girl.”
No wonder players like Grand Slam winning Li Na from China and Kei Nishikori from Japan feel the constant cloud of racism and judgement.
Michael Llodra has been known for his open racist attacks. He is the epitome of players losing all sense of decency toward the sports and what it stands for. He was reportedly caught making a racism comment about the spectators at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, after which he was fined $2,500 for turning on two fans and calling them “f—— Chinese”. The Candian journalist Tom Tebbutt, who heard it all, rightly called the Frenchman’s behavior “deplorable” – was a rare example of racial prejudice in the locker-room.
1) Kyrgios and Tomic
After Kyrgios “tanked” at Wimbledon and Tomic decided to speak up against Tennis Australia, Dawn Fraser decided that the both of them should be deported. Fraser lambasted Kyrgios and compatriot Bernard Tomic on Australian television for their “childish” behaviour. The former Olympic gold medallist did not stop here and went a step further by suggesting both players should “go back to where their parents came from” if they were going to maintain such an attitude.
Kyrgios was born in Canberra. His father Giorgios hails from Greece and Nill Kyrgios was born in Malaysia. Tomic is German-born, with a Croatian father and Bosnian mother. The family migrated to the Gold Coast when Tomic was three.
Fraser later said: “I want to unreservedly apologise for any comments that I made this morning which may have caused offence to my fellow Australians, including Nick and his family. The live-to-air clip was part of a larger un-broadcasted interview however this does not condone what was said.”
