Playing in a second-round match at the U.S. Open against Jelena Ostapenko, Taylor Townsend benefited from a bit of luck in the first set. On serve in the 11th game, she hit a ball that clipped the net and took an unreachable bounce, giving her the point.
Such lucky breaks are pretty evenly distributed, so you cannot say it was a big deal. And no one was giving the match to Miss Ostapenko, who looked off her game from the start: Taylor Townsend was clearly in control and the match ended 7-5, 6-1. However, the custom is to say sorry in such moments, and Miss Townsend, who is in fact one of the nicest and best-natured players on the tour, did not say anything, so intent, one must presume, was she to get back to the baseline, serve, and finish the game.
You come to expect on-court drama at the U.S. Open, which this year is once again beating all records for attendance despite also beating all records for ticket prices.
Miss Ostapenko could have just taken Mother Mary’s advice and let it be, but at the conclusion of the match, when opponents come to the net to shake hands and congratulate each other, whether or not they mean it, she scolded Miss Taylor, said she had no class or education and maybe she thought because she was on home ground she could do as she pleased. Even in the coarse times we live in, this was a bit over the top. And fans can be as bad as players, worse in fact.
Apart from making too much noise and moving around during play, you see them behaving like louts, not to mention smoking dope. The New York Post noticed and reported a fan grabbing a cap that a winning player was handing to a kid who asked for a souvenir, and he had the nerve to dash away with it, the cad. The player, Kamil Majchrzak, who is from Poland, later found the disconsolate little boy and gave him another cap. The cad is still on the loose, but the New York Post, you may be sure (full disclosure: I worked there in days of yore), will track him down.
Miss Townsend was taken aback and, while she too undoubtedly could have just let it be and said, okay, should have said sorry, c’mon let’s go have a cup of tea and make up, she took it as an aggression not a loss of control due to nerves and frustration. “Uneducated American bitch!” is what it must have sounded like, reminding Miss Townsend of racial slurs (she is colored) and other slights and adversities. Years ago when she was a junior in the USTA development program, she was told to slim down or be dismissed.
She and her parents decided to pull her out rather than submit to what, maybe, the USTA (owner of the U.S. Open) claimed was a health issue, and she came back and showed them and now they are the ones who maybe should say sorry. She is big on standing up for herself and to Jelena Ostapendo she replied something to the effect of “Learn to be a good loser and no, I don’t have to apologize.”
It is certainly true it was kind of stupid of Miss Ostapenko to make an issue out of an overlooked traditional norm. When the ball hits the net this way you usually, in fact almost always, see the player who got the lucky break say sorry, but the show goes on. Why she let it stew in her heart and mind, no one can know, but if nothing else it shows how much the sport is mental as well as mechanical.
It is evident that holding grudges, seeing to right a perceived wrong, steaming at the net as though it was all so unfair, so rigged, does nothing to help one regain the equanimity and focus needed to achieve one’s goal, in this case victory in a tennis match. Coaches, moreover, tell their charges to let a questionable line call or a bit of bad luck pass and move on. The game is forward and it does not help to mull over what happened earlier.
Miss Townsend is world no. 1 in doubles, and her singles game has been improving steadily ever since, and maybe because, the USTA told her she was overweight and could not stay in their junior development program. She beat Miss Ostapenko and followed up with a win over teen phenom Mirra Andreeva. She goes up on Sunday against Barbara Krejcikova, a former no. 1 in doubles who has two major titles (French Open and Wimbledon) in singles. Taylor terrific, you might say. She and her Czech partner Katerina Siniakova are seeded No. 1 in doubles. None of these Czech lasses mind her “home ground” behavior!
You come to expect on-court drama at the U.S. Open, which this year is once again beating all records for attendance despite also beating all records for ticket prices, which for stadium seats start in the hundreds of dollars and advance over the horizon; but you can also buy ground passes and get a swell day at the show, with plenty of action on the outside courts.
And there is no need to make ethno-cultural issues out of apologies or lack of same for balls hitting the net; feelings run high and the money at play is even higher. What I was thinking when Miss Ostapenko got upset was that it is not true Americans are any more rude or ill-mannered than other people, and sure we play fair. In Breaking Away, the fine movie by our TAS friend Steve Tesich, it’s the Italians, not the local Indiana boy, who are the cheaters. Wish he were still around to make us see things in perspective, when the boy, feeling let down by the Italians whom he admired, turns to France for inspiration. Good try, and let the better man — or woman — win.
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