Jelena Ostapenko

Source: Peter Mezel

Here we go again. Going against the grain is right up my alley, especially when every single person who has ever heard of the word “tennis” disagrees. It happened last week at the US Open, and it had everyone agreeing that Taylor Townsend, a black female American tennis player, had been the victim of a racist attack by a Latvian white female player by the name of Ostapenko. Gee whiz, if everyone in the media and among the players says so, it must be right, n’est-ce pas, as they say in the land of cheese. Well, I say no, they’re all wrong and Ostapenko was right in calling Townsend uneducated and lacking class.

For any of you who follow the sport, the two women shook hands after the black American had won—rather easily, I’d say, after a close first set. That is when the Latvian player told the American she lacked class. The reason was because Townsend failed to signal having won a point on a net cord. It is not in the rules, and Townsend had no obligation to say anything, except for one thing: In all my years of playing in tournaments, or watching the game, I’ve never, ever seen someone win a point on a net cord without the gesture acknowledging it. Jelena Ostapenko is now a racist to end all racists, according to the media that genuflected in front of Townsend’s martyrdom. You’d think some Ku Klux Klanner had jumped onto the court and struck the black player with a burning cross. The worst was one Larry Brooks, of the New York Post, writing that the Latvian was “like an unhinged passenger dragged off a flight after causing a ruckus.” He went piling on, stating that the Latvian was talking in code, meaning many other terrible things.

“Polite society calls it virtue signaling. I call it cowardice.”

Brooks is a fool, bending over backward to show he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body, but what he does have is an opportunistic streak that will invent anything in order to show what an anti-racist he is. Polite society calls it virtue signaling. I call it cowardice. Naomi Osaka, who plays for Japan but is also black and has won the US Open twice, called it the worst thing that you can say to a black tennis player in a white sport. Is that so? So when black football players in American pro football, which is 80 percent black, call white players names—which they do in good humor all the time—that is okay. Basketball is 95 percent black, and I’ve heard some pretty good jibes about whites playing the game. But nobody seems to mind when blacks call us honkies and worse.

The jerk Brooks went further, bringing up Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson and Serena Williams. Ashe and Gibson were wonderful in every respect. They had manners on and off the court, and I knew them both, although Althea was a friend whereas Ashe was an acquaintance. But Serena Williams was a thug, ill-mannered on court, a bully, someone who threatened and intimidated referees and players alike, a foulmouthed cheater who plays nice now that her playing days are over.

The Noo Yawk Open has now degenerated to the point that a Norwegian player complained that it was hard to play while breathing in marijuana smoke. Just think about this. If you light a normal cigarette you most likely will be escorted out of the stadium, but smoking pot, getting drunk, and being noisy are acceptable. The dress code reflects the degeneration of a once-wonderful sport played by ladies and gentlemen. Soon someone will play in a G-string and will have the headlines to him- or herself. In the meantime, watch out for Ostapenko. I predict her few words to a black American will haunt her to her grave. Unlike Christianity, woke does not forgive or forget. Townsend is now a victim—as all black people are in America and the U.K.—and I predict she will go on to greater things, having survived the death-defying trauma of being told she had no class nor manners.