Weeks 27 & 28 - The Championships, Wimbledon, Great Britain - Grass

ROSAMUND · Futures level

RE: Weeks 27 & 28 - The Championships, Wimbledon, Great Britain - Grass

foobarbaz · Strong Club Player

About 10 months ago, lots of us JoKo fans were hoping she would introduce more variety into her tennis. Since then she has clearly done so, and has gone on an amazing winning run, which probably we all did not foresee. Of course, setbacks have occurred, and not surprisingly they have happened at the sharp end of tournaments, when the pressure is greatest, and the players better suited to that particular surface are the likely opponent. Jo is going in the right direction however, and has given us something to be excited about, and talk about in equal measure. Keep working hard Jo, get more comfortable with the new variety, and keep winning. We love it!

Oakland2002 · All-time great

ROSAMUND wrote:
markymc1983 wrote:
I think people forget that these tennis players are human beings, with very raw emotions after such a disappointing defeat. I would have told the journo to f*ck off, so for me Jo was quite restrained.
Had she said that she would have been fined for an obscene comment as happened in Paris last year. However emotionally she probably sat down and cried somewhere. I suppose you have to take your disappointment out on somebody. I think draw wise it could have been worse if she had had the prospect of facing either Halep or Svitolina in the semi final. I don't honestly think she would have beaten Serena but the media would have had her beating either of the other pair. Also one has to say that Jo has played in 3 Grand Slam semi finals, 2 quarter finals and the last 16 of 2 US Opens and on every occasion she has lost in straight sets. However she has a fine record in reaching the later stages of Grand Slams and it make take many years before another British female matches it. On the subject of press conferences Petra Kvitova skipped hers after her defeat to Jo.

I think she did essentially tell the journo to go forth and multiply, I have no idea who he/she is and what they do for the other 50 weeks of the year but she is correct she is very professional and totally committed to what she does, she was fully aware of the challenges that this encounter brought and the excellent form her opponent was in, the way she utilised her doubles skill set at the net, to be frank the limitations of her game in terms of dealing with them. A more nuanced line of questioning would have produced a more interesting interview representative of Jos year, headlines yes but we learnt nothing that for me is poor journalism. There is a story to tell beyond that of British tennis played pissed off at loosing in QF

Peter too · Tennis legend

I generally find most post match interviews pretty worthless, a succession of pointless questions and pointless answers. Sporting stars should do their talking on the field of play. I remember the battles between Coe and Ovett. Coe was the darling of the press while Ovett used to walk off without giving an interview. Needless to say I always supported Ovett with his hallmark surge down the back straight.

HarryGem · Club Coach

A very disappointing result for Jo having done the hard work in the first 5 games she just seemed to go to pieces in the second set.
As to the press conference I thought she was polite if direct. Would the journalist have asked similar questions of a male player? I don't think so. Even though valid the journalist could have phrased things much better.
There seems little doubt that despite big improvements in her game there is something missing when it comes to the really big matches.

Grachka · County player

A lot of the problem is the British media in particular (not counting some select journalists) have no sense of perspective when it comes to British players. They judge them against the likes of Nadal, Federer, Serena, Venus, Murray etc. and anything short of that is seen as failure. Even in the context of Jo being the one that finally broke oodles of records "since Jo Durie", "since Virginia Wade" etc. etc., she is too often, at the end of tournaments, depicted as a choker or, as a radio presenter said this morning, "just another story of British failure" in tennis. While she wins against the odds the support is ferocious, but the backlash when she falls (just) short is equally so.

Her recovery this year has been remarkable and to get to a Grand Slam semi in your weakest slam, followed by a QF at your home slam where you're pretty much the sole entrant with a hope of winning, was not guaranteed. There are plenty of people who have broken through to the latter stages of slams who have sunk more dramatically or disappeared without trace in quicker time (Bouchard comes to mind, Vaidisova, even the active Miss Ostapenko)...and so I think I'd be pretty pissed off if, after a bad loss, this was all summed up back to me as a list of unforced errors and a strong implication that I hadn't tried hard enough to get over the incredibly difficult mental hurdle of winning a slam.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

I follow most of the tennis commentators on twitter, the likes of David Law, Stuart Fraser, Simon Cambers and a few others. Its very clear that they know very little about tennis outside of the Slams and ATP/WTA level, something Ive always been amazed at given some of them do it for a living. Ive said it before but I reckon I could pick a dozen prominent posters from this forum who would provide a lot more knowledge and insight on tennis than these guys do. Ive watched a good few pressers and the questions are really bad, cliche ridden and repetitive. The players would appreciate some decent questions and knowledge for a change and Im not surprised the likes of Jo, Nick, Serena and a few others take offence.

flamingowings · All-time great

^^ speak in of really bad presser q's Rafa was asked about how lovely the flowers are at Wimbledon. I mean...What a waste of a q. And breath. And Rafa didn't understand the q either.

Jimmy09 · Intermediate Club Player

Not sure if anyone has seen or reported this article on the beeb... I'm sure most of us remember Andrew Bettles, wasn't sure which section this should go in?

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/48938841

-- Edited by Jimmy09 on Thursday 11th of July 2019 09:48:47 AM

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Jo seems to have come in for criticism over her response to a question in her press conference after her Wimbledon defeat. You hear Annabel Croft lecturing her about how she should treat the media. Yet recently there was one interview with Jo in which the interviewer asked what they knew was a provocative question. It was "In the cricket world cup do you support Australia or England?" Wisely she said she didn't follow the cricket. Cameron Norrie said he would support New Zealand in Rugby Union against England but he didn't get any comments over the issue. If there is any female tennis player in the future like Jo who was born in one country and has origins in another I could suggest they don't bother coming to the UK. Might not get such offensive comments in other countries.

Andy Parker · Club Coach

I respectfully don't agree with you Rosamund.

From what I understand, Jo was a teenager who was already establishing herself as a talented tennis player in Australia, when her family made the decision to come to the UK, for reasons of her tennis development, primarily because of economics and tennis funding I believe.

Those things have already been written by journalists and are a matter of record, rather than speculation, as far as I know.

The question of whether Jo's loyalties are with the UK or Australia is always going to be a sensitive subject for her, and I think if you have origins in one country and then come to another, it is always a matter of personal choice, whether you feel more alleigance to the country of origin or your new country. Partly of course it is down to how you are treated in your new country, and there are many people who move to a new country and then are treated badly, suffer racism and then feel more attached to the old country than the new one.

What does Jo feel - I have no idea, but it is a legitimate question and interesting subject. Jo didn't move as a baby or as a refugee - she moved at an age when it was becoming apparent that she was likely to become a professional player and her parents made the decision to base her here.

Peter too · Tennis legend

We also need to remember that some of the girls can get hate mail when they lose a match. The last thing they need is some interviewer winding up the audience.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

ROSAMUND wrote:
Jo seems to have come in for criticism over her response to a question in her press conference after her Wimbledon defeat. You hear Annabel Croft lecturing her about how she should treat the media. Yet recently there was one interview with Jo in which the interviewer asked what they knew was a provocative question. It was "In the cricket world cup do you support Australia or England?" Wisely she said she didn't follow the cricket. Cameron Norrie said he would support New Zealand in Rugby Union against England but he didn't get any comments over the issue. If there is any female tennis player in the future like Jo who was born in one country and has origins in another I could suggest they don't bother coming to the UK. Might not get such offensive comments in other countries.

I agree with Andy P. And Cam gets hate mail too - a lot of the boys do.

Why do you say 'wisely', Rosamund? You don't know if Jo would have got any adverse comments if she'd said 'Australia'. Cam didn't so why are you assuming that she would? Why was it a provocative question for Jo but not for Cam? Anyway, it might not have been wise, it might just have been true, she didn't care.

Certainly your example shows that the rules seem the same for both men and women i.e. both Cam and Jo got asked the same question. And there was no difference in media response even though Cam answered the question honestly and Jo either answered it honestly or sidestepped it.

And I agree with Andy - it's a very interesting question. I've seen British kids in France support: the UK; France; first UK (like parents) and then France (like schoolfriends) as they grew up; first France (to fit in) and then UK (as they felt more confident); or support France for rugby, say, and England in the Olympics. Tons of variations.

I think the question is a very fair one. IF she'd answered Australia and got a lot of stick for it from the media then that wouldn't have been fair. But it didn't happen.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Thursday 11th of July 2019 01:59:16 PM

Andy Parker · Club Coach

I would also like to add that I think that Jo reaching the quarter final at Wimbledon should be seen as a success rather than a failure, and that in the post-match interview, the journalist's questions were clumsy and poor at best.

I understand why she felt that she was being patronised and treated unfairly after she had given her all, but as an ex-journo, I can understand that sometimes journalists ask simple and maybe questions that others would say are dumb-assed in the hope of bringing out interesting responses and getting players to talk about difficult subjects. Anyway the journalist could have done better, definitely, but as others have said, he was probably no tennis expert, but was sent to cover a match as he probably does for 2 weeks a year.

I also think it is worth saying that hopefully Jo does now feel British and does feel welcome here.

The other thing about this is that most journalists do interviews on a one to one basis, by phone or in person, and if you have ever compared asking questions in a crowded room, with lots of people listening, to having to talk one to one with someone (which is much easier to develop a rapport), it is a difficult skill to master, if you are not used to it. Most papers do not have tennis correspondents, but simply have sports staff who attend Wimbledon once a year, which means that player conferences are an unusual situation for them too.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Thursday 11th of July 2019 02:36:08 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

If Jo's journalist deliberately asked a dumb question, to get an ' interesting' response, well, he certainly succeeded there !

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Thursday 11th of July 2019 02:33:34 PM