Category Archives: culture

Srdjan, Serbian Nationalism, & the Uses of Information

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Despite the title, this isn’t really a post about Srdjan Djoković. Like various others during the second week of the Australian Open, I’m using the father of the top men’s player in the world to get your attention. Unlike many of them, I’m doing so for what I hope is an edifying purpose. Namely, I want to unpack a widely-reported incident that took place outside Rod Laver Arena last month in order to make distinctions between different types of information. In the second part of the post, I’ll offer an interpretation of the varieties of fan sentiment, ethnic pride, nationalist iconography, &/or political ideology that were expressed on the tournament grounds after the quarterfinal match between Novak Djoković and Andrey Rublev.

Part 1

First, the facts: Following complaints by spectators during a first-round match between Kateryna Baindl (UKR) and Kamilla Rakhimova (RUS), as well as a demand from the Ukrainian ambassador to Australia, Tennis Australia belatedly introduced a ban on Russian and Belarusian flags. Over the course of the subsequent 12 days, they added more flags, banners, and symbols to the prohibited list in order to cast a wider net for potentially-provocative displays by attendees.

Though there may have been others who managed to sneak in flags here and there (and we know that security ejected unruly spectators for a variety of reasons throughout the fortnight), it wasn’t until the middle of the second week that there was a news-making incident involving about six men waving Russian (and related) flags and chanting pro-Putin slogans on the steps leading from the two main show-courts into Garden Square.

Map of Melbourne Park, with Garden Square at center, courtesy Tennis Australia

The timeline: Djoković’s on-court interview ended around 10:00pm; shortly thereafter, Novak fans began to assemble on the steps, as they had after each of his wins. Though at least one of the aforementioned men is visible in the background of my videos and photos of the festivities, it wasn’t until the significantly larger group began to disperse, at approximately 10:30, that these men briefly took center stage.

A few minutes prior to that, some of the men in question had stopped Srdjan Djoković for a picture as he was leaving the fan gathering. As can be seen in the photo below, the main culprit is not only holding a flag emblazoned with Vladimir Putin’s face but also wearing a t-shirt with a “Z” symbol over the Night Wolves logo. (I’ll discuss the significance of these accoutrements in Part 2.)

Srdjan Djoković poses with fans & other attendees as AO security looks on (photo credit: Miodrag Dimitrijević of Nova)

Within minutes, event security confronted the men and escorted them from the site, where they were questioned by Victoria Police.

For the record: while I spent some time observing the celebration, and walked past Srdjan and his entourage on my way from the media center to the steps, I left the area 5-10 minutes before things got ugly. So, unfortunately, I’m not in a position to say whether people were dispersing organically or began leaving due to these men’s disruptive behavior. (I do know, however, that some fans wishing to say hello to Novak’s father turned away when they saw these men approaching him.)

In the background: An ethnic Russian activist named Semyon Boikov, who also goes by the name “Aussie Cossack,” had encouraged his social-media followers to “retaliate” against Tennis Australia for what he called their “discrimination,” “racism,” and “attack on honor and dignity” in banning various Russian flags. The very day TA announced the ban, Boikov offered a cash reward to anyone who succeeded in displaying a pro-Russian symbol during a televised match and provided a helpful list of all matches featuring Russian players. Subsequently, he congratulated attendees who had managed to evade the ban, before specifically suggesting the Djoković-Rublev quarterfinal as a high-profile opportunity to do so. In all, Boikov—who has some 161,000 YouTube subscribers, solicits volunteers, and raises money off his content—published twenty-two posts and videos about Russian flags at the Australian Open on his channel over a two-week period.

Assessment: Clearly, the Tennis Australia flag policy and the security measures in place to implement it weren’t enough to stop people determined to bring banned items into Melbourne Park. In fairness, though, it’s pretty tough to thoroughly search the bags—and bodies—of each of the tens of thousands of people coming through the gates every day; and AO security had the additional challenge of distinguishing between similar-looking Russian (🇷🇺) and Serbian (🇷🇸) flags. In a few cases, members of the security team were over-zealous with flag-draped fans there to support Djoković; in a handful of other cases, they missed people who, I think it’s safe to say, had ulterior motives for coming to the tournament on the day(s) they did. All things considered, my main criticism of the AO is that their security staff didn’t act sooner to remove these men. But, even so, my criticism is qualified, as there may have been other factors contributing to their decision, such as waiting for police back-up or prioritizing the safety of the larger crowd by delaying action in order to minimize chances of people getting hurt should any violence erupt as they attempted to detain the men.

Afterwards: In the interest of transparency, I’ll confess that I jumped to conclusions when I first saw the headlines about Srdjan Djoković. Anyone who has followed Novak’s career knows that the father has often been a public-relations liability to the son; and I’ve followed it more closely than most—not least, because I speak Serbian. So, I reacted to the photo a colleague sent our Serbian media group chat late Wednesday night by rolling my eyes. The next day, I reacted to the flurry of tweets I saw when I first checked Twitter like a lot of other people did: by making a judgment without clicking the accompanying links and reading the articles, never mind watching the video “evidence” and evaluating its source. And I did this despite having more contextual information at my disposal than most people, not less. So, this whole episode was a salutary reminder for me, too: slow down; take a breath; read the article; check the source; try to keep your confirmation bias at bay; and consider what else you know or where you can look for more information. Also: since no one needs to tweet (ever), there’s no professional obligation or journalistic value in tweeting about an event before you have the facts straight.

In terms of the way this incident was covered in the first 24-36 hours, I’d suggest readers look at when stories were published or broadcast, which outlets published or broadcast them first (and which waited on details), whether they were published online only or also in print (the editorial standards for the latter are generally higher), what sorts of reporting they were based on, and how they were framed. Five things, in particular, stand out to me:

  • Many stories were published too soon after the incident to allow for much reporting (e.g., verification, interviews, & research) or even fact-checking.
  • The main character of the stories shifted very quickly from a group of disruptive men tossed from Melbourne Park to Novak’s father.
  • None of the articles that I read or news segments that I watched quoted eyewitness accounts (by the journalists themselves or spectators who had observed the events in question).
  • Many of the reports highlighted an inaccurate translation based on a questionable quotation of what Srdjan Djoković said to the men, often in the headline or subhed.
  • The primary source for most stories, other than a Tennis Australia press release, was a video created by the culprits themselves, which included misleading edits, descriptions, and subtitles provided by the “Aussie Cossack” channel.

As a result, stories presented a mix of accurate information (Srdjan did indeed pose for a picture with two of these men), misinformation (the misquotation and inaccurate translation), and speculation (e.g., attempts to interpret the deeper meaning of Djoković senior’s behavior based on an incomplete &/or inadequate grasp of the facts). On top of that, the stories also—albeit inadvertently—spread disinformation by amplifying a propaganda video made to manipulate viewers and advocate specific ideological and policy positions.

To expand on the disinformation point: even if one didn’t witness the scene that night or have enough information at hand to be able to spot the inaccuracies in the video posted by “Aussie Cossack,” one can make some inferences by viewing it in context. Specifically, who filmed the two parts of the incident: 1) the “photo” of Srdjan with two supposed Novak fans that abruptly (and presumably without explanation to Djoković senior) morphed into a video greeting to Alexander Zaldostanov; and 2) the group unfurling Russian flags and cheering Putin on the steps? Though The Guardian’s Tumaini Carayol happened to catch these guys in the latter act, they certainly weren’t leaving it to chance. Why were their short clips then featured in a longer video (set to patriotic Serbian music!) produced for social-media consumption? What can be gleaned about these fellows from a) what they were wearing, holding, and saying; b) the YouTube channel to which they submitted their cell-phone videos; &/or c) a simple Google search for either Boikov himself or the Night Wolves motorcycle “club”?

An aside: the initial media cycle lasted less than a day before it moved on to stories about reactions to the incident—interestingly, more to Srdjan Djoković himself than to the flag-ban-evading, political-statement-making culprits. If you’re interested in journalism, I’d recommend reading a post by NYU professor Jay Rosen about “scoops.” Rosen opens by observing that “Journalists tend to be obsessed with scoops, meaning: the first to break the news, and being seen as the first, which means getting credit for it among peers. But not all scoops,” he continues, “are created equal.” I’ll leave it to others to determine what kind of “scoop” the Srdjan story was—and how well the initial reports held up.

Jay Rosen, “Four Types of Scoops”

Answering only part of the last question: Boikov is someone with a substantial record of both pro-Russian activism in Australia, where he was born, and propagandistic videos and appearances on Russian television. Additionally, Boikov has stated, “We never felt ourselves to be Australian, we were aliens there. I consider myself to be a Russian.” He is not, to put it mildly, a reliable source. In fact, he has made his “Aussie Cossack” group’s motives quite clear in interviews: “We’ll always support the policies of the [Russian] state, we respect very much our Commander-in-Chief, Putin. And we have a unique capacity to support Russia from within a hostile state. Even the FSB or a battalion of the Russian SAS can’t achieve that, because unlike them we are citizens of this state.” Enough said. Why journalists would take what Boikov says on any subject at face value is beyond me.

To make matters worse: while most of Boikov’s videos have below 50 thousand views, the much-embedded, linked, and shared video about the “bold political statement” Srdjan Djoković supposedly made now has 181 thousand views. By every measure imaginable, this was a propaganda win for “Aussie Cossack” and his allies—not because his content is the work of a sophisticated genius but because so few media outlets could resist the lure of a controversy that could be tied to Djoković.

More to follow…

On the 2012 Serbia Open: If You Build It, They Will Come

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But will they come for the tennis? This remains a key question facing the organizers of the Serbia Open, which is being contested this week in Belgrade. Given the crowds during last weekend’s qualifying rounds and on Tuesday’s May Day holiday, there was room—despite the absence of local hero Novak Djoković and his Davis Cup teammates—for cautious optimism. But with the Wednesday retirement of Dušan Lajović, the only Serbian player remaining in the main draw, the answer was looking less hopeful.

The 250-series event, now in its fourth year, is a big deal for both Serbia, which has never hosted an ATP tournament before, and the Djoković family, who owns it. As Novak’s uncle Goran, who serves as tournament director, proudly noted on Friday, Serbia is one of only 32 countries to hold such an event, which has the potential to “contribute significantly to the positive image of the country.” That there is much at stake here is also made clear by the fliers distributed throughout the grounds encouraging spectators to observe proper behavior during matches—not only to help “maintain high standards” at the organizational level but also to “show that we are a tennis nation.” This week’s tournament, however, indicates that there is still a ways to go to prove this point.

First, the bad news. While the popularity of tennis has seen a dramatic increase over the past decade, Serbia does not have a well-developed tennis culture. Traditionally, the public gravitates toward team sports like football, basketball, and volleyball—in which Serbia has had considerable success and spectators are free to support their favorites with little restraint. Serbian fans of the “white sport,” as it is symbolically called, fall into three categories, each bigger than the last: life-long followers of tennis (most of whom also play recreationally), relatively recent converts to the sport (including youngsters with aspirations to play professionally), and bandwagon fans, who are less tennis enthusiasts than admirers of a few successful players.

For the latter group, Djoković is not merely the nation’s best athlete—its Michael Jordan, if you will—but also its Brad Pitt and even its Kim Kardashian. That is, they fill the stands to be near the bright light of celebrity as much as, if not more than, to see Nole play. That Djoković has earned his achievements through talent, dedication, and hard work is not lost on the many parents, teachers, and even politicians who hold him up as a role model for the nation’s youth. But his success also registers in more superficial ways: his money, status, and fame make him equally a focus of the tabloids and a mainstay of the sports pages. And some of Djoković’s allure has rubbed off on tennis itself, so that regardless of who’s playing, people will come along to the “Novak” Tennis Center to see and be seen. Alas, such patrons are unlikely to make it into the stands unless a familiar face is on court.

Without well-known Serbian players to draw the crowds, the tournament must rely on either the curiosity of the general public or the passion of a much smaller group: those who really care—or want to learn—about tennis. Unfortunately, given the state of the economy, most people can’t afford the seats; or, if they do splurge, it won’t be for more than one session. Perhaps recognizing this, organizers made entry to the site free—not just during the qualifying rounds, as planned, but all week. While this has meant that hard-core fans and students of the game can watch matches on the two outer courts without tickets, it has left the stadium court mostly empty. Unsurprisingly, the largest crowds all week have not been for the tournament’s top seed, Pablo Andujar, but for its biggest name: David Nalbandian, who is familiar from both competing in Belgrade for Davis Cup and, more importantly, being a former top-ten player.

On to the good news. One thing can certainly be said for Djoković Family Sport: they know how—and where—to throw a party. With courts on the banks of the Danube, adjacent to the Belgrade fortress, and just a short walk from the city’s main square, the tournament is ideally situated. Further, evidence of a previous family business, a pizzeria in the ski resort of Kopaonik, can be seen all over their latest enterprise, from the four different restaurants on site (one, naturally, offering gluten-free items) to the Balkan beauties in tennis outfits offering samples of sponsor products; from the expert wait-staff whisking fruit juices, beer, espresso, and clean ashtrays to packed tables at the centrally-located café to the entertainment of the nightly karaoke contest presented by odd couple Mercedes and MTV.

On a more substantive level, the Serbia Open is also doing well by arguably its most important attendees: players and serious fans. According to Andujar, it is a well-run event: “I think it’s a very good tournament,” he noted after his quarter-final win over Lukas Rosol, “even if it’s new and they are [just] starting.” While Andujar admits that he and other players always want “enormous” crowds at their matches (as at Indian Wells, where the stadium was “full of people, clapping every point”), he also acknowledges that the absence of players like Tipsarević is “good for us, for these kinds of people—players that want to grow and be more famous.”

Others, too, benefit from the presence of such an event: for instance, next-generation Serbian hopefuls, like seventeen-year-old Miki Janković, who played his first ATP event this week. Locals who follow the sport closely are also happy to have international talent on display in Belgrade, even if it’s not from the best-known names on tour. Last but not least thrilled by the tournament are practitioners and students of the game, like Hristijan Kovačević and his coach, who, though they couldn’t afford stadium seats, came every day to pick up tips from training sessions and observe the match-play of the professionals whose ranks the thirteen-year-old hopes to one day join.

Ultimately, what stands out at the Serbia Open is the aspirational quality of the venture. The organizers are committed to making the tournament a future success—and not simply in financial terms. Despite this year’s merely “satisfactory” crowds, the director is already talking about developing it into a 500-series event. Though a cynic might see the place as little more than a glorified gift shop selling brand Novak, there are numerous indicators that the venue serves a greater purpose. Take, for instance, the trophy room, full of glittering prizes won by the current #1: perhaps seeing an Olympic medal or a replica Wimbledon Cup will inspire a Serbian child to pick up a racket. And if that isn’t concrete enough, how about this: the center is set to host several ITF Futures events this summer.

Originally published on The Tennis Space (6 May 2012)

Pocerina Day Trip

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This is an Atlas Obscura entry based, in part, on a May 2019 visit to Western Serbia.

“Do you want to marry God?” she asked, not five minutes into our acquaintance. It seemed less a question than an invitation.

I had picked up a young nun on the side of the road, deducing from her all-black attire that we were headed to the same place: Radovašnica monastery, at the foot of Cer (pronounced “tsair”) mountain in Western Serbia. She was from Bosnia, making her way across the former Yugoslavia from one Serbian Orthodox sanctuary to another, final destination unknown. I was from Washington, DC, driving the rural roads of Mačva in a glossy black Fiat Panda I’d picked up a few days earlier from Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Our conversation had taken an intimate turn remarkably quickly.

“No,” I answered bluntly, hoping to cut the evangelizing short. “I only came to light an anniversary candle”—shorthand, in the regional idiom, for the end of a one-year period of mourning. Though I was telling the truth about the candles, traditional beeswax tapers bought for that purpose in one of the nearby villages, it’s also the case that I was in a hurry and Radovašnica was just the first stop on a day trip back in time.

“For Health”

Local lore has it that the monastery’s land was endowed by King Stefan Dragutin of the Nemanjić dynasty in the late 13th century, making it among the oldest in the “Pocerina” region on the north side of the mountain. Both Serbia and the still-disputed territory of Kosovo are dotted with Orthodox monasteries, many far grander in size or set in more dramatic landscape than this one. But Radovašnica, like the others, helps tell the story of Serbia from medieval to modern times. It’s also a gateway between the fields and orchards of the area’s small family farms and the mountain. “Fertile Mačva has always attracted occupiers,” narrates a tv documentary about the monastery, the main church of which was destroyed repeatedly during several hundred years of Ottoman rule, late 18th-century conflicts between Turks and Habsburgs, 19th-century Serbian uprisings, and in two world wars. Sadly, it’s not the only thing around here that’s been “demolished, burned, and plundered.”

Although Cer—named for Quercus cerris, the species of oak that covers the terrain—certainly offers plenty of hiking and other outdoor activity for tourists and locals alike, it’s best known for an August 1914 battle in which the undermanned Serbian army defeated invading Austro-Hungarian forces, resulting in the first Allied victory of World War I. It is to the memory of the fallen from that campaign that the newest Orthodox church in the vicinity, Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, is dedicated. Baptized six years ago on the battle’s centenary, the church also serves as a sort of rest stop for travelers who brave the cobblestone track that traverses the mountaintop. (Google maps will instruct you to get from one end of the mountain to the other by roads at its base for a reason, as I learned when my rental car got stuck in mud created by the combination of spring rains and dirt roads.) When I was last there, both the church and the nearby “Linden Waters” lodge were deserted, though someone had been by recently enough to leave a full bottle of Montenegrin wine on a picnic table out front. A mural behind the church proclaims “Cer’s heroes, holy warriors,” putting a spiritual gloss on what was a decidedly secular event and hinting at the contemporary church’s role in keeping Serbian nationalism alive.

About five miles to the south of the mountain’s peak is a modest museum and monument: an ossuary in the form of natural rock, embellished with the phrase, “Your deeds are immortal.” The Battle of Cer also lives on in a WWI-era song, “March on the Drina,” played at national-team sporting events, and a 1964 film by the same name. Despite this cultural legacy, it’s the case that Cer doesn’t call attention to itself. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you might think the mountain and its surroundings are what an urbanite from Belgrade, a two hours’ drive away, would call a “vukojebina” (literally, “a place where wolves fuck”). The Serbian government, however, is determined not to let the mountain or the military conquest that took place there be forgotten. In late 2018, they announced a plan to construct a memorial complex with a massive glass tower “symbolizing victory,” featuring 360-degree views of the surrounding countryside, and designed to “be visible from large parts of Serbia.” My advice: get there while the wolves still outnumber the tourists.

While you’re there: try honey made by the bee-keeping nuns of nearby Petkovica monastery, ajvar (the roasted red pepper spread made each fall), gibanica (a pie made with alternating layers of filo dough and cheese filling), and the ubiquitous šljivovica (plum brandy, the national drink).

All About Djoković

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Belgrade Open 2021 Novak Djokovic (SRB) v Federico Coria (ARG) photo: Marko Djokovic/ Starsportphoto ©

In the lead up to the busiest part of the tennis season, I had the pleasure of joining BBC radio host Steve Crossman and tennis correspondent Russell Fuller on a 5 Live Sports special program discussing what makes the ATP #1 tick.

You can listen here and read excerpts from Fuller’s interviews with former players and Djoković coaches Niki Pilić, Boris Becker, and Goran Ivanišević here.

My Tennis Journalism Hobby-Horse

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I took advantage of a paragraph break in my post about coverage of the Adria Tour to ride a hobby-horse of mine—briefly, I thought.  But then the aside got long enough to merit space of its own.

Story time: At the 2014 US Open, and as he was being escorted out of the main interview room, I asked Grigor Dimitrov how often he encounters Bulgarian journalists at tour events outside his home country. Answer: never. The same year, a handful of Serbian media provided most, if not all, of the native-language coverage of Marin Čilić’s run to the final because no representative of the Croatian media was credentialed. Either their applications had been rejected by the USTA or, given Čilić had made only one major semifinal to date (at the 2010 Australian Open), Croatian outlets didn’t think it was worth the cost or effort of sending anyone—though I suspect it’d be worth the effort if not for the cost. Imagine: you win your first grand slam title and none of the journalists who’ve followed your career most closely are there to witness or talk to you about it.

A serious shortcoming I see in tennis journalism and the online tennis community’s discourse isn’t that most of it happens in English, though that’s true of the latter.  Rather, it’s that there is not nearly as much cross-cultural collaboration and exchange as this uniquely international sport demands.  Here are the contributing factors that come immediately to mind: three out of four majors take place in the Anglosphere, the transcribed portion of player press conferences are in English, and very little of the tennis writing produced in languages other than English gets translated and circulated widely.  The fact that, sadly, many native English speakers are monolingual means that the work of translation, rewarding though it can be, falls on the rest of the tennis world.  (Let me pause to note that I give myself little, if any, credit for speaking more than one language: it’s pure chance that I was born into a bicultural family and that communicating with my beloved grandmother required at least one of us adapt; further, my adventures with Spanish in high school, Russian in college, and French in grad school taught me that it is very difficult to maintain skills in any language you don’t speak both regularly and outside the classroom.)  Add to the aforementioned factors the economic realities of the global sports market—for tennis, in general, and tennis journalism, in particular—and the problem is exacerbated.  Have I mentioned the travel expenses for attending a single tournament, never mind following the tour’s progress from one continent to another (and sometimes back again), over the course of a season?

As a result of all of the above, both journalists and fans around the world have limited access to much of the coverage of non-Anglophone players—which is, let’s be honest, most of the top ranks. On the ATP side, 79 of the 100 best players—including the entire top 10 and 18 of the top 20—are non-native English speakers; on the WTA, it’s 77 out of the top 100.  Similar percentages aside, these demographics are especially significant on the men’s tour, where the exceptions to the rule in the top 20 are both multilingual children of immigrants (Canada, eh?).  Not only have the Williams sisters been a near-constant presence at the top of the women’s game for over twenty years, the WTA has also had other Anglospheric talent, from Lindsay Davenport at the turn of the century to Ashleigh Barty today, with plenty of others in supporting roles.  A list of recent slam winners includes Sloane Stephens, Bianca Andreescu, and Sofia Kenin; Naomi Osaka, still more comfortable in English than Japanese, is a poster child for tennis multiculturalism.  With the ATP, well, it’s a different story.  Before Andy Murray, who secured the top spot in the final moments of the 2016 season, Lleyton Hewitt in 2001-02 and Andy Roddick in 2003 were the last Anglophone year-end #1s (with an honorary mention going to Andre Agassi, who spent 12 weeks ranked #1 in the fall of 2003).  Arguably, then, international tennis journalism—to the extent that such a thing exists and isn’t merely another way of saying “journalistic dispatches from the Anglosphere”—is lagging over a decade behind the sport.

Consider the most relevant example for my purposes (recall, this is hypothetically, if not technically, an aside): the coverage of one Novak Djoković.  Recently, he sat for a number of interviews to discuss the Adria Tour, the prospect of a 2020 US Open, and other timely topics.  As a reference point, compare the length of these appearances: a podcast with tennis commentators (58 min.) and a late-night tv variety show (47 min.) in Serbian, both recorded before the event kicked off, and conversations in English on Eurosport (5 min.) and Tennis Channel (two parts, 13 min.) once the action was underway.  Like most people, Novak is more comfortable speaking in his mother tongue (and, not incidentally, with people he trusts)—and this is generally reflected in the material he provides his hometown media.

The trouble is, though they might transcribe parts of these interviews for quoting in print, no Balkan sports journalist needs to translate them; in the tennis media world beyond, almost no one can.  So, such efforts are left either to Serbian journalists who take the time to share excerpts with his/her international Twitter following (hey, Saša Ozmo!) or to fans.  With all due respect to the energy dedicated fans from across the globe put into this sort of thing, they’re neither experienced journalists nor trained translators.  In the case of printed articles, many are reliant upon Google translate—which, as I likely don’t need to tell you, is better with some languages than others.  If you’re not actually fluent in both languages, you can get a lot wrong using this method.

The upshot of all of this is that Anglophone tennis media miss out on some of the most substantive comments made by not just the ATP #1 but, in fact, many players speaking in their native languages.  By way of conclusion, here are two selections from the televised chat with Ivan Ivanović, one summarized and the other translated.

1) Regarding the origins of the Adria Tour: this event grew out of conversations between Djoković and the national tennis federation in early May, when he was still in Spain.  While much of the rest of the world was locked down, Serbia was already starting to open up.  Specifically, Novak saw an opportunity in the relatively low covid-19 numbers back home and was interested in using the courts at his eponymous tennis center to put on spectator-less tournaments for male and female players from the region, so that they could get in some competitive matches and earn a bit of money.  As he was aware from ATP player council conversations and various social-media posts, players outside the top 100 were struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic—with some, he noted, referencing a (British?) WTA player, even putting their racquets down and taking other jobs to survive.  Acknowledging that for him and other top players, this break from the official tour wasn’t a financial blow with any day-to-day impact, he was looking to find ways—beyond the player relief fund—to help.

Starting at the end of May, the TSS organized small tournaments (but not so small that some of them didn’t also have qualifying rounds!) in several Serbian cities, including the capital.  One such tournament, of course, took place in Belgrade in the days leading up to the Adria Tour; 50,000€ of the prize-money pot came from Djoković himself—whether out of his own pocket, through his foundation, or from AT revenues, I’m not entirely sure.  The men’s winner, Damir Džumhur, qualified for the final spot in the weekend spectacle; the women’s draw was won by #260 Dejana Radanović.  Although the idea grew into a plan to replicate this “hybrid” tournament model across the former Yugoslavia, the Adria Tour started with a much more modest—and, I’d argue, more important—goal.  How much coverage did those smaller, starless events get?  You tell me.

2) Djoković notes that when he returned to Belgrade from Spain, it was hard to determine what was going on in terms of public health: “I see many people on the streets—some who, of course, take care, follow [the guidelines], and so on; but on the other hand, there are people who are [acting] completely as if nothing happened.”  Asked about coming into his own as #1, his leadership role within the ATP, and the various financial donations he’s made during the coronavirus pandemic, Novak observed that being a child of the ‘90s in the former Yugoslavia (experiencing war, sanctions, & NATO bombardment) was one of the crucial features of his youth that shaped his personality.  This trauma was one way—one reason—he learned to care for others: “to be aware that I’m not the only person in the world, so that everything isn’t done just for me or in my personal self-interest.”  He added: “When you see poverty, and you yourself are part of it, that sort of experience simply makes you want to look at everything in life from different angles.  That desire to find myself, to help, to be available, to contribute has always propelled me and propels me to this day—especially in circumstances like this, when there is a state of emergency.  Though it may sound a bit ironic, for us Serbs a state of emergency is somehow a normal situation. Unfortunately.  I mean, it’s tough. . . everyone abroad is complaining [about the lockdown, e.g.]; but for us, having lived through the ‘90s, this is normal.  It was always a state of emergency.”

Kiki: “Sport is in our blood”

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DSC_728019330Birmingham Kiki friday new

Before her breakout run to the US Open quarterfinals, Kristina Mladenović was kind enough to talk to me in the players garden behind Arthur Ashe stadium.  Our conversation was published in Serbian by B92; an extended English version is posted at Tennis Translations.  Her wins in New York will earn the Franco-Serbian player a new career-high singles ranking of #28.

DSC_610518699Holland Kiki

Photos by Christopher Levy.

Nick Kyrgios and Casual Sexism

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First and foremost, let me say here what I’ve said elsewhere: sexism isn’t only something men do to women; it’s a cultural condition to which none of us is immune.  When sexism is put to a good beat, as in the songs mentioned below, I bob my head right along with it. So, it certainly isn’t a problem unique to Nick Kyrgios.  That I’m responding to his now-infamous outburst in the Coupe Rogers match against Stan Wawrinka is a function of two things: its being a conveniently brief and illustrative statement to unpack; and the lack of attention to the sexism that undergirds it.  Although ESPN’s Pete Bodo wrote a piece in which he refers to Kyrgios’ sexism, he didn’t explain why he judged the comments to be not only generically “demeaning and disrespectful” but also “misogynistic.”  To me, Krygios’ comments are garden-variety casual sexism, made worse by the public setting and the specificity of their target.  Having said that, I still think they’re worth analyzing—especially because this sort of thing is so insidious, it can be hard to see.

I’m not going to address the first unsavory comment that Kyrgios made on court in Montreal—“He’s banging an 18-year old”—in detail, except to say that Wawrinka’s sex life is none of our business unless psychological abuse or a criminal act is being committed.  Only Kyrgios knows what bothers him about the discrepancy in age between the Swiss player and his current partner—if she is, indeed, that.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s not necessary to know their relationship status or even her identity to explore the troubling, and all too common, assumptions behind the Australian’s words.  Nor is it necessary for Kyrgios to have intended to convey all of what I discuss below: language is a living, individual thing, but it’s also a social thing with a long history.  The words we use both reflect and shape our shared existence.  In this case, one of the key features of our existence is patriarchy—and women’s traditional position within it.  Even if some of these traditions are things of the past, their legacy lingers on.

Without further ado, the offending statement: “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend.  Sorry to tell you that, mate.”  Leaving aside the very public breach of several people’s privacy (a major issue) and the feigned concern of the sarcastic apology (a minor one), what’s the problem here?  Well, there are several.  In using this bit of information to rile or retaliate against his opponent, Kyrgios clearly intended to insult Wawrinka.  But why would this apparent “fact” be insulting unless one believed that the aforementioned girlfriend’s prior sexual activity were both Wawrinka’s business and somehow dishonorable?  (For the sake of narrowing the discussion, I’m not going to entertain the possibility that the young Aussie was informing his elder opponent about his partner’s infidelity, though that could certainly be another way to humiliate someone.)  Perhaps unwittingly, both the comment and the response play into many age-old, overlapping stereotypes and assumptions about women and sex.

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1) Woman as Object
Whether as a trophy to display, a spoil of war or other forms of conquest, an acquisition, or an item of exchange between men (e.g., father and husband in a marriage ceremony), women have long been regarded as men’s property.  Kyrgios perpetuates this notion by informing Wawrinka of his girlfriend’s activity and expecting him to be upset about it.  Note that Stan the Man obliged, perhaps defending his territory.  Like I said, sexism affects us all.

Further, in this instance, a woman is being used to mediate relations between two men.  All the stranger, then, that Kyrgios employs his pal Thanasi Kokkinakis as a proxy.  Although it wouldn’t be much better if he’d said, “I banged your girlfriend,” it’d be slightly more understandable because more direct.  Despite the pseudo-concern or judgment evinced by “He’s banging an 18-year old,” the unnamed but easily identified girlfriend and her feelings—her status as a subject—are irrelevant here.  Make no mistake: this is all about men and hetero-masculinity.

Simpler times: Kyrgios & Wawrinka shake hands at the Queens Club.

Simpler times: Kyrgios & Wawrinka shake hands at the Queens Club.

2) Woman as Passive
In phrasing things the way he did, Kyrgios taps into the longstanding but misguided belief that sex is something men do to women—in this case, his pal did the “banging.”  The sentence hardly connotes a sense of the female partner’s agency, does it?

3) Sex as Shameful
The colorful verb Kyrgios chose, as well as suggesting violence, signals less than respect or support for the woman’s participation in this presumably mutual act.  Nor does it imply a reciprocity of feeling—or, indeed, much feeling at all.  For a woman to have sex under these circumstances is apparently tantamount to degrading herself: it’s shameful in itself and also devalues her on the relationship market.  Were it not for that, this line couldn’t be used as an insult.  The girlfriend is being presented as damaged goods: she is, per today’s consumer euphemism, “previously owned.”  This is meant to humiliate Wawrinka because he’s getting what another man has already “used.”

By responding how he did, observing that “What was said I wouldn’t say to my worst enemy,” the Swiss unintentionally endorses this set of assumptions—albeit in a benevolent way.  Imagine if, instead of defending his girlfriend’s honor, Wawrinka rejected the faulty premise that there is anything to defend.  It’s possible, after all, to think Kyrgios crossed both moral and behavioral lines without believing or acting like he revealed something shameful.

4) Virgin-Whore Dichotomy
Both the comment about the girlfriend’s age and the subsequent dig get at the notion that female adults are either innocents or fallen women; alternately, they can be mothers or. . . not.  Essentially, a single, sexually active woman is a problem: sex should be for procreation or not at all.  This is one reason why Sex and the City was considered ground-breaking television.  The “girl you take home to mom” is unlikely to be a Samantha Jones: for those unfamiliar with the character, a woman who’s “been around.”  Historically, female virtue has been tied, in a limiting way, to sexual activity—or, to be more precise, a lack thereof.  To qualify as “wife material,” women were (and, in some cultures, still are) expected to be abstinent until marriage, while single men are free, as the saying goes, to “sow their wild oats.”  Although many believe women’s elevated moral stature is a product of nature, further cultivated by their traditional nurturing and restricted activities within the private sphere, the expectation of purity is historically rooted in property and inheritance: women’s chastity and fidelity ensure any family wealth is passed down to a legitimate heir.

This dichotomy goes back at least as far as the Bible (think of the Virgin Mother’s immaculate conception), was identified as the source of a complex by Freud, and, of course, gave pop star Madonna much of her iconic material.  More recently, as the poet

Ludacris suggests, men want both/and: a “lady in the street but a freak in the bed” (a phrase he’s fond enough of to have used in multiple songs ).  The Pussycat Dolls’ best-known song also perpetuates contemporary versions of the dichotomy and makes a competition between women for male attention explicit.  The “freak” represented by the Dolls is hot, raw, and fun.  The girlfriend?  All we know about her is that she loves her man.  Their lyrics may involve a reversal of the original split, one which instead puts a sexualized woman on a pedestal, but it still traps women in a false dilemma.  Are these really the only two options?

5) Double Standard: Stud versus Slut
Although it is likely embarrassing for Kokkinakis to have his sexual activity announced to the world without his permission, it’s pretty clear that he’s not the target of his friend and Davis Cup teammate’s comment.  “The Kokk,” unlike the girlfriend involved, didn’t do anything wrong.  In fact, it’s safe to say that “banging” an attractive young woman is widely viewed as an accomplishment, a notch on his racquet handle.  Not so, of course, for the woman in question, whose reputation is sullied by the making public of this information.  Should it be?  Of course not.  But take a look at a certain young WTA player’s Twitter mentions and you’re likely to see more abuse than support.  Whether Kyrgios endorses or even understands all the connotations his comment carries doesn’t matter: his statement was intended and received as a slight because that’s how this stuff works.

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To end at the beginning: attitudes like this—and behavior that reinforces them—don’t constitute a problem for Nick Kyrgios alone.  He’s a product of a sexist culture: not the ATP and not Australia, but a world still recovering from centuries of patriarchy.  If we’re going to fight sexism, we’ll have to do more than point fingers at him.

Five Thoughts on “Playing” Serena

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This piece was published on the (unfortunately-defunct) Tennis Space on 14 December 2012. Since I think the points remain relevant, I’m re-posting it here.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Do I think Caroline Wozniacki is a racist or even that her recent imitation of Serena Williams was racist (defined very narrowly to mean a belief in the inferiority of another race of people expressed via bias, bigotry, discrimination, hostility, and so on)?  No.  Do I believe it’s still worth discussing race and gender in the context of such impersonations?  Yes.  At the same time, we’d benefit from shifting the focus of the conversation from the individuals involved to the larger forces shaping the incident’s interpretations and impact.

Since tennis is, first and foremost, a sport, it follows that websites like this focus on matches and players, tournaments and titles.  But tennis is also of the world, not apart from it: it intersects with history as well as culture.  So, when controversies like this arise, to either wish they’d go away immediately or limit discussion of them in a manner that implies tennis exists in a separate dimension from other parts of our lives is to risk missing the opportunities they provide for introspection and growth.

Idle Hands: The incident that sparked this controversy took place during an off-season exhibition match.  This timing and occasion are relevant mostly because they are indicators that tennis writers have little new material to work with and fans, without their favorite pastime, are bored.  And when boredom strikes, watch out: “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” as the saying goes.  At virtually any other point in the season, Tennis World would not be paying terribly much attention to—not to mention fiercely arguing about—the meaning of a one-minute video.  However, just because we wouldn’t normally be doing so doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do so now.

Us versus Them: Although plenty of people in Tennis World had likely seen videos of (and even developed opinions on) various players imitating Serena, it didn’t become a hot topic until two things happened.  First, the story out of Brazil was picked up—and the word “racist” introduced into it—by the Huffington Post.  Second, Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim, who has one of the biggest audiences in Tennis World, tweeted a link to their article.  Some of the subsequent furor, then, is about the tennis community feeling scrutinized by and wanting to respond to the criticism of outsiders—to people who aren’t following the tennis story closely, and who therefore don’t know the main characters or plot-lines.  It happens so rarely that the sport gets mainstream media coverage in the US, for instance, that fans have reason to be upset that this is the sort of tennis item that gets the attention of . . . actress Whoopi Goldberg, the other hosts of The View, and the wider media universe.  Added to disappointment that the story is being circulated at all is some resentment about how the subject is being framed—especially, but not only, from the Dane’s fans.  With sensational headlines, hasty conclusions about a popular player’s character based on an instance taken out of context, and tension mounting between fans squaring off on the issue, it’s no wonder many dedicated to the sport want this story to disappear.  “Can’t we all get along?” you might be asking.  Yes, we can—but we may actually get along better if we dwell in this discomfort a while longer.

Mixed Messages: Part of the difficulty here is that three overlapping conversations are taking place—sometimes all at once, which only adds to the confusion and increases the likelihood of conflict.  One is mostly about Caroline Wozniacki: her actions, intent, sense of humor, relationship with Serena, judgment, and reputation.  Another is mostly about Serena Williams: her body, self-image, sense of humor, interactions with fellow players, achievements, athletic prowess, physical presence, and power (on court as well as in terms of cultural influence, most notably as a role model for young women of color).  A third and much more abstract conversation links the recent cartoonish representations of Serena to how black women, specifically, and people of African descent, generally, have been and are depicted in white-dominated popular culture—and the negative ramifications thereof—in the US especially.

Just because criticism and outright hostility have been misdirected at Wozniacki, or just because people from beyond the borders of Tennis World have misunderstood other aspects of our complex culture (what’s an exhibition, who does impersonations, which players are friends) doesn’t mean the most significant topic of all isn’t relevant or that discussion of it should be deferred until a more emotionally convenient time.  Contrary to Fox Sports’ Greg Couch, who said that people like Goldberg are “picking the wrong moment” to raise the issue of race, I’d argue that this controversy has created a teachable moment: a perfect opportunity to explore an important issue that might not get our attention in a busier part of the season.

The Exhibition: Despite what this heading suggests, I want to leave aside the tennis event in São Paulo and emphasize two things it has in common with another exhibition some two hundred years ago: a public display featuring a foreign body, with special focus on her breasts and over-sized buttocks.  Without knowing what the so-called “Hottentot Venus” looked like, or that she was an African woman whose body was first put on exhibit in Europe and then (after her early death) dissected in the name of understanding “primitive sexuality,” it is much more difficult to understand why some people are so upset by the light-hearted exaggeration of Serena’s curves.  When Goldberg referred to Wozniacki-as-Williams using the phrase “that visual” and noting “it’s an image that we have seen before,” illustrations of Saarjite Baartman are the sort of thing she had in mind.  (At the risk of sounding smug, I’d encourage anyone whose response to this claim—that people could leap in one or two short moves from a silly moment on a tennis court to the history of race relations from colonialism onward—is disbelief to read more widely, perhaps starting with William Faulkner, who famously wrote, “The past is never dead.  It’s not even past.”)

Popular culture in the West—from the Hottentot Venus to title characters in ‘70s blaxploitation films like Coffy and Foxy Brown to the “bitches” and “‘hos” of contemporary hip hop—is rife with such images of black women.  They’re so common, in fact, that there’s a name for the promiscuous black female stereotype: the Jezebel.  These depictions, which often include body parts exaggerated and meant to suggest sexual appetite and availability, are not simply bad for black women’s “body image” (which commentators like Couch, speaking of Serena’s “bootylicious” body type, have acknowledged).  The strong reaction to these images, in other words, concerns more than black women’s frequent representation as out of shape or fat (on the negative end of the spectrum), curvy or voluptuous (on the positive end).  Rather, for those with the requisite historical knowledge, such imagery is virtually impossible to disentangle from the racist ideologies underpinning much of European and American slave-trading and colonial enterprises (including those in Brazil, by the way).  To put the finest point on it possible: if Europeans and their American counterparts did not think Africans were inferior to whites and, in many cases, less than human, they would not have been able to justify buying, selling, and treating them as property.  Further, as few likely need reminding, being perceived as chattel led not only to physical cruelty such as whippings but also, in the case of black women, to rape and other forms of sexual exploitation.  Stereotyped images of blacks were part and parcel of other, more brutal, types of oppression.  Thus, to ascribe all of the pain and anger about negative representations of black bodies in general and black women’s bodies in particular to “cultural insecurities” (as ESPN’s Jamele Hill does) or to refer to “prevailing sensibilities” of political correctness (as The Telegraph’s Oliver Brown does) is to put the matter mildly—even inaccurately.

Performing Race: It’s no surprise that Charles Caleb Colton, the writer who coined the phrase “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” died before minstrel shows—and performances in blackface—became a popular form of entertainment in the mid-nineteenth century.  It’s hard to imagine how anyone witnessing such mimicry of blacks by whites could be confused enough to think the former group were admired or being complimented by the people on stage.  Although it may seem counter-intuitive, lampooning blacks became more, not less, common in the US in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation.  Those needing a primer on common stereotypes could do worse than watching The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), Amos ‘n Andy (the first television show featuring black actors, 1951), Hollywood Shuffle (1987), or Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000).  The latter’s conclusion, a three-minute montage of blackface imagery from film and television, is a short but powerful reminder of how prevalent and insidious such racist depictions have been.

So, what does this have to do with impersonations of Serena Williams?  Almost certainly nothing, if we only consider the knowledge and intent of her peers putting on these acts.  There’s no doubt in my mind that none of them deliberately set out to mock, demean, or dehumanize one of the most accomplished players of the modern era—a respected colleague and, to differing degrees, friend to Roddick, Wozniacki, and Djoković.  Nevertheless, the legacy of blackface, which today includes everything from white performers appropriating black cultural forms to ignorant &/or insensitive undergraduates who don inappropriate Halloween costumes every fall, is relevant to the interpretation of performances in which white athletes attempt to embody some essential aspect of Serena.  That these imitations remind some people of racist imagery from the past is not something that can be prevented with a warning or undone after the fact by patiently noting, “No, that’s not what they mean” or even forcefully insisting, “That’s got nothing to do with it!”  The power of association—so central to individual and collective imagination, memory, and meaning-making—simply doesn’t work that way.  Indeed, for our small community to suggest that others are misinterpreting these impersonations because they don’t know enough about tennis, rather than the other way around (that the tennis community is missing something about such performances because it is not paying enough attention to the world), seems myopic.

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Tennis, once an almost exclusively white sport, is increasingly diverse in terms of the race, ethnicity, and nationality of its participants.  With shifting demographics among the pros and the fact that ATP and WTA tournaments are now scattered across the globe, tennis is played and watched by people from all walks of life.  One of the benefits of the rapid internationalization of the game is that players, umpires, lines-people, members of the media, and even fans travel the globe, learning about different cultures, eating exotic foods (Donkey-milk cheese, anyone?), attempting to master at least a few words of a foreign language, and forging new friendships, in person and online, through a common love of tennis.  The United States, long the host of major events and home to many a tennis champion, is familiar tennis terrain.  Given the extent of American economic, cultural, and political influence, and the fact that Ashe, Connors, McEnroe, Evert, Navratilova, Sampras, Agassi, and, yes, Williams are tennis’s equivalent of household names, it may seem odd to suggest that the US is one of the distant lands we need to learn more about in order to understand the game of tennis, the people who play it, and even our own reactions to it.  Occasionally, though, we just might.