tennis

Serena's French Open seed denial stirs fresh debate

5 Comments
By Ludovic LUPPINO

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5 Comments
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@fxgai, I completely agree with you about this.

Life happens. It happens to everyone. Good times, hard times, overwhelming times, and all of these times can take precedence over our jobs, our schooling, our relationships, and so on. That's life. Is it unfortunate sometimes? Absolutely. Does it dig holes for people that they don't deserve? Sometimes, for sure. But it's a universal truth, and Serena needs to deal with it just as much as anyone else needs to deal with it.

As fxgai mentioned, other players on tour have been working hard and accumulating results while Serena was out of the game, and their results absolutely have to be acknowledged appropriately.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

the sport's policy towards female players and parenthood.

Nope. If you start here, then that demands that ths sport's policy towards injured players change too.

"French Open is punishing Serena Williams for having a baby" 

Nonsense. People take time off from sport for a number of reasons, some within their control, some without.

While she has been away from the game, other players have been working hard and those who have produced good results do not deserve to be penalized because of the personal decision of another player. That's unfair.

She has played just four matches this season across appearances at Indian Wells and Miami. But her results, far from convincing, have only been good enough to climb to 449th in the world rankings.

So she can play for a season and improve her ranking like every other player and have a seeding next year. That's how it works. For everyone.

"It's not as if she left because of injury and lost her passion for the game," Blake said. 

Why he thinks that being unable to play due to injury is more undeserving, is beyond me.

All that said, if the women on tour all agreed to make a "special treatment for mothers" rule then that's OK with me, but as a viewer I'd prefer to see players who have put results on courts getting seeded accordingly. I can always watch men's tennis instead.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

"arguing an expection for the 23-time major winner should be made for Thursday's draw."

I presume that should be "exception."

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@timeon

I think that's quite different. Pregnancy physically affects women. It not only changes their ability to play greatly and has a physical recovery after the fact, but playing while pregnant is quite dangerous for both mother and child later in the pregnancy.

I can sympathize with men taking paternity leave, but it doesn't affect their ability to play the same way so I wouldn't compare them.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What if a male player takes a parenthood leave to help his wife?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

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