HOW TO LIVE IN HARMONY BY RICHARD EVANS

Written by: Staff on 12th June 2016

HOW TO LIVE IN HARMONY BY RICHARD EVANS

epa05208668 Overhead view of Stadium 1 during the Sloane Stephens of the USA versus Eugenie Bouchard of Canada match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, USA, 12 March 2016. EPA/RAY ACEVEDO |

This is an article about a non-story. It’s a non-story, or would be perceived as such by most media outlets, because it is not about arguments, insults or punch ups nor, thank heaven, about any incidents with guns.

It is a story about a large community that travels worldwide on a non-stop basis, expressing itself in the midst of intense personal rivalry which triggers vast sums of money and yet manages to remain thoroughly civilized.

It is a community of men and women, young and old, embracing well over fifty nationalities; Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and non-believers, some of whom become partners on a doubles court.

And the barely believable point is this: At least for the past twenty years, at all the tournaments I have attended (at least 15 a year) I have never ever seen a bust-up or a really angry argument flare up in the players’ lounge or restaurant or at a players’ hotel. The heat that is frequently generated on court and will occasionally carry over into the locker room never spills out into the semi-public domain of a tournament’s player areas.

“We tend to take it for granted,” says veteran ATP Supervisor and umpire Gerry Armstrong. “But you’re right. I have never seen anything really confrontational blow up at a tournament. It’s a like a club with very well behaved members. Everyone co-exists in a very civilized manner.”

Hello world! Maybe some public figures who think extreme views are the way to solve problems could learn a thing or two from the tennis community. If they did, there is no question people would be safer and happier.

Marty Mulligan, the former Wimbledon finalist and three time Italian champion, who has represented Fila for decades and travels the tour regularly, also feels that we just accept the behavior on the tour as normal without appreciating how remarkable it is.

“If you think back to the last time someone got punched I suppose it was Roger Taylor in Hamburg fending off Bob Hewitt’s assault decades ago,” said Mulligan. “Almost always, feuds are left on court.”

A couple of nights ago, I was dining in the players area at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells and the scene was wholly typical. Fernando Verdasco was dining with his Spanish entourage at one table; a bunch of young doubles players were swapping stories at another; a Chinese group of women players who, I think, included those from both mainland China and Taiwan, were finishing off their meal. Earlier Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland had been chatting to his Swedish coach Magnus Norman while Bob and Mike Bryan played with Bob and Michelle’s four-year-old daughter Micaela. An IMG agent was chatting to a client; British fitness trainer Jez Green was looking for his young charge Alex Zverev; John Isner was talking basketball.

Earlier in the day Nick Kyrgios had been having a quiet meal on the patio with his mates and if you think ‘Ah, there’s a contentious fellow!” you would be right in a sense. But I have never seen Nick be anything but pleasant and civilized in the players’ areas.

Boring, isn’t? But it certainly makes for a pleasant life. “Do you imagine you or I would still be travelling around on the tour if it wasn’t a really pleasant and congenial place to be?” asked Armstrong who joined the ATP in 1990. “We’d find something else to do.”

Armstrong was the man who threw John McEnroe off court for a series of obscenities in Melbourne in 1993 so he is not afraid of conflict and does not turn a blind eye. And McEnroe, of course, was a lightening rod for confrontation. But I never saw him square up to anyone in the players lounge even though a few players had angry words with him straight after matches in the locker room.

I am sure many players have strong political views but, as yet, I have never seen politics generate angry exchanges. Sadly, politics does interject itself on rare occasions. Malek Jaziri of Tunisia pulled out of a match he was due to play against an Israeli at an ATP Challenger in Tashkent in 2013 and his Federation were rightly suspended by the ITF.

Jaziri also drew attention to himself by getting injured during his match against Denis Istomin at Montpellier when, had he won, Dudi Sela of Israel would have been his next opponent. He was also due to play an Israeli doubles pair in the next round. The ATP later confirmed that Jaziri’s injury was genuine and there was no sanction.

But when you realize the potential for conflicts such as this, it becomes all the more amazing that it doesn’t happen more often. And when it does, the players are simply embarrassed. Despite the fact that John Alexander, now a Senator from Sydney, and Marat Safin, a member of the Russian parliament who has just been inducted into the International Hall of Fame, became politicians on retirement, the ATP and WTA tours are far from being politicized.

Of course there are controversies that divide opinion, as we are seeing right now over Maria Sharapova’s admission that she took a recently banned drug. Some players have spoken out strongly on both sides of the argument but nothing that I have witnessed has spilled over into open confrontation.

For those who don’t have to tackle airport security lines almost every week of their lives and then go out and play an incredibly physical sport as they battle for ranking points and money in a variety of testing settings and climates, it may be hard to understand what levels of stress these players are under. Yet, if you observed them in close up as they go about their daily business, you would never know it.

Happily, there have been well publicized instances when some players have tackled political reality and tried to do something about improving it. Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna became exceptional examples of this when they formed what became known as the Indo-Pak Express doubles partnership.

Qureshi from Pakistan and Bopanna, an Indian, were good enough to reach the US Open final, where they lost to the Bryans, in 2010 and, in doing so, achieved the near impossible feat of bringing their respective UN Ambassadors together at Flushing Meadows. The two diplomats sat side by side and chatted amiably, something they practically never do at the United Nations.

So tennis can be a healing force and, amidst the raucous and increasingly unacceptable rhetoric of the world outside, it offers a haven of international civility and tolerance which should be lauded.

Even if it doesn’t create a headline.

Topics: 10sballs.com, BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells Tennis, Richard Evans, Tennis News