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IN
THE WAKE OF TRAGEDY
Why
did the WTA continue to play in Hawaii?
By
Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net
The
question has to be asked so here goes: Why did the new WTA tournament
at the Big Island in Hawaii not cancel play after Tuesday's bombing
of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon?
The
short answer is because unlike the other major sports, postponement
is not an option in tennis. You cannot simply tell all the players
to go home and ask them to come back a couple weeks later, like
baseball and football did. Rescheduling during the same calendar
year is virtually impossible.
Sure,
it was highly embarrassing for the WTA to be the only major sports
organization in the United States to continue holding a sports
event last
week. It was downright stomach-curdling to open up the sports
pages every
morning and read columnists who were talking to other athletes
about their
travails and worries regarding the bombing and then turn to the
agate and see
that Justine Henin and Sandrine Testud were cruising along after
the Big
Island event suspended play for one day. This reporter was embarrassed
to be
a tennis writer.
But
what was the new tournament to do? If it had canceled play after
Monday,
it would have incurred a huge financial loss and might not have
been able to
return next year.
The
eerie irony of the Big Island tournament is that the bombing of
the WTC
and Pentagon immediately brought back memories of the last major
attack on
U.S. soil – Hawaii's
Pearl Harbor. tennisreporters.net
wonders
how many U.S. players took a drive over to that haunted oceanside
locale.
Just
as ironically, guess who reached the semis of the tournament?
None other
than staunch Republican Marissa Irvin of Santa Monica, she of
the red, white
and blue bandanna. Marissa once said that she'd like to run for
political
office. If she ever does try for a seat in Congress, you can bet
her opponent
will bring up the fact that she played during this tumultuous
time instead of
spending her time thinking of her country men and women. Worse,
she was
crushed in the semis by Testud. Is that what President Jacques
Chirac meant
when he said that "All the French people are with the American
people."
Couldn't Sandrine at least given Irvin a set as a goodwill gesture?
If
tennisreporters.net
gets a chance, we'll try to run down Irvin this week and get some
of her thoughts.
As
an aside, why did Ms. Sentimentality, Monica Seles, keep playing
in
Brazil? As a fairly new U.S. citizen, she should have thought
better of her
decision. There were plenty of other non-U.S. citizens playing
who would have
gladly taken home the title. Monica does not need another Tier
II crown on
her resume.
You
have to wonder how Monica's victim in the final, Yugo-Aussie Jelena
Dokic, felt. For all intensive purposes, Dokic lives in Florida.
tennisreporters.net
would
bet a lot of unique visitors (say five) that Jelena applies for
U.S.
citizenship some time in the next few years. We bet she won't
tell the INS
that during crisis week, she was still missing the sidelines by
an inch or
two.
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