Gonzo’s Olympic Ethics Under The Spotlight After Blake Implodes

Mal Taam/MALTphoto Blake let go of 3 match points. FROM THE BEIJING OLYMPICS - What price Olympic ethics in the 21st century?
That’s the question left by James Blake’s outburst at Fernando Gonzalez’s refusal to own up to a ball striking his racket which the umpire didn’t see. Gonzalez denied he felt anything on his racket, but the controversy overshadowed a fascinating match on an absorbing day at the Olympic tennis event.

The controversial moment came when Gonzalez served for the fifth time to stay in the semi-final. On the first point of the 8-9 game, a long rally ended with Gonzalez playing a short volley which Blake ran down and hit his backhand straight at his opponent. Gonzalez got out of the way and saw the ball go long, but Blake was convinced it had brushed the Chilean’s racket on the way through and protested vociferously to the umpire, Carlos Bernardes.

Replays suggested the ball probably did graze the racket, and the vehemence with which Blake argued with Bernardes will suggest to many that he was convinced it did. But whether he should have spent so long arguing is another matter, as the moment disrupted his concentration. He was broken in the following game, a lax set of points playing far too much to Gonzalez’s dangerous forehand, and the Chilean went one round better than in Athens four years ago when he had to settle for bronze.

“I hit a shot that hit Fernando’s racket and then went out,” said Blake after the match. “The umpire didn’t see that it hit his racquet. Playing in the Olympics, in what’s supposed to be considered a gentleman’s sport, that’s a time to call it on yourself. Fernando looked me square in the eye and didn’t call it.

“I’ve tried to play this game for as long as I can, I make mistakes, but I try to do it with integrity, so my parents would be proud of the way I played. If that happened the other way, I never would have finished the match because my father would have pulled me off the court if I had acted that way.

“I’ve spoken all week about how much I’ve enjoyed the Olympic experience, how much I love the spirit of it, how much I love the other athletes, what they’ve sacrificed, and you appreciate that. And the guys go out and compete their hardest, win fair and square, lose fair and square. That’s a disappointing way to exit the tournament when you not only lose the match, but you lose a little faith in your fellow competitor.”

Gonzalez, who spoke after Blake, had clearly been primed to face the question about his part in the incident. He said: “We was on the court like two hours and a half. I was really tired. I didn’t feel anything. I mean, I saw the ball coming to my body, and I think he was a little bit pissed in the second set because I hit on his body, and maybe he tried to do the same. I just tried to move from the ball, and I didn’t feel anything, you know.”

The interesting wording is that Gonzalez didn’t feel anything, not that he was convinced the ball hadn’t touched his frame. But the broader ethical question is how a modern-day sportsman is expected to behave – and whether the Olympics should be any different. What to one person is bad sportsmanship is extreme professionalism to another. “I mean, there’s an umpire,” said Gonzalez, and which coach has not told his/her players to concentrate on their own game and leave the officials to do the officiating?

Anne Marie StarkGonzo is Mr. Olympics.Blake's Chances
The nature of journalism is such that the controversy was the major talking point after a match which had enough merit in its own right.

And Blake had plenty of chances to win it. Twice in the final set he had Gonzalez 0-40, but on both occasions the Chilean bounced back to hold serve, the second time at 5-6 when it meant saving three match points. By then the pattern of play was clear – Gonzalez’s big forehand was increasing in effectiveness, but he was slicing on the backhand, so Blake was constantly looking for the backhand wing. As the match wore on, Blake found it less and less, and in truth the writing was on the wall for him well before the moment of controversy.

As it is, both men may be lambs to the slaughter when the medal matches are played. Blake faces Novak Djokovic for the bronze on Saturday, while Gonzalez plays the red-hot Rafael Nadal for gold on Sunday. Nadal beat Djokovic in the week’s highest quality match, regrouping after Djokovic had sizzled during the second set, to beat the Serb 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.

Ironically, in an event that many had expected to feature Nadal and Roger Federer battling it out for the gold medal, the two men look set to leave Beijing with a gold each. In the aftermath of his confidence-sapping defeat to Blake in the singles quarter-finals, Federer forged a highly effective doubles partnership with Stanislas Wawrinka, the two first beating Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes in straight sets, and then clinically destroying the world’s top pair, Bob and Mike Bryan, 7-6(6) 6-4 without ever dropping serve.

In Saturday’s doubles gold medal match, the Swiss face Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson, who set a new record of 59 games in their four-hour 47-minute victory over Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra 7-6(6) 4-6 19-17. It’s the longest men’s best-of-three-sets match in Olympic history, beating by two games the record of 57 set by Guccione/Hewitt and Calleri/Monaco that had stood for all of three days.

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