Men fight, women feud
Simon Barnes
THE whole point of women's tennis, of course, is that it clears the way for all kinds of wild sexist speculation, opening up a thousand avenues for discussing the perennially fascinating topic of the differences between men and women. After all, this is a matter that preoccupies most of us for most of our lives.
The results in the matches, the very slow changes in the rankings, the rarity of the upset, the way in which challenger tends to defer to champion — all these things provide a treasury of ethnological observations and statistics, sufficient to fuel any amount of wild leaping to wild conclusions.
Which brings us to the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, who contested — to use the term loosely — the final of the US Open last weekend. It was an awful match. It got primetime coverage in the United States, the girls being American. Pity the people who turned on in search of sporting excitement rather than of scientific enlightenment.
The match is always awful when these two play each other. It has to be awful: they like each other too much. Their sisterly solidarity is their strong point, from which they make sorties to wallop the ball around the court with unbelievable power and mannelise everybody else in the game.
But they can't marmelise each other, or even attempt to. Sisters, you see. There was a tremendous row earlier this year when the two were drawn against each other in a semifinal and Venus ducked out at the last second, pleading an injury. Serena was booed by the crowd in the final, which prompted their dad, Richard, to play the race card.
But let's forget the sisters' negritude and concentrate on their siblinghood. Why can't they beat each other? A few years ago, the great (white) hopes for English cricket were the brothers Ben and Adam Hollioake. They confessed that brotherly rivalry went so deep that they had never once completed a game of table tennis together. They always had an absolutely appalling row at 20-all.
They said that if they went to the gents together, they'd end up competing as to who could get it higher up the wall. Males, especially those with male siblings, will smile at this. Females will shake their heads in appalled bafflement. What is the point?
It is one of those facts of male life that it is possible for men to have a row and then for things to be all right again almost immediately. All sport is based on that premise.
You play football for 90 quite ferocious minutes and then you shake hands. In rugby, you half kill each other and then you all go to the bar. An ethnologist might go so far as to say that the reason for the artificial dispute is the opportunity for reconciliation.
But in women's tennis things are quite different. The top players badmouth each other at every opportunity, and every defeat is a scar that will be carried to the grave. Neither an insult nor a defeat is forgiven. Women — sexist speculation — seem not to like the easy rhythms of row and reconciliation. You do everything to avoid a dispute, but if you must row, you do it properly, with all your heart.
And so the Williams sisters are profoundly inhibited from giving of their best. If they ever play a proper tennis match together, it can only be because they no longer love each other.
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