| Tennis Boomerangs | |
Dateline: 02/27/99
In psychological warfare, sometimes a spear turns into a boomerang. Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Martina Hingis, the singles champions at the Australian Open one month ago, seemed to wound their final round opponents with comments they made preceding their matches, but those words came back to haunt them yesterday. In Australia, you have to be especially careful about which weapons you throw.
Preceding the Australian final, Kafelnikov predicted that his opponent, Thomas Enqvist, would choke. Opinions vary, but many believe that Enqvist did choke, and that Kafelnikov's comments were designed to make him choke. Yesterday, Kafelnikov was one win away from becoming the first Russian in history to achieve the number one ranking in the world. His opponent, Thomas Johannson, ranked number nineteen, has won just under half of their meetings and played well in this one, but the reason for Kafelnikov's loss was apparent right from his first service game, which he lost with two double faults. Kafelnikov choked. To his credit, though, he admitted as much in his post-match comments.
Hingis's spear-turned-boomerang was her calling Amelie Mauresmo "half a man" in Australia. A lot of fans have not forgiven Hingis her comments directed at Mauresmo's sexual orientation, especially French fans, both because Mauresmo is French and French fans are . . . well . . . French. Some feel that Mauresmo might have lost the Australian final in part because Hingis succeeded, to some extent, in bringing into play elements of the alienation and disapproval that Mauresmo faces because of her sexual preference. That Australian boomerang hung in the air for a full month, but it knew exactly where to come down -- at the Gaz de France Open. The packed stadium cheered Mauresmo wildly and booed and hissed Hingis throughout. It was Hingis's turn to feel the burden of disapproval and Mauresmo's turn to win. See the full story here.
I'm tempted to say, "Chalk one up for karma!" I resist, though, because I hate to use a popularized notion of karma, and because I really shouldn't throw Kafelnikov into the same category as Hingis. I'm thoroughly pleased with the result against Hingis, in large part because I hope she'll learn something important from it and thereby improve an already often delightful personality. I'm glad Kafelnikov will hesitate to bait anyone into choking in the future, if that was ever his intent, but I would have been happy to see him win and reach number one. Combining their stories today became irresistible once they both lost in such a perfectly ironic manner yesterday. Let's hope that their experience with boomerangs takes them to a higher plane of competition, where all weapons are applied by way of the ball.
