A Jurassic Serve from Moore

By The Spotter

Raymond Moore, the dinosaur. A quite serendipitous rhyme, but one which aptly sums up the now former director of the Indian Wells, California event- one of the biggest tournaments on the tennis tour, outside of the four Grand Slams.

Just sometimes, typing out 140 characters via social media isn’t really enough for the sake of prosperity and to express incredulousness at the banal and plainly outdated, borderline harassment comments of the Jurassic relic Moore and his daft ravings on the validity of women’s professional tennis.

Either the man’s thinking was highly impaired at the time or else it would appear he could be a prime recruit to join the Sepp Blatter charm school, where, among other things, they teach you to make inappropriate comments about women’s sporting attire.

In talk better left in the pub (or in Noah’s Ark), Moore referred to a couple of highly-ranked females as being “physically and competitively attractive”, that they were “attractive prospects”, and that the Women’s tour “has quite a few very, very attractive players that can assume the leadership mantle when Serena decides to stop”. Is there not a few too many uses of the word ‘attractive’ in there, Mr Moore? People might start coming to the conclusion that you’re a bit of a you-know-what, if they hadn’t already. Plus the fact you are, in a manner of speaking, belittling probably the greatest-ever female player with that last comment.

But even worse than that, like some kind of misguided misogynist, Moore with those comments besmirches the achievements of a litany of outstanding female competitors over the rich history of tennis (not to mention, inadvertently though it may be, sullying the proud name of the sport), including as far back as Suzanne Lenglen, to Mo’ Connolly, Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong. Lest I mention the incomparable Martina Navratilova and her great rival Chris Evert, the at times- invincible Steffi Graf and the great Williams sisters, plus a host of other legends like Billie-Jean King.

And just to absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, let the women who are gracing a tournament that he himself directs, know just what he thinks of them, Moore opines that they should “get down on their knees and thank Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal”. To quote McEnroe: “Are you serious”? It sounds like Moore basically intimates these incredibly hardworking, dedicated, talented women athletes should beg and be thankful for whatever rewards come their way. Even if we were to understand that warped comment, the way it was said was just so downright derisory that nobody was going to bother with the semantics of it. And it was probably a comment too far that no doubt ultimately sealed his downfall (thank goodness).

So, and not a moment too soon, farewell Mr Moore. With such hopelessly archaic (and just plain offensive) remarks, you are plainly better suited to overseeing jousting competitions- something which your medieval outlook can identify with.

To react to this piece, to converse on sport in general or to give me the lowdown on anything going on in the sporting world, drop me an email.  ‘Paul’  talltree@xtra.co.nz