one of the joys of freeview is that i've been able to watch a decent amount of tennis in the past week. it's one of the few sports that i enjoy watching any more - i used to love cricket, but have gone off it since the match-fixing scandals. and because i refuse to get sky for a number of reasons, there's not very much sport to choose from. no chance to see badminton, table tennis, volleyball...
the final between the williams sisters had some wonderful tennis, but was way too short. both the commentators and joseph romanos on radio nz (nine-to-noon, friday, 11.30am) were advocating strongly for 5-set games for women. mr romanos in particular was very articulate about the notion that the 3-set game was predicated on the outdated notion that women were too weak/delicate to last for 5 sets. he said the same thing had been said about women's marathons, but women now run a full marathon without any problems.
i'd certainly be interested in watching 5-set games for women, although i don't know if the players are interested in playing for that long. one of the commenters suggested that the finals should be 5 setters, and that's possibly a good way to start the transition to 5 sets.
in any case, i'm looking forward to the men's final as well. i'm a total roger federer fan, and by the time this goes up, the result will be known. my fingers are crossed!
2 comments:
I'm not particularly sports-minded, but have always enjoyed listening to Joseph Romanos. He's such a breath of fresh air amongst sports reporters for his willingness to cover women's sports, and explicitly draw attention to the problems that beset coverage of women's sports generally. I've sometimes considered sending an email to RNZ to commend them for it, but I wonder how much is RNZ, and how much is the influence of Kathryn Ryan, who was a cricket player herself. Other sports coverage on the network doesn't seem quite so balanced.
yeah, i always use to enjoy his writing in the listener as well.
and yay! federer won & it was a cracker of a match. meant i stayed up most of the night & am now a little doozy. but it was well worth it.
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