But if you were going to ask me if there was one top player I could think of who would say something mean to her opponent at the handshake, it would not be Angelique Kerber. And yet, here we are.
In case you missed it (and some people are apparently hoping you missed it), Kerber, who lost last week's IW final to Bianca Andreescu, played in the second round in Miami against ... Andreescu. During the match, Andreescu called twice for a medical time out with an arm problem. At the end of each time-out, she went back to the court. It was a great match. Full disclosure: It was nearly 1 a.m. when it ended in my corner of the world and I was drifting in and out of sleep, and when the final ball was struck, I snapped awake to see the two players meeting at the net. Kerber said something and she looked irritated, but it didn't register and I went to sleep because I was tired. It was the next day before I saw the clip while fully awake:
Canada kept it of course, eh. (h/t @omess)pic.twitter.com/lH6jMPLGjI— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) March 25, 2019
OK!
First, Kerber is not Miss Shade Academy, so this is wild to see from her. Second, there are players who are very dramatic where I wouldn't be surprised to hear them getting called out
.
Andreescu was not playing that card. So, what on earth was Kerber talking about?
Third is this apparent effort by Kerber and the WTA to pretend that the whole thing ... never happened? The WTA scraped it off their website and the next day, Kerber makes this nice Twitter post in tribute of the teenager.
Tough battle out there last night @miamiopen! Congrats to Bianca @Bandreescu_ for a great performance and a well deserved win. 👍 pic.twitter.com/IpXzAJRNpi— Angelique Kerber (@AngeliqueKerber) March 24, 2019
Here is a crazy idea. Maybe just (wo)man up and say sorry if you did something wrong. Because it's not a good look when you are a tour veteran and you pitch a fit after a talented teenager beats you for the second time in some days. Calling someone a drama queen in a huff after you lose to this person is a pretty drama-queen thing to do. Mainly, I just want to know what she meant. And another thing: When did the WTA get into public relations? You know what I can find at this moment on the WTA website? Full accounting of Serena Williams going postal at the U.S. Open. But we're protecting Kerber?
Speaking of drama queens, on to the next tennis controversy in Miami. Apparently, Nick Kyrgios won a crucial point in his match Monday by serving underhand. And well, social media thought that was (wait for it ...) underhanded. Look, serving underhand is annoying and tricky, but it is an acceptable tennis play. I play with some people who do that. Yes, they're 70-80 years old. It is legit, though. It's exactly like a drop shot. Tennis, as I've said, is 99.9948278 percent mental. Part of that means being ready for anything. I mean, as a player, no one likes when someone does this. But is that what we're doing now? We're playing nice? I hope that's not true because I'm working on my underhand serve after I hit publish.
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