Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – the Frenchman who fell to Andy Murray in a rollercoaster quarter-final on Wednesday – is one of the most popular tennis players worldwide, and for good reason. His swashbuckling game combines power with flair, and there’s a sentimental element to backing a player who has never quite had the champion’s career he was tipped for. But there’s one comment that he’s yet to live down.
During the 2013 Australian Open, asked why the "big four" of the men's game – Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – were so entrenched at the top compared with the relative chaos of the women's game, Tsonga went not for historical analysis of cyclical dominance, but for the path of most ignorance: "The girls, they are more unstable emotionally than us … It's just about hormones and all this stuff." In other words, hysterical women's athletic abilities are governed by their periods.
Irreverent Twitter users seized on Tsonga’s comments with glee, and ever since the hashtag #hormones has been wheeled out whenever a male player has choked, ranted or otherwise let his emotions get the better of him. Fittingly, Tsonga himself frequently gets pulled up for his #hormones. It happened when his attempts to serve out a Roland Garros fourth-round match with Tomas Berdych in 2015 culminated in a double fault , and again after exchanging heated words with his opponent Albert Ramos-Viñolas in the first round of Madrid this year.
It's been an impressive Wimbledon so far for #hormones: temperamental antics have abounded, and the men have truly outperformed the women. Pablo Cuevas threatened to pee in a can when his bathroom break request wasn't granted deep in a doubles fifth set; he and his partner, Marcel Granollers, staged a sit-down protest following their eventual loss. For the record, Amelie Tourte, who has spoken about the difficulty of being a female umpire "in a man's world" , had made the correct decision: Cuevas and Granollers had already used up their allotment of bathroom breaks.
Flounces over bad calls are commonplace in tennis, but the blast of vitriol levelled at umpire Damiano Torella by Viktor Troicki was less a tantrum than a volcanic explosion of pure rage. It cost him a fine of $10,000, the second-highest of the tournament’s first week. Meanwhile, over on Court 16, Benoît Paire was irritated so much by John Millman’s enthusiastic fans that he made multiple complaints to the chair, and failed to shake the umpire’s hand after the match.
Elsewhere, the 22nd seed, Feliciano López, had to be held back following his game against Fabio Fognini, accusing Fognini's coach of insulting him during the match.
The ATP Tour likes to emphasise the camaraderie and bonhomie between its touring professionals. They’re either affable bros who go for a beer with their opponent after the game, or they’re the epitome of old-school gentlemanly class (including Federer, despite his history of shady quotes about his rivals). This is in contrast to the stereotypes that stick like glue to the women’s tour: if you were to believe every piece about friendship in the world of tennis, you’d assume the WTA is entirely comprised of catty divas fuelled by mutual loathing .
Yet that’s not what we’ve seen from the women at Wimbledon. In the thrilling three-set game between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Sloane Stephens, match point was decided by a Hawk-Eye ruling. Kuznetsova stood staring up at the screen, waiting for Stephens’ ball to be confirmed out. When she turned round, Stephens was at the net with outstretched arms. After soaking up her applause, Kuznetsova gestured at Stephens, and motioned for the crowd to show her love as well.
The same thing happened when Russia’s Elena Vesnina beat her doubles partner and compatriot, Ekaterina Makarova, in an emotional and epic fourth-round encounter. Yet, a few hours later, they were back on the same court, playing as doubles partners.
And one of the sheer nicest gestures of the tournament came from top seed Serena Williams. Her first-round opponent was Amra Sadikovic, a 27-year-old Swiss qualifier playing a Grand Slam for the first time. After her inevitable straight-sets loss, Sadikovic simply asked the greatest player of her generation for a hug at the net – and Serena happily complied.
Of course, the skewed balance of bad behaviour at Wimbledon isn’t a rule; the bromance between Kyrgios and Murray lives up to the positive stereotype of male athlete mates, while any WTA player or fan will happily inform you of the myriad feuds and bitter rivalries over the years.
But, returning to comments such as Tsonga’s, there are more serious consequences beyond an attempt at a bad gag in the press room. The idea that women are governed wholly by their emotion – whether in their supposed inability to play consistently or their supposed hatred of each other – is fundamentally about denigrating women’s sports, about dismissing them as soap operas rather than athletic displays. This is the reason that, years after the issue of equal prize money was resolved , the tennis world still goes through a periodic charade of pretending that it’s a debate that hasn’t been won.
Recognising that emotional, hysterical behaviour – as well as friendship coexisting with competitive spirit – are gender-neutral is part and parcel of recognising that brilliant, entertaining tennis is divided equally between men and women.
Guardian service
