Oops, try again ESPN
Thank God for Caroline Wozniacki.
If I had to go through another day of our media French kissing Melanie Oudin I was going to lose my lunch.
I know we're constantly looking for the next great white hope in this country but good grief.
For the past few days, we've been bombarded with Oudin, who was a great story about a 17-year-old, up-and-coming tennis player from Marietta, Ga. She's small. She's feisty. She's blond. She's cute. She's southern. And, yeah, she can play a little bit, too.
Oudin got on a great run at the U.S. Open. She beat Elena Dementieva but Maria Sharapova and Nadia Petrova pretty much gave her their matches. Still, she deserved a lot of credit, being unseeded and advancing to the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
She was a nice story, too. The crowd cheered for her, which actually made her matches good to watch.
But, my problem is with the media coverage. They hyped this kid up to be the greatest thing in the world. John McEnroe pretty much declared it a done deal that she'd be in the finals against Serena.
Hello? Is anybody home?
Nobody even mentioned her opponent's name. Oh yeah, her opponent, Wozniacki, who at 19 is just a kid herself but is ranked No. 9 in the friggin' world. Yeah, this little girl from Georgia is going to curb stomp the player who has more wins on the women's tour than ANYBODY else in the world.
Don't let cold hard facts get in the way of a nice fairy tale.
Oudin had about as much chance of beating Wozniacki as I did. Hell, I might've done better than that 6-2, 6-2 beatdown. I actually feel bad for Oudin, who didn't ask to be hyped like this. It's not her fault that we've heard her story so much these past two days that a lot of Americans were rooting for the girl from friggin' Denmark to win on Wednesday.
We love to make our own heroes in this country. That seems to be the media's job these days. The great thing about sports is champions can't be created by ESPN. No matter how hard you try, you can't turn a little girl from Georgia into the best tennis player in the world.
She may get there one day. But when and if she does, it'll be because she earned it on the court. Not because she was christened it, by the media.
If I had to go through another day of our media French kissing Melanie Oudin I was going to lose my lunch.
I know we're constantly looking for the next great white hope in this country but good grief.
For the past few days, we've been bombarded with Oudin, who was a great story about a 17-year-old, up-and-coming tennis player from Marietta, Ga. She's small. She's feisty. She's blond. She's cute. She's southern. And, yeah, she can play a little bit, too.
Oudin got on a great run at the U.S. Open. She beat Elena Dementieva but Maria Sharapova and Nadia Petrova pretty much gave her their matches. Still, she deserved a lot of credit, being unseeded and advancing to the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
She was a nice story, too. The crowd cheered for her, which actually made her matches good to watch.
But, my problem is with the media coverage. They hyped this kid up to be the greatest thing in the world. John McEnroe pretty much declared it a done deal that she'd be in the finals against Serena.
Hello? Is anybody home?
Nobody even mentioned her opponent's name. Oh yeah, her opponent, Wozniacki, who at 19 is just a kid herself but is ranked No. 9 in the friggin' world. Yeah, this little girl from Georgia is going to curb stomp the player who has more wins on the women's tour than ANYBODY else in the world.
Don't let cold hard facts get in the way of a nice fairy tale.
Oudin had about as much chance of beating Wozniacki as I did. Hell, I might've done better than that 6-2, 6-2 beatdown. I actually feel bad for Oudin, who didn't ask to be hyped like this. It's not her fault that we've heard her story so much these past two days that a lot of Americans were rooting for the girl from friggin' Denmark to win on Wednesday.
We love to make our own heroes in this country. That seems to be the media's job these days. The great thing about sports is champions can't be created by ESPN. No matter how hard you try, you can't turn a little girl from Georgia into the best tennis player in the world.
She may get there one day. But when and if she does, it'll be because she earned it on the court. Not because she was christened it, by the media.
posted by Tony at
7:08 PM
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