After the Nadal-Monfils match, Rafa was packing up his equipment when a man ran onto the court and took Rafa’s picture. Rafa brushed it off. This is on the heels of a guy running onto the court straight up to Federer during the French final. And at the Australian, I praised their security for handling the Serbian/Croat/Bosnian riots, only to rescind my praise in this post I Take it Back: AO Security Sucks.
One of the things I complained about was that the rioters “got almost ninety seconds worth of chair-throwing in before some old men in yellow polo shirts (moonlighting mall cops?) strolled in to break it up.” And guess who was doing security on Ashe Stadium tonight? People in yellow polo shirts! What the hell – is there some international security firm made up of mall cops who get paid $3.25/hour to guard the greatest tennis players in the world?? I mean really, tennis, you’d think that the whole player-getting-stabbed-on-court episode happened on some other kind of court. What sport was it… basketball? Volleyball? Badmniton? Oh that’s right – I know – it happened on a tennis court!
I would never say we can stop every crazy person hellbent on hurting someone from hurting them. But when someone has enough time to charge the center court at all four grand slams (remember, streakers are always turning up at Wimbledon), I think we have a problem. And the problem is that tennis isn’t even trying. How do they get on court without being tackled, when there are security “officers” standing on the court? I hope we never have to see another player (or fan) endure what Monica Seles did. But if it happens, no one should be surprised.
Passing Shots 
Posted on September 9, 2009
0