Melanie Oudin did not cry on court after her quarterfinal loss to Caroline Wozniacki. That is a positive sign. It shows strength, it shows resolve, it reminds one of the steeliness of Chris Evert. It will make her work harder. But that’s not the main reason I think not advancing to the semis and final was probably more good than bad.
I was struck by my feelings of vague unease during the ESPN hype machine hour preceding the match. The Four Letter has managed to kill so many pleasures we get from athletics, and in so many different ways. Way #1 is the hype machine. Tennis history and the hype machine have not always been kind to teen sensations. I started remembering Jennifer Capriati, Jelena Dokic, Anna Kournikova, Mariana Lucic and most recently, Nicole Vaisidova (now a robotic girlfriend to Rat Radek Stepanek). All teen sensations, all chewed up and spit out by the tennis hype machine.
Navigating the pressure of intense worldwide fame at a young age is a perilous endeavor. It requires superhuman powers of “no.” No to extra exhibitions, no to too many tournaments, no to sponsors, no to too many endorsements, no to over training. No to everyone who wants a piece of the player too soon. The no has got to come from parents – or from parents who listen to their child.
“I have no evidence,” I thought from the vantage point of my couch, “that Melanie’s parents are anything other than wonderful. She has good coaches and advisers around her.” BUT … the Capriati family seemed picture perfect too. They were friends with Chris Evert, her brother John Evert was Jennifer’s agent. Initially she handled the fame and expectations beautifully. And yet Jennifer was completely and utterly mismanaged, overbooked, overhyped to the point that the money/fame blinded everybody to what the player was feeling. She was overwhelmed. She pushed back but nobody listened. And we all know what happened.
In truth, Denise and Stefano Capriati were not bad, greedy people, nor were they bad parents. But they got caught in that tennis teen prodigy maze and couldn’t find their way back out again. The media played an ugly role in Capriati’s downfall. When she was arrested for shoplifting, her mugshot was all over the news for years. Even after she had returned to tennis. Who can forget a tearful Capriati begging the US Open media to let that story die (remember, this was five years later), only to be met with that mugshot again and again.
One thing that Oudin’s family needs to understand is the brutal double standard in sports – male athletes have been arrested, tried and convicted of murder without having their mugshot on tv every time they were in the news. Hell, the Four Letter has been complicit in the Let’s Give Mike Vick Another Chance story, rushing in to put a tidy bow on his ugliness a mere two years after we learned he electrocuted dogs in the woods. The network wouldn’t dream of flashing that mugshot during news about Vick. But Capriati’s misdemeanor shoplifting charge stuck to her for years. Capriati ended up as my favorite comeback story in tennis. Most of the other prodigies haven’t pulled that off. It’s infinitely harder to comeback when one literally has to flee a physically abusive father, like Lucic and Dokic, or when still teen Vaisidova falls under the spell of that total womanizing bastard Stepanek (see Hings and the cocaine).
The point is when you’re a woman, you have less room to make mistakes. Your personal life will be scrutinized and bandied about. There is still a boys club in sports journalism that is squeamish and protective of male athletes when it comes to salacious personal details.
And So It Begins
John Wertheim and Andrew Lawrence of SI.com wrote an article today about the ongoing divorce between John and Leslie Oudin. John Oudin accused Leslie of having an affair with coach Brian de Villiers. She denied it. An affidavit filed in the proceedings on August 10 alleged that Melanie and her twin sister suspected the affair and discussed it with their father. Additional details were also revealed.John, Leslie and de Villiers were all on hand to watch Melanie’s fourth round upset of Nadia Petrova.
Did I have a premonition last night? Perhaps. All is not always what it seems. What nags at me today is whether this story would have been written if a male pro’s parents were divorcing. What if it was Isner? I don’t know. I may be wrong about that.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if this story was in the press for the next four days and she wound up in the final against Serena? Get the spotlight off Oudin now, give her time to grow into it a little bit more before things get out of control. Her agent will still cash in and she will still be everywhere. But she will have another year to move up the rankings and practice balancing all the new demands on her time.
Striking a balance between agents and parents and coaches and players is difficult even under ordinary circumstances. When a player has a coming out party that resembles A Star is Born, it becomes damn near impossible to survive. There will be rough times no matter what. Say nothing else about Richard Williams, but he and his former wife, Oracene Price, did something right by Venus and Serena, because they have survived and thrived.
Passing Shots 
September 14th, 2009 → 8:00 pm
[…] opinion employs a more stringent code to judge women athletes. We just discussed this last week when Oudin’s parents’ divorce became gossip fodder. But as a civil rights lawyer who sues people for sex and race discrimination, I must say that […]