Doug PollardLegend Airbushed from History
Losers Get the Kudos - Winner Airbrushed Out
Only brief snippets were shown on TV – well, it is only a Legends game – but only Martina Hingis & Croatian Iva Majoli were shown.
Not a single shot of Navratilova and her doubles partner Australian Nicole Bradtke, a French Open semifinalist in 1988.
Odder still, the only picture on the Tennis Australia website is this one of Hingis and Majoli - and they were the losers. Really Long Link
Incredible lack of respect for one of the best women’s tennis players ever, on a court named after one of the other great tennis women, Margaret Court.
While Hingis, who made homophobic comments about out lesbian French player Amélie Mauresmo in 1999, commenting on her manly shoulders, gets the coverage.
The only photo anywhere of Navratilova in full flight is one incredibly unflattering shot in the Herald Sun Really Long Link
It was best shot we had, honest!
If you squint you can just make out something on Martina’s sleeve
It’s a tiny rainbow ribbon. The reason for all the censorship.
Navratilova waved several times to the rainbow crowd in the course of the match, joining in the laughter when a large rainbow umbrella slowly opened and closed as part of a languorous Mexican wave by the good humoured assembly.
But this isn’t newsworthy, of course.
Calling on Tennis Australia to display rainbow colours over Margaret Court Arena and commit to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission Fair Go, Sport! campaign which promotes LGBTI inclusion in sport, Martin Foley, Labor MP for Albert Park, said that Melbourne was the home of tennis and tolerance.
He said “Margaret Court is no doubt a legend of Australian Tennis – Her achievements from a previous generation of tennis make her well qualified to comment on tennis. But her tennis achievements from a previous generation give her no right to fuel discrimination and homophobia in this generation.”
Seems that despite lip service to the notions of diversity and tolerance, Tennis Australia sees no need to put them into practical application.
And then there's the lesbian who was hassled by the police for bringing in a rainbow flag . . . . . . but that's another story.
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