Andy Murray vs. Serena Williams? Another Embarrassment For Women in Sports

Why is this a discussion we’re having again and again?

Just stop it already, will you people?

The subject of women playing in men’s professional sports, or a specific woman opposing a specific man in a single event, is something that comes up every now and again. Mostly because it makes for a highly debatable discussion by the sports media. It’s certainly doesn’t have anything to do with advancing women’s sports.

I’m not sure if this would sound worse coming from a man or a woman, but in the interest of full disclosure—I’m a woman.

So yes, we should have equal rights. We should be paid the same amount of money for doing the same job as a man. We should be treated with the same respect professionally and personally as men. And we should not still be fighting these fights in 2013.

That being said, I believe that there are women’s and men’s sports for a reason. As human beings we should be treated as equals, but as athletes men and women have fundamental physical differences which are substantial enough that the separation of sexes is a necessity.

I also believe that women’s sports are overlooked, disparaged, and/or openly mocked on a regular basis. It’s unfortunate and intolerable reality that women have to…well…tolerate. But trying to wedge a woman into a man’s game doesn’t do anything for anyone—certainly not for women.

This week Scottish tennis player Andy Murray, who has exactly one Grand Slam victory to his name, seemingly challenged American legend Serena Williams, who’s won 16 Grand Slams to date, to a battle of the sexes. In a BBC column Murray wrote:

“I’ve never hit with her [Williams] but she’s obviously an incredible player and I think people would be interested to see the men play against the women to see how the styles match up.”

He noted Las Vegas would be a great venue.

Murray was right about Vegas—is there any city on earth better suited as the backdrop for nothing more than an attention-grabbing spectacle? A spectacle, by the way, that would benefit a second-rate player like Murray with a penchant for coming in second far more than Williams, who has been at the top of her sport for over a decade.

Granted, Williams isn’t exactly publicity shy. In the week leading up to Wimbledon Rolling Stone published a feature on her in which she suggested the victim in the infamous Steubenville rape case ruined the lives of her convicted rapists by getting drunk and…basically…giving them the opportunity to sexually assault her.

The comments she made about Maria Sharapova in the feature also prompted an extremely uncharacteristic, very hostile, and very public, response from her Russian rival. So the fact that Williams seemed surprisingly game for the match doesn’t come as much of a surprise. When asked about the potential challenge, she responded:

“Really? He wants to play me? Is he sure? That would be fun. I doubt I’d win a point, but that would be fun.”

Since when does Williams think losing is fun? This is the same woman who threatened the life of a line judge at the 2009 U.S. Open over a foot fault? Well, the line judge insisted that many threats were made, but Williams denied the actual death threat.

Ah yes, arguing semantics. Williams is actually almost as good at arguing semantics as she is at tennis.

Though all the details may not be known, the fact that she threatened to shove a f***ing tennis ball down her f***ing throat is well established—an ugly incident which John McEnroe said was a bit much. You cannot be serious! When John McEnroe thinks you’ve gone too far, you’ve gone too far.

Oh, and since when does Murray care about how men’s and women’s “tennis styles match up”? This is the state of tennis, particularly in the United States. The men’s game has fallen off the map entirely since the retirement of Pete Sampras, so it seems rehashing old “Battle of the Sexes” gimmicks is the only thing left, apparently.

All of our men are terrible, so let’s just get Serena Williams to give it a shot! Ugh.

This is a very old gimmick too. It’s already been done three times in tennis: Margaret Court vs. Bobby Riggs in May 1973, Bille Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs in September 1973, and Martina Navratilova vs. Jimmy Connors in September 1992.

Margaret Court and Martina Navratilova were laughed right off the court, with just one of the four sets played between both of them being even slightly competitive. Jean King did win, and handily so, but at the time she was an epic 26-years younger than Riggs.

I could’ve beat my grandfather at a whole host of athletic events in the years before he died. Nobody in my family would’ve been impressed. Frankly, I think they would have been kind of irritated at me for challenging him—or accepting a challenge from him—to begin with. Someone has to be the adult in a situation, even when the adult refuses.

Beating up on a sad old man? There were no winners that day.

After the win ESPN’s Larry Schwartz wrote a column about the match entitled: “Billie Jean won for all women.” He gushed about the 29-year-old’s victory over an over-the-hill, out of shape, 55-year-old misogynist. Essentially citing this one meaningless event as ‘one small step for King, but one giant leap for all womenkind’.

Okay, he didn’t use those exact words—but for all the hyperbole that surrounded the match, it might as well have been the damn moon landing. Except for it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even a win for women, and I’m not even sure it was a win for King.

So she beat up on a sad old man? So what. She shouldn’t have given him the satisfaction of playing him in the first place. The whole event was a spectacle of epic proportions, which is exactly what Riggs wanted to begin with. He hadn’t won a Grand Slam title since 1941 and had all but dropped off the face of the planet by then.

King was in the prime of her career.

It’s hard to say if a match between Murray and Williams would be quite that level of spectacle, considering it’s just a tired retread stunt. But in the internet age, it certainly could reach that level, or even surpass it.

Either way, it would fall into same “absolutely unnecessary” category as the “Battle of the Sexes” already haunting the annals of professional tennis. It’d be sitting on a shelf right next to the “career” of Anna Kournikova and the endless whining of career disappointment, Andy Roddick.

Unless Williams was confident that she had a chance, even the slimmest of shots, at beating Murray, why on earth would she even entertain the idea? She doesn’t need the money, the publicity, or a paid vacation to Las Vegas.

Which is why she should have just shut the door completely and immediately killed the story, Murray’s story. But she didn’t. Now it’s going to continue on popping up as a possibility by every bored tennis writer who is short on ideas and up against a deadline—which I imagine is most of them.

It’s going to be that mosquito that keeps buzzing by your ear, that you just can’t find and squash in a fit of satisfying rage.

Kind of like all the buzz surrounding Baylor’s basketball phenomena Britney Griner over the last two years. Playing for the Lady Bears, Griner established herself unquestionably as the most dominant female college basketball player of all time.

The keyword in the above statement being female. Her stats didn’t stack up to her male counterparts and she was playing against all women. That didn’t stop the sports media from drooling all over the possibility of Griner being drafted by the Dallas Mavericks, which owner Mark Cuban insisted he was considering in April 2013.

It also didn’t stop the famed Harlem Globetrotters from selecting Griner as one of their five selections at their annual draft last week. (Side note—anyone else completely surprised to learn the Harlem Globetrotters have a draft? Literally had no idea.) They didn’t just draft her—they selected her No. 1 overall.

No. 1 overall of a pool of players from God knows where.

Griner turned down the Globetrotters outright, but did say she was honored “to be considered.” Although she did respectfully give Cuban’s comments their due, insisting she wouldn’t mind trying out after the WNBA season concluded. Said Griner:

“If everybody was OK with it, I would not mind pushing the envelope … That’s big, even if you don’t make it. Hey, at least you tried. Somebody pushed the envelope.”

Something tells me her team, the Phoenix Mercury, won’t be okay with it. And something tells me she already knew that when she made that statement.

That perfect statement.

Griner acknowledged the compliment, suggested women should push the limit, and managed to throw in a lesson in sportsmanship while she was at it. Charles Barkley she is not. It was a public relations dream.

The thing about this hoopla is that doesn’t matter if Griner is 6’8 with a wingspan of 7’3—the same of NBA star Tyson Chandler. The average weight of an NBA player is approximately 235 pounds, which means nearly everyone in the league has at least 35 pounds on her.

Brittney Griner has risen above the fray—hopefully she’ll stay there forever.

There are obviously a few that may hover around 200 lbs as Griner does, but there are plenty of players that are much closer to reaching the 300 lb mark. Weight, strength, and muscle mass are pretty important in the NBA.

Imagine Griner sharing the same space on the court as Miami Heat superstar LeBron James, who is actually the same height as her—but 50 lbs heavier and with skills that often get him mentioned in the same breath as Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan.

It wouldn’t be fair to her. It wouldn’t be fair to James or Jordan either. Griner is not a gimmick, and she shouldn’t be treated as such.

Griner is a competitor, which is why she paid lip service to Cuban’s comments. But she shrewdly added the caveat of everyone being “OK” with it, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be. Griner said the WNBA “is where [she’s] at” and “where [she’s] going.”

This is a girl that is wise beyond her years. She knows where’s she at, where she’s going, and that all this talk has been just that—talk.

Cuban, the Harlem Globetrotters, and every member of the sports media who has filled print space and air time dedicated to the “debate” about whether or not Griner could play with the men have done so to drum up publicity for themselves. And she’s been stunningly courteous and diplomatic through it all.

Perhaps at 22-years of age Griner already knows something that Billie Jean King at 29 didn’t and Serena Williams at 31 doesn’t—that engaging in a battle of the sexes spectacle isn’t good for them. It’s not good for women’s sports. It’s not good for women in general. Or, it certainly has not been to this point.

Men’s sports are already respected. They’re nationally televised, receive the vast majority of all coverage by the sports media, and the difference in financial compensation between the two sexes exponentially favors the men.

Women getting dragged, or baited, into these kind of challenges may be entertaining for drama-loving lookie loos, but as a woman who loves sports, I don’t like to see female athletes exploited. And whether they are merely willing participants, or the active instigators, they are being exploited.

That’s why Williams should take a lesson from Griner, an exceptional athlete nearly a decade her junior, and learn to be a bit more diplomatic and thoughtful in how she deals with the media and responds to ridiculous requests.

She should, but she won’t. Getting Williams to hold back anything is about as likely as getting the sports media to stop stoking the fire of these ridiculous stories.

Some of the biggest stories in women’s sports history: Lolo Jones’ virginity, Brandi Chastain’s sports bra,
the great debate over women’s beach volleyball uniforms and Michelle Jenneke’s gyrations.

After all, we all know what sells: Sex, scandal, stupidity, and spectacle. Attracting an audience is the only thing that matters, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if they have to sink to (and appeal to) the lowest common denominator to do so.

That’s not ever going to stop. Female athletes can’t stop it, but they can stop being complacent with it by refusing to let themselves be used and exploited by those who are trying to use their names to gain fame for themselves. Women need to rise above.

These guys are leeches, which means it’s time to stop playing in the water.