What is hell these questions from the French press open?



[ad_1]

Sloane Stephens in front of an independent presser.
Screenshot: Roland Garros

Sloane Stephens, seventh seed, lost today his quarter-final at Roland-Garros. She went to the press afterwards, only to answer that question, as noted by the tennis author Ben Rothenberg:

Q: Is there any sense that this tournament and the draw were so open? I mean, you're a world-class player, is it harder to do, when you look at the eight that were there this morning, does that make it harder to do – or a little bit more to go back to the House?

SLOANE STEPHENS: No. When you look at the draw, the eight people who are still in the tournament, there is a reason they are still in the tournament.

There are always opportunities in every tournament to go further. Am I upset that I can not do this? Of course. But I would not want to downplay one of the other eight people because they are all great players.

I think this is not an excellent question, because it hurts the other players, which is, in this situation, in the last eight days of the Grand Slam, far from where they should be placed.

Should Sloane be upset? Let's take a look at the hypothetical weak "eight players who were there this morning". It seems like there were six ranked players. In addition to Slam Stephens champion, these seeds include: last year's French Open champion Simona Halep, last year's French Open semifinalist, Madison Keys, the quarter-finalist This year's Australian Open, and Johanna Konta, whose 15-3 clay record was one of the hottest players on the surface this season. It's hard to see how any of these names could fit as a real shock in the last eight.

So perhaps the journalist's question could be analyzed as a strangely specific burn of World No. 38 Markéta Vondrousova, the 19-year-old who defeated defending champion Halep last month on clay. Or maybe the reporter is he low on the world number 51 Amanda Anisimova, the prodigy who broke into the fourth round of the Australian Open earlier this year and who looks like a superstar waiting . Or, perhaps, to silence Occam's razor, the journalist asked a careless question because they did not care about the sport they covered.

For players, even retirement is not necessarily an escape from silly questions. A softball question and answer game celebrating a recent award for former player Gabriela Sabatini should have been passed without incident, is not it?

Q: Speaking of which, what relationship do you have with your body? Because I remember that when you played, you put me maybe too many muscles. And now you are perfect.

GABRIELA SABATINI: Thank you (smiling).

Access rots the brain or is wasted on the stupid – or both.

H / t Ben Rothenberg

[ad_2]

Source link