Ilie Nastase: Avoiding Revisionist History and Letting Tennis Do the Talking
Saturday, April, 22, 2017, became an explosive tennis day for many of the wrong reasons, and while Cedric Mourier's terrible call cast a pall over the Rafael Nadal-David Goffin match in Monte Carlo, that was the least of the turbulent instances which disrupted a sports-filled Saturday.
Ilie Nastase, one of the better tennis players of the 1970s and a Romanian tennis icon, created news which wasn't merely negative in nature, but appalling, humiliating and -- worst of all -- harmful to other persons.
A good nuts-and-bolts summary of the full day's events comes from Simon Briggs of The Telegraph.
Start there.
That's a lot to take in, most of it disgusting, some of it deeply sad, and much of it very complicated for Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea, the Romanian players left to deal with the fallout, some of which Cirstea added to.
Where to go from here?
Ben Rothenberg of The New York Times helpfully tweeted out this archived New Yorker commentary from Martin Amis, dated September 5, 1994, which I can share in a series of screengrabs. It's essential reading:
The idea that "TENNIS NEEDS MORE PERSONALITY" comes not from tennis fans, but from the outside world, defined as "casual sports fans and/or editors and commentators who parachute into the tennis world during the four majors, and more specifically during Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, the two magnet majors for American audiences."
We don't need to dive very deeply into this discussion, because its basic tension points are known: "TENNIS WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER IF THE ATHLETES DIDN'T LIKE EACH OTHER!" This is informed by the late-1970s, early-1980s tennis boom in the United States, which happened to contain Nastase, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe. Those three men certainly generated headlines, but if they were all rubbish tennis players, it would not have mattered. The fact that they were combative and very good certainly represented a compelling combination, but tennis quality had to coexist with the rudeness. The rudeness by itself wouldn't have sold newspapers or commanded airtime. That's a foremost point to absorb.
Then, let's also realize that when tennis cracks the headlines or goes viral on Twitter during non-major tournament periods on the calendar, it's often for something which doesn't directly relate to tennis. Consider the recent instance of lovemaking interrupting a Frances Tiafoe match. Think of legendary tirades or other visually potent displays, not people hitting great shots or achieving at a high level.
The underlying thrust of these notes is that if merely "getting clicks or pageviews or subscriptions" is the focus, let newspaper and online editors continue to hunt viral materials. However, if tennis -- like any sport -- is to grow and develop in a healthy way, the only thing to sell is the sport in all its beauty and power. Succumbing to a "lowest common denominator" mindset achieves nothing good.
Plenty of casual sports fans -- the outsiders -- have hoped that members of the ATP Big Four would develop an internal cold war, focusing on "personality" to the point of diminishing a focus on splendid tennis, if not outrightly ignoring it. This tendency among outsiders commits the basic mistake of not taking tennis (or any sport) on its own terms. Tennis fans want tennis to be covered as it is, not as a sideshow or a circus or a soap opera, but as the sport itself, in full. Soccer made this basic leap in the United States after being treated as a second-class sport for many years. The 1994 World Cup in America changed the nation's perception of soccer, as did a continued influx of immigrants who grew up cherishing the sport.
The importance of the ugly Nastase weekend -- a large collection of many different offensive acts which ought to lead to a lifetime ban from the sport -- owns multiple dimensions. Begin with the thought that the past 48 hours could remove the scales from many outsiders' eyes, enabling them to see that "more personality" isn't something tennis needs... not when "having a personality" is essentially code for "being outrageous and offensive on a consistent basis." Hopefully, the drumbeat for "more personality" in tennis will at least quiet down. It's probably too much to expect it will be eliminated, but if it is severely reduced, that will help.
A second instructive aspect of the Nastase episodes emerged when Mary Carillo of Tennis Channel -- who, to her credit, did say Nastase needs to be removed from the sport -- made the mistake of saying that the Romanian used to be "charismatic and stylish."
No, Mary -- Nastase was a jerk in his playing days and remains so now, a 70-year-old who remains a Cro-Magnon, a man who offends because he thinks he can always get away with it... because for a very long time, he did. He never grew up.
One should not bathe the late 1970s (Connors-McEnroe-Nastase) in excessive nostalgia. It's an era of tennis worth celebrating for the tennis itself, but not the testosterone-fueled clashes. Carillo might not have realized the effect she created with her polishing of Nastase's past, but a commentator as intelligent and astute as Carillo truly should know better. She sets a high standard, so when she falls short, she needs to own her mistake.
Let the burnishing of the past -- when the past doesn't deserve to be burnished -- cease.
That's most of the story from Ilie Nastase's ugly outbursts and leering behavior, but there's one more point to make in a different vein: What about Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea?
*
It is true that Cirstea should have spoken less, not more, after the Fed Cup's bizarre and highly emotional turn of events on Saturday. Moreover, she is 27, so she's not a doe-eyed rookie, to say the least.
Nevertheless, 27 years of age is not the age of enlightenment -- I was still very dumb and ignorant at that age, and there's a lot I still don't know at 41. Moreover, for both Cirstea and Halep, this weekend has to be deeply confusing and painful.
Nastase -- for all the bad things he is doing and has done -- has long been the foremost icon of Romanian tennis. Virginia Ruzici comes the closest in terms of notable achievements. Nastase and Ruzici are the only two Romanian tennis players to have won major titles, so it's not as though many options exist in terms of ambassadors for Romanian tennis. Ion Tiriac is the most important Romanian in the history of tennis, but as a businessman and power broker, not for on-court feats.
With this point in mind, it is very hard to expect -- yes, there's that word again -- Halep and Cirstea to be able to speak with courage, clarity and defiance relative to Nastase. Given Romania's relatively minor place in the global tennis landscape, trying to become more recognized and successful, it is only natural that Halep would want to have Nastase as Fed Cup captain, and that Cirstea would make an attempt -- however ill-advised -- to stick up for her country and her point of view, referencing times in the past when she hasn't been treated well by crowds in other countries.
This doesn't make what Cirstea did RIGHT or ENLIGHTENED, but it does make Cirstea's press conference remarks quite understandable -- flawed and unwise, but understandable.
A short conclusion: Ilie Nastase deserves no leniency whatsoever, but Halep and Cirstea get a wide berth here.
Hopefully -- this is how a hope diverges from an expectation -- Halep and Cirstea will eventually see these intertwined issues and tensions in a very different way. Hopefully, they will one day express a fully realized solidarity with women who are objectified and humiliated by retrograde, neanderthal men who -- because of fame or power or both -- have become accustomed to getting away with appalling behavior throughout their lives.
It is easy to be highly critical of both Halep and (especially) Cirstea, and to be sure, they both have some soul searching and re-examining to do. However, they were not the orchestrators or prime movers in this unfortunate series of events which reduced Jo Konta to tears and created an ugly incident in what was supposed to be a celebratory, festive global sporting event.
Time has run out for Ilie Nastase and the corrosive notion that "personality" is always welcome in tennis, especially when it is outrageous and offensive.
Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea deserve -- and should be accorded -- a lot of time to reshape how they view themselves, Romanian tennis, the sport at large, and -- verily -- the world in which they live.
Ilie Nastase, one of the better tennis players of the 1970s and a Romanian tennis icon, created news which wasn't merely negative in nature, but appalling, humiliating and -- worst of all -- harmful to other persons.
A good nuts-and-bolts summary of the full day's events comes from Simon Briggs of The Telegraph.
Start there.
That's a lot to take in, most of it disgusting, some of it deeply sad, and much of it very complicated for Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea, the Romanian players left to deal with the fallout, some of which Cirstea added to.
Where to go from here?
Ben Rothenberg of The New York Times helpfully tweeted out this archived New Yorker commentary from Martin Amis, dated September 5, 1994, which I can share in a series of screengrabs. It's essential reading:
The idea that "TENNIS NEEDS MORE PERSONALITY" comes not from tennis fans, but from the outside world, defined as "casual sports fans and/or editors and commentators who parachute into the tennis world during the four majors, and more specifically during Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, the two magnet majors for American audiences."
We don't need to dive very deeply into this discussion, because its basic tension points are known: "TENNIS WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER IF THE ATHLETES DIDN'T LIKE EACH OTHER!" This is informed by the late-1970s, early-1980s tennis boom in the United States, which happened to contain Nastase, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe. Those three men certainly generated headlines, but if they were all rubbish tennis players, it would not have mattered. The fact that they were combative and very good certainly represented a compelling combination, but tennis quality had to coexist with the rudeness. The rudeness by itself wouldn't have sold newspapers or commanded airtime. That's a foremost point to absorb.
Then, let's also realize that when tennis cracks the headlines or goes viral on Twitter during non-major tournament periods on the calendar, it's often for something which doesn't directly relate to tennis. Consider the recent instance of lovemaking interrupting a Frances Tiafoe match. Think of legendary tirades or other visually potent displays, not people hitting great shots or achieving at a high level.
The underlying thrust of these notes is that if merely "getting clicks or pageviews or subscriptions" is the focus, let newspaper and online editors continue to hunt viral materials. However, if tennis -- like any sport -- is to grow and develop in a healthy way, the only thing to sell is the sport in all its beauty and power. Succumbing to a "lowest common denominator" mindset achieves nothing good.
Plenty of casual sports fans -- the outsiders -- have hoped that members of the ATP Big Four would develop an internal cold war, focusing on "personality" to the point of diminishing a focus on splendid tennis, if not outrightly ignoring it. This tendency among outsiders commits the basic mistake of not taking tennis (or any sport) on its own terms. Tennis fans want tennis to be covered as it is, not as a sideshow or a circus or a soap opera, but as the sport itself, in full. Soccer made this basic leap in the United States after being treated as a second-class sport for many years. The 1994 World Cup in America changed the nation's perception of soccer, as did a continued influx of immigrants who grew up cherishing the sport.
The importance of the ugly Nastase weekend -- a large collection of many different offensive acts which ought to lead to a lifetime ban from the sport -- owns multiple dimensions. Begin with the thought that the past 48 hours could remove the scales from many outsiders' eyes, enabling them to see that "more personality" isn't something tennis needs... not when "having a personality" is essentially code for "being outrageous and offensive on a consistent basis." Hopefully, the drumbeat for "more personality" in tennis will at least quiet down. It's probably too much to expect it will be eliminated, but if it is severely reduced, that will help.
A second instructive aspect of the Nastase episodes emerged when Mary Carillo of Tennis Channel -- who, to her credit, did say Nastase needs to be removed from the sport -- made the mistake of saying that the Romanian used to be "charismatic and stylish."
No, Mary -- Nastase was a jerk in his playing days and remains so now, a 70-year-old who remains a Cro-Magnon, a man who offends because he thinks he can always get away with it... because for a very long time, he did. He never grew up.
One should not bathe the late 1970s (Connors-McEnroe-Nastase) in excessive nostalgia. It's an era of tennis worth celebrating for the tennis itself, but not the testosterone-fueled clashes. Carillo might not have realized the effect she created with her polishing of Nastase's past, but a commentator as intelligent and astute as Carillo truly should know better. She sets a high standard, so when she falls short, she needs to own her mistake.
Let the burnishing of the past -- when the past doesn't deserve to be burnished -- cease.
That's most of the story from Ilie Nastase's ugly outbursts and leering behavior, but there's one more point to make in a different vein: What about Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea?
*
It is true that Cirstea should have spoken less, not more, after the Fed Cup's bizarre and highly emotional turn of events on Saturday. Moreover, she is 27, so she's not a doe-eyed rookie, to say the least.
Nevertheless, 27 years of age is not the age of enlightenment -- I was still very dumb and ignorant at that age, and there's a lot I still don't know at 41. Moreover, for both Cirstea and Halep, this weekend has to be deeply confusing and painful.
Nastase -- for all the bad things he is doing and has done -- has long been the foremost icon of Romanian tennis. Virginia Ruzici comes the closest in terms of notable achievements. Nastase and Ruzici are the only two Romanian tennis players to have won major titles, so it's not as though many options exist in terms of ambassadors for Romanian tennis. Ion Tiriac is the most important Romanian in the history of tennis, but as a businessman and power broker, not for on-court feats.
With this point in mind, it is very hard to expect -- yes, there's that word again -- Halep and Cirstea to be able to speak with courage, clarity and defiance relative to Nastase. Given Romania's relatively minor place in the global tennis landscape, trying to become more recognized and successful, it is only natural that Halep would want to have Nastase as Fed Cup captain, and that Cirstea would make an attempt -- however ill-advised -- to stick up for her country and her point of view, referencing times in the past when she hasn't been treated well by crowds in other countries.
This doesn't make what Cirstea did RIGHT or ENLIGHTENED, but it does make Cirstea's press conference remarks quite understandable -- flawed and unwise, but understandable.
A short conclusion: Ilie Nastase deserves no leniency whatsoever, but Halep and Cirstea get a wide berth here.
Hopefully -- this is how a hope diverges from an expectation -- Halep and Cirstea will eventually see these intertwined issues and tensions in a very different way. Hopefully, they will one day express a fully realized solidarity with women who are objectified and humiliated by retrograde, neanderthal men who -- because of fame or power or both -- have become accustomed to getting away with appalling behavior throughout their lives.
It is easy to be highly critical of both Halep and (especially) Cirstea, and to be sure, they both have some soul searching and re-examining to do. However, they were not the orchestrators or prime movers in this unfortunate series of events which reduced Jo Konta to tears and created an ugly incident in what was supposed to be a celebratory, festive global sporting event.
Time has run out for Ilie Nastase and the corrosive notion that "personality" is always welcome in tennis, especially when it is outrageous and offensive.
Simona Halep and Sorana Cirstea deserve -- and should be accorded -- a lot of time to reshape how they view themselves, Romanian tennis, the sport at large, and -- verily -- the world in which they live.
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