Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[ponchi101]

Dissenting opinion.
Players misbehaving on court.
During a match at Wimbledon, holding match point, his opponent barely got to the ball, tipped it over and, with an open court, Ion Tiriac caught the ball with his hand and said "I can't take this point. This is pathetic". After which he still beat the guy, but did that just to psyche his opponent out.
During the 1977 USO SF, while Corrado Barrasuti was arguing a mark on the har-tru, Jimmy Connors ran over and ran over the mark, laughing at Barrasuti.
At one SF of the now defunct Grand Slam cup, Brad Gilbert and David Wheaton nearly came to blows. Gilbert's explanation? "We are playing for a lot of money".
No need to even bring up Hingis' behavior during the 1999 RG final.

Off tennis.
Any man that would remotely behave like a MAD MEN character will be fired within hours.
Courtesy and manners have gone out the window? How do we explain then the extent in which entire organizations have designated "Safe Spaces", to ensure people are not offended?
Look at how many people apologize publicly, frequently, for things said or done.

Major changes.
In 1914, the assassination of an obscure arch-duke in Sarajevo propelled two world wars in the span of 30 years, at a rate of 140 million dead. Last year, a "super" power invaded a peaceful nation with all its might. Yet, Europe has avoided a full scale wat and has retorted to diplomacy and other means to resolve the issue. So much from not learning from past mistakes.

The claim that "it all went to hell when the generals stopped fighting with the troops" has been around forever. Look around you. When was the last time you had a confrontation with a co-worker, an unknown in the street, a family member? Consider that, and then decide if everything has indeed gone to hell.

[Scoob]

Dissenting opinion.
Players misbehaving on court.
During a match at Wimbledon, holding match point, his opponent barely got to the ball, tipped it over and, with an open court, Ion Tiriac caught the ball with his hand and said "I can't take this point. This is pathetic". After which he still beat the guy, but did that just to psyche his opponent out.
During the 1977 USO SF, while Corrado Barrasuti was arguing a mark on the har-tru, Jimmy Connors ran over and ran over the mark, laughing at Barrasuti.
At one SF of the now defunct Grand Slam cup, Brad Gilbert and David Wheaton nearly came to blows. Gilbert's explanation? "We are playing for a lot of money".
No need to even bring up Hingis' behavior during the 1999 RG final.

Off tennis.
Any man that would remotely behave like a MAD MEN character will be fired within hours.
Courtesy and manners have gone out the window? How do we explain then the extent in which entire organizations have designated "Safe Spaces", to ensure people are not offended?
Look at how many people apologize publicly, frequently, for things said or done.

Major changes.
In 1914, the assassination of an obscure arch-duke in Sarajevo propelled two world wars in the span of 30 years, at a rate of 140 million dead. Last year, a "super" power invaded a peaceful nation with all its might. Yet, Europe has avoided a full scale wat and has retorted to diplomacy and other means to resolve the issue. So much from not learning from past mistakes.

The claim that "it all went to hell when the generals stopped fighting with the troops" has been around forever. Look around you. When was the last time you had a confrontation with a co-worker, an unknown in the street, a family member? Consider that, and then decide if everything has indeed gone to hell.

As for tennis it just blows my mind that some players behave the way they do while playing a GAME. I understand it is for a lot of money, but it is still a game. I also understand the whole competitive nature thing and getting caught up in all of that, but in the end it is still just a GAME.

As for society you are correct. If anyone in a regular sort of job acted or talked like Nick Kyrgios on the tennis court to their boss they wouldn't have a job. Many people do not respect others and you are also 100% correct that when people are wrong or offend another they cannot man up and apologize for being wrong. It is completely pathetic.

[Deuce]

Dissenting opinion.

Off tennis.
Courtesy and manners have gone out the window? How do we explain then the extent in which entire organizations have designated "Safe Spaces", to ensure people are not offended?
Look at how many people apologize publicly, frequently, for things said or done.

^ The explanation for the above is simple: the influence of the Political Correctness plague.
'Safe spaces' are created because people have become overly sensitive, and perceive everything that is not complimentary as being 'offensive' and 'hurtful'. This is a direct product of the Political Correctnesss plague.
Also - just because people apologize DOES NOT in any way mean that they are truly and honestly sorry. Most often, in my opinion, apologies (especially public apologies) are insincere and are issued for very selfish reasons - like the person 'apologizing' because he/she is afraid that NOT apologizing will hurt their 'image' and/or finances.

Further, I would say that the creation and continued existence of the 'Political Correctness' plague was initiated by the increasing disrespect and selfishness within society. But they've taken it way, way too far - to the point where today, many people are extremely thin-skinned, and if you don't heap praise and compliments on someone today, it is considered 'offensive'.

All that said, there is no doubt in my mind that people in general are more selfish, more disrespectful, and more apathetic today than, say, 20, 30, or 40 years ago. And, as Owen alluded to, I attribute this to the enormous increase in technology - because of technology being everywhere, people - including children - are establishing relationships with machines instead of with their fellow human beings. And even when humans 'communicate' with other humans, it is so often done through the filter of some machine or gadget, which is very impersonal (you don't see facial expressions or body language; you don't hear voice inflections, etc.).
The result is that true socialization - which is accomplished via real human-to-human contact - has been decreasing significantly in place of impostors to communication, and respect and relationships at all levels have been very negatively affected.

[Scoob]

Back to tennis, I do feel however that the majority of the players on both the ATP and WTA tours are respectful to one another and when we see something like we saw with Donna Vekic today we become sort of alarmed and wonder if this is going to start some sort of trend.

I do agree that players are quick to withdraw(in match) more frequently and some of those withdrawals might be legit while many of the others seem to be suspect and that is a major issue. The main problem with that is that ultimately the players call and if the tour forces the player to play on and they are truly injured that could really become a nightmare for not only the tournament in question, but for tennis.

I don't like seeing players withdraw in matches and especially players that seem to do it frequently, but I also would not like to see just the one time a player plays on and injures themselves further because of a rule added about withdrawing is added.

[JazzNU]

Y'all are in here talking about the breakdown of respect and common courtesy in society and how the World Wars were started and equal pay in tennis sparked by an article written by Shapo gets moved to Off Court Serious Issues? Color me confused.

[Scoob]

Y'all are in here talking about the breakdown of respect and common courtesy in society and how the World Wars were started and equal pay in tennis sparked by an article written by Shapo gets moved to Off Court Serious Issues? Color me confused.

That is why my last post I tried to steer it back to tennis a bit.

[Deuce]

This current discussion is a natural evolution of the discussion concerning the on court behaviour of the players. This occurs frequently both here and on every other discussion board in existence. I see no problem here.
The equal pay discussion was moved to the other thread because that's where that discussion was initiated when Shapovalov's article was first posted two days before it was posted here. And because it's an off court issue.
Simple.

To avoid duplicates and confusion, it would be good if, as much as possible, people would refrain from posting articles, etc. that have already been posted previously - especially if it has initiated discussion when posted previously. A quick check in a relevant thread to see if something has been posted/discussed previously is all it takes.

[Suliso]

Society has definitely become less violent worldwide over the last 50+ years. Whether it has also become more polite and respectful is up for personal interpretation.

[Deuce]

Society has definitely become less violent worldwide over the last 50+ years. Whether it has also become more polite and respectful is up for personal interpretation.

I wonder what the difference in the rates of violent crime is in U.S. cities between, say, 1970 and 2020 - adjusted per capita, based on the growth in population.
That would be interesting to see.
If anyone cares to look it up, feel free to post the results here...

[Suliso]

It would, but let's look worldwide as well not just US. Also it's on average. One would most certainly prefer Afghanistan of early 70-ties over what it is now...

[Deuce]

It would, but let's look worldwide as well not just US. Also it's on average. One would most certainly prefer Afghanistan of early 70-ties over what it is now...

I would say there are fewer wars, assassinations, etc. today as compared to 50 years ago, but also less personal respect among individuals today than 50 years ago.
Of course, the former is much easier to actually measure than is the latter...

When we factor in 'cybercrime' (blackmail, fraud, identity theft, juvenile pornography etc.), which one could argue are crimes of disregard and disrespect for the individual, I think there would be considerably more overall crime today than 50 years ago in pretty much all 'civilized'/'developed' countries.

The thing I'm most interested in is how people feel personally in their day to day lives - because the fact is that's what affects us most - more than wars happening in distant lands. Did people feel that there was more GENUINE respect, courtesy, etc. among the fellow citizens they interact with 50 years ago, or today?
My answer would be 50 years ago (or, in my personal case, 40 years ago, as that's when I was old enough to recognize elements like respect and courtesy).

[Suliso]

I remember no big difference to be fair. However, it would be useful to ask for an opinion from women and any kind of visible minorities. I think improvement has been more for them than us.

[Suliso]

Just an example I heard from older colleagues. Switzerland, chemical industry, mid 90-ties. Job applications from women for anything higher than cleaner, secretary, gardener etc. mostly goes straight to garbage bin. 35 years later we're way more inclusive - ca 30% of employees are women including head of the department.

[Deuce]

Just an example I heard from older colleagues. Switzerland, chemical industry, mid 90-ties. Job applications from women for anything higher than cleaner, secretary, gardener etc. mostly goes straight to garbage bin. 35 years later we're way more inclusive - ca 30% of employees are women including head of the department.

Granted - I don't doubt or deny that.
But I'll counter that with the fact that I (and everyone I've talked with about this) have to fight more and more for pretty basic things (in this culture) that we never had to fight for before - fighting the phone company, the internet company, the cable company, etc. over their increasingly greedy prices and manipulative policies, etc... big corporations buying up smaller businesses, resulting in a much less intimate and personal experience for each individual... customer service basically no longer exists - they don't respect customers - the only thing companies care about is how much profit they can make off of you... the streetlights in the town in which I live burn out now and are not repaired for months and months - this NEVER occurred before... my town essentially no longer even exists - it was officially swallowed up by a big city, and since then, services have gone down the drain over the past 20 years, while taxes have increased at a greater rate than before the takeover...

We have gone from company policy in the 'mom and pop' shops being "The customer is always right" (and valued) to the policy of the big companies and corporations that eliminated them being "The customer is always screwed" (and disrespected).

Elements like homelessness, suicide, drug abuse, etc. have increased dramatically (per capita) over the past 40 years. This is because people feel more despondent and alone and less emotionally connected to others than ever before (the artificial 'communication' methods that have taken over through increasing technology are no match for genuine personal communication and interaction). People are more self-centered today, and less concerned about others (I mean genuine concern, not the 'I give $100 to my favourite charity at Xmas and feel ggod about myself for a whole year' type of distant and convenient 'concern').
We do more and more 'studies' of things like homelessness, drug abuse, and suicide every year - yet all of these things continue to increase at a more and more rapid rate. And so where is all of this so-called 'knowledge' from the infinite number of studies being applied? Of what practical use is it? Is it true learning and knowledge at all, then, or is it merely a bunch of academics patting themselves on the back?
And even if it is true learning and knowledge, it's useless without a genuine concern and compassion for people.

Also, people's interactions online are increasingly rude and disrespectful, and that has certainly spilled out into non-online interactions...

(Ok - maybe now it's time to move this discussion to 'Random, Random' )

[Owendonovan]

There's a lot of ways to come at this topic, I'll come from the subway in NYC. People rarely take their backpacks off now taking up a lot of space, more people think they have some right to personal space on a rush hour train(it's not available), people vape, smoke week and cigarettes on the platforms now, I've never seen more turnstiles being jumped, more people begging in stations and train cars, fewer seats given up by younger people to older/pregnant/disabled folks. "Excuse me" doesn't seem to work as often on the folks who stand in the doorway as the train door opens and people try to get by said person (these folks tend to get shouldered by me). How much am I supposed to tolerate before I have to act in my interest?