First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

A few years ago, after reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, which read more like a novel by Hunter S Thompson than a run-of-the-mill story of a sporting life, a certain quote stood out: “It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature.”

If you watch enough tennis, parts of a player’s persona emerge that most would prefer to hide because it might reveal things about them that they don’t want you to know.

Let’s take a look at the on-court (and a little of the off-court) behaviour of the current men’s and women’s Australian Open champions.

In 2018, when Novak Djokovic lost to Chung Hyeon at the Aussie Open, it was probably one of his worst performances (from a sportsmanship point of view). To say that Djokovic is a sore loser would be like saying the South African government has a small problem with tenders – that is, they’re gross understatements.

At some point during that match, Djokovic stood at the net and screamed at the top of his voice at his opponent, telling him to “SHUT UP!” because Hyeon dared to utter words of encouragement to himself. It was awful to watch and it was made worse by the fact that Djokovic didn’t face any sanctions for his unsportsmanlike behaviour. If that had been a lower-ranked player, they would have been fined.

But in the grand scheme of things, Djokovic hurling abuse at his opponents, the umpire, his coaching team, the linespeople and so on is what a lot of players do and it’s expected, even accepted, because the officials are adults and they know that getting shouted at is all in a day’s work. And yes, fines are occasionally meted out to discourage excessively loutish conduct.

What I find utterly reprehensible about Djokovic, though, is his treatment of the ball kids.

When the 25-second serve rule came into play, and even before then, Djokovic often had terse, irritable directives for the ball kids and would even shout at them on occasion.

His idea of serving in the allotted 25 seconds was not to speed up the 20 times he bounces a ball before serving, or to maybe bounce the ball just 10 times. Of course not. Instead, he gets the ball kids to run faster, to stress out about giving him the specific balls he wants and, in pre-Covid times, also to fetch and put away his towel – and, only after his needs are met, can they do their other tasks. Yes, lots of players make these demands of ball kids, but I haven’t seen many that are as rude to them as Djokovic.

I remember watching a match where he constantly grumbled at the ball kids and then, at the end of the match, when he was doing his cringeworthy throwing of his heart to the crowd, he wanted the ball kids to join him. They were so confused by the fake smile of apology on his face after growling at them for hours that they all hesitated to go near him. I wonder how Djokovic would feel if some entitled twerp screamed at his offspring for hours on end.

And let’s not even get started on this guy’s dangerous views about Covid-19. His opinions are not kooky, or weird, or out there. They’re downright harmful.

When you have millions of followers on social media and you share lies with them about Covid-19 (his wife blamed 5G towers), together with your illogical vaccine hesitancy, you cross a line and should be prosecuted for disseminating misinformation.

(There’s a mountain of evidence that proves the efficacy of the various Covid-19 vaccines; for example, in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of February, researchers in the US and Israel reported that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was highly effective in protecting against infection with Covid-19. Even Dolly Parton, who received her vaccine this week, said: “Don’t be a chicken squat. Get out there and get your shot.”)

At this year’s Aussie Open, when I watched Djokovic criticising yet another ball kid, I switched the TV off. He may be one of the greatest men’s tennis players, but he’s also an arrogant, exceedingly aggressive and dangerous chop, and he’s no longer fun to watch.

Let’s contrast his behaviour with that of the women’s champion this year, Naomi Osaka. Osaka is not just immeasurably nicer than Djokovic on court, she’s a genuinely decent person. A few weeks after winning the championship, she shared a photo on social media of herself just after she won the final. With racket in hand, arms outstretched and a wide smile, it was a pic that would get hundreds of thousands of likes, but what made it so different was the fact that she chose to focus on the ball girl to her left, who was still kneeling down near the umpire’s chair and had a smile on her face that was bigger than Osaka’s. Osaka acknowledged her in the caption and said “Hi” to her.

I’m not taking a swipe at aggressive players. I’m a fan of Stan Wawrinka and he routinely gets so angry at himself that he breaks his rackets on court, but the difference is that he’s actually a nice guy and there are too few of them in tennis.

Andy Murray is another nice guy, and a feminist too. When Alexander Zverev’s ex-girlfriend spoke out about how abusive Zverev was during their relationship and how she had attempted suicide while she was with him, Murray called on the Association of Tennis Professionals to investigate her claims and to draw up a domestic abuse policy. Tellingly, Djokovic offered his support to Zverev and the ATP never investigated the claims of abuse.

Our sporting heroines and heroes need to be held to higher codes of conduct, not just because millions of children look up to them, but because it’s high time they all learnt how to be decent human beings (who keep their ridiculous conspiracy theories to themselves). DM168

Sukasha Singh is the DM168 production editor.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.

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