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Tennis

McEnroe's Defense Out of Bounds

Posted Sep 14, 2009 9:02PM By Greg Couch (RSS feed)

Filed Under: U.S. Open, WTA

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Serena Williams and John McEnroeNEW YORK -- So now John McEnroe has become the judge and jury over the debate about Serena Williams and the line judge who had the nerve to call foot fault.

Think about that. John McEnroe's trademark, equal to his great tennis, is that he spent his career being a jerk to linespeople. Next up, you can go to Michael Vick for advice on proper pet care or Brett Favre on the right time to retire.

This is the absurd, but it isn't funny. McEnroe is fueling a debate that has grown to something much bigger than tennis, tantrums and foot faults. This thing has exploded into a social fight that's lining up in large part, but not entirely, along racial lines.

And I wonder if McEnroe realizes how important he is in this debate, and how irresponsible he's being. Or maybe he just doesn't care.

"In my opinion, you can't call a foot fault there," McEnroe said to ESPN.com. "Just out of the question. Can't do it. It was so close, not as if it was an obvious foot fault. It was miniscule.

"I've seen Serena come back from that position a dozen times against top-flight opponents. The match was not over."

These are the statements the Serena-was-screwed people are using as evidence.

Close? Not obvious? Miniscule? Let me say this:

John McEnroe has no idea whether Serena Williams foot faulted. None.

The TV booth, where announcers sit, is behind the court. You couldn't see it from there. And the camera angle we have gotten from CBS is from behind Serena, low and on her right. McEnroe knows as well as anyone that you can't see from that angle whether the left side of Serena's left foot had crossed onto the line.

Yet he seems to have no problem validating Williams' anger.

And his irresponsibility is bleeding out of his sport and into a societal argument that so often accompanies the subject of the Williams sisters. He is spurring on hard feelings based on what he observed from angles he knows were impossible.

In his role as commentator for ESPN and for CBS, he keeps saying that he cannot defend the indefensible. Presumably, he's talking about Williams telling the linesperson she would take the (bleeping) ball and stuff it down her (bleeping) throat.

But think about this. Why is McEnroe even on TV? Because he is The Show. It's a smart move, and he's usually good. But he became The Show by mistreating linespeople.

He has been celebrated for it, treated like a folk hero for it, and now is being paid for it, rewarded for it. And he is in the position on TV, where most people turn for their tennis coverage.

So if McEnroe is paid for it, then why should Williams be heavily penalized for it?

Come to think of it, my examples of Favre and Vick are wrong. They aren't looked to for their expertise on animals and retirement. McEnroe is for his opinions on anything tennis.

His presence itself, elevated to spokesman for the game, is defense of Williams' actions, and his suggestion that she didn't foot fault at all is defense of her anger.

Here is the truth, by the way. Williams foot faulted. It was not close. I was sitting just behind the line judge, maybe 10 rows up, right on the line. During the match, the guy next to me and I were actually talking about why Kim Clijsters and Williams get so close to the line to serve. Weren't they worried about foot-faulting?

So I started watching the line and the feet on every serve. When Williams moved that left foot forward, and at least an inch onto that thick baseline, I pointed, and so did the guy next to me, before the call was made.

Well, McEnroe seems to say that you can't make that call anyway, even if Williams did foot fault. I keep hearing this argument, comparing tennis and basketball.

But in basketball, there are fouls on every play. Officials can't stop it, so they try to judge which fouls are affecting play.

That's subjective. Tennis is objective. There's a line and a foot. If the foot is on the line, it's a fault. Simple.

If Kobe Bryant put his feet over the free throw line at the end of a tight game, would that be OK? How about bowling? If it comes down to the final frame of a major championship, and one bowler needs a strike, if he slides over the line an inch and knocks down all 10 pins, would we argue just to give it to him? No big deal?

Just because John McEnroe has decided to re-up his career being a jerk to linespeople, and maybe to try in some odd way to defend his own actions from years ago, that's no reason to ignore the rules.

McEnroe, though, from his impossible-to-see position and impossible-to-conclude TV camera angle, has decided that the line judge sitting there on the line with one function and only one, was wrong.

And he was right.

Now, Williams did come back Monday, with an apology, finally. She amended her statement from a day earlier when she kept fighting, saying she had been overly passionate over an "unfair line call."

Still, she said Monday that the call was wrong, and disingenuously said that she'd like to give the line judge a "big ol' hug."

Her tantrum was the worst I've seen in tennis, and you can't just let threats to officials go. But we've seen athletes drop f-bombs, seen plenty of tennis players berate lines people. So let's not go overboard with the punishment.

Of course, no one defends her actions. Luckily for the Serena-was-screwed people, they have McEnroe, the cool-headed arbiter, there building a case.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com

Tags: john+mcenroe, serena+williams

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Greg Couch

Greg CouchGreg Couch is a national columnist and award-winning tennis writer for FanHouse.com. A former ranked amateur tennis player, who dabbled in a few pro tournaments, he came to FanHouse after 12 years at the Chicago Sun-Times. "The best tennis writer in America," according to Jason Whitlock, national columnist and guest host of the Jim Rome radio show.