I know we don't talk women's tennis, but this is a doozy

[Cobra Mgr]

Chinese player Zhang Shuai @ the Hungarian Open vs a Hungarian player, received a bad call on a return deemed out by the judge. This is on clay. If you know tennis on clay, you know the ball leaves marks on the surface. So you don't need replay. Your eyes can tell afterward if a ball hit the line or not.

The judge & tourney supervisor refused to reverse the call. After a couple of points, Shuai continued to dispute the call, imploring the judge to get down & see the mark. The opponent, Amarissa Toth, blatantly walked to the mark & rubbed it out so it couldn't be viewed. A terrible, terrible display of sportsmanship. To make things worse, the tourney defended itself by saying the Chinese were fabricating things.

Shuai was so upset over the clear and obvious bias from the tourney, crowd & her opponent's classless actions she decided to quit the match. To her credit, she still shook the hands of the judge & opponent. Showing way more class & sportsmanship than practically anyone else in the stadium.

I would hope heavy punishment comes to the judge, player & tourney for this prejudiced behavior. You can see a vid here.

[darkcloud4579]

Tennis really needs to merge its governing bodies, stuff like this happens because there are so many disparate cooks in the kitchen and no one really in charge to enforce real penalties or create uniform training for chair umps, etc.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Chinese player Zhang Shuai @ the Hungarian Open vs a Hungarian player, received a bad call on a return deemed out by the judge. This is on clay. If you know tennis on clay, you know the ball leaves marks on the surface. So you don't need replay. Your eyes can tell afterward if a ball hit the line or not.

The judge & tourney supervisor refused to reverse the call. After a couple of points, Shuai continued to dispute the call, imploring the judge to get down & see the mark. The opponent, Amarissa Toth, blatantly walked to the mark & rubbed it out so it couldn't be viewed. A terrible, terrible display of sportsmanship. To make things worse, the tourney defended itself by saying the Chinese were fabricating things.

Shuai was so upset over the clear and obvious bias from the tourney, crowd & her opponent's classless actions she decided to quit the match. To her credit, she still shook the hands of the judge & opponent. Showing way more class & sportsmanship than practically anyone else in the stadium.

I would hope heavy punishment comes to the judge, player & tourney for this prejudiced behavior. You can see a vid here.

To be fair, the tennis world is crushing Toth for her behavior.

[kq76]

In case anyone wonders whether it really was a bad call or not, if any part of the ball touches the line it is in. The line equals in, not out. Now without hawkeye it's not as easy to tell, but it does look like the mark was touching the line. Any decent and honest umpire would know that.

You did get one thing incorrect. If you watch the full video you can see the ump immediately gets off her chair and checks the mark, but she still calls it out. Why? Who knows. Maybe she was mistaken which mark it was, maybe she was bribed, maybe she merely wanted the home country woman to win. Whatever the case was, Zhang got robbed.

The supervisor also came out before Toth rubbed the mark out (some people are saying she didn't until after, but that's clearly not true) and the supervisor refused to do anything about it. I don't know what a supervisor can and cannot do, but if they can't overrule an ump, what is their purpose?

Now some people are saying it was racist and I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. I wouldn't doubt that the crowd made some racist remarks, but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the ump is racist.

What I found really bizarre about Toth rubbing out the mark is, it was after the next point, a point Zhang won, and after Zhang stopped arguing! She didn't rub it out in frustration of Zhang continuing to argue like some are suggesting. She simply walked up to it after the next point and rubbed it out. Meanwhile Zhang saw what she was about to do and pleaded with her not to. It was like she did it just to stir up Zhang some more. She obviously knew Zhang has been dealing with personal issues and wanted to ensure she was thrown off. This obviously did throw off Zhang, she complained for a bit more, the crowd heckled her, she lost the "game", and then "retired" from the match.

Disgusting behaviour all around for sure, but it really does make the case that hawkeye should be installed at all pro tournaments. I wonder if there ever truly was a time when we could trust umpires (probably not), but with what we can see with our own eyes now with replay and hdtv, it's obvious umpires (baseball umpires included) just can't be trusted to call a fair game anymore. I hate it, but it looks more and more like we need robot umps.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by kq76

...........You did get one thing incorrect. If you watch the full video you can see the ump.............

Thanks for the whole interrupted video. I was looking for one but couldn't find one last night. And thanks for revealing the error as well. I could only go by the reporting of the incident and we all know how those can be tainted nowadays.,.........

I agree it wasn't proof of racism. But it was obvious prejudice. Most think the 2 are one & the same but they aren't. Its like the poodles cliche'. All poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles. All racism is prejudice but not all prejudice is racist.

The racist allegations spring from the tourney's official social media accusing the Chinese of manipulating the story.

As for the supervisor, she may not be able to reverse the call. But she is a supervisor. She can initiate a review of the judge & take away future assignments if her rep & competence have been compromised. In the name of transparency & de-escalation, she should have at least observed the mark herself, then let Shuai know her hands were tied, but that she would address things after the match. Not that it would satisfy Zhang, but it might have at least let her feel heard.

Here's the thing people in power need to know about those in minority positions. We can understand individuals are prejudicial, biased, racist, etc. We run into it everyday. What is harder to take is the system being prejudicial, biased, racist, etc. When you feel not one person, but the "entire world" is against you, most get either beaten or they get rebellious. You give up or get violent. Paranoid either way.

And I think, in an evil, yet brilliant, psychological way, that was what Roth did when she erased the mark. She said she did it cause Zhang was making trouble. But she wasn't at that point. She had moved on. Doing it pushed Zhang over the edge from there. She wasn't battling just Roth. She was fighting Roth, the judge, the crowd, the tourney, the entire country. And she suddenly felt overwhelmed & thought "what's the point?".

[pilight]

Originally Posted by darkcloud4579

Tennis really needs to merge its governing bodies, stuff like this happens because there are so many disparate cooks in the kitchen and no one really in charge to enforce real penalties or create uniform training for chair umps, etc.

That way the women will get shafted on everything. There's a reason they separated back in the day.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Thanks for the whole interrupted video. I was looking for one but couldn't find one last night. And thanks for revealing the error as well. I could only go by the reporting of the incident and we all know how those can be tainted nowadays.,.........

Yeah, it's weird how much misrepresentation of what actually happened is going on with this incident. I read a bunch about it before I commented and so many people had contrary accounts of what happened. Even the description of the full video I linked got it wrong. I don't blame you for posting that, I saw others say the same.

But for the tournament to imply the Chinese deep-faked the video, what? I don't know what exact video they're talking about, but it's well known in the tennis world that Zhang does not have good relations with her home country. I read that she hasn't been back for over 3 years. Maybe the Chinese government still promotes her, but even if China did put out some doctored video, the presumably full video I linked is out there and it supports Zhang's case. And if you really believe it is faked, say how, show a third party's video if you have it.

I wonder if this is a sad case of co-workers backing each other to the nth degree. I'll admit it, I've been there, I've done that. But somewhere along the line someone has to say, "I'm sorry, we got it wrong", not, "the Chinese are manipulating the world with manipulated video". That's crossing into crazy land.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by kq76

I wonder if this is a sad case of co-workers backing each other to the nth degree. I'll admit it, I've been there, I've done that. But somewhere along the line someone has to say, "I'm sorry, we got it wrong", not, "the Chinese are manipulating the world with manipulated video". That's crossing into crazy land.

I don't wonder @ all. I know what this is.

Black & white thinking has permeated every aspect of life. No one wants to side on the side of right. They want to side on their "team", right or wrong. When you are clearly being treated unfairly, you want the authority to back fairness. Instead, you see them try to be neutral, or worse, give the one in charge the benefit of the doubt. Then you are made to climb up the ladder to find @ the next step the same attitude. Then you are labeled a troublemaker or disgruntled. The whole system is geared to break your will.

To paraphrase Kevin Hart, Shuai saw the judge see Shuai see the judge look at the mark on the line & still rule it out. There is no conclusion to come to but bias.

[monkeyman576]

Why don’t we talk women’s tennis? The only thing knocking it is the lack of star power.

[pilight]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Why don’t we talk women’s tennis? The only thing knocking it is the lack of star power.

The only reason it lacks star power is the lack of coverage

[monkeyman576]

Originally Posted by pilight

The only reason it lacks star power is the lack of coverage

No I think it’s the parity. There was star power with evert Navratilova graf seles and the Williams sisters.

[mytreds]

Originally Posted by pilight

The only reason it lacks star power is the lack of coverage

The reason it lacks coverage is because it lacks star power.

[Cobra Mgr]

If you notice, America doesn't go for many non team sports. Golf is about the only one. Europe is more into the individual ones/

[monkeyman576]

I don’t know the us open tennis and mma is pretty popular.

[Le Grande Orange]

I remember back in the day John McEnroe was (in)famous for his temper tantrums on the court over what he perceived were bad calls. How much of this was genuine as opposed to putting on a show as opposed to a way to perhaps throw off his opponent who might get frustrated with McEnroe's antics?

The psychological aspect of intense sporting competitions sometimes gets overlooked.

[monkeyman576]

Yeah having a watchable product is important which is kind lacking in tennis at the moment.

[monkeyman576]

Also a lot of people don’t use cable anymore and may not have whatever service it’s streaming on.

[Ragnar]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Chinese player Zhang Shuai @ the Hungarian Open vs a Hungarian player, received a bad call on a return deemed out by the judge. This is on clay. If you know tennis on clay, you know the ball leaves marks on the surface. So you don't need replay. Your eyes can tell afterward if a ball hit the line or not.

The judge & tourney supervisor refused to reverse the call. After a couple of points, Shuai continued to dispute the call, imploring the judge to get down & see the mark. The opponent, Amarissa Toth, blatantly walked to the mark & rubbed it out so it couldn't be viewed. A terrible, terrible display of sportsmanship. To make things worse, the tourney defended itself by saying the Chinese were fabricating things.

Shuai was so upset over the clear and obvious bias from the tourney, crowd & her opponent's classless actions she decided to quit the match. To her credit, she still shook the hands of the judge & opponent. Showing way more class & sportsmanship than practically anyone else in the stadium.

I would hope heavy punishment comes to the judge, player & tourney for this prejudiced behavior. You can see a vid here.

Thanks for showing me that depressing video.

[Cobra Mgr]

I posted it because, personally, injustice in any instance irks me. And when it is due to power or prejudice I get passionate & want to talk about it. So that is why I started the thread. So the blatant unfairness motivated me to post.

[kq76]

If Cobra's last post seems odd, it's because he was responding to a delayed spammer (they had edited spam into a previous post of theirs, not their post in this thread) and I had banned them, which also deleted their post, while Cobra must have been composing his reply. (Something about their post just said delayed spammer to me so I checked their post history and saw it.)