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Margaret Court: Tennis is 'full of lesbians', says Australian Grand Slam legend

  • Posted: May 31, 2017

Margaret Court has said “tennis is full of lesbians”, following a row over her earlier remarks on gay marriage.

Australian Court, a 24-time Grand Slam singles champion and now a Christian pastor, also said that transgender children were the work of “the devil”.

The 74-year-old caused controversy when she said she would not fly on Qantas “where possible” in protest at its support of same-sex marriage.

“When I was playing there was only a couple [of lesbians],” Court said.

“But those couple that led took young ones into parties and things. What you get at the top is often what you’ll get right through that sport.”

Speaking to Vision Christian Radio she added: “We’re there to help them overcome. We’re not against the people.”

  • Murray wants Court row resolved

Australian Open venue Margaret Court Arena was renamed after the 11-time winner in 2003, and Tennis Australia said earlier in the week that the name would not be changed.

The body has distanced itself from the row, stating that Court’s views are a personal matter.

Grand Slam winners Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King have called for her name to be stripped from the venue at Melbourne Park.

And former world number four Sam Stosur hinted on Tuesday that players might refuse to play at the arena at next year’s tournament.

World number one Andy Murray said at the French Open on Tuesday he hoped the issue could be resolved long before next year’s Australian Open.

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Andy Murray column on French Open, injuries and illness, and finding form again

  • Posted: May 31, 2017
2017 French Open
Venue: Roland Garros, Paris Dates: 28 May-12 June
Coverage: Live radio and text commentary of every Andy Murray match on BBC Radio, the BBC Sport website and BBC Sport app.

It’s been a frustrating start to 2017 but hopefully the illness and injury problems are finally behind me just in time for some of the biggest tournaments of the year.

I’m still coughing my way around Roland Garros as I get over the effects of my latest bout of sickness – the more I talk, the more I want to cough – but I felt fine during my match on Tuesday and happy to get through to the second round.

I haven’t played as many matches, or had as many wins, as I would like in the build-up to the French Open but Grand Slams are long events and hopefully I can play my way into form.

The Slams are what’s driving me more than the number one ranking. If you win these events, you give yourself a chance of staying at the top of the rankings. If you don’t, you don’t deserve to be up there.

Last year I performed well in the Slams with finals in Australia and France, a win at Wimbledon and the quarter-finals at the US Open.

This year the start hasn’t been so good, but I can turn things around over the next few weeks both here in Paris and at Wimbledon.

‘I couldn’t do any physical work’

I’ve been pretty lucky over the past couple of years but shingles, an elbow injury and illness have certainly set me back this year.

When I had the shingles I could still do a bit of training, I just couldn’t do anything that was of high intensity at all.

I was able to hit balls, so stay in a bit of rhythm in terms of my timing, but I couldn’t do any physical work like interval training – just staying active and avoiding anything too strenuous to make sure my heart rate didn’t get up too high.

With the elbow, I could do everything except serve. I could at least train and stay in decent shape, I just couldn’t play tournaments or matches or points.

And obviously, that’s what we do. As much as you practise and work on stuff, playing points is the most important thing and I couldn’t do that.

So it was really positive that I came through four sets on Tuesday and the elbow felt fine. That was probably the most I’d served since the injury, and in fairly slow, heavy conditions, and it feels pretty good.

I feel totally over the illness I had a week ago and although the cough’s a bit irritating, I’m certainly not sick any more.

‘It’s not easy to stay at the top’

There were points towards the end of last year when I wasn’t number one, but I felt like I was the best player in the world. This year I’ve been number one and I certainly haven’t been the best player out there.

It was a great experience to get there for the first time here in Paris last November, and obviously I’ve enjoyed keeping hold of it for the past six or seven months.

It’s not easy to stay at the top and the past three or four months have not really been good enough to merit that ranking, but it’s calculated over the past 12 months, and over that time I’ve been the best.

So far this year I obviously haven’t, and I need to try to turn that around.

‘There’s always been a handshake at the end’

The next step will be my second-round match against Martin Klizan – a big hitter with a pretty unorthodox style. He played five sets on Tuesday so hopefully I can make it tough for him again.

The end of his first match was also pretty unorthodox as there was no handshake with Laurent Lokoli. I saw the video, although I didn’t see what happened in the match, but the two of them obviously weren’t happy with each other.

I’m pretty sure that in every match I’ve played professionally, there’s always been a handshake at the end of it.

Hopefully there will be another one in a couple of days, and I’m the one smiling.

Andy Murray was talking to BBC Sport’s Piers Newbery

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Federer, Nadal In Top 10 Of ESPN's World Fame List

  • Posted: May 31, 2017

Federer, Nadal In Top 10 Of ESPN's World Fame List

May302017

Five ATP World Tour stars among the Top 50 of the new ESPN World Fame List

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have been named among the world’s Top 10 most famous athletes in new analysis by ESPN. Federer is fourth on ESPN’s World Fame 100 list, Nadal is ninth and Novak Djokovic is close behind at 12th.

Federer and Nadal both move up one place from their positions in last year’s inaugural list. Djokovic rises four places from 16th in 2016.

Kei Nishikori surges to 20th from 47th last year. Andy Murray slips one spot to 32nd and Stan Wawrinka, at No. 42, is the other ATP World Tour star to make the Top 100 list.

Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo heads the World Fame 100 list, followed by Cleveland Cavaliers basketballer LeBron James in second and Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi in third.

View The Full List

ESPN.com explains how the ratings are calculated…

The ESPN World Fame 100 is our annual attempt to create a ranking, through statistical analysis, of the 100 most famous athletes on the planet.

We started with Forbes’ annual list of the highest-paid athletes and expanded the pool from there using a variety of domestic and international sources to make sure we didn’t overlook any legitimate candidates. We also sought input from ESPN journalists around the world, including colleagues in our bureaus in Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

The data for each athlete in the pool was then fed into a formula created by ESPN director of sports analytics Ben Alamar that weighs athletes’ endorsements, their following on the social media Big Three (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and Google search popularity, producing a comparative ranking system. The analysis includes five categories: endorsement money, Twitter followers, Instagram followers, Facebook followers and Google Trends score.

Nadal is competing this week at Roland Garros, where he is attempting to win a historic 10th title. Federer will return to the ATP World Tour 12 June in Stuttgart, when the grass-court season begins.

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Monfils Achieves Career Milestone In Opener

  • Posted: May 31, 2017

Monfils Achieves Career Milestone In Opener

May302017

Frenchman looking to return to last four in Paris

Gael Monfils celebrated a career milestone and etched his name in French tennis history during his Roland Garros opener on Tuesday. The affable Frenchman won his 400th tour-level match, needing only 89 minutes to prevail against German Dustin Brown 6-4, 7-5, 6-0.

He becomes only the sixth Frenchman to have won 400 tour-level contests:

Frenchman

Tour-Level Wins

Yannick Noah

482

Fabrice Santoro

470

Richard Gasquet

470

Gilles Simon

415

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

410

Gael Monfils

400

Monfils won 70 per cent (14/20) of his net points to win his first clay-court match of the season and advance to the second round. The 30-year-old right-hander lost his opener at the BMW Open by FWU in Munich (Chung) and at the Mutua Madrid Open (Simon). Monfils had to withdraw from the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters and the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome because of a left knee injury.

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“I felt quite okay today. It wasn’t easy for me to get back on shape, because I was really struggling a lot with my body the last few weeks. It was very tough for me to be almost 100 per cent,” Monfils said.

His best showing at his home Grand Slam came in 2008, when he reached the semi-finals before falling to Roger Federer. The Frenchman will next meet Brazilian Thiago Monteiro, who beat 20-year-old French wild card Alexandre Muller 7-6(4), 2-6, 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-0 in three hours and 43 minutes.

“I think it’s probably been the three-and-a-half most intensive hours of my career,” Muller said. “I enjoyed it. I did my very best. I wish I could have won this match since this is my first participation here. Honestly, I have no regrets. I did have a few tears because the atmosphere was amazing. At the very end, well, I realised I was going to lose, it got very emotional. But I really got a kick out of the moment, too.”

Monfils’ countryman 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will serve to stay in the match when his first-round contest against Argentine Renzo Olivo finishes on Wednesday. Darkness suspended the match with Olivo leading Tsonga, who won his first clay-court title on Saturday in Geneva, 7-5, 4-6, 6-7(6), 5-4.

Should the 25-year-old Argentine pull off the upset, it would be quite the turnaround for the World No. 91. Olivo has lost his past six tour-level matches and is 4-11 so far this season.

The winner of that match will meet Brit Kyle Edmund, who went 12 for 12 at the net to beat Portugal’s Gastao Elias 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. “I was just happy with my balance of play, the way I was thinking out there. When I was in a bit of trouble, I was able to regain momentum well,” Edmund said.

Go inside the tournament at RolandGarros.com.

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Nishikori Spoils Kokkinakis' Return To Roland Garros

  • Posted: May 30, 2017

Nishikori Spoils Kokkinakis' Return To Roland Garros

May302017

Nishikori will next face Chardy

Eighth seed Kei Nishikori overcame a slow start to advance to the second round at Roland Garros on Tuesday, blasting 47 winners to beat Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4. Nishikori, a quarter-finalist in Paris in 2015, is making his seventh appearance at the clay-court Grand Slam.

The Japanese right-hander reached the fourth round last year before falling to Frenchman Richard Gasquet. He will next face Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, who beat Moldova’s Radu Albot 6-2, 6-4, 7-6(3).

Nishikori has had an up-and-down European clay-court season so far. He reached the quarter-finals at the Mutua Madrid Open before withdrawing before his last-eight match against Novak Djokovic because of a lingering right wrist injury. The 27-year-old Nishikori fell to Juan Martin del Potro in the third round in Rome but reached the semi-finals last week in Geneva (l. to Mischa Zverev).

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#NextGenATP Aussie Kokkinakis was making his first Grand Slam appearance since the 2015 US Open. He was going for his first Grand Slam win since two years ago at Roland Garros. The 6’5” 21 year old underwent surgery on his right shoulder in December 2015 and has played only two singles matches since then, including an opening loss last week in Lyon to Denis Istomin.

Go inside the tournament at RolandGarros.com.

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Murray hints at Margaret Court boycott at Australian Open

  • Posted: May 30, 2017

Britain’s Andy Murray has suggested he could potentially support a boycott at next year’s Australian Open if its Margaret Court Arena is not renamed.

Australian Court, a 24-time Grand Slam singles champion and now a Christian pastor, is an opponent of gay marriage.

Australian former world number four Sam Stosur hinted earlier on Tuesday that players may refuse to play in protest.

Murray said it would be best to resolve the issue before the tournament begins but added: “We’ll see what happens.”

The Scot beat Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov in four sets to reach the French Open second round on Tuesday.

When asked if he would support players refusing to compete, the world number one replied: “I think if something was to be done it would be a lot more beneficial to do it before the tournament starts.

“For players to be in a position where you’re in a slam and kind of boycotting playing on the court, that would potentially cause a lot of issues.

“If something was going to be happening and the players come to an agreement, if they think the name should be changed or whatever, that should be decided before the event starts.

“But I would imagine a lot of the players would be pretty offended by that.”

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‘We’ll see who wants to play and who doesn’t’

Court, 74, has said she will not fly on Qantas “where possible” in protest of its support of same-sex marriage.

“I think everyone can have their opinion. I don’t agree with it, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to the Australian Open,” Stosur, 33, said earlier on Tuesday.

“We’ll see who wants to play on Margaret Court Arena and who doesn’t.”

The Australian number one added: “I find it very hard to believe that the name would ever be changed – the court’s named Margaret Court Arena because of what she did in tennis.”

Tennis Australia have said they will not rename the Arena, stating that Court’s personal views are her own.

The venue was originally called Show Court One when it opened in 1988 before it was renamed in 2003 in tribute to the multiple Grand Slam winner.

Stosur’s fellow Australian player Casey Dellacqua, who has two children with partner Amanda Judd, tweeted her opposition to Court: “Margaret. Enough is enough”.

And Stosur issued her support for friend Dellacqua, saying: “It’s been pretty fiery. Casey was obviously very adamant, and I wanted to support my friend and that’s why I sent out my first tweet in a very long time.”

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