The Australian Open is history, but unfortunately, as is usually the case with a worldwide sporting event, we saw protesters, and shady media trying to bait athletes into talking about things completely unrelated to the particular sporting event, namely contentious political issues.
The media is driven by likes, retweets, and clicks, so you can count on the media, even the sports media to attempt to stir up and manufacture controversy whenever they can. Last week, during a presser at the Australian Open, an Australian media person asked the wrong Belarusian tennis player the wrong question and got a pointed, necessary smackdown.
It isn’t uncommon for the media to get off-topic and attempt to be provocative. We all know they can’t be trusted, and drama sells, but what was unusual and refreshing was the way Victoria Azarenka handled it. She was calm, controlled, and turned the situation back on the hapless reporter, in the process exposing the ulterior motive with the line of questions.
The reporter started by asking Azarenka if she had any opinions on Novak Djokovic’s father being photographed with a group of pro-Russian supporters during the week and her thoughts on the pro-Russian storyline. Why that is relative to women’s tennis, Azarenka, or the Open is irrelevant, but of course that never stops the media.
The reporter kicked things off by asking, “There’s been a lot of scrutiny about a lot of the Russian and Belarusian players here. Is it difficult for you when you go out there to put all those things out of your mind? Do you think there are other players who get impacted by it?” After a long, thoughtful pause, Azarenka dropped the hammer and embarrassed the shady reporter. Azarenka said: “I don’t know what you guys want us to do about it. I don’t know what’s the goal here, that it’s continuously brought up.”