Being Politically Incorrect On and Off the Court

JOHN McENROE might not be a familiar name to to the untennised. Mac is now pushing sixty, and the former tennis champion has a new book out, like everyone else these days. During a recent book tour interview he was asked about Serena Williams, the current tennis champion who is the obvious best female player in history. McEnroe agreed, she is the greatest woman to ever play the game. This drew the overly politically correct out of their lairs, and onto the field of battle. Best "female" player ever? Why the qualifier? Why not simply the "best player ever"? Well, John tried to explain, the sport of tennis, like the sport of life, is divided into two categories: men's, and women's. In professional tennis, men always compete against men, and women compete against women, and they tend to do the same in public parks all over the world. Just the way we roll. So, Mac explained, were Serena to break the mold and start competing on the men's professional tour, she would not be number one in the world, but probably right around number seven hundred. His estimate might be a bit high, it might be a bit low. But his point is valid: men are, as a general rule, bigger, stronger, faster than women, and the professional world of tennis, and the tens of thousands of amateur tournaments all over the world are the same: there is a men's tournament, and a women's tournament. Both genders use the same kind of rackets, balls, nets, and tennis courts, but the genders are separated for purposes of serious competition. And really, its that simple. There is a reason for this dichotomy. If men and women were always lumped together into a single tournament, professional or amateur, the women, for the most part, would never win, or have a chance to win. The same is true for basketball, and many other sports. Size matters. But this did not assuage the highly sensitive advocates of absolute gender equality. On twitter-tweet-Trump, and all across the desolate and vacuous landscape that is social media, out came the overly zealous politically correct, forgetting their biology, and their manners. How dare he express gender bias, the misogynistic bastard! How dare he tell the damned truth! I never liked McEnroe, for the same reason a few other people never liked him: he behaved horribly when he was among the world's greatest players, when he was young and foolish. But, truth is truth, even when it comes from the mouth of a former brat. Here's another dirty little secret: McEnroe can't compete on the men's tour anymore either, because he's just too damned old, and can no longer move his body well enough, although he does quite well on the men's senior tour, which includes men fifty and over. Your local amateur tennis tournament does the same thing; it has different categories for people of different ages. The United States Tennis Association has national rankings for sixty year olds, for seventy year olds, and for eighty year olds. After that, I lose track. For those of us obsessed with political correctness, this is called "age-ism". Growing old is tough enough; must we be segregated as well?