What about the example being set, Serena?

Years ago, when the old Transvaal Rugby Referees Society changed its jersey to a harlequin design – black and red squares – the then president of the union, Jannie Le Roux commented:

Julle gedra julle soos narre, so dit is goed dat julle soos narre aantrek – You behave like clowns, so it’s just as well that you dress like clowns.

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered that story from those days when I spent a fair amount of my time running around, blowing a whistle and taking abuse form all sides. But that attitude to match officials reared its head this week with the Serena Williams incident.

Now, I think it’s unfair, but I have a bit of a reputation for being whinger when it comes to referees and, yes, just because the Springboks were awful on Saturday doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to point out that Glen Jackson was rubbish.

Which makes me a hypocrite because I also believe that respect for the match officials and accepting rough decisions are among the lessons that sport teaches which are applicable to other aspects of life.

I don’t watch tennis much – I find it quite boring – and have no idea what the codes they are talking about are, but if a player gets in the ref’s face the way Williams did on Saturday, and he doesn’t take action then he’s a feckless wimp and he should change to soccer where it seems there are no rules against that sort of behaviour.

The player’s struggle past, her gender and race are all real, but they all have nothing to do with it. If that was the case then Makazole Mapimpi should be allowed forward passes because he’s black; Bafana Bafana must be allowed to use their hands (they’d probably still lose anyway) and Laura Wolfaardt should only have two stumps behind her when she bats.

No, the rules are there to govern the game and the players contract to obey them. If they don’t, the umpire has the duty (not the choice) to apply the sanction that the laws demand. No-one has a right to expect different treatment – if they want that they should go and play with themselves. Any game belongs to both opponents and it’s the laws of the game and the vigilance and neutrality of the referee or umpire that’s supposed to ensure that.

What really bothers me, of course, is the effect that incidents like this have on those in the schools who are trying to teach and learn the life lessons that sport is supposed to teach. Someone tweeted, as a joke I guess, that Serena should not be smashing tennis racquets when there are so many children in the world who dream of owning one but probably never will.

It’s actually a good point, as is the one made by Martina Navratilova:

“I don’t believe it’s a good idea to apply a standard of ‘If men can get away with it, women should be able to, too’. Rather, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the right way to behave to honor our sport and to respect our opponents?"

If you behave the way Williams did in front of a world-wide TV audience, including all the kids who want to be you one day, you don’t deserve sympathy and those who are supporting you obviously haven’t thought of the example that’s being set.

And for the tennis authorities to be supporting Williams is sheer madness. How can they ever expect their umpires to make sure that their matches are fair contests again?

They may as well stick men and women in clown suits in the high chairs and let their champions run free.