Powers That Be Take Heed - Llodra’s Racist Outburst Is An Insult to All

By Chris Oddo

Photo Credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images

(March 15, 2012)--For those who have never experienced its grandeur, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden is a veritable tennis utopia, an oasis of balmy, sun-soaked perfection tucked neatly into one of California’s most unique and alluring regions, the Coachella Valley. The grounds themselves feel more like an urban oasis than a giant sports facility with a 16,000-seat stadium; walk through them and find people strewn about the grass in various states of sun-dappled bliss, sipping their beverages of choice, and checking their programs to see who is playing next on which court.

 

It is a slice of tennis heaven, which is precisely why hundreds of thousands of people, including all the best tennis players in the world, make the pilgrimage every year to form a thriving, diverse tennis community just southeast of beautiful Palm Springs.

 

It is a pilgrimage that Daniel Lee and his sister, a tennis-loving mother of two, and her husband have made on many occasions (six or seven, if you’re scoring at home). 

 

This year, however, they left the grounds with an unusually sour taste in their mouths.

 

“As a tennis fan, you kind of just are expecting to enjoy watching matches, especially on one of those small outer courts, that’s what it’s all about at a tournament like this, because you’re so close to the players,” Daniel Lee told me in a phone interview on Sunday night.

 

Unfortunately, Mr. Lee and his sister got a little too close to a certain player on Saturday.

 

You’ve all heard that Michael Llodra hurled racial epithets at an Asian-American woman on Saturday, calling her a “F***ing Chinese” and other, even uglier insults, but what you might not realize is that in the process the Frenchman hurled insults at you, too.

 

That’s right, because if Llodra is free to hurl his nasty venom at random, undeserving fans, then other players are also free to hurl insults at you. You may be White, Black, Straight, Gay, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, but the message that Llodra’s paltry fine ($2,500) and lack of a proper apology by him, the tournament or the ATP basically says that while his transgressions may not be condoned, they’re nothing to get all bent out of shape about either.

 

So be warned. It isn’t just the Chinese that stand to have an otherwise perfect tennis weekend destroyed by the whims of a spiritually misguided player (ironically, the woman who was insulted was actually Korean-American, not Chinese). It’s anybody. It’s you, it’s me; our whole die-hard tennis community is currently at risk. 

 

“I didn’t want to believe that he had said what he had said,” said Mr. Lee, of Llodra’s shocking rant, which occurred during Llodra’s 1^st round victory over Ernests Gulbis. “My mind was just kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

 

But Llodra did say what Daniel thought he said (there were many who confirmed it), and he said it while looking right into the eyes of Daniel’s sister, a self-described tennis enthusiast who became hooked on the sport when she first watched a VHS tape of John McEnroe’s legendary 4^th set tiebreak with Bjorn Borg in the 1980 Wimbledon final.  Her husband, a former high school and college tennis player, was elsewhere on the grounds, but Daniel was right beside his sister when Llodra lashed out.

 

“I am one hundred percent positive that it was directed directly at my sister,” said Mr. Lee. “We were right at the baseline, maybe like four rows up.”

 

Daniel’s sister, who was told she would receive an apology call from Llodra by Indian Wells tournament director Steve Simon on Sunday at 2 P.M., is still waiting for the phone to ring. I asked her in a phone interview if she’s really interested in speaking with a person who had treated her so rudely. “I am interested. People have suggested that I should just tell him to go f*** himself and hang up, but I am interested,” she said. “I don’t know if it will make any difference to him, but if I’m just to discount him and his capacity to grow as a human being, then I’d be treating him with the same disrespect that he treated me.”

 

I proceeded to ask Daniel’s sister what she thought would be a positive response from the powers that be. “I feel like if the governing organizations, if the ATP or other similar governing bodies come out strongly, saying that they’re not going to stand for this kind of behavior in their sport, and that people who exhibit this kind of behavior are going to be barred from playing the sport, then I think people are going to stop making these types of comments. I think that that will have an effect,” she said. “I don’t know if a fine is necessarily going to be effective. For him, I’m sure $2,500 is nothing.”

 

In case you were wondering what it’s like to spend a day at a tennis tournament after a professional player has verbally assaulted you for rooting for one of your favorite players, I asked Daniel about that too.

 

“We just wanted to watch the rest of the tennis,” he said, “So we kept going to matches throughout the day. Then we started hearing more about it. Once it kind of sunk in, we started getting more upset about it, which prompted us to go find a tournament official in the evening.”

 

As difficult as Llodra’s language of hate is to comprehend, the lack of a strong statement by the tournament and the ATP is equally concerning. Llodra has given them a perfect opportunity to state their zero-tolerance position on such issues. If a zero-tolerance policy isn’t already in effect, perhaps the time is now to put one in place.

 

Silence is not an answer; a small fine is basically lip service. The time is now to right the wrong.

 

Either way, I found it refreshing to know that Daniel’s sister won’t let Llodra keep her from loving tennis. “I’m not going to let his racism affect me more than it already has. I love Indian Wells. I will definitely continue to support Indian Wells. It’s the California tournament. We go every year, and I’m going to continue to go,” she said.

 

“It’s really the ATP that I’m concerned about. I’m hoping to get a stronger response from them.”