During January's Australian Open, Victoria Azarenka (7.5/10, downgraded from 8) was required to remove her shirt over a possible sponsorship issue.
That isn't her big story anymore. After her loss, she pushed back on a reporter after being asked to comment on "big issue" political/social issues of the day.
“I don’t know what you guys want us to do about it,” Azarenka said. “I don’t know what’s the goal here, that it’s continuously brought up.”
Azarenka continued, “These incidents that, in my opinion, have nothing to do with players. But somehow you keep dragging players into it. So what’s the goal here? I think you should ask yourself that question. Not me.”
Rather than answering the tennis player, the reporter asked why she got frustrated with the question — showing just how out of touch with focusing on sports the journalist truly was.“Whatever the answer, I’m going to give it to you right now, it’s going to be turned whichever way you want to turn it to,” Azarenka responded. “So does it bother me? What bothers me is there are real things that are going on in the world. And I don’t know. Are you a politician? Are you covering politics?”
“No, I’m a sports journalist,” the reporter answered.
“Yes. And I’m an athlete. And you’re asking me about things that maybe somebody says are in my control. But I don’t believe that. So I don’t know what you want me to answer. And if it’s a provocative question, then, you know, you can spin the story however you want.”
It was a pretty good response, but I would have flipped the script on them completely. I would have answered as follows:
FACLC channeled through Azarenka: (long pause, deep breath). I'm going to answer that question, but before I begin I'm going to make it clear that this is a two part answer, and that any news organization which references only the first part or only puts the first part in a headline is a Fake News organization, who is dedicated to spreading misinformation and any media organization who does so should be banned from all social media forever. Okay? If you do this you deserve to be punished for it. Now here is the first part of the answer: no I do not believe that the Australian Open should be used as a platform by pro-Russian demonstrators. Now here is the second part: I also do not believe that the Australian Open should be used as a platform for anti-Russian politics either: we have seen that fans are not allowed to bring in Russian flags, that Russian players are not allowed to have their nation's flag by their name, yet every other nation's player and fans are allowed to do so. Yet the Australian Open already did this, and decided to do it first: they fired the first shot. It's ironic that in response to Russia firing the first shot against Ukraine that so many people and organizations want to wipe Russia off the map, yet when they -- the Australian Open -- when they fire the first shot, they immediately cry foul when shots get fired back at them. Well guess what Australian Open? You fired at them first, and in response they are shooting bullets back at you and maybe they need to just keep on firing until you get the message that you fired that first shot, you are responsible for it, and until you surrender and apologize those shots against you are going to keep coming: they will keep shooting more and more bullets at you until you fall and they have every right to do so after you fired first. Officials and media organizations can't continue to pick a side over and over again: from Ukraine to sexual lifestyle choices to police shootings to Australia Day: can't continue to fire all these shots at people and then act surprised when the targets are firing back. You might find that not all players are 100% on board all of the time, and at that point you might just find yourself getting shot in the back.
