Let’s say we’re engaged in a game of cards. Twenty-one. Poker. Bid whist. Spades. Uno. Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel. It doesn’t make a difference. We’re just playing cards.
At some point in the game, your opponent, who understands a loss is upon them, decides there’s something deeper in their loss than just this loss. It’s a loss to you. For reasons unknown to you. Maybe even subconsciously to them. And after the loss, they use what in their mind is a ‘‘trump card’’ to leverage the situation. A subtle tactic in refusing to give you credit for defeating them.
Playing cards can be a dangerously interpretative game.
The Taylor Townsend/Jelena Ostapenko blow-up after their second-round match Wednesday at the U.S. Open became a ‘‘thing’’ after the match. Not because of the ‘‘conversation’’ that occurred between them as they left the court, but because of what was said during the conversation.
‘‘She told me I have no class and no education,’’ Townsend told ESPN’s Kris Budden, padding that inflammatory statement directed at her with, ‘‘It’s competition. People get upset when they lose.’’ And, ‘‘I’m looking forward to [playing her again] . . . so let’s see what else she has to say.’’ Only to say later in the news conference that she didn’t take the ‘‘no class, no education’’ comment personally because she found pride in letting ‘‘my racket talk.’’ Beautiful.
But we’re playing cards, right? And ‘‘beauty’’ or ‘‘beautifulness’’ isn’t the name of this game. At this point, we’re playing ‘‘blackjack.’’ And Ostapenko used whatever emotional baggage she’s carrying around with her on the court as her trump card once the match was over to not only help her deal with the fact that she lost to a lower-ranked player but to belittle that particular player in the process.
And let’s please not act as though this is an isolated dynamic — I’m sorry, strategy. We literally watched damn near the same hand play itself out with Aryna Sabalenka in her postmatch comments after her loss to Coco Gauff in the French Open final in June. A situation in which, very much like Townsend, Gauff was the one who kept it classy afterward.
So because we’re playing cards and they tried to make their points and express how they really felt in those moments by using their ‘‘trump’’ cards, let me now pull the ‘‘race’’ card from my hand that holds two queens.
The instant ‘‘You have no class and no education’’ existed in Ostapenko’s soul in her lecturing of Townsend, the race of both players was put on the table. Ostapenko’s belief that hers is the superior and Townsend’s the lesser. Naomi Osaka even admitted, ‘‘It’s one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority-white sport.’’
Someone’s education has nothing to do with them not properly acknowledging an unwritten courtesy — not a ‘‘rule’’ — in professional tennis, which essentially is what set Ostapenko off. Even when it’s directed at someone who has been on tour for 13 years, has 10 career doubles titles (including two Grand Slams) and is ranked No. 1 in the world in doubles. Unless you actually feel that way. Unless you looked at her and said that everything about her is beneath you and that because she — an inferior human — beat you, you felt both compelled and comfortable enough in your own skin to remind her of that after she shook your hand.
To act as though race is not a part of this is a cop-out. To act as though race might not sit at the center of why this happened is fair. But to ignore race altogether in the context of the situation is disrespectful to those of us who appropriately use the race card not to win but to be heard, to hopefully — often with fail — be better understood.
Decide how you want to phrase-first-deal-with-later the question: Why did these players choose these particular moments to respond to loses the way they did? Or what makes these women from Russia/Russia-adjacent Baltic countries feel this way after losing to Black American women?
People will say both incidents are more reactive than racist. Which might be true — slightly. But if so, why in all of the defeats Ostapenko and Sabalenka have been handed this year do the ones where they ‘‘happen’’ to let their emotions get the best of them come after losses to players who just ‘‘happen to be’’ Black?
Cards isn’t a game of coincidence. You play with the hand you’re dealt or with the ones you pull. If Ostapenko didn’t know any better, that’s too bad. I’ve believed she’s ‘‘upper’’ class and educated enough to know how something like this could be interpreted. Some advice? Never let class or school get in the way of you getting an education.
This isn’t just sore losing. This isn’t behavior lost in translation. It’s something deeper. As it always is. But it’s also something we must deal with as a part of what it is instead of continuing to act upon what we hope it isn’t.
Unlike in cards, in life — especially in sports after a loss, Ostapenko — you can’t call a spade a spade. Your poker face ain’t good enough to hide it when you do.