Sportsmanship misplayed, sails out of bounds

Beijing

They held a tennis match here Friday night and an ethics lesson broke out.

At every venue, in every sport, with every interview, the chatter is about the Olympic spirit. How it feels, what it means, what it brings to the world. But it is usually only that. Chatter. Then, right before our eyes, a U.S. tennis player, James Blake, makes it real.

This was a competitor, critiquing the sportsmanship values of the competition. He was on an international stage, and he didn't shy from it. He may have been correct in his assessment of what happened. He may have been wrong. But the values inherent in the discussion were truly an Olympic moment.

Blake had just lost a semifinal match in men's singles. He battled for 2 hours 52 minutes against Fernando Gonzalez of Chile. The match had started slowly and turned into superb tennis. The final score was 4-6, 7-5, 11-9. In the last set, Blake and Gonzalez became two warriors, swinging out, going toe-to-toe. Every game was a barrage of big serves and winning ground strokes.

Blake had three break points in one game early and Gonzalez saved them. Blake had three match points at 5-6 and Gonzalez saved them. In the final game, Gonzalez had four match points and Blake saved them all before finally returning a serve into the net.

So it was over. Gonzalez got to the gold-medal match Sunday and Blake will play for the bronze Saturday.

Turns out, it was far from over.

On the first point of the 18th game of the final set, with Gonzalez serving at 8-9, Blake tried to pass a charging Gonzalez by hitting it right at him. Gonzalez swerved, the ball landed long and Blake quickly realized the point had been put up for Gonzalez.

He walked to the umpire's chair and a long discussion ensued. Soon, it became obvious that Blake thought the ball had nicked Gonzalez's racket on its way out, and if so, should have been his point.

Unable to get any satisfaction from the chair umpire, who claimed not to have seen the ball touch Gonzalez's racket, and by the rules, could not call for a replay on this, Blake eventually turned and looked at Gonzalez, back on his baseline, then walked slowly back to receive the next serve.

He looked bothered, and it didn't take long afterward to find out why. In his news conference, he called out Gonzalez. It was stunning. Athletes almost never do that, preferring the smooth and easy to the controversial.