Deconstructing a "Cat Fight"

You know it's a slow week in tennis when players' alleged disputes with one another surface on the news pages--and the players named don't even have a say in the matter.

The English version of the Korean news website Digital Chosunilbo reported that Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams have some bad blood between them, as seen in their refusal to take the same flight to Korea where they are playing in an exhibition match in Seoul. This news story seems to have some problem distinguishing between the sisters Serena and Venus; in addition to providing an image of Venus instead of Serena, they also reported that Serena defeated Maria in the Wimbledon quarterfinals this year. It was Venus who did the deed, and it was in the semifinals; Serena went out in the third round to Jill Craybas.

This confusion was also picked up by Russian news service MosNews, which took it a step further by naming Venus as Maria's opponent in the exhibition match, instead of Serena.

The Chosun report labels the two (three?) players as bitter rivals; MosNews goes further and says "Both Maria and Venus said they had no desire at all to bump into each other on the plane" but did not substantiate this with further quotes from the two named players. Instead, MosNews quoted a statement that the Chosun article supposedly solicited from Itar Tass, the managing group that arranged the exhibition.

From MosNews:
"We were initially going to bring both of them aboard the same plane, but at the strong insistence of both sides, who said they didn’t want to run into each other in the narrow confines of first class, we are bringing them to Korea on separate planes," the managing group was quoted by the Chosun news website as saying.

Sharapova’s flight from Los Angeles will arrive at Incheon International Airport at 4:50 p.m. on Sept. 16, while Williams’ plane from New York will arrive about 10 minutes later.

The Russian also insisted that she would stay in a different hotel, Itar Tass adds.

"Since many fans will flock to Sharapova, Williams' pride might be hurt, so we plan to put them in separate hotels," one of the organizers was quoted by Chosun news as saying.

The idea for the match came from the Russian tennis star, who won the Hansol Korea Open last year and said she wanted to return to Korea because of her happy memories of the nation. However, when the organizers proposed putting her up against Williams, she was initially against the idea. This summer Sharapova lost the semi-finals of Wimbledon to the American, who eventually won the tournament.

Chosun's article (updated September 16) does not have the quoted statements from Itar Tass, but it does have the information about which hotels the players will be staying at and their arrival times.

From the Digital Chosunilbo:
Despite being billed as a friendly, the fierce PR war of sponsors ahead of the match stinted nothing to major tournaments. KIA motors, the official sponsor of this match, will provide a souped-up version of their sedans as official cars while the athletes stay in Korea. Eight five-star hotels vied to attract the two stars. Like last year, Sharapova will stay at the Shilla Hotel’s premium suite, reportedly costing around W7 million (US$7,000) a day, while Williams will stay in the Jamsil Lotte Hotel, the official hotel of the match.

Sharapova and Williams will give autographs at Hyundai Department Store in Samsung-dong, Seoul on Saturday afternoon. During this 30 minute event that starts at 2 pm, this area is expected to be heavily inundated with fans. Although the match has not yet begun, the two tennis stars are already engaged in a fierce war of nerves, even insisting on taking separate planes, although they ended up arriving just 10 minutes apart from each other.

With the lack of real quotes from the Sharapova and Williams camps, the confusion in the identity of the Williams sister who is playing in the exhibition, and the poor fact-checking of these articles, it seems to me that this "cat fight" is just spin created by the organizers of the exhibition match in order to generate buzz (and ticket sales) for the event.

(Related posts on this can be found on Pro Tennis Fan and On the Baseline.)

UPDATE: Lisen of Pro Tennis Fan posted a short blog entry linking to a video clip showing Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams arriving in Korea. This answers Aaress's question: is it Venus or Serena?

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 5:50 PM