OPINION

Unfair non-coverage

This letter is for the Bangkok Post Sports section.

Because the team lost they didn't get any space in the Sport section. No coverage whatsoever!

They've done so well for getting where they are!

But if they win it will be a big headline! You only support the winners?

Re: "Osaka crisis nears breaking point, star faces Slam ban", (Sports, June 1).

I don't know much about tennis, but like most people I do know a little bit about right and wrong, and it looks to me as if the poobahs of the tennis establishment are committing a great wrong against Naomi Osaka.

By "the poobahs of the tennis establishment" I mean the officials who run the French Open, Roland Garros, and the four Grand Slams.

They have picked a fight they cannot win in the court of public opinion by fining Osaka US$15,000 (about 540,000 baht) and threatening to ban her from future competitions. This is a David-versus-Goliath situation, and in such situations, Goliath never wins. Public sympathy is always with David.

The poobahs claim that Osaka has contractual obligations to attend press conferences. Osaka claims that press conferences are harmful to her mental health, presumably because of the intrusive, sometimes impolite, questions reporters ask.

Osaka should know more about what activities harm her mental health than anybody else, and if press conferences harm it, common sense and simple human compassion require that she be granted an exemption from attending them.

Why sports figures should be required to attend press conferences at all is a question requiring extended meditation.

Osaka is a tennis player, not a public relations hack. Her job is to hit the ball. If she wants to participate in extracurricular PR events, fine. But if she doesn't want to, she shouldn't have to.

I urge the various organisations that are trying to force Osaka into attending press conferences to back off.

It will also make the tennis establishment look like a bad guy in the eyes of the watching world. Fight on, Naomi!

Re: "Covid perspective", (PostBag, June 2).

In Eric Bahrt's latest letter, he tried comparing Covid with heart disease and vehicle crashes.

The difference, dear Mr Bahrt, is that Covid is highly transmissible from person to person and by warning people of the depth of the problem there is a chance that people will try to be careful and avoid it, thus saving many lives.

When I read Mr Bahrt's gripes, I am always reminded of the words in Princess Ida by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Oh don't the days seem lank and long

When all goes right and nothing goes wrong

And isn't your life extremely flat

With nothing whatever to grumble at