Williams Sisters offended by comments

I’m not a huge tennis fan.  I do watch it on occasion but I don’t follow it or anything, like I do with football, soccer or basketball.  Although I do follow the sport enough to have a few players I do not particularly like.  The Williams sisters (Venus and Serena) have always irked me.  I know they’re American and typically in international sports you root for the person from your country, but they’re kind of annoying.  I don’t necessarily root against them, but not for them either.

Recently, the top tennis official in Russia, Shamil Tarpischev  (don’t really think of Russia being involved in tennis) recently made a very offensive remark about both Serena and Venus.  His statement, made on a late night television chat show, referred to them as the “Williams brothers.”  This has caused a significant amount of uproar throughout the international tennis community as many people have condemned the comments made by Tarpischev.  Serena responded calling the comments “insensitive, sexist and racist.”  Later, she referred to the statement as a form of bullying, which is a very correct statement, as there’s a variety of ways people can be offended by Tarpischev’s words.  He later claimed of course that his comments were taken out of context and they were meant as a joke, as that was the nature of the show he was a guest of when he made his statement. 

As a result of his stupidity, he was fined $25,000 (probably chump change to him) and suspended for a year by the World Tennis Association.  Many people, including fellow Russian Tennis player Maria Sharapova, agreed with the decisions and have called his comments insensitive and insulting, among other things. 

Looking at this from a public relations perspective, it’s always a nightmare when someone in your organization makes an asinine comment like this.  Perhaps the PR officials for the RTF (Russian Tennis Federation) aren’t really doing their job, because many still regard Tarpischev’s apology as incomplete and not satisfactory.  Actually, he only apologized after the WTA demanded he do so.  Maybe public relations isn’t as big of a deal in Russia as it is other places.