It's only a boring game

I would like to give a gift to any police detective (redundancy) who finds him/herself tasked with the chore of getting me to confess to some trumped-up charge. 

Here's how to get me to talk: force me to watch tennis. 

I know lots of people who like to watch tennis, and I guess that as a game, it's certainly better than golf or bowling or NASCAR.  But just like with golf, it's like the end of the world if a spectator so much as yawns or speaks or hollers during the match.  It's not a problem with bowling, because at their matches, the only people watching are parents who came to pick up the bowlers to get them home for dinner.

Heading home early

But I'm sure you saw what happened last weekend at the US Open. A tennis player named Novak Djokovic had himself quite a little flare-up during a game on Sunday. He didn't like how things were going, so she smacked the ball with his tennis racket, and the ball hit the line judge, Laura Clark, in the throat.

Very childish behavior, and he was given the gate for it. Disqualified and sent back to Serbia in disgrace.

Almost immediately, his fans took to social media to claim that it was unfair to throw him out, because he's the Novakiest of all Djokovics.  Many of these people would call for the head of a football player or baseball star who threw one of their balls at an official, but give Novak a break, they cried!

And to no one's surprise, his fans started sending abusive and threatening messages to the lineswoman!

A Serbian tabloid paper revealed her identify and social media info, and that opened the sluice gates for people who sit at home watching tennis to slag the woman with their bile.

It seems that Ms Clark had a son who died. One of these galoots emailed her a picture of that son along with the message, "Don't worry. You'll join him soon."

And there were other messages from other illbred scuzzballs.

To his credit, Djokovic spoke up on Instagram:


“Dear #NoleFam thank you for your positive messages.. Please also remember the linesperson that was hit by the ball last night needs our community’s support too. She’s done nothing wrong at all. I ask you to stay especially supportive and caring to her during this time. From these moments, we grow stronger and we rise above. Sharing love with everyone. Europe here I come.”

Although he pled with officials to be allowed to keep playing in front of a replacement line judge on the grounds that Ms Clark didn't require hospitalization, Djokovic did write an apology after his disqualification, saying that the whole situation left him “sad and empty”.

“I’m extremely sorry to have caused her such stress. So unintended. So wrong,” he had written in his previous post.

He was fined $10,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct in addition to losing out on the $250,000 prize money he was odds-on favorite to win.

Djokovic stated that he will play in the French Open later this month, so that should give the officials plenty of time to go on Amazon and purchase football helmets for themselves.

Perhaps a mental health counselor could help him get over these anger issues.