Blame it on the Ovaries

Last weekend, 17-year-old, Marietta, Ga. native Melanie Oudin beat 24-year-old, sixth-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic in a surprise upset at Wimbledon. Earlier this year, Jankovic was ranked No. 1 in the world. This is Oudin's first Wimbledon.

After the match, Oudin scored critical praise for her ability to get herself out of scrappy situations. Jankovic begged to differ: "She doesn't have any weapons, from what I've seen."

According to the more experienced tennis player, she lost because she wasn't feeling well. In other words, she blamed it on her period.

"It's not easy being a woman, sometimes," Jankovic said. "All these things happen. What can I do? After the first set, I felt really dizzy, and I thought that I was just going to end up in the hospital. I started to shake. I was losing my—how you say—consciousness. I was really going to lose it, you know, to fall down and just, you know, probably go—call the ambulance and leave the court."

Bridget Crawford at Feminist Law Professors suggests Jankovic was looking for pity from male sportswriters: "Maybe Jankovic had cramps. But unless she takes to her bed each month, a world-class athlete probably has played (well) with cramps before. More likely, Jankovic is making excuses for her poor performance and thought she’d get a 'pass' from the mostly male sportswriters," she writes.

Whatever the case, it seems we'll have to add "woman issues" to sore loser excuses. If all else fails, you can always blame it on the ovaries.

Photograph of Jelena Jankovic by Ian Walton/Getty Images.

Tags: menstruation, wimbledon

VIEW THIS CONVERSATION

Susannah Breslin Freelance journalist, blogger, photographer.

Comments

Poor Jankovic . . .

By: vardaman | Tue, 06/30/2009 - 02:17

It's a bit hard to criticize Jelena on this one, since she's merely adopting the standard set by the game's most remarkable winner and least gracious loser, Serena Williams. When Williams loses (even to her sister!) she never has a kindly word to say about her opponent's level of play. She always loses because she didn't play well enough, and to hell with the necessary correlation: your opponent played better.

And, it should be noted that Jankovic has been struggling all year after bulking up during the off-season in an attempt to gain strength, with the result that she's not much stronger and a lot slower, effectively neutralizing the best part of her game -- and speed really was her only "weapon to speak of."

And, to Oudin's credit, she became the heroine of American tennis when, without the Williams sisters on the team, she almost single-handedly lifted the Americans into the Fed Cup final against a much deeper and more experienced Italian squad.

seems fair to me

By: omnibaby | Mon, 06/29/2009 - 14:47

Sure, she could be a sore loser but she could also be a very sad and frustrated person who faced an honest physical malady on a very important day. If she had hurt herself in a way that was a little more acceptably "real" to the public maybe we wouldn't have to be so snarky about it. Periods are different for everyone, and they're different month to month too. I generally have no problems at all with mine but there have definitely been times where if I'd had to perform athletically I would have been up shit creek without a paddle. I can't imagine the distress it would cause having prepared and fought for so long only to be "taken out" by something so out of your control. Although it's good advice to keep a stiff upper lip there's nothing wrong with a little frustration after such a disappointment, or asking yourself how things might have gone differently. It just so happens this person is very famous and had people waiting to catch any remark she had to make at what was surely a pretty emotional moment - especially if she really was on her period ;) Sounds like instead of bitching about someone "blaming their ovaries" a "feminist law professor" could better spend her time asking why it's only the men and not the women that would hypothetically extend Jankovic sympathy and understanding or why it's such a big deal to acknowledge our "women's issues" as athletes.