For all the connectedness that globalisation supposedly has brought, sometimes we’re still Venus and Mars, and by that I don’t mean platforms for Elon Musk’s ego. I mean slippage between cultures, philosophies and especially what is funny.
Even at a carnival of nations like the Australian Open, there is liable to be misunderstanding.
One man’s love of clay courts is another’s terror of them. One man’s nationalism is another’s patriotism. And one man’s sense of humour is another’s gross insult, and so again we have a confected controversy at Melbourne Park.
As I saw it, Tony Jones was not making fun of Novak Djokovic. He was making a little fun of the Serbian fans and the idea that they could not hear him, and so he might have been chanting any old rubbish. And was. He wasn’t delivering a finely argued judgment on Djokovic or his tennis. He was engaging in banter.
It was all a bit silly, and as a vastly experienced reporter, Jones should have known better and has acknowledged this. You mightn’t think much of his sense of humour, but you simply could not take what he said literally and therefore to heart. Not even a Martian or a Venusian could.
It’s hard to believe that Djokovic took offence on his own account. He’s as worldly as they come, and has a grasp of several languages and surely understood this as the sally of ham-fisted humour it was. Djokovic well knows that this was not personal. He needs to get down off his high horse.
Serbian fans watch Novak Djokovic.Credit: AP
Some in the Serbian community took offence, too. Here was the slippage. To a degree, the annoyance of that community is understandable. Jones was not having a crack at Serbia, but he was using Serbian fans as stooges. But the Serbian Council of Australia did its cause no justice by calling for Jones’ sacking. I guess they thought they were on safe enough grounds; no one is going to side with a journalist.
Jones has apologised to the Serbs, recognising that what he thought was funny might not have been to them. He has apologised via intermediaries to Djokovic and offered to reiterate his apology face to face. That’s what should happen now: they should sit down for 10 minutes face to face, say their pieces, make their peace and let everyone else get on with the tennis.
This faux row is of a piece with the Danielle Collins/crowd controversy of last week in that some say tennis needs these melodramatic flashpoints to maintain its appeal to a new generation of fans.
Tennis authorities ought to beware.
Firstly, it implies that tennis should meet the new generation not halfway, but at the most base level of human interaction: personal squabbling.
It implies that as long as someone is having a crack at someone else, the crack they all have on the court is neither here nor there.
It implies that tennis is good, but Romans v Christians is better.
In this context, the Djokovic/Jones contretemps is being played up as an international incident. It’s not even a storm in a teacup. It’s a tornado in a thimble.
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