First question is to Dinara Safina, the female world number 1 (she shouldn't be, and she's more masculine than me, but whatever). As you can see for yourself, the question is "How does it feel to be world number one?"
Apologies Seckbach, but I can think of about 3 better questions off the top of my head regarding her Number 1 status. If you ask her "How does it feel..." she can only answer two ways.
A) "Yeah, it's great" or B) "I fricking hate it!" Now, Answer B would be amusing, but it ain't going to happen is it? I think we're pretty confident that the player will just trot out an answer loosely based on A. It tells us nothing, it bores the player, it's a total waste of time.
- "Do you feel more pressure now you are World Number 1?"
- "Have you altered your game in any way now that you are World Number 1?"
- "Does the media treat you any differently now that you are World Number 1?" are 3 questions that I've just thought up which would be more interesting than your effort.
Let's fast forward to 0:53, where Seckbach, the bastard, gets to meet Ana. You've got a second chance, Seckbach. Now make sure you ask her something interesting. In fact, just ask her anything apart from the old "How does it feel to be fit?"
"You're known for your tennis, but also for your looks. Everywhere you go online...how's that for you, you enjoying it?"
For the love of shitting Christ. I'm not joking, this makes me want to stab my eyes out. I'm going to make a vow, right here - if I ever see/hear/read a journalist asking Ana Ivanovic a question like that again, I'm going to find an address for them or their employer and write a letter of complaint. It is pathetic journalism, and if it makes me annoyed, God only knows what she must think. Notice how she treats the question almost exactly the same way she did the last time someone asked her that.
Let's leave that prat, and move on swiftly to another. Come on down, Marcus Tennis! You and your fab surname!
This guy is a fucking psycho. Don't believe me? Pause that video at 2:08. Christ almighty, that's either a Colgate advert or a deleted scene from The Hills Have Eyes. Anyway, let us fast-forward to 3:31, as here we have another joker meeting Ana. Your question, Marcus Tennis?
"Ana, y'know, I wanted to ask you...what do you think is more important, if you had to choose between...the two things that are most important...your shoes, or your racquet?"
When John McEnroe was playing, he famously described an umpire as "the pits of the world". Sorry John, but I think you'll find Marcus Tennis is the pits of the world. What kind of fucking question is that? Asked whilst staring at someone 20 feet away?
Right, that does it. I'm now more determined than ever to become a sports journalist. And when I interview Ana, she will fall in love with me based on my engaging and absorbing questions. We will then marry, and one day I'll get the e-mail addresses of these two pillocks, and I'll e-mail them both just a picture of me and Ana sticking our middle fingers up at them. It's only fair.
(Many thanks to http://anaivanovictennis-courtside.blogspot.com/ for alerting me to these prats.)
I think the problem is that modern sports journalism, especially on TV, is that it's become a branch of celebrity gossip, and the journalists aren't much brighter than the competitors, plus the knowledge that if you ask a complicated/interesting/critical/difficult question, the star's agent will bar you forever… these are particularly egregious examples though.
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