Sunday, February 04, 2007
Covington: What's with the SUI
By Gary Covington
Looking On
I WOULD never realized -- never even given it a thought -- that when a sportsman or woman wins a silver tray or a trophy or a year's supply of petfood, he or she is obliged to give a speech.
It was the TV clicker's fault. It threw a wobbly, the channel switched, and onto the screen came a station normally unobtainable out here in the wilds of Buhangin; a station usually a psychedelic blur but this time sharp and clear and tennis - the just finished tournament down under in Oz.
I'm not much of a fan. Gone are the glory days of players smashing racquets and verbally roughing up the umpires but this was the highlight. Three hours of smash, grunt, whack and of edited down to ten minutes. And it was the men's final.
I stayed to watch and Roger Federer won who, according to the scoreboard, comes from SUI.
Years ago, and I'm not sure if it still holds true, tourists motoring about a foreign land, proud of their origins, would display a nationality sticker on their vehicles. There was a recognized two or three-letter code for every country. Most were straightforwardly obvious; AND for Andorra, GB for Great Britain while a few were a little more tricky. NL stood for Holland (after the Netherlands), Cambodia was KH (after Khymer) and Roger Federer's homeland -- Switzerland -- was represented by CH (after Confoederation Helvitica, the Swiss at home calling their country Helvetia).
So what's with the SUI? It's a shortening of Suisse but why? Federer's opponent, Fernando Gonzales, is from Chile -- he merited, correctly, CHL. So why not CH for Federer? I'd be asking questions Roger.
But back to talk and the beauty of newspaper reports or the television news is that we don't get to see or hear the speeches. We see a winner waving a trophy, a loser smiling through clenched teeth and then it's on to floods in Albania or the good ol' USA starting a war somewhere.
TV's tennis highlights on the other hand, whilst editing the play, features each and every speech verbatim. Why? 'Coz it's in the sponsors contract, that's why.
The first two guys up -- officials -- thanked a list of sponsors as long as your arm, thanked anybody remotely connected with the tourney (over 4000 apparently and that doesn't include the players and their retinues), the players naturally, and finally the audience.
Then Fernando stepped up thanking the same sponsors, the same staff and the same audience and so did Roger and then it was photo-op time.
This being Oz, both men were presented with a cuddly toy koala bear which is not manly at all -- oh no. Who wants to be snapped clutching a wimpy bear? The furry creatures got the old heave-ho into the wings right smartly and then it was flash, bing, sparkle as the mob of photographers did the biz and recorded the scene for all time.
The women's title -- and don't these gals howl when they whack the ball -- was won by Serena Williams and much has been made by the press of how she is only the second unseeded player to win the Aussie Open since time began.
It may be true and sports commentators have to fill their airtime and column inches but isn't it all a little ridiculous. The term unseeded conjures up an image of an amateur just in from Hicksville who doesn't know one end of a racquet from the other which Miss Williams is most certainly not.
Just as daft (to my mind) is that her opponent Maria Sharapova, whom Serena hammered into the ground, goes on to her next match as the world's number 1 woman tennis player. Is that crazy or what?For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (February 4, 2007 issue)
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