Jelena Jankovic Chooses Honesty Over Sportsmanship

Your biggest upset of this year’s Wimbledon is probably sixth-seeded Jelena Jankovic dropping her third-round match to unheralded American Melanie Oudin, 6-7 (10-8), 7-5, 6-2. If something seems awry with that result, well yes, there’s a reason:↵↵⇥The sixth-seeded Jankovic struggled with the heat on a sunny, 82-degree↵⇥afternoon, and took a 12-minute break after the first set. She also↵⇥needed treatment for her left foot later, and was plagued by erratic↵⇥groundstrokes while Oudin played with poise down the stretch and swept↵⇥the final three games.↵↵When asked about the loss, Jankovic reacted with a candor not normally seen from someone who just got upset, giving the 17-year-old nothing but insults and backhanded compliments:↵↵⇥“From what I have seen, she can play if you let her play,” said Serbian ↵⇥Jankovic.
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↵⇥“But she cannot hurt you with anything. She doesn’t have any weapons, from ↵⇥what I’ve seen.↵⇥
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↵⇥“She’s a consistent and quite solid player. She doesn’t make so many mistakes. ↵⇥But she doesn’t do anything either, so it’s like she’s depending kind of on ↵⇥you.” ↵↵Oof. The thing of it is, Jankovic’s probably telling the truth, even though that’s hardly a gracious way to behave after a loss. After all, Jankovic only registered 13 winners on the entire match, indicating that her game wasn’t exactly “there.” Oudin had never beaten a top-10 opponent before and didn’t appear especially dominant. Everything Jankovic said is probably right.↵
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↵That said, c’mon, you have to give a victorious opponent a little more credit than essentially saying, “she’s waiting for you to beat her.” As a general rule, if you’re to be taken at your word that someone who beats you isn’t very good... what does it say about how good you are?↵