So Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, wrote a ridiculously horribly written and researched article for ESPN "The Magazine" a few weeks ago railing on the current state of tennis. The premise of the article was "If I told you the greatest tennis match of all time was going to be played, would you watch it?" His answer was a resounding no. Flash forward a few weeks and arguably the greatest tennis match of all time was played on Sunday.
Today, Bill Simmons offered what ESPN called "a mea culpa" via a podcast wherein he says that it was the worst article he had ever written and interviews James Blake to talk about the final. Take a listen. A mea culpa it was not.
Billy Boy hasn't learned his lesson and his ignorance with respect to tennis is still on full display during the podcast. My favorite moment? When Bill suggests to James that Wimbledon really needs to have a retractable roof and lights.
Simmons claims that he wanted to write an article about tennis and why it wasn't as popular in America anymore. It shocks me that he's too dense to realize that the answer is staring right at him at the mirror. Americans don't watch tennis because there are no Americans to cheer for anymore. We don't dominate the sport anymore. It is a truly international game now and American sports fans are too lazy and too U.S. centric to cheer for non-U.S. players.
Kudos to James Blake though for doing the interview and handling Bill's ignorant questions with intelligence, patience, and class. Hopefully he learned something.
