Journalists lie in wait for these types of moments. They're the ones you know you’ll talk about in a year or two years or 10 years. They're the rare moments when something happens. Serena’s tirade, Federer’s tears, Bill Clinton inspiring Andre Agassi’s defeat at the French Open—we’ll take just about anything.
Patience is required. Entire Grand Slams can go by without any certifiable happenings. You have to be alert, too, because if you miss one, you’ll never be able to tell the story first-hand and lord it over everyone else that you were actually there. Why else did we choose this career except to do that?
Yesterday at the Australian Open, something happened. In the grand scheme of life, it was a very small happening. But in the scheme of athlete-media relations, and the sometimes-maddening construct of the press conference, it was interesting.
I was sort of there. I was listening absently to Caroline Wozniacki’s presser on the monitor at my desk. I didn’t begin to register anything until I heard her talking and giggling for much longer than was necessary for a standard answer—and she keeps her standard answers pretty short. Wozniacki, having been told one too many times that her pressers were “kind of boring,” decided to take matters into her own hands and give us her answers to the questions she knew she was going to get, before anyone could ask them.
“I felt great out there on court,” she started, before running through all the usual presser boilerplate.
“I’m happy to be through to the next round.”
“I don’t feel any pressure to be No. 1.”
“My racquet feels really good.”
Wozniacki was blushing a little by the end, but the “answers” were funny, and it was interesting to hear an athlete show that she’s aware of how bland and formulaic the standard presser is. And she’s right, you can only answer the questions that are put to you. The bigger question is, would a player want to answer any deeper queries, and would we want to hear their answers?
With the boilerplate out of the way, Wozniacki was asked, “How should we solve global warming.”
She hesitated and said, “Uhm, go green.” Make electric cars, use public transportation, don’t stay in the shower for half an hour. “Two minutes is enough. Even the girls.”
Later the questions got more personal.
“What do you expect in a guy?”
“What do I expect? Honesty, Understanding what I’m doing. Maybe a sports person himself.”
“How much do you read about yourself in the media?”
“I look at the pictures sometimes. Sometimes I’m looking at them and I’m thinking: They could choose some better ones.”
We learned about her parents' scrapbooks, her love of baking, her level of annoyance at the questions about being No. 1, what she would ask Andy Murray if she were a reporter. It ended up being pretty good, actually, as far as these things go. It was closer to what you get in a magazine profile than a newspaper match story. Wozniacki even got in a dig at the press, and revealed a sarcastic side in the process.
Someone said, “You’re not going to find [a boyfriend] in here.”
“Sometimes the media is too good looking here, so I can’t really focus on what I’m supposed to say.”
Wozniacki’s stunt seemed like it could veer into the cringe-worthy, but it ended up being a laudable effort, and we actually did learn more about her than we otherwise would have. I was one of the people who sat through her first press conference of the week and wrote that “she was tolerant” of the situation at best and unwilling to reveal her desire to win this tournament. This one was much better, even if she didn't reveal any hidden desperation to win.
Of course, the daily journalists in the room who are covering the tournament as a whole won’t be able to use the stuff about boyfriends and baking and global warming and ugly reporters. They just need a few words about the match she played. They need, “I felt good out there.” “I’m hitting the ball well.” “My racquet is working.” That’s what they, and we, will keep getting from Wozniacki and other players. And both sides may be happier it’s that way. How many players, or journalists, or readers, want to think about global warming after a tennis match?