Do we have any tennis fans around here? The U.S. Open Final is today, and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz will play against Italy’s Jannik Sinner to determine who the men’s singles champion is. Normally, Matteo Berrettini is my guy when it comes to tennis, but he’s been so plagued with injuries in recent years that I’ve come to root for Alcaraz as my backup. How can you not? He’s just so darn adorable and talented. And now I like him even more.
President Donald Trump will attend the men’s final on Sunday. During a press conference this weekend, a reporter asked Alcaraz what he thought about that. I braced myself for his answer. I don’t know a lot about him personally, but he seems like a good kid — he’s 22; I can call him that — and I didn’t want him to say anything that would ruin my opinion of him. Instead, he gave a respectable answer that endeared me to him even more. Here’s his response (and keep in mind that he does speak English, but it’s not his first language):
Well, I think that the tournaments — it is a privilege for the tournaments having the presidents from every country just to support the tournament, and to support tennis, and to support the match. For me,playing in front of him, to be honest, I will try not to, to be focused and, and I will try not to think about it. I don’t want myself to be nervous because of it. But I think, you know, attending the tennis match, I think is great for tennis to have the president into into the final.
Here’s the video:
He didn’t make it political. He didn’t say anything bad about Trump. He showed respect for the country that’s currently hosting him and its leadership. I feel like a lot of athletes from the United States could learn a thing or two from that.
I was telling my dad about it, and he said once upon a time, this was the norm, not the exception. He said that for the most part, people respected the office of the president no matter who was in charge, whether they liked him or not. He said people argued over politics, sure, but at the end of the day they could still be friends and go out for a drink or something.
I guess that was before my time.
It actually made me think of something else I’d seen recently. I wrote an article about the stupid press coverage Taylor Swift’s engagement received a couple of weeks ago, and ever since then, my little corner of the internet has been on some sort of mission to throw even more useless Swift news in my face. For example, I guess Swift and Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, are good friends. Mrs. Mahomes recently had a birthday party, and Swift was there.
I’m not exactly sure why this was news, but the comments on the article I saw were horrendous. You may or may not recall that Mrs. Mahomes is a Trump supporter, something that caught even the president’s attention last year, and Swift is an outspoken Democrat. These young liberal women were just oh so upset that Swift would dare be friends with someone who likes the president. “How could she do this to us?” they cried. “How could she betray us?”
They were having these crazy meltdowns because a singer they like is friends with someone with whom she disagrees politically. Heck, that might be the first thing about Swift that I’ve ever found likable. I mean, when did we get to a point where we have to choose our friends based on how they voted?
The Alcaraz thing might not seem like a big deal, but it made me happy to see this young man from Europe give our president the respect that half of this country can’t bring themselves to. I hope he wins today.
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