So the tennis world is in uproar. Aryna Sabalenka, the world number two, cuts a press conference short. Players are ‘protesting’ at Roland Garros. And the governing body? It is, of course, being blamed. One might think we were witnessing the fall of the Roman Empire, not a tennis tournament. But the parallels are there, if you care to look.
Let us begin with Sabalenka. She strode into the press room, offered a few terse answers about her match, and then, when asked about the ‘protest’—a word I use with some reluctance, as it implies a political act rather than a collective sulk—she walked out. She could not be bothered. Why should she? In an age where the athlete is treated as a deity, the mere act of answering questions is seen as a burden, an imposition on their sacred time. It is the entitlement of the modern star, a creature bred by a culture that worships celebrity above all else. One shudders to imagine a Victorian sportsman acting thus. They would have been laughed out of the club.
And what of this protest? The French Open, once a bastion of tradition and elegance, is now a stage for players to air grievances about schedules, about prize money, about the colour of the towels. Never mind that they are paid millions to hit a ball over a net. Never mind that the world is on fire. No, the pressing issue of our time is that the clay is too slow, or the night sessions too late. It is decadence, pure and simple. The historian in me sees a civilisation in decline: a ruling class (the players) obsessed with their own comfort, while the infrastructure (the governing bodies) crumbles under the weight of their demands.
The International Tennis Federation, for all its faults, is an easy scapegoat. They are accused of incompetence, of greed, of failing to listen. But let us be honest: they are merely reflecting the times. A body that tries to please everyone pleases no one. And in the absence of strong, centralised authority—the kind that once made Wimbledon the envy of the world—we get chaos. We get players dictating terms. We get press conferences abandoned. We get a sport that has forgotten its own soul.
There is a lesson here, if anyone cares to learn it. The British Empire collapsed because it lost faith in its own institutions. Rome fell because its citizens lost their civic virtue. Tennis, you might say, is just a game. But games are mirrors. And the image looking back at us from Roland Garros is not a pretty one. It is the face of a sport bloated on its own success, unable to see beyond the next endorsem*nt. Sabalenka’s walkout was not a scandal. It was a symptom.
So let the hand-wringing begin. Let the committees form and the reports be written. I will be here, watching, as the decadence deepens. Because history tells us that nothing hastens decline faster than a refusal to acknowledge it.
