A Futile Search for Sportsmanship

Whatever happened to respect for your opponent and other aspects of simple good sportsmanship?

Martina Hingis, Venus Williams and Anna Kournikova all need to be spanked and sent to bed without supper. Then each should have to stand in the corner for 10 minutes a day until they learn some basic manners.

JOHN K. EVANS, Woodland Hills

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I’ll take one responsible, classy, gracious, teenage skater like Michelle Kwan in defeat any day over a half-dozen of those petulant little tennis crybabies in victory.

PATTI GARRITY, Manhattan Beach

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It was reported that, in the locker room, Martina Hingis laughingly dismissed her loss [to Mary Pierce] as inconsequential, to “be quickly forgotten” and on to the next match.

It was here that Hingis’ recent “tennis brat” label proved itself, in not giving Pierce any credit for outplaying her at all. This was not championship caliber at all, unlike the great Martina Navratilova, who minced no words when she lost. That Martina always called them as she saw them, even to her detriment.

This Martina needs more than an adopted name to match Navratilova’s candor and championship caliber.

SIMON Q. FRANKEL, Los Angeles