Male professional athlete wants women to think about kids

Young_Chitlin
Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited May 2014 in From the Cheap Seats

Gulbis dissuading female players

PARIS -- Ernests Gulbis doesn't want his younger sisters to follow in his footsteps and become professional tennis players because women need "to think about kids."

Ernests Gulbis' remarks about pro tennis players and motherhood were insensitive, but not even Maria Sharapova could take them seriously, Jane McManus writes. Story

The Latvian player advanced to the fourth round at the French Open on Friday, beating Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. He was asked about his siblings after the match.

"I wouldn't like my sisters to become professional tennis players. It's [a] tough choice of life," Gulbis said. "A woman needs to enjoy life a little bit more. Needs to think about family, needs to think about kids."

Gulbis went on to say that life on the tennis tour is difficult, more so for women who want children.

He said female tennis players can't think about having kids until they are in their late 20s, and "that's tough for a woman, I think."

Maria Sharapova, who also advanced to the fourth round on Friday, played down Gulbis' comments.

"I don't think we can take everything serious when he speaks," Sharapova, 27, said with a laugh. "I think he's great entertainment and we love to listen to what he has to say. But, I mean, of course, you have different opinions.

"In a way, I think he was joking, but he's playing the sport, so how bad can it be? If he felt so bad about it, and even if he's a male, I don't think he'd be playing it."

Novak Djokovic chose to stay out of the fray.

"Everybody is entitled [to] their own opinion," Djokovic said after his third-round victory. "I respect his opinion, and I respect everybody's opinion, but I can't say more than that, really."

Comments

  • Young_Chitlin
    Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ernests Gulbis' comments laughable 

    By: Jane McManus

    Is that all Ernests Gulbis has got? If he really wanted to leave his mark at the French Open, he needed to go much bigger. As it was, his comment about not wanting his sisters to play tennis so that they can focus on family was just your regularly scheduled biannual insensitive comment from an ATP player about women and tennis.

    What's that? You've never heard of Gulbis? No, not golfer Natalie Gulbis -- this one is a Latvian on the men's pro tour. Here is his response in full to a question about his sisters.

    "Hopefully they're not going to pursue a professional tennis career. Hopefully. Because for a woman, it's tough. I wouldn't like my sisters to become professional tennis players. It's tough choice of life. A woman needs to enjoy life a little bit more. Needs to think about family, needs to think about kids. What kids you can think about until age of 27 if you're playing professional tennis, you know. That's tough for a woman, I think."

    Hopefully, Gulbis' sisters -- including Elina, who has a law degree -- can have a discussion with him about biological clocks and how 27 is still prime time.

    Or better, let's have a panel discussion with Kim Clijsters, Steffi Graf and Lindsay Davenport and moderated by Pam Shriver about how tennis careers interfere with having children. Of course, we would need to provide child care for the 10 biological children they have between them.

    Gulbis' remarks were pretty disappointing in light of Gilles Simon's 2012 comments at Wimbledon, where the Frenchman asserted that women don't deserve to be paid as much as men at Grand Slam events. Now, that's the way to get noticed. Columns were written! Responses were issued! Feathers were ruffled!

    Asked to respond to Gulbis, WTA players offered smirks and tepid responses.

    "I don't think we can take everything serious when he speaks," Maria Sharapova said, laughing. "I mean, let's be honest with that. I think he's great entertainment and we love to listen to what he has to say."

    C'mon, Gulbis, get your head in the game. You have to do better if you want to evoke more than chuckles from the future mothers you are trying to offend.

    "In a way, I think he was joking, but he's playing the sport, so how bad can it be?" Sharapova continued, gamely mustering a serious response. "If he felt so bad about it, and even if he's a male, I don't think he'd be playing it. I think the sport brings so many opportunities to women. I mean, it's brought me so many things into my life and my career. I don't regret any step that I have taken. But then, on the other hand, sometimes I wake up and think, 'Well, I don't wish this on my kids.' But then when I'm playing the matches, I'm in front of thousands of people and the experience that this sport brings, I think, 'Of course I want my kids to do this, this is such a huge lesson in life.' ''

    You know what else Sharapova can do when she has kids? Actually spend time with them and enjoy the buckets of money she has earned as a professional tennis player. It's a formula that's worked for men for millennia -- working like crazy while amassing your fortune and then having a family.

    Anyway, thanks to Gulbis for restarting the clock on the next insensitive comment. Hopefully, men on the tour have been monitoring the response here and realize they need to come up with something better if they want to become the next irrelevant footnote in Slam history.

    By the way, Gulbis will face Roger Federer, father of four, in the fourth round. Teach him a lesson, Fed.

  • VulcanRaven
    VulcanRaven Members Posts: 18,859 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chitlin.You know we aint reading
  • Young_Chitlin
    Young_Chitlin Members Posts: 23,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chitlin.You know we aint reading

    Ok
  • MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14
    MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14 Members Posts: 15,337 ✭✭✭✭✭
    actually its up to these male athletes to think about kids/who they impregnate. its to be honest the effectiveness of their parenting is more important than the female. look at the success stories like ken griffey jr, the mannings, the matthews in football and even athletes who dont have kids who play the same sport but just end up having successful kids in other avenues.

    but when some ? ? every bad ? raw getting them pregnant that ? does more to set up their kids for failure or a tougher life than they think. cause all the money in the world cant make up for having 5 kids by 3 different baby moms. and then when you have to juggle multiple kids in multiple cities sometimes it gunna impact those kids. also even if a male athlete has a few kids but they don't focus on them and are partying or never being around in the offseason it affects their life. Again sure money helps but most celebs kids who wild out are due to their father and even mother not laying down the law.
  • zerocool
    zerocool Members Posts: 3,973 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ima pop some babies in serena
  • greenwood1921
    greenwood1921 Members Posts: 47,115 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Proves that men still rule the world.

    We've brainwashed broads into thinking that winning the US Open or dunking a basketball is a greater accomplishment than raising a family and maintaining a household.

    You can do both, but why get offended if somebody suggests that raising a family is better?

    You can always tell who's running ? by watching to see who people are trying their best to be like.

    If Dogs ruled the world we would all be sniffing each other's ass and ? on fire hydrants -- and thinking we've made it in life because of it.

  • D0wn
    D0wn Members Posts: 10,818 ✭✭✭✭✭
    zerocool wrote: »
    Ima pop some babies in serena

    Had to Spam u , for blasphamy
  • Mister B.
    Mister B. Members, Writer Posts: 16,172 ✭✭✭✭✭
    In b4 "he's a pig" comments by some of the more Drake-like dudes on the IC.
  • LUClEN
    LUClEN Members Posts: 20,559 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Too many damn people already
    let these hoes play tennis, one less person is nothing to cry over