Every year the Australian Open seems to coincide with a new Margaret Court controversy.
Even in 2021, with players being bundled out with COVID-19 weeks before the tournament begins and many stuck in hotel quarantine, the headlines are all about Margaret Court and her Australia Day AC gong.
What can we expect to be fighting about during future Australian Opens? We took a sneak peek at the inevitable upcoming Court-roversies.
2022: We debate whether Margaret Court should be Australia’s next ambassador to the United States.
2023: A furore over whether she should be governor-general (for her tennis achievements, of course).
2024: Vegemite releases MargieMite 2.0. Should it really be named after her?
2025: Growing calls to cancel Night Court, her sports show on Sky News After Dark.
2026: Controversy erupts over her planned Botany Bay landing reenactment.
2027: Controversy erupts over her planned ANZAC landing reenactment.
2028: She releases a new book. Just a new book launch? Really. But you just wait until you read the lengthy sections that have nothing to do with her tennis achievements…
2029: Her second tilt for the governor-general job.
2030: MargieMite 3.0.
2031: Some comments she made on her weekly Sunrise slot go viral (for the wrong reasons).
2032: Should her 90th birthday celebrations take place at the Australian Open?
2033: It’s been eight years, but has the Night Court writers room finally run out of ideas for edgy comedy skits?
2034: Should stop talking about Margaret Court?
2035: Some shocking revelations from her tell-all interview with JetPackTennisDaily.
2036: AI has worked out a way to get her in the news this time. We have a 0.000187% chance of predicting what it comes up with.
2037: 54% of respondents to a state-run survey say that they haven’t quite had enough of Margaret Court so we go another year.
2038: MargieMite 4.0. It’s an even saltier version of MargieMite 3.0. Some people complain that it leaves a bitter aftertaste.
2039: Court announces that she will take back everything she said about LGBTIQ+ people. The PM introduces her to the packed, newly renovated Rod Laver Arena. Hush. 78,900 people sit in an eerie silence. She ambles onstage and doubles down on everything she’s said about LGBTIQ+ people.
2040: Nobody is quite sure how it will come to everyone talking about Margaret Court during the Australian Open. But it just happens.
2041: How should the Australian Open celebrate Margaret Court’s 100th birthday next year?
2042: It’s a right royal brouhaha about what the king should write in Margaret Court’s 100th birthday letter. (Yes, we’re still not a republic!)
2043 onwards: We find that Margaret Court is immortal and this will go on forever.
I am still waiting for information about what tennis tournaments Margaret Court has won since the initial award. I can understand an upgrade when an awardee’s contribution is enhanced, but short of services in the culture wars, what has Court done? Or have I answered my own question?
Court has done the COALition the enormous service of consolidating its vote amongst one of its key constituencies; the bigoted and ignorant.
Covered it nicely curmudgeon, and our own resident curmudgeon continues to defend the indefensible. Must have been an otherwise quiet day for Erasmus. Won’t somebody please invite him out for afternoon tea so he has less time time to harangue the bootless and unhorsed.
Props to anyone who gets that literary reference.
Bootless could also refer to crime for Saxon law as in bootable and non bootable offences. In drips and drabs the practice was still about to the end of the Tudors. Few owned horses even in the latish 19th century. One had to be a man of means.
I suspect that I have a few supporters here but the majority have yet to defeat what I have stated. The “standard” : you’re wrong won’t suffice. Do take what I have posted as a whole but I’m not losing sleep.
She just uses her cult (church she started??) to condemn people who are not like her. We don’t all believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden or believe stories written by blokes for benefit of blokes. That is why she started her own because blokes wouldn’t let her be a pastor.
Pretty apt – I reckon Court’s promotion makes these honours look like a racket.
Margaret Court has done nothing other than preach to her flock. She decries the lifestyle of a few in the community at her sermons and without being answerable.
She has sone nothing in the community other than create a storm of riducule, disgust .
She is not deserving of the highest order in Australia, is akin to ABBOT promoting Prince Philipp to a order.
Whomever is on and how they come to the end result of who is deserving and who is not, it shoild be and they should be made accountabl e and explain how and why they come to the conclusion.
Out in the rwal world there are morw people whom have more claims to the honors bestowed,also in passing “how did” Muckracker Murdoch get a gong.
500,000 + people would discount that!
As to how the fit are selected is one thing (and, frankly, I have no idea what the criterion(a) might be). For whatever, reason Court was nominated. Now, given current form, she is deemed as not deserving. Odd governance indeed.
She is an ex tennis player for gods sake how does that entitle her to anything in particular ,it is just a sport which she enjoyed.End of story.
My post did not endorse Court ((if you read it carefully)
The nonsense retrospective argument that it was all about sexual equality just dug them six foot deeper.
Remember also, the wise elder directing this farce is David Hurley (AC DSC), who along with the Queen’s Edward Young (KCVO PC), is lending “continuity and stability” to our democracy. Reassured I’m not.
It’s hard to justify Margaret Court’s award. I don’t refer to her personal beliefs, we are all entitled to our personal beliefs and as a pastor she may feel that she has a duty to express them. She played tennis, superbly, decades ago. She got all the sporting awards that her achievements in the game so richly justified. Note that this was for a game that she played. A game. A distraction, an entertainment. Not a great medical discovery, not a life-changing invention, not selfless service to the poor, not charity, not nursing the aged. A game. She was appropriately rewarded and widely admired. Then in 2007, long after her last game, she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. For being very good at playing a game a long time ago. That, I think, is hard to justify. She had already had her rewards. Moving on to 2021, decades after her last game, suddenly she is promoted to Companion of the Order of Australia. For the same, not additional, being very good at playing a game decades ago. The achievements for which she had been awarded at the time, then awarded again in 2007 without having achieved anything additional, are now awarded again. Would it be too unkind to suspect that this new award was for something else, not stated?
I much preferred Smith when she was saving match point – before she started trying to save the unGodly from themselves.
“Margaret Court – from player to umpire”?