In Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, there is a passage where the Red Queen and the White Queen admonish Alice for her lack of manners.
The White Queen says: “She’s in that state of mind that she wants to deny something – only she doesn’t know what to deny!”
The reason I bring up Carroll and his famous fairy tale is because we have an Alice among us – although she goes by a different name.
Eugenie Bouchard, who was named after a British royal, has been acting a bit precious of late.
Carroll, though, might use the word “insolent” to describe what she did in Friday’s Fed Cup draw at Montreal.
It is a custom to shake hands for the cameras with your opponent. This is not unique to tennis – they do it in virtually every sport. So, Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru held out her hand for Bouchard as the cameras clicked away.
To her embarrassment, though, Bouchard rebuffed her with a dismissive wave. “No, I’ll pass,” Bouchard said.
It was not the first time Bouchard had showed a lack of grace at a Fed Cup draw. Last year she meted out the same treatment to Slovakia’s Kristina Kucova.
“It’s nothing personal towards her, I just don’t believe in wishing my opponent good luck before the match,” Bouchard said, as she explained the snub.
That coming from someone who lost her opening match at three of her past four tournaments, seems laughable.
The handshake is not to wish anyone luck, but, if we do accept her puerile argument, she is the one who is in desperate need of some, not her opponents. The two Fed Cup defeats over the weekend only confirm that.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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