7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Simon Jordan flies off the handle after Emma Raducanu asked for crying child to be ejected
After suggesting a crying baby should be ejected from her Cincinnati Open match against Aryna Sabalenka, talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan has come to Emma Raducanu's defence
Simon Jordan unleashed an extraordinary rant in which he called for tennis and other sports to introduce age restrictions after Emma Raducanu asked for a crying child to be ejected from her Cincinnati Open match.
The world No. 33 was midway through her third-round match against Aryna Sabalenka when the infant could be heard from the stands at a critical point in the clash.
Raducanu was serving in the eighth game of a titanic encounter at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre when the controversial scenes unfolded. The 22-year-old gestured towards the audience as she pleaded with the umpire, who fired back by asking: "It's a child. Do you want me to send the child out of the stadium?"
Three-time Grand Slam champion Sabalenka was magnanimous after winning the match 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(5), setting up a fourth-round duel against Jessica Bouzas Maneiro. But talkSPORT pundit Jordan was left with a sour taste in his mouth after watching the exchange and launched into an angry rant.
"Well, you can make it appropriate," the former Crystal Palace chairman said passionately, responding to host Jim White suggesting that sports events such as these can't ban children. "If they've got a baby inside an auditorium: A, I don't think it's particularly responsible parenting. And B, it's not reflective of the environment a child should probably be in!
"And C, you've then got the distraction that tennis player, or anyone playing an individual sport that requires a degree of concentration, is going to be affected by.
"So it's not me being some horrid, Wackford Squeers from some Charles Dickens book. It's me looking at it going, 'It's ridiculous. I wouldn't bring a young child. Theatres don't allow people to bring young children into auditoriums when actors are in the middle of acting so a kid can scream out and spit his dummy across the room.'"
Jordan, who is known for being controversial and having strong opinions, then doubled down by reiterating his view that it's not appropriate for infant children to be present at such sporting events. However, White took a far more lenient view of the matter and laughed off Jordan's protest before calling for a softer approach.
"You can take a baby on a plane," came White's reply, suggesting it would be silly to have varying rules for different public settings. However, the Scot could only chuckle when Jordan responded: "I don't suppose the pilot would want the baby in the cockpit, would he?"
White continued to present the argument that it would be foolish to suggest babies be barred from attending major sporting events. But Jordan continued his tirade, adding: "I think it's ridiculous. Okay, bring [a baby] to snooker then. A screaming kid in snooker. Judd Trump leaning down to make [a shot]...'WAAAAHHHH [mimicking a baby's cry]!' That would be great, wouldn't it?
"Bring them to the boxing, so they can watch blood and [thunder]. Get them to bare knuckle fighting, so they can get involved with that too!"
White brought up the example of young children regularly attending football matches, to which Jordan made the counterpoint that it's not the same as bringing a baby. He went on to suggest there should be some form of age cut-off for certain events, with tennis among those disciplines that require more concentration by an individual athlete.
Raducanu, meanwhile, will have to lick her wounds and go again after narrowly losing to Sabalenka in the action-packed match. The Brit will now head to the US Open and be feeling confident despite the loss, having put in some impressive performances since Wimbledon.
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