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After the serves, it's now a Court of disputed returns

Malcolm Knox
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An open letter to Martina Navratilova, from the Margaret Court Arena:

Hey there Martina,

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Calls for Margaret Court Arena to be renamed

Martina Navratilova has joined calls for Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne to be renamed after the Aussie tennis great said she would boycott Qantas due to the airline's stance on same-sex marriage.

Thanks for your letter, received Thursday. I've been trying to say something about this for a while, but who listens to the opinions of a deaf-mute composite of steel and cement with a heart of Rebound Ace? Nobody, that's who. We inanimate structures are barely less marginalised than when we were mere artists' impressions on a Tennis Australia board table.

Truth is, I've never liked my married name. In your letter, you wrote that "It seemed like the right thing to do", after I existed for 15 happy years as Show Court One, to marry me to Margaret Court in 2003. (Bet you'd love to hear recordings of those pre-nup discussions. Not very long ago, is it!) But I always found it a bit whiffy. For a start, if they were going to name courts to recognise tennis achievements, why wasn't my eldest sister married to Margaret Court? Twenty-four grand slam singles titles versus Rod Laver's, what, 11? Patriarchy. Just saying.

Anyway, that's not why I never liked it. As you mentioned in your letter to me, Margaret Court's views on the abominations of God's children were well known in 2003. But they still married me, an innocent young 15-year-old slip of a court, to a fundamentalist grandmother. As if they were trying to save me from the devil even then.

I hated my new name. I tried to change it by deed poll to Rebel Wilson, but that was already taken, dammit. But I grew used to it, as you do, and here's what I don't get, Martina. If it was good enough to name me after her then, why the piety now? Just because Marg's become more loopy than an Arantxa Sanchez Vicario forehand? Didn't she always believe this stuff, only now she's a bit ... older? You say a court's name should honour "the whole person", but what do you know now about the whole person of Margaret Court that you didn't know in 2003? You, Martina, say you had forgiven her for saying you were a bad role model as a lesbian, but you can't forgive her any more? I get why she's offensive now, I just don't get why she was inoffensive 14years ago.

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I never wanted a human name. I look with envy across at my sister Hisense. I know people say it's mercenary to take on the name of whichever corporation makes the highest bid, but the thing about companies is, they turn up, they do their business, they leave their money on the dresser, and you're done with each other. You are not responsible for their crimes. If it goes sour, or they lose interest, then you never knew each other. Done. People can say what they like about Hisense, but she's kind of more honest.

At least if I'd been named the James Hardie Arena, or the Benson and Hedges Court, I could be re-birthed and cleaned up. You name me after a person, the smear never quite washes out.

The problem with you humans, as opposed to concrete and steel, is you can't be trusted to stay the same. Back in the 1930s, think of all those toothbrush moustaches, all those little boys named Adolf. Every stadium named after a person in those years had to undergo a reassignment in 1945. The "whole person" may not change, but times do. And then when the manure hits the exhaust fans, who cops it? We courts. What about that Roland Garros bloke, eh? Anyone looked into his past and his beliefs?

If they had to give me a human name, I'd have been happier if they called me the Martina Navratilova Court – oh no, take that awful word away, it sounds like one half of a gay couple – the Martina Navratilova Arena. You were an honorary Aussie for all the times you came to support our struggling Open during the late '70s and early '80s. But you're too modest to propose that, and I guess it's only throwing fuel on the flames. As disgusted as we both are by Margaret Court's views, we know that to swing your way would be to turn a tennis court into a battleground for social ideologies. [Um ...]

Humbly, you suggest renaming me the Evonne Goolagong Arena. OK. But what if someone pipes up and says Evonne has been a bit brusque to ball kids and baristas on the satellite circuit? I can see it on A Current Affair. "Barista's Shocking Claims: Goolagong Often Didn't Say 'Thank You Ball Girls' Or Leave A Tip For Latte." Baristas and ball kids threaten boycott.

I'm just so confused by you humans. Where do names ever become as pure and stable as concrete? I could have been named after Ken Rosewall, greatest male player of all time some say, an absolute gentleman, but do you all go and change your minds because he's been a director of companies that have been dragged through the courts? Where does it stop with you people? Do your reputations ever settle down and become as solid and unimpeachable as my solid, unimpeachable cement-block soul, or are your names and moralities going to be contested until the end of time? 

No-one considers my feelings. At the Aussie Open, players are going to avoid me as if to sit in my courtside chairs will give them piles. As if they could catch herpes from kissing my blue baseline in victory. And because some will boycott me, there will be a slur on those who don't, and they don't want that, so then everyone will boycott me, and I'll be this ghost court in the middle of Melbourne Park, a graveyard for the attitudes of bygone eras in the midst of all that ... tennis. And worse still, the Black Keys won't play on me again either. Damn, I love the Black Keys.

So here's my proposal, Martina, and you as my hero should appreciate where I'm coming from. I am who I am. Leave me as the Margaret Court Arena. Into eternity, I will be a reminder of how Australia was, and how many parts of it still are: rigidly religious, staunchly devout, or, as others would have it, racist and homophobic. My name stands for both. Some people will walk past me and see my name and say: "Gee, she won 24 majors but what an intolerant fruitloop." Others will walk past me and say: "Gee, she won 24 majors but then she was witch-hunted by political correctness gone mad." Others still will walk past me and say: "Gee, Tennis Australia made a boo-boo there: what's a 'Court Arena'?"

The thing is, whatever they say about me, it may not be a bad thing that my name will stir up all these perspectives and arguments, because the opposite of argument is silence and the rule of manufactured consent. My name, if I keep it, can be a permanent memorial to the contest between different views of the world, between contrasting ideas of good and bad, and will forever stir up debate, because, folks, that's the people you are and that's what a whole person is.

Yours in sisterhood,

MCA (or, my secret name I still call myself: Show Court One.)