Tennis Tuesday: J.J. Wolf

Beefy, for my pleasure. More BELOW.

Tennis Tuesday: J.J. Wolf

When someone like J.J. Wolf posts an expiring workout video on Instagram, all you can really do is hit the screenshot button until your hand gives out. See the results of my carpal-tunnel syndrome BELOW.

Tennis Tuesday: J.J. Wolf

 

When your muse happens to be a slab of beef. More BELOW.

Tennis Tuesday: J.J. Wolf

 

Thorlo wisely noticed that sexpot J.J. Wolf has major sox appeal. More proof BELOW.

Tennis Tuesday

J.J. Wolf's "My Tennis Life" comes through again, this time doing stretches with fellow lower-bodied American Marcos Giron plus cruising boys in the cafeteria BELOW.

Tennis Tuesday

 

Clearly the Tennis Channel knew what it was doing when it cast J.J. Wolf in the latest season of "My Tennis Life." Watch it move -- and more -- BELOW.

Saturday 'Stache

 

A couple of sporty lads this week. Australian professional rugby league player Dean Britt -- a recent Mask4Masc model -- is raising money for MOVEMEBER.

While tennis player J.J. Wolf is just DRIVING ME WILD, per usual.

Weekend Tennis Diary

Another Grand Slam season has come to an end, and the world of tennis has yet to find the middle ground between boringly predictable and embarrassingly fluky. On Saturday, Iga Swiatek barely broke a sweat in her 6-4, 6-1 defeat of the No. 4 seed and (inexplicable) Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin in their French Open singles final. And then Rafael Nadal steamrolled Novak Djokovic 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 on Sunday, to tie Roger Federer's record of 20 major titles. (I woke up at 6-0 and a break and immediately went back to sleep.) 

Don't get me wrong. I feel lucky being alive to see what makes the Big Three so special, with prime Federer at Wimbledon and Djokovic in Melbourne nearly as sure a thing as Nadal in Paris. (Well, about half as sure.) And not since Mary Pierce when she was "on" have I seen someone play more convincingly than Swiatek, who didn't drop a set to become the lowest-ranked women's titlist in history. (Her hitchy forehand is so masterful it ought to be illegal.) But it took a fluke accident to get a new men's champ in 2020. And if history is any indication, I could just as easily see Swiatek never win another title as win 20 more. Neither of these scenarios makes for the most compelling storyline -- unless, of course, your favorite man or newcomer woman of choice wins. (But even then a little drama would be nice, however predictable the outcome.)

Roger reacts

Meanwhile, hunky duo Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies retained their French Open doubles crown as they beat Croatian Mate Pavic and Brazilian Bruno Soares 6-3 7-5 on Saturday. (Who knew Germans could be so demonstrative?) 

And No.2 seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic -- who was ejected from the U.S. Open because of coronavirus contact -- also defended their French Open title with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over No.14 seeds Alexa Guarachi and Desirae Krawczyk in Paris on Sunday.

So this is what our new champion looks like?! 

Lucky kid. (Pospisil plays Rublev in the first round in St. Petersburg.)

Damir wasn't allowed to play in Paris because of what turned out to be a false-positive test in his circle, but made the most of the situation by reaching the final of the Challenger event yesterday in Barcelona (see down below).

Luca Pouille turned to what he's best at -- modeling -- while still recovering from surgery

When you've got men who look like Christian Harrison and Michael Venus, which one's which?

After skipping Paris, Kyle Edmund looks to refresh himself in Cologne

Guido "Fiaca" Andreozzi

After a great run in Paris, Marton Fucsovics takes on Gilles Simon today in Cologne

J.J. Wolf enjoyed some time with the boys back in Columbus ...

Before flying to St. Petersburg and qualifying for the main draw. 

Poor guy got to practice with Sam Querrey then drew Milos Raonic in the first round

After crapping out in the first round in Paris, Borna Coric went home and set up a TikTok account. Today he'll play Feliciano Lopez in St. Petersburg

Lloyd Glasspool can't stop being beautiful

Who were those masked ATP men?

Carlos Alcaraz battled back to defeat Damir Dzumhur for his second ATP Challenger Tour title on Sunday. The 17-year-old Spaniard needed one hour and 48 minutes to prevail 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 under sunny skies in Barcelona.

Tristan-Samuel Weissborn and Szymon Walkow looked good winning the Barcelona doubles crown

Ditto for Parma doubles winners Tomislav Brkic and Marcelo Areevalo Gonzalez. 

Update: Frances Tiafoe beat Salvatore Caruso 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 to secure his fifth Challenger Tour title in the rescheduled Parma final on Monday.

And last and mostly bitchily, friends and family helped Nicolas Massu celebrate his 41st birthday over the weekend. I always wondered why the Chilean was such a misanthrope -- but after seeing what his little brother Stefano looks like, it all makes sense!

Marcos Giron Apologizes for Hand Gesture, Says He Was Unaware of Alternate Meaning

 

What should have been cause for celebration left some tennis fans unsettled when Marcos Giron flashed a questionable hand signal to his box after his epic five-set win over Frenchman Quentin Halys earlier today at Roland Garros. (An American winning on red clay doesn't just happen every day.) User MadAnthonyWayne tweeted this photo -- asking "Did Marcos Giron just go full 'White Power' after his match?" -- and copied the accounts of the USTA, Tennis Channel, Roland Garros, ESPN as well as some sports journalists. 

I wasn't sure what to make of it. But as I said when J.J. Wolf was photographed doing the same, if he's not flashing the ADL-recognized "white power" symbol then what was he trying to communicate?

Giron quickly got in touch with me to address the issue, writing: 

I just saw your message on Twitter and would like to apologize for what I did. I had no idea what that symbol represents. I really hope this is not taken the wrong way at all. Im really really sorry. It’s been a game with the coach to try and get one another to look at the hand. Whoever looks at the hand loses. It’s an inside joke. Once again I’m not at all a Alt right supporter. Im a big support of BLM. Please I really hope that it is not taken the wrong way. There was zero intention of anything Malice. 

Fearing that I was being gaslighted -- my 17-year-old nephew confirmed that kids play the “circle game” but even he knew the signal had a darker connotation -- I pushed back, asking Marcos if he'd really not heard about J.J.'s incident and his subsequent apology. 

Marcos replied: 

I’m sorry but I really didn’t see the post. If I did and saw the hand gesture he made I would never do such a thing. The last thing I ever intended was to make any sort of racial gesture. The systemic issues going on in the states with inequality, the divide and the police corruption going on makes me sick to my stomach. The George Floyd killing, Breonna Taylor and the countless others are horrible and there needs to be a change. This was a learning moment and the last thing I ever wanted to do was the offend anyone. Once again I’m sorry for what I did. 

Unlike J.J., this young man seems to acknowledge that at the very least it was tone deaf to celebrate in such a fashion given what he (now) knows. I still don't really understand why grown men would be playing any kind of game on court after an exhausting tennis match, but I'm willing to take him at his word until I have reason not to. 

Here's hoping we won't be seeing any additional players making gestures that can be misconstrued in this hateful way. The USTA still really needs to do some work here -- starting with racial sensitivity training for all U.S. players.

The Quad Squad: J.J. Wolf and Marcos Giron

@rolandgarros Did Marcos Giron just go full “White Power” after his match? @tennischannel @usta @ESPN @FrenchOpen @LeBatardShow @bomani_jones pic.twitter.com/uLMBZQSJX3

— MadAnthonyWayne (@MadAntonyWayne) September 29, 2020

Hey @TennisChannel @rolandgarros , please ask #MarcosGiron about that hand sign he flashed to his box at the end of his match today. It was suspicious for many.

— brownhut (@brownhut) September 29, 2020

@Chanda_Rubin I'm pretty sure the hand gesture #Giron made at the end of his win was for white power. Why is no one talking about this?

— Anthony Walters (@AndreeWallace12) September 29, 2020

Hey @TennisChannel @rolandgarros , please ask #MarcosGiron about that hand sign he flashed to his box at the end of his match today. It was suspicious for many.

— brownhut (@brownhut) September 29, 2020

Ummmmmm
Was i the only tennis fan who caught this? I really really hope this was not what it looks like #FrenchOpen #MarcosGiron 🤦 #TennisChannel pic.twitter.com/wE7Rn2qGns

— Jason 🌟🎾❤️😎 (@jasonchitown2) September 29, 2020

J.J. Wolf Denies ‘White Power’ Signal. (Great.) So What Was He Doing?

Well this sure is unsettling. Cincinnati native and KIT212 favorite J.J. Wolf -- who should be high on life having reached the third round of his first Grand Slam event -- has found himself in hot water after the club where he trains posted a photo of the 21-year-old giving what some perceived to be a "white power" signal following his first match at the U.S. Open. (Kass Tennis Academy has since deleted the post.) Before I was able to figure out what exactly transpired, I had read various accounts -- including that Wolf had spelled out with his hands the Cincy 513 area code while celebrating a victory -- and my first thought (hope?) was that people had gotten it wrong. 

But then I saw the photo. That's a very specific way to pose, one that has gained currency during this administration. For people who think liberals are "going out of their way" to see something that isn't there, my only response is why would I possibly want to come down on an American player I have been cheering on for the past year who was having a good run at the U.S. Open? (There is no reason.) 

From HERE.

From HERE.

People can try to explain the hand signal away all they want ("it started as a hoax"), but as Vanessa Swales reported in The New York Times, the bottom line is this: Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen and other white nationalists are now using it in public to signal their presence and to spot potential sympathizers and recruits. A number of high-profile figures on the far right have helped spread the gesture’s racist connotation by flashing it conspicuously in public, including Milo Yiannopolous, an outspoken former Breitbart editor, and Richard B. Spencer, one of the promoters of the white power rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that resulted in the death of a 32-year-old woman. And the gesture has also become an extremist meme, according to the Anti-Defamation League. 

On Instagram, Wolf addressed the issue head-on, but his denial only left me with more questions.

I learned that I was accused of making a racial hand gesture after winning my first grand slam match ever at thee US Open. I have never made a racial hand gesture in my life and I never will. I don't hve a racist bone in my body. I am not sure why someone accused me of this, but I would like to get back to focusing on my next match at the US Open tomorrow. #blm

Let's take him at his word. Great, I'm glad he says he didn't make the white power sign. And the nod to Black Lives Matter was a nice touch. (The shirt looks great!) I did a little digging around and it's sweet to see that his club did a BLM post before this happened, and that several players at KT are pictured wearing BLM shirts.

But it's what he's not addressing that's the issue: If he's not making a white power symbol, WHAT is he doing? Just give us an innocent explanation and I will update or delete this post. Instead it feels like he's gaslighting us by not even acknowledging why people might be concerned to begin with, like when certain types do the Nazi salute and then act surprised when people call them out on it. If I'm reading his post correctly, what J.J. is saying is we're all just crazy and we didn't see his fingers in that odd position. But that's not what happened -- if it wasn't objectionable, why was it deleted? -- which until he offers a clearer explanation leaves us guessing. 

One possibility is that he didn't fully understand what the signal meant. If this is the case, he should just say that -- acknowledge that it has come to his attention now and that he wants nothing to do with that ideology. But if he -- as I suspect -- started doing the hand signal to fit in with his conservative friends who want to "own the libs," might I suggest that helping white nationalists and the people who emulate them in their efforts to "distract and infuriate" people who are against racism is a really bad idea, even as a frat house joke.

Swales writes: That the gesture has migrated beyond ironic trolling culture to become a “sincere expression of white supremacy,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, could be seen in March 2019 when Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in back-to-back mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, smiled and flashed the sign to reporters at a court hearing on his case.

I've reached out to J.J. for comment and will update if I hear back. If nothing else his Instagram post indicates he's been scared straight. Ideally, though, he will have learned an actual lesson about how actions have meanings and consequences -- and that like it or not, when you're in the public eye, you will be held accountable for them.

Footnote: In December, The New York Times reported that officials at West Point and Annapolis -- our top military academies -- were reduced to investigating whether cadets and midshipmen who made the sign with their hands during television coverage of the Army-Navy football game were doing so to express racist sentiments. After a brief investigation, officials determined that the cadets were playing "the circle game," which Dictionary.com describes as "an activity where one person makes a 'circle' with their fingers and holds it below their waist, convincing a second person to look at it. If the second person looks, they receive a punch to the shoulder."

I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist. But you'll have to forgive me if I am more than a bit skeptical of the investigators' findings. One thing is for sure, however: You can't play the circle game by yourself.

UPDATE: It's been three days since I posted this and neither J.J. nor anyone from his camp has contacted me to offer an explanation. (As I said before, I will gladly delete the post if they can.) 

Instead, I was pointed to yet another photo from his Instagram account that appears to show him and a friend doing the 23 hand sign, which according to the Anti-Defamation League is "a numeric symbol for W ('White'). This itself is often shorthand for the numeric symbol 23/16, which stands for 'White Power.'"

Again, what is he saying here? It's time all straight white male tennis players -- not just Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul -- let it be known where they stand on these issues. 

UPDATE 2: 

On Sept. 29, we had another American player flash a similar hand signal and it didn't go unnoticed, creating a big distraction from a what should have been a celebratory moment at a Grand Slam tournament. I was again unsure what to make of it, so I reached out. 

Player 2 replied: 

I just saw your message on Twitter and would like to apologize for what I did. I had no idea what that symbol represents. I really hope this is not taken the wrong way at all. Im really really sorry. It’s been a game with the coach to try and get one another to look at the hand. Whoever looks at the hand loses. It’s an inside joke. Once again I’m not at all a Alt right supporter. Im a big support of BLM. Please I really hope that it is not taken the wrong way. There was zero intention of anything Malice.

Fearing I was being gaslighted, I pushed back, asking him if he'd really not seen J.J.'s apology. 

Player 2 replied: 

I’m sorry but I really didn’t see the post. If I did and saw the hand gesture he made I would never do such a thing. The last thing I ever intended was to make any sort of racial gesture. The systemic issues going on in the states with inequality, the divide and the police corruption going on makes me sick to my stomach. The George Floyd killing, Breonna Taylor and the countless others are horrible and there needs to be a change. This was a learning moment and the last thing I ever wanted to do was the offend anyone. Once again I’m sorry for what I did.

Unlike J.J., this young man seems to acknowledge that at the very least it was tone deaf to celebrate in such a fashion given what he (now) knows. I still don't really buy that grown men are playing the "circle game" on court after an exhausting tennis match, but I'm willing to take him at his word until I have reason not to. 

Here's hoping we won't be seeing any additional players making gestures that can be construed as white power symbols. The USTA still really needs to clean house -- starting with a racial sensitivity class for all players.