Bad language on the court

8:38am Wednesday 7th May 2008

Until recently, I thought sledging was something children did on a winter's afternoon if turned out of doors and forced to make their own entertainment.

Hurtling down a snowy hill on a tin tray without brakes, generally with large, hard, immovable obstacles like trees to avoid when you reached terminal velocity, may have demonstrated a touching faith in your own immortality, but still it was good, clean fun and, in some countries, it was even a sport.

Of course, no child these days would be allowed to do anything so foolhardy as to go sledging. They wouldn't be allowed past the front gate, never mind straying as far as the local rec without a posse of minders to protect them from the ravening child-snatchers that lie in wait at every street corner.

And now, it seems, the very word "sledging" means something a lot less innocent than it used to.

According to that modern-day bible, Wikipedia, "sledging" originated as an Australian cricketing term and it is "the practice of insulting opponents to break their composure and cause them to make mistakes".

The phrase was apparently coined to describe the action of swearing in front of the ladies. Anyone who did such a thing was called a "sledgehammer".

Quite how "sledging" evolved from simple potty-mouthed behaviour to become the stock-in-trade of world-class "sportsmen" is not fully explained.

No doubt it has something to do with the esteem in which women are held by the sort of man who thinks insults a legitimate sporting tactic.

There's no doubt that psychological strength is essential to attaining sporting greatness, and mind games have probably been played on one another by opponents since the idea of sport began.

But sledging can be much more unpleasant than merely planting a seed of doubt into the opposition's mind about their ability or the wisdom of the shot they are about to play, unsporting as I would argue that in itself is.

The sort of things that get said (and occasionally picked up by TV microphones) can be a good deal more personal, maligning an opponent's parentage or sexuality, for example.

This is apparently defended in sledge-happy Australia as fair game and part of normal male banter. What larks those lads must have.

And now it looks like sledging is spreading into other sports.

I am not a fully paid-up member of the Andy Murray fan club. Britain's number one tennis player is maturing, but is still hardly the most graceful of competitors.

Murray was involved in an ill-tempered match with Argentinian player Juan Martin Del Potro at the Rome Masters this week, an encounter in which neither player covered himself with glory in terms of sporting conduct.

But if Del Potro really did insult Murray's mother, as the Scottish player maintains, then the Argentinian's enforced retirement from the match due to injury has a hint of poetic justice about it.

Not so much because a mother has been insulted - I'm sure Judy Murray can stand up for herself - but because such insults are no less cynical than the diving dramatics some footballers like to go in for.

Is winning really all that matters these days? Call me old-fashioned, but I get much more joy from watching a player or a team emerge victorious by virtue of their own outstanding talent than in seeing them beat a (possibly more talented) opponent by snapping at their heels like a pack of hyenas.

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