Paul Lewis: Fight to the death or don't bother showing up

There are many things I don't understand. I don't get Billy Bowden, I don't get personalised plates (why would anyone want one and why is it that so many BMW drivers own a number plate that tells you the car is a BMW?) and I certainly don't get the David Tua-Kevin Barry hissing and spitting. Why don't they just reach an agreement and spare us all the histrionics? It got boring yonks ago, chaps.

Oh, and I now don't understand the backlash against those who criticised Justine Henin-Hardenne for withdrawing from the final of last weekend's Australian Open tennis final.

I was surprised at the emotionalism of the backlash and some of the apologist reasoning. Commentators got all high horse and gnashed their teeth about we wicked types daring to question Justine's motives on the basis that she is one of the gutsiest people in sport and certainly in tennis.

Quite right. And this newspaper ran a picture of a distressed-looking Henin-Hardenne below a heading which said: 'I've got a tummy ache.'

You see, some backlashers got carried away. They accused Henin-Hardenne's critics of ascribing motives such as the following: Conspiracy theories, like she deliberately threw the final for bookmaking reasons.

She was saving herself for another tournament.

She saw she was losing and surrendered the final deliberately.

Hogwash, all of 'em. The backlashers have missed the point. Henin-Hardenne's quitting was all the more shocking because she is such a fighter. The apologists, like Martin Blake, writing in the Melbourne Age, would have it that we have to take her word for it that she felt sick and couldn't go on.

He said: "Henin-Hardenne is entitled to the benefit of the doubt here. If someone has proof she was not sick, then speak out."

"What do we need as proof of her inability to continue playing? A bit of blood perhaps? Some vomiting beside the court? Maybe a collapse out there?"

Actually, Marty, yes.

This isn't a social game down the West End tennis club. It's the Australian Open. This isn't suburban housewife versus social climber. It's the Aussie Open. One of the top four events in world tennis, which carried a prize of $600,000 for coming second. This is the same Aussie Open which occasioned the debate about women playing best-of-five sets instead of best-of-three because they are paid the same money as the men.

Now, I might be being a bit harsh on Justine here, but I reckon 600,000 smackers buys a fair bit of commitment to the cause. As did all the ordinary Ockers and others who paid megabucks for a ringside seat to the action. Tennis majors have a long and revered history of battlers who have beaten the odds and other handicaps like not feeling well.

Two that come straight to mind are Pete Sampras in the 1996 US Open. In a five setter with Alex Corretja in the quarter-finals, Sampras became dehydrated and threw up twice - twice, Marty - but somehow hung in there, overcame Corretja and won the tournament. And there was also the case of Michael Chang in the 1989 French Open. He was cramping badly when facing the world No 1 Ivan Lendl - so badly that his ground strokes weren't working and he had some trouble serving.

With his game curtailed, Chang hit on the brilliant ploy of trying to put the metronomic Lendl off his stroke. So he served underarm and hit moonballs and generally confused Lendl into hitting long and making errors. Somehow, inch by inch, Chang dragged himself back into the match, being hit intermittently by cramp. At match point, Chang was receiving serve just a foot or two past the end of the service box. Lendl double-faulted. Chang won the Open.

There's a touch of heroics there. No one would have blamed Chang or Sampras if they'd tossed in the towel and retired. Because they had demonstrated they were prepared to fight.

No one is suggesting Henin-Hardenne deliberately chucked the match. When she did the towel-tossing, she was obviously looking out of sorts. But while she was plainly not herself, there was equally no sign - like Sampras' vomiting and Chang's cramping - that anything major was wrong, so wrong that you'd bail out in the final of a major, the first woman ever to do so.

Afterwards, as she took part in the presentation ceremony, Henin-Hardenne talked to Amelie Mauresmo and others and generally looked not discommoded enough to have pulled out. It was an unfortunate moment.

Those of us who come from an era which taught values like 'if it's worth doing, it's worth doing properly' are sometimes frustrated by the fair-weather philosophy of some of today's professional sportspeople. Like the county cricketer who prods a green wicket and thinks: 'No runs for me today" and then doesn't try very hard, getting out early.

For what it's worth, I am certain Henin-Hardenne felt lousy. I'm not even going to go into the anti-inflammatory pills she took as I think it is barely relevant. I think she misjudged the situation. She felt bad and felt herself losing and pulled the plug when the better thing to do would have been to have battled to the end, even if she did not win another point. Then afterwards she could have explained what was wrong.

In life, there are some tough lessons. One is that credibility is hard won but easily lost. I hope Henin-Hardenne gets back on the horse and demonstrates all her fighting qualities in her next tournament. She needs to.