All the balls in this story were at fault.
During an Australian Open quarterfinal match between Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych, a line umpire absorbed a Berdych serve with his genitals. Berdych attempted a serve down the middle and hit the line umpire square in the Berdych. What makes this truly a nightmare is he appears, in an effort to avoid the ball, to unwittingly jump into the path of the fuzzy green scrotum-seeker.
According to the radar gun in the upper left corner of the broadcast, Berdych’s serve was clocked at 195 kilometers per hour, which is the equivalent of 121 miles per hour. It’s a minor miracle the umpire didn’t die immediately after the ball-on-balls impact.
And while we are here talking about this sensitive topic, can we discuss all the euphemisms announcers use in this situation?
“That person got it in a rough spot.” A rough spot? Did he get hit in the 5 o’clock shadow? Or the final hour of the movie Wedding Crashers? No. That person got hit in the genitals, very likely the testicles, quite possibly the penis and testicles. Those are all perfectly allowable words on cable television, as they are also medical terms.
If a man is no longer able to walk because of an incident like this, how about we show him some respect by not saying he was hit in “the tinkle hut.”
