Anti-Gay

 Goran Ivanisevic Uses "Faggot"

By Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com

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We cheered loudly for Ivanisevic as he made his improbable journey from wild-card entrant to 2001 Wimbledon champ. We had tears in our eyes watching him embrace his father in the stands after his magnificent five-set win over Patrick Rafter in the men's final.

Tears turned to jeers after Ivanisevic made some insulting homophobic remarks in his post-match press conference. Here is part of the transcript from the press session:

Q. When you were broken at 4-2 in the fourth set, controversial point there, can you go over that with us, what you thought should have happened?

IVANISEVIC: First of all, that game, I was 30-Love up. I play some stupid shots. I make myself in trouble. Then first foot fault. Hit great serve. He missed it. First foot fault all tournament. That ugly, ugly lady, she was really ugly, very serious, you know. I was like kind of scared.

``Then I hit another second serve, huge. And that ball was on the line, was not even close. And that guy, he looks like a faggot little bit, you know. This hair all over him. He call it. I couldn't believe he did it.

``Just, you know, in two seconds, I won point twice and I'm down 4-2. Then I got little crazy, you know.''

There's nothing crazy about what he said, just offensive. What's worst is that ``faggot'' is apparently Ivanisevic's slur of choice. This what the Times of London quoted him as saying two weeks prior to Wimbledon:

Ivanisevic, now ranked No 124 in the world, only got into this season’s main draw at Wimbledon by  being given a wild card, of which Britons will get 13 out of the 16 available in the singles. However, he was not too downhearted. “Last year I played well here and played like a faggot at Wimbledon,” Ivanisevic said. “Better to play like a faggot here and play well at Wimbledon. Generally, I have never played well at Queen’s and these days you can lose to anyone if you don’t play well.”

His homophobia crossed the Atlantic in a March 14 interview at Indian Wells in California:

Q. In breaking a racquet, is it mostly in the wrist?

IVANISEVIC: Hey, sometimes I watch the TV, and then I see the guys when they throw the racquets. They throw it like a faggot, you know. They throw it not to throw it. When you throw the racquet, you throw the racquet. I mean, you break. Sometimes doesn't break, thanks God. But you throw the racquet. You don't throw it and it's going like this. You have to smack the racquet, you know, or you have to get anger.