Oops. Basil Zempilas explains tennis “reserves” comment
“It’s a reserves game, then,” says Basil Zempilas responding to the AO Women's Final, later insisting he was referring to TV presenting.
- Published by David Knox
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Perth Mayor and former Seven presenter Basil Zempilas has denied he was throwing shade at the Australian Open yesterday after comments he made prior to a press conference drew headlines.
Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas has insisted a controversial moment caught on camera has been taken out of context – calling accusations he was referring to women's tennis "flat out wrong". #9News pic.twitter.com/FWo08c8dpA
— 9News Perth (@9NewsPerth) January 27, 2024
“Tennis is on tonight, isn’t it?” Zempilas asks Nine’s Michael Genovese.
“Ah, yeah, the female final,” the Genovese replies.
“It’s a reserves game, then,” Zempilas said.
“I say that having been there obviously. Plenty of nights when I read..”
I need to make absolutely clear the conversation I had with @9NewsPerth reporter @GenoveseMichael today is being reported totally incorrectly.
Before today's press conference Michael and I were talking about how presenting the news when a big sporting event is on at the same…
— Basil Zempilas (@BasilZempilas) January 27, 2024
Nine’s Michael Genovese also tweeted, “This conversation has been taken completely out of context. @BasilZempilas was referring to the tennis and the news going head to head.”
Updated:
And the full version.
Talking about the news up against the tennis. pic.twitter.com/ecjD8CnMMu— Basil Zempilas (@BasilZempilas) January 27, 2024
6 Responses
Weird watching Michael Genovese introduce the story as if he played no part of the exchange and knew exactly what Basil meant. Also didn’t realise til reading more about it that Michael Genovese was reading the news against his wife over on 7, which brings more context to Basil’s comments.
In his statement he says he said: “It’s like the reserves then” and in both videos he says “It’s a reserves game then”.
Ummmm.
As a tennis fan, I find some commentators, like Zempilas, to be among the weakest. He lacks the deep knowledge and insightful analysis that define a truly great commentator. This applies to Roberts and McAvaney as well. Perhaps that’s why we saw so much of Jim Connors, John McEnroe, and Tracy Austin. Their expertise and passion elevated the commentary significantly.
I thought them shafting Kerryn Pratt after all those years (since the 80s?) for Sam Smith about 15 years ago was a good decision but getting rid of Tracy Austin for Rennae Stubbs wasn’t a great decision (and Stubbs was always made second fiddle to Smith yet Smith was an expert under Roberts>Woodbridge>Zempilas whereas at Nine has been a lead caller which I’ve loved).
Yeah Baz, the context seems pretty clear there…
I didn’t see it mentioned yesterday, but the glowing irony for me was he called Seven womens matches from 2014 when he replaced Sandy Roberts and after Woodbridge replaced Bruce McAvaney on mens from 2017 Zempilas even called the 2017 and 2018 women’s finals including that famous fairytale year Serena v Venus (14 years after their last) which also had Federer v Nadal. Such a terrible, bad look, regardless of what he meant. Damage done.