The Tennis Thread

[Stan Hullis]

Does anyone know what time Murray's on tomorrow?

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

8.30 mate

 

[Stan Hullis]

8.30 mate

Perfect, cheers mate.

 

[Trips]

Djokovic looking very good early on

 

[Lord Knows]

Great match, Murray excellent in second set.

 

[slink]

That should be the match to Djokovic now, Murray 40-0 up and loses his serve to trail 6-5 in the second set.

 

[slink]

2-0 Djokovic. Murray given a chance to break but once again too many unforced errors and he's handed that set to Novak.

 

[Lord Knows]

Novak Djokovic is 171-1 when winning the first two sets...

 

[slink]

Djokovic wins in straight sets and while he looks fantastic Murray will look back at that and think he had chances to win both the 2nd and 3rd sets and probably should have done.

 

[Lord Knows]

Djokovic looks almost the perfect player and will continue to dominate until another player can place him under sustained pressure. Murray was very good at times.

 

[leedswolf]

The Scot flopped again. Nice to see a Brit win the mens' doubles though.

 

[darlowolf64]

Well Murray tried his best to throw that away...2 sets up to a break down in the fifth but finally wins the final set 6-3 and GB go through with a 3-1 win over Japan. What a player Kei Nishikori is!

 

[slink]

Sharapova reveals she failed a drug test at the Australian Open this year. She tested positive for meldonium which she has taken for the last 10 years but was only banned this year and she didn't read the email that was sent out with the information in it.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Ooops. That is her responsibility, so I guess a standard ban will be on the way.

 

[nimrod]

Ooops. That is her responsibility, so I guess a standard ban will be on the way.

yes, or her doctor(s) should have noted the change and got her prescribed on something else that would give her the same performance enhancing benefits but which wasn't banned. then it would all have been ok.

as we've discussed on the cycling thread, the general public, if it cared to look, would probably be shocked at what some athletes are taking and are allowed to take and still describe themselves as 'clean'. clean is now a purely technical description. it allows you to take something in the knowledge that you do so purely for a performing enhancing benefit and at the same time puritanically take an anti-drugs stance.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

Her announcement was a PR masterclass in controlling the story, a bunch of tennis journos turned up (a soft touch anyway) expecting a big but routine story about her going into retirement (leaked in the last couple of weeks), instead they are completely caught cold by her bombshell and completely unprepared and lacked the knowledge to even think of a pertanant question to ask her.

Since then people have had chance to look more closely into things and it appears her story has more holes in it then her racket.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/oth...that-meldonium-was-being-banned-34524223.html

http://www.independent.ie/sport/oth...rapova-story-defies-credibility-34523110.html

 

[Donegal Wolf]

yes, or her doctor(s) should have noted the change and got her prescribed on something else that would give her the same performance enhancing benefits but which wasn't banned. then it would all have been ok.

as we've discussed on the cycling thread, the general public, if it cared to look, would probably be shocked at what some athletes are taking and are allowed to take and still describe themselves as 'clean'. clean is now a purely technical description. it allows you to take something in the knowledge that you do so purely for a performing enhancing benefit and at the same time puritanically take an anti-drugs stance.

Yep it seems the drug Sharapove got caught for, was being monitored by WADA and they noticed in the last couple of years when they were testing samples that it was appearing with more regularity (who knew all this exercise would be bad for peoples hearts) so then in the Autumn of last year they decided to put it on the banned list.

 

[nimrod]

Yep it seems the drug Sharapove got caught for, was being monitored by WADA and they noticed in the last couple of years when they were testing samples that it was appearing with more regularity (who knew all this exercise would be bad for peoples hearts) so then in the Autumn of last year they decided to put it on the banned list.

yes, it's amazing how many people with significant underlying health issues gravitate to and are 'somehow' able to succeed in top class competitive sport.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

The whole thing was sooooooooo stage-managed. And there appear to be some rather gaping holes in her story. It says a lot that her sponsors cannot drop her quick enough.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35859791

Unsure on this one. The phrasing is poor and it's the wrong argument really, the number of viewers is irrelevant. However:

a) the men play five sets as opposed to three
b) the men's game is way stronger than the women's game - the amount of bagels in the latter even in late Grand Slam stages is embarrassing
c) I dislike accusations of misogyny automatically being thrown about if you criticise women's sport and also tokenism* where lip service is applied to men's/women's sport being equal. It's not sexist to say that women's football is on the whole, a terrible spectacle and no better a standard than you'd see in parks football and you can't have it both ways - either they're equal and open to the same criticisms or they're not equal and there's an obvious divide which should be acknowledged.

*This doesn't really apply to tennis, more football/cricket at the moment. The BBC are awful for it currently, clickbait headlines in the main section of the "Arsenal sign England star" type and it turns out to be women's football.