Something is rotten in the state of sport

[flux]

Glamour magazine has chosen Serena Williams as one of their women of the year for unleashing this verbal assault on a line judge in September, threatening to shove a ball down her throat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VxYvfwVas

Other recipients included Chris Brown, for taking a stand against domestic violence . . . actually that should read Rihanna. My bad.

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/page/OffCourtNews/Read/0,,12781~1879078,00.html

The U.S. Open fined Williams $10,000 and a single point penalty for that death threat. The WTA did not add so much as a penny. Compare that to Yanina Wickmayer, who has been banned for one year for three times not reporting her whereabouts to ITF drug testing officials (also a pro tennis governing body). Wickmayer has never tested positive for any banned substance . . . and she never actually missed a test. A first cocaine offence in tennis gets you half that.

http://www.tsn.ca/tennis/story/?id=298492

In football, apparently there's exactly the same $250,000 fine (nine years apart, mind you) for sticking up both middle fingers to opposing fans as being involved in a double murder. Tennessee Titans owner Bud Evans did the former this past weekend. Ray Lewis carried out the latter in Atlanta in 2000.

http://staugustine.com/-rant/2009-11-17/rant-one-middle-finger-250000

Can anyone explain sport and punishment to me in a language I can understand?

 

[NeverAmI]

Wow, thanks for posting these. I hadn't heard about a single one of them.

Makes me so depressed though.

 

[flux]

I'm less proud to be a Canadian with our Stacey Allaster newly at the helm of the WTA. She blew it big time with Serena. By doing nothing about on-court death threats, she might as well endorse them. Maybe she thinks it's an ITF issue. Actually, there's a Grand Slam committee I didn't even know about. More outsourcing.

What's probably even more disturbing is that I can't find a single player in tennis who has anything to say about either matter. (I pay much less attention to football, so maybe that exception exists there.)

Oh, I missed this one. Serena may or may not be forced to miss the next major tournament: the Australian Open, according to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/te...-for-Sport-hearing-over-kiss-controversy.html

. . . which also clarified Richard Gasquet's 2 1/2 month cocaine suspension(!)

To be fair, I have no idea how how sensitive the tests are, and he said he picked up a trace from kissing a girl in Miami. That would worry me.

 

[Kavalan]

As far as Football goes it is almost like the commissioner is using a dart board to determine the penalties as half of them make no sense or have a at his discretion clause making penalties/suspensions/fines variable.

 

[flux]

I forgot to update this over the weekend. Serena was fined $82,500. If she has another major incident over a two-year probationary period, the fine would increase to $175,000, and she would be forced to miss the following U.S. Open.

For all the money she has, it's not even a minor inconvenience, but it is the largest fine in women's tennis history. My only minor question now is, why did it take nearly three months to decide?

 

[Kavalan]

bureaucracy...

 

[Honey]

I'm less proud to be a Canadian with our Stacey Allaster newly at the helm of the WTA. She blew it big time with Serena. By doing nothing about on-court death threats, she might as well endorse them. Maybe she thinks it's an ITF issue. Actually, there's a Grand Slam committee I didn't even know about. More outsourcing.

What's probably even more disturbing is that I can't find a single player in tennis who has anything to say about either matter. (I pay much less attention to football, so maybe that exception exists there.)

I am going to stick up for Serena here. She did make a threat which is clearly not good but that she threatened to kill the line judge is a factual error according to both the line judge herself and the tape recording, she did not actually threaten to kill the woman.

I am again not trying to say that that what Serena did was right but that call which was made against her especially at that critical time in the match was unclear and should probably not have been made and I can see how she could get very angry over that. This is the reason why other tennis players have not spoken out against Serena, they understand and would probably be just as angry and worst if such a call was made against them.

As a person who follows tennis closely I can tell you that I have been at tournaments where the whole crowd (except her family) was either unsupportive of Serena or just downright abusive and she has kept her cool and conducted herself with dignity through all that over the years. Then both herself and her sister hardly ever challenge calls made against them even when a fair minded person watching on would seriously wonder what is behind some of the extremely dubious calls made against them.

She did understandably lose her temper on one occasion, this is very uncharacteristic for her and goes against her general on court character and long-term reputation, in fact, she has long been known as someone with a reputation for being "serene". She is a good role in many ways for young underprivileged girls, they (she and her sister) have come from nothing worked hard and achieved much. You have never seen her falling out of a bar high with her skirt over her head or testing positive for drugs and producing some stupid alibi. She does much for charity and both her and her sister are always seeking to educated themselves and develop a focus much wider than tennis.

Frankly, I think they have long irritated a huge section of the stuck-up white tennis world and some in the sports media like to stir up prejudice against them by labelling them arrogant and so forth when if they were men they would be seen as having healthy self confidence and self belief. I think in this case, all things considered, her punishment is fair and adequate, she has apologized to the lines woman involved and I think now she must be forgiven and the incident somewhat forgotten.

 

[flux]

I am going to stick up for Serena here. She did make a threat which is clearly not good but that she threatened to kill the line judge is a factual error according to both the line judge herself and the tape recording, she did not actually threaten to kill the woman.

If more of us walked around all day with tennis balls shoved down our throats, I suppose we'd probably just grow gills and adapt! But I do thank you for your defence of Serena. Both of the Williams sisters do an enormous amount of good for the sport, and much philanthropic work off the court. It's just that one of them is still a little princess who believes that matches are strictly held for her to win. She knew she was getting outplayed by Clijsters. That's why she vented the way she did.

If anything, the entire incident makes me ask the larger questions of why line calling technology is not universally applied to all lines, and this includes foot faults. Because it's not crowd-pleasing to watch a player decide when to use it. I was in the stands for a Toronto quarterfinal this year between Jankovic and Kleybanova. Now, the officiating is good as it's going to get without eliminating human error. The player challenges are only correct about 30% of the time on the closest balls. The instant replay showed that Jankovic got screwed 5 times in the first set tie-break alone! That's just not right when we already have the technology.

 

[Honey]

If more of us walked around all day with tennis balls shoved down our throats, I suppose we'd probably just grow gills and adapt! But I do thank you for your defence of Serena. Both of the Williams sisters do an enormous amount of good for the sport, and much philanthropic work off the court. It's just that one of them is still a little princess who believes that matches are strictly held for her to win.

Well if we are going to focus closely on how the tennis ball down the throat scenario I will say that it does not seem anatomically possible to get a tennis ball down another person's throat therefore there would be no need for any gills or anything like that . The ball is unlikely to get much further than the buccal cavity and therefore the lines woman would still be able to breathe through her nose and so she would probably not be killed. I suppose though that the lines woman could lose a couple teeth in the attempt to have the ball shoved down her throat and she could choked on her own teeth and die I guess lol.

She knew she was getting outplayed by Clijsters. That's why she vented the way she did

No doubt Clijisters was outplaying Serena and probably would have won eventually even without the incident but you must remember that Serena has come back from match point and hopeless looking situations before... granted I do not think this would have been one of those situations but it is impossible to know for sure now. Serena has lost big matches quite badly before and did not behave like that, I believe that the circumstances under which she lost this particular match was more difficult for her to deal with and hence her reaction.

If anything, the entire incident makes me ask the larger questions of why line calling technology is not universally applied to all lines, and this includes foot faults. Because it's not crowd-pleasing to watch a player decide when to use it. I was in the stands for a Toronto quarterfinal this year between Jankovic and Kleybanova. Now, the officiating is good as it's going to get without eliminating human error. The player challenges are only correct about 30% of the time on the closest balls. The instant replay showed that Jankovic got screwed 5 times in the first set tie-break alone! That's just not right when we already have the technology.

I agree with you, it is disgraceful that the technology is not applied to its fullest. It is important that the perception of fairness in tennis is not needlessly compromised and if technology exists which can prevent this then it should be used. Anyway, it is always great to make contact with a fellow tennis fan and I hope to see Kim do well at the upcoming Australian Open with no incident to detract from her successful return to tennis.

 

[flux]

It's true. Serena does come back from more match points against than probably anyone on Earth. And thanks for the nice chat. I was taking the piss a little bit at the tennis-ball-down-throat scenario, but that's only because I was surprised at the utter lack of shock in the sports world.