What has karma to do with this?? besides,karma is nothing but an imaginary concept.

January 4th, 2012 at 10:40 am

too much faith induced concept even in this scientific world! karma, immortality, heaven, hell.. hardly anybdy’s sure about these things, but peple won’t stop harping about it. just weird!
moreover these things are root cause of unending unrest and conflict all over the world. i definitely wish people can be more realistic.

January 4th, 2012 at 10:43 am

Ajet – I think probably here the word “karma” was used metaphorically.The idea being, presumably, that she kind of had it coming. It’s a silly idea, of course, since suffering is completely arbitrary, sometimes justified, sometimes not and so on. b.t.w. when you say:”hardly anybody’s sure of these things”, lots of people think they’re sure, and they are the ones who shout the loudest. They are not all on the same side of the fence.

Serena has an endearing way of being her own worst publicist. Anyone can see that tennis is in her life blood when she is fully engaged. I don’t think she really meant much more than that she finds training a bind. John McEnroe had a similar attitude, and you can’t say he was wrong. Training is a personal thing, and what works for Pat may be terrible for Pete.

January 4th, 2012 at 11:06 am

That said, McEnroe was fortunate in that his magical kind of game might have been blunted by excessive training. That’s why he tended to rely on doubles to get in his practice. But Serena is a very physical player, and to get the best out of herself, she has no alternative but to grind it out in the gym etc.

January 4th, 2012 at 11:15 am

”It’s a silly idea, of course, since suffering is completely arbitrary, sometimes justified, sometimes not and so on. b.t.w. when you say:”hardly anybody’s sure of these things”, lots of people think they’re sure, and they are the ones who shout the loudest. They are not all on the same side of the fence.”

Very much agree grendel! Nobody could have put it better!

Also completely agree with respect to serena and mcenroe.

January 4th, 2012 at 11:37 am

“Anything that involves sitting down or shopping I am excellent at that.”
A great role model… at least she didn’t swear or threaten anyone while saying this…

January 4th, 2012 at 12:16 pm

Good for tennis..Stay away Serena!

January 4th, 2012 at 12:57 pm

Not everyone is capable of sustained focus and devotion to one endeavor. I don’t think Serena’s cut out for that type of life and that’s why she’s branched out into other fields. Of course, she also seems to have been rather spoiled by attaining fame and fortune at an early age, and I wouldn’t consider her a good role model, but then I would say the same about most athletes and other celebrities. I would be happy if Serena would just return to playing excellent tennis and quit having on-court outbursts.

January 4th, 2012 at 2:24 pm

How can Serena staying away be good for tennis? Serena can be a bully, she can be infuriating, she can be charming, all that’s beside the point. If she breaks rules in tennis, she should pay the penalty. If she intimidates the umpire, she should pay a heavy price. She knows she won’t, though, and it’s only human nature to take advantage of rules which are lax because the authorities are in two minds. It is exactly this faintheartedness – rooted in worship of the holy dollar – which players like McEnroe and Roddick exploited for years.

Meanwhile, Serena is an incredibly exciting player. How could any tennis fan not salivate at the prospect of Williams and Kvitova, both at the top of their games, battling it out together?

January 4th, 2012 at 2:26 pm

Serena just loves to hear herself talk, so she produces gibberish like this…. and this is why Venus is known as “the thoughful one”.

January 4th, 2012 at 2:56 pm

Williams at the top of her game (now) is not S.Williams or V.Williams of several years ago. Of course there are advantages to being older and an experienced champion, but I don’t think those advantages outweigh being a young champion of Kvitova’s type and coming into her prime.

I’m done salivating over Serena’s being in the draw, grendel. It’s down to her bullying on court and there’s always some distracting drama surrounding her – not that some drama isn’t interesting but Serena is too much. When she goes for good, I won’t miss her.

January 4th, 2012 at 3:06 pm

Grendel, you say those who think they are sure, are not all on one side of the fence. That may be true of actual people, but in principle it should not be.
Someone – including myself- who tries to think scientifically would never claim total certainty. Science never does. Probability is the guide. Maybe the law of gravity might, once in a billion years, not work, but who would step off a cliff to test it?
There MAY be an immaterial world with a god or gods, but to me the probabilty of such immaterial thingies (particularly benevolent ones) is so improbable as to be effectively nil. That’s as close as I’d get to “knowing”.
Since I’m an old man, if I’m wrong I’ll be in deep trouble before too long!
You are dead right about McEnroe, for one. Years ago, when he was still a top player, Virginia Wade said on BBC radio that he was a bully, because he knew an umpire who disqualified him would not be wanted by tournament organisers. Ultimately it is the fault of the public, who willingly pay to watch ill-behaved sports people, sometimes BECAUSE they might misbehave.

January 4th, 2012 at 3:10 pm

bitch you r crazy! she should try wrestling, she looks like a cow.

January 4th, 2012 at 3:46 pm

carlo, I understand where you’re coming from. I wouldn’t be too quick to write Serena off. She was impressive in the American season before the Open. Tiresome (and juvenile) though Serena’s histrionics are, she has that aura which could make a match between her and Kvitova truly dramatic. On the other hand, could be a damp squib – too true.

Colin, well by and large I agree with you. But people are people before they are scientists, and I find the philosopher David Hume persuasive when he argues that emotion, not reason, is the mainspring of human behaviour. Spot the paradox!

About McEnroe – funnily enough, he wouldn’t dissent from what Virginia Wade said. He even said that umpires ought to have been tougher with him. Interesting what you say about the blame being ultimately with the public. From a historical perspective, there has been improvement. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that people paid willingly to watch animals being tortured.

January 4th, 2012 at 4:00 pm

No one likes her…I like Venus, not Serena..no way with her attitude..

January 4th, 2012 at 4:05 pm

grendel, I wrote her off last year and she’s back. Respect to her for what she has accomplished but Serena lost me as a fan a couple years ago. As I said, I wont miss her and yes, I write her off every year. I am with Thangs opinion on this.

January 4th, 2012 at 5:56 pm

it’s puzzling that serena has done so well in a sport when she doesn’t even like sports or tennis. but then again, how many people stay in ‘jobs’ they don’t like and don’t earn nearly the same, or reap the accompanying privileges, as serena?

i guess it all comes down to a paycheck in some regards.

January 4th, 2012 at 11:25 pm

[…] in women’s tennis Serena Williams is once again the center of attention. She yammered about not loving tennis and then promptly twisted her ankle yesterday in Brisbane. Her rant on the sport is virtually meaningless – does anyone take her words […]

January 5th, 2012 at 12:38 am

@Grendel&Colin
I am enjoying reading your posts but on this one, about God, I have to agree with that Frenchman Voltaire for various reasons: ” If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invet him.”
I grew up in an atheist country with atheist parents, God was executed at the end of WW2 for aparrently colaborating with Nazi’s. My life experience, which is fairly good and had a bit of both (God and no God) tells me that it is better, or more efficient, to believe in something that is beyond reach instead of in human leaders who turn out to be just that, humans, are corrupt and rotten when they get hold of power.
Btw Collin from the other thread, you are absolutely right about Aussie man and helping in the house, that’s one of the reasons i like Australia.

January 5th, 2012 at 12:43 am

Wog boy – I am grateful for the moderation in your tone on what is always a difficult subject. If I may make a couple of brief points: Voltaire was a deist, which means he thought there had to be some mechanism for getting the whole show on the road (he didn’t believe in a God who intervened in human affairs). The standard argument against deism is – who got the deity going? There’s quite a funny story, actually, relating to the creation. Something like, the earth is supported on the shoulders of a giant who himself stands on an elephant which is borne by a huge turtle. “And the turtle?” asked an bystander. “It’s turtles all the way down!” was the irritable response.

Hitler – now it is widely believed he was an atheist, but that’s not true(http://nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm). Hitler was actually a very perverse kind of Christian, just as he was a perverse kind of socialist. The other equivalent monster of the era, Stalin, was certainly an atheist.

Wogboy, I think your sentiments are absolutely spot on, and if religious people were all like you, we’d have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, they are not. History is unequivocal about that – but I would say this, religious faith has tended to provide the excuse for mass atrocities and still does in some parts of the world, but even so I don’t personally believe that the root cause is religion. There is no panacea, and personally, I am not confident for humanity’s survival (with or without religion). Of course, that’s just an opinion, worth nothing really – but it’s mine. Guess we all brood about these things when we’re not contemplating tennis and such matters!

January 5th, 2012 at 11:39 am

Sean says:”Serena is good comedy. Do people really believe everything she says?”

Agree with the first sentence. That “you are unattractive inside” – and the way she said it b.t.w., she said “you are unattractive,” there was a dramatic pause as if to give weight to what was coming, and then she emphatically dropped on the word “inside” – was classic.

2nd sentence, incomprehensible in the context, nobody was taking her literally, and besides, they got drawn into the whole question of Serena herself.

January 5th, 2012 at 4:33 pm

Grendel, thanks for replying, as usual, you made me read your post few times, it is either very good or I am bit slow :-)
You leave the room for the other people’s opinion, but give the facts that are hard to argue, you also leave the exit door slightly open, or as I like to say, you have a better exit strategy then some world leaders do. Thanks

January 5th, 2012 at 6:07 pm

wog boy, it’s certainly not very good – but neither are you in the least slow as you come across in your posts. But my last paragraph in particular was very compressed (largely because I wanted to keep it short on this occasion,it being a non-tennis topic and me having gone off topic rather too often I suspect) and so I can see how it could be confusing. Sorry, but never mind –

b.t.w., I lived in Australia, ooh, a long time ago – I was a migrant with something called the Big Brother Movement, which sponsered under 18 year olds; over 18 year old migrants paid £10. We were called Pommies (Prisoner of Mother England – or pathetic people who went about crying:”poor me! poor me! – or: a contraction of the fruit Pomegrante, an allusion to English red cheeks – take your pick.) European immigrants – in those days, mainly Italians and Greeks (and a fair smattering of Lebanese, Aussies wouldn’t know the difference from Europeans) – were called New Australians. That was, surprisingly, generally found to be quite offensive. I mean, it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it, as any really good insult should. Bloody New Australian – sounds a bit feeble, somehow…..

Oops, off topic again!

January 5th, 2012 at 6:47 pm

Grendel, you were perfectly clear, that is just the way I read posts to make sure I didn’t miss something.
About other part, that means we can call you Aussie Grendel.

January 6th, 2012 at 6:38 am

[…] Serena Williams slipped and sprained her ankle. Kim Clijsters injured her hip. And today in Doha Roger Federer withdrew and then Rafael Nadal was upset. Leaving Murray as the lone Top 5 player left in either tour still competiting. […]

January 6th, 2012 at 11:09 pm

Contrast this attitude of Serena with Federer towards Tennis. Tennis Gods love Federer for what he is – a lover of that sport.

January 7th, 2012 at 2:29 am

[…] days after turning her left ankle, Serena Williams was back on the tennis court yesterday in Australia. A ripped-looking Serena had […]

January 9th, 2012 at 9:47 am