Opinion: Taking a Dump on Match Fixing, On-Court Coaching; Plus Tennis-X Notes
Women are weak.
Why do I say that? I’m not saying that. I love the ladies.
The WTA tour is saying that.
It’s 2016, and the WTA is still allowing (mostly male) coaches to come on court during matches and rescue the poor women players who can’t think for themselves or construct their own tactics or learn when to drink or not to drink water or eat a banana during a match.
Isn’t it time to just shut this embarrassment down? I’m embarrassed. The WTA should be embarrassed.
Just let the women play. Woman vs. Woman. Woman-o a woman-o. That’s Latin.
It’s tennis, not a goddam golf match where you need a caddy telling you the distance to the hole.
The WTA can no longer explain it away as an experiment “[to] allow our many fans around the world to get a little bit closer to what’s going on behind the scenes, in the player’s head, in the coach’s head.”
No one gives a shit — nor can they understand what that fat Russian man is saying, in Russian, to his player.
Last year Allison Riske’s coach/boyfriend was caught on the mike telling his player to “shut the fuck up” during their on-court coaching session. Now that’s entertainment for the kids.
Now this year, to give a handy to their sponsor SAP, they’re even going to allow coaches to bring iPads on the court and share “real-time” data with players? This is totally out of control, and time for the WTA to backtrack this crap and shut it down.
For the final word we’ll go to Roger Federer who in 2014 said: “Yeah, I hope [the men stay] far away from that idea…It’s just not right….It’s not going to be pretty, you know. It just won’t.”
It hasn’t been pretty. The rich players get the upper hand bringing their super-coaches on court, while the qualifier who can’t afford a traveling coach just sits there. I’m going to even argue that players like Caroline Wozniacki would not have reached No. 1 in the world without on-court coaching. She has never been a consistent Slam competitor, winning all her titles where she could utilize on-court coaching.
“It will look amateur-like, in my opinion,” Federer said.
If the WTA won’t do it, it’s up to the players to rise up and demand an end to this amateur hour.
TENNIS-X NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
UPPER-LEVEL ATP MATCH FIXERS TO BE REVEALED? — World No. 1 Serena Williams says she has never had a run-in with match fixers, but Novak Djokovic says in his early days he was approached with a $200K offer to lose a match…CNN writes, “Paul Annacone, the former coach of Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, believed elite players didn’t need to participate in match fixing to make good money.” — File that under “No shit, Sherlock.”…ATP head Chris Kermode says “It’s hard to catch everyone,” but apparently it’s hard to catch ANYONE unless you’re ranked outside the Top 500. Nikolay Davydenko practically reported to the Russian mafia and you couldn’t pin anything on him. Andre Agassi reported in his bio he was caught testing positive for crystal meth, and that the ATP swept it under the rug — and we’re supposed to believe the ATP did their due diligence in looking for doping or betting cheats (while at the same time, remember, they are the players “union”) before handing things over to the in-aptly named Tennis Integrity Unit? Shiiiiieat. Over the years of tennis touting itself as an Olympic-testing-level beyond-reproach sport over the last few years, it’s time people fessed up. The shit, hopefully, is finally going to hit the fan, and the players who have it coming to them will get it, and tennis can admit its policing problems and start fresh. Maybe with a little transparency? How bad has it been? Richard Ings, the former ATP rules and competition head, called match fixing a “regular thing” and called the Tennis Integrity Unit “very disappointing” and “far too secretive.” How can the ATP deny a cover-up in the face of this massive evidence dump? They are protecting their brand. The BBC’s investigative partner in the incident, the website Buzzfeed, teases, “The sport’s governing bodies have been warned repeatedly about a core group of 16 players — all of whom have ranked in the top 50 — but none have faced any sanctions and more than half of them will begin playing at the Australian Open on Monday.” Stay tuned…
MISC
An Italian media report has accused Novak Djokovic of deliberately losing a match in 2007 to Fabrice Santoro at the Paris Masters. “It’s not true,” said Djokovic. “What it is to say? I’ve lost that match.” Djokovic in his post-match conference on Wednesday asked reporters to not ask him any more about it…Is this match-fixing scandal the best thing that could happen to tennis or what? Tennis was front and center yesterday on almost every media outlet in every country…Roger Federer hasn’t reached an Aussie Open final in six years…Radek “The Worm” Stepanek at 37 became the oldest man to win a match at the Australian Open since 1978 when he won his first round…Lleyton Hewitt hasn’t beaten David Ferrer in 10 years…Former ITF world No. 1 junior Taylor Townsend lost in the qualifying of an ITF event in Florida this week…Jack Sock is receiving some slack for tanking the third set 6-0 against fellow American Taylor Fritz, moping around the court like he was sick and on his deathbed, before storming back to win the final two sets and the match against the then-psyched-out Fritz…30-year-old oft-injured American Brian Baker lost in the first round of the Aussie Open to Simone Bolleli in four tiebreaks, competing in his first match since the 2013 US Open after knee surgery…Belinda Bencic says she learned English by watching the movie “Titanic” multiple times, and Simona Halep by reading the Harry Potter series…American Taylor Fritz was the youngest player in the Australian Open draw…Tennis writer Ben Rothenberg: “Grigor Dimitrov is not wearing sleeves. This is not a good look.”…Venus Williams is 0-2 in 2016, is dropping QF points in Oz, and should be concerned about qualifying for the Olympics in singles…Rafael Nadal needs another coach in his camp — like, yesterday…Is Fabio Fognini pregnant?…Will Rafa visit the Hair Club for Men?…Andy Murray on the tour having betting sponsors: “I think it’s a little bit hypocritical, really. I don’t believe the players are allowed to be sponsored by betting companies but then the tournaments are. I don’t really understand how it all works. I think it’s a bit strange.”…Andy Murray is 17-0 career against Australians.
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