2024 Cincinnati Masters Finals: Sinner v Tiafoe, Sabalenka v Pegula

Congrats Sinner, another notch in the belt. Young guns are here!

August 19th, 2024 at 8:50 pm

So, Sinner tested positive on steroids in March but was let off the hook, since it wasn’t intentionally, apparently masseur rubbed it into his skin and contaminated Sinner?!

August 20th, 2024 at 5:23 pm

…… and he tested twice positive, on March the 10th snd 18th, that was one very long massage 😉

August 20th, 2024 at 5:28 pm

This is Kyrgios take on Sinner testing positive:

Nicholas Kyrgios
@NickKyrgios
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Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance… you should be gone for 2 years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream…. Yeah nice 🙄

August 20th, 2024 at 6:17 pm

This is the ATP statement:
“We are encouraged that no fault or negligence has been found on Jannik Sinner’s part. We would also like to acknowledge the robustness of the investigation process and independent evaluation of the facts under the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme (TADP), which has allowed him to continue competing.
-ATP”

Slow your roll.

August 20th, 2024 at 11:54 pm

ATP statement 😜 😜😜

What else did you expect them to say, you clown 🤡

August 21st, 2024 at 12:11 am

When was the last time player who tested positive wasn’t suspended until final outcome instead allowed to compete like nothing happened. Rule is that they are automatically suspended until final verdict.

Sinner was suspended only 5 days and allowed to play even testing positive twice and they were yet to process and deliver the finding, obviously they knew then what the findings will be?!

Nike poster boy.

August 21st, 2024 at 12:19 am

“Sinner was only provisionally suspended for a total of five days, on two occasions, and the failed tests were kept secret until today. As one fellow player has pointed out, that’s an extremely short amount of time for a suspension. Simona Halep, by comparison, was provisionally banned for a year before a decision on her case was made.”

August 21st, 2024 at 12:37 am

If you think that players will swallow this easy think again.

Denis Shapovalov
@denis_shapo
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Can’t imagine what every other player that got banned for contaminated substances is feeling right now
1:49 AM · Aug 21, 2024
10.7K

Different rules for different players
1:50 AM · Aug 21, 2024

August 21st, 2024 at 12:44 am

Well, Halep was suspended right after she tested positive for doping. She waited for her trila more than 1 year, ITIA decided that she should be banned for 4 years, TAS reduced the ban period to 9 months, as Halep prouved that it was accidentaly….

In this case, Sinner did play tennis since March and everything di dmove very, very fast…. interesting

August 21st, 2024 at 2:32 am

Sorry for the typos above!

August 21st, 2024 at 2:33 am

https://x.com/fredwmeyer_/status/1826002943121961381?s=61 Good question. My answer is no.

August 21st, 2024 at 4:30 am

https://x.com/dorli_wi/status/1825953051628417343?s=61 Hahaha

August 21st, 2024 at 4:33 am

I do actually like Sinner he’s an amazing player, and I’m not overly keen on Kyrios, but I have to agree with what he and Shapovalov are saying here, you can’t have one rule for one player, and another for another player, it doesn’t say much for the integrity of the sport otherwise, a short term ban would be punishment enough, like the one Cilic had for taking glucose tablets, it’s unfortunate but not really intentional

August 21st, 2024 at 5:28 am

1. Testing sensitivity continues to advance. And the drug testers foolishly do not adapt a thresh hold level. The amount detected in Sinner was below 1 billionth of a gram in his body. And use of over the counter steroid creams for hundreds of skin conditions is everywhere. Cheap, effective and at levels that low, not performance enhancing.
And hard to maintain it is always the players fault because this level of clobetasol can come from incidental person-to-person contact.
To me, the 360,000 fine and loss of 400 points from Indian Wells was excessive given the transmission path and nano-amounts involved.

2. The best excuse ever!! was from Frenchman Richard Gasquet. Found full of cocaine. Never suspended. Turns out he went to a party and made out with 3 super models, who were also bigtime coke w___res. Said his tongue got numb while kissing the 3, but he thought that was from how excited he was and how much kissing he was doing before he took two back to his hotel for fun past making out..
He got a lecture, had increased testing, and warned to stay away from core w___re supermodels. Which Gasquet, being French and not a German super model strangler – refused.

3. Not that it matters a bunch, but with the loss of points, Sinner lost a week at #1. The significance of course was minimal as Djokovic now gets another week as #1. 428 weeks to 429.

August 21st, 2024 at 1:36 pm

CF1,

-I don’t think it’s as simple as that, drug testing has improved but so does masking agents using, the low reading can be as well results of good masking agent, not including Sinner but not excluding either. Players are using advanced masking agents to cover PED using. You know the saying that criminals are usually at least one step ahead of the police?

-furthermore “Positive tests for Clostebol are rampant in Italian sports……Trofodermin spray is sold in a package that warns the buyer that it contains a doping agent.”?!

I’ll give you the link of the article later.

-Richard Gasquet.was banned for 2 months and 15 days. The moment he tested positive provisional suspension was placed on him, something that has been done to every player who tested positive (except Sinner) until the matter has been resolved. Since it was recreational drug and not performance enhancing drug they sped up deliberations and concluded that 2 months and 15 days was sufficient ban and he was free to play, the ban was recorded against his name.

– Funny enough if Sinner had provisional ban placed on him, as it should have, Nole would still be #1 at least until after the USO.

–

August 21st, 2024 at 7:06 pm

Positive tests for Clostebol are rampant in Italian sports. In 2020, WADA looked at the high number of failed tests for Clostebol in the country, and how they relate to the use of Trofodermin there. This May, Edmund Willison, who writes the doping-focused Substack Honest Sport, published a post entitled, “Italy’s Clostebol crisis across tennis, football, and the Olympics.”

As Willison points out, Italy is one of the few countries where a substance—Trofodermin—containing Clostebol is commonly sold, which makes accidental use more likely. At the same time, as noted above, the spray is sold in a package that warns the buyer that it contains a doping agent. According to Willison, this “would seemingly make any argument of inadvertent use untenable.”

August 21st, 2024 at 7:11 pm

You know more about the subject than I do, WB.
Same with Gasquet, who I thought had gotten off clean with his great excuse.

August 22nd, 2024 at 12:38 pm

CF1,

I was just curious to find out more about it and that particular steroid (invented in East Germany, wildly used in West Germany, sometimes with tragic consequences, completely disappeared just reappear around 10 years ago in Iatly) and happened to find that very thorough article written by Edmund Willison. What was interesting is that majority of explanations from people who tested positive (in Italy) were more or less same as Sinner ones, copy paste, someone cut himself, used that spray and then rubbed it on the other one.

As for Gasquet, his explanation is actually quite legit, no better way to share the coke but good old fashioned deep kiss😉
I like Gasquet, there something good about him.

August 22nd, 2024 at 4:57 pm

BY hanging on, Djokovic gets some wonderful moments. He had a great fun 90 minute warmup practice with Juan Martin Del Potro.
The two talked of their 20 matches. 16-4 Djokovic with Delpo beating him twice in the Olympics – “my Olympic nemesis!” While Juan said he watched this Final and when Novak got gold, Juan said he was crying, he was so happy for Novak.

Awwwww, nice! I miss Delpo a lot and how injury cut his time short, like Andy Murray. IN his prime, on the right day, he could beat anyone and his forehand sometimes sounded like a gun going off.

This Open is Dom Thiem’s last. Another great guy with wrists that had had enough! Top guy. A sportsman’s sportsman.

Draw is out, and for Novak and Sinner, the big thing was who was gifted with Alcaraz in their half. Sinner got the prize!!! No diss on some of the established guys like Rublev and new ones now on the radar like Shelton and Tiafoe – but if there is one guy you hope is not in your half, it’s Carlos. And back in the day, when Djokovic was #3…you know how Federer and Rafa felt when they got 1st glance at the draw!

August 22nd, 2024 at 9:50 pm

Delpo is genuine Nole friend, they always had special bond, every Nole big win or record Delpo was the first or between the first to congratulate him, always calling him “amigo” and “my friend”, great character and great human being.

I remember once Nole beat him in masters final (I think Shanghai), Nole was making winners speech and praising Delpo, after short time Delpo basically told him “cut the crap you won I lost”, Nole had to burst into laughter together with Delpo.

August 22nd, 2024 at 11:05 pm

I think with Delpo it’s a case of what could’ve been, I’m thinking about what Sharapova once said, I’m here to win titles, or matches or whatever she said anyway, I’m not here to make friends, maybe Delpo and Andy, should’ve took a leaf out of her book, concentrated more on beating their biggest rivals, rather than kissing their feet, and they maybe won more than they did, sadly we will never know

August 25th, 2024 at 6:03 am

Please, Delpo and Andy didn’t kiss anyone’s feet.

August 25th, 2024 at 1:37 pm

Whatever

August 25th, 2024 at 3:25 pm

Don’t be stupid and insinuate that Andy or Delpo groveled to the Big 3.
Consider yourself corrected.

August 25th, 2024 at 4:10 pm

And in important news, Djokovic, as President of the Player’s Association, held a news conference saying that there was strong feeling with the Sinner matters, that all pros with drug use sanctions are not treated the same, and discipline and sanctions must be the same for all.
And for fairness and fan acceptance, protocols must address equal treatment for all.
Not Djokovic’s 1st foray into drug testing fairness.

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America’s top junior, Iva Jovic will be making her 1st main draw Slam appearance. Born in California to two Serbian immigrants.

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For the Serbs here, you might like the very informative and entertaining travel-adventure influencer “Elie in Russia” just did a travelogue to Serbia and discussed her take on the country and people. She has dozens of videos. Member of the Russian National Geographic Society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M000GbY0v4

August 25th, 2024 at 5:04 pm

This one is not bad either, Canadian couple travellers enjoying Serbia and the biggest party on the water, “Drina regatta”, though you can see that Canadian wasn’t used on “rakia”, got him at the end😂

Enjoy it:

https://youtu.be/Xo0nnU9un4U?si=JosubpRNMJaadizY

August 26th, 2024 at 12:06 am

Naaaaahhhhh 😀

August 26th, 2024 at 1:15 pm

Rely to August 25th at 4.10pm

August 26th, 2024 at 1:17 pm

CF1,
I remember while back you went somewhere in the states in the nature (camping, river, mountains or something) so presumably you love nature, so this one is for you and I have to embarrass myself by admitting that I haven’t visit this beautiful place even it was few hours driving from my place, but next year I’ll do it and will rent boat house, enjoy it like this Canadian couple did👍

https://youtu.be/CtMNU9sV69c?si=_TJEgK8dDjdMKBnu

August 26th, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Btw, just checked the result of Iva Jović, she has just beaten comfortably #42 in the first round, 16 years old American looks promising 👍

August 26th, 2024 at 8:01 pm

More fun new talent like Iva is great part of tennis, just as “legends” are.

Jovic and her fellow 16-year old partner, Tyra Grant, have had a remarkable run in doubles this year. Won the Australian Open and Wimbledon in girls doubles, got RUP in Roland Garros and they are entered at the US Open as well.

Iva is a good looking gal, too! And you know the media loves that stuff of marketable athletes & Cinderella stories. She somehow gets past 3rd Round, unlikely, the US media will make her a sweetheart, same if she and Tyra make another juniors final.
Hopefully both can rise in the ranks of US women.

August 26th, 2024 at 11:00 pm

WB – it is a big, beautiful world out there and we will never see it all. Some lands at some level break your heart because nature is indifferent to human wars and tragedy. So if you know the history of some lands a bit, it hurts some. We took a tour of Belgium, for example, and toured and explored the WWI Front when the fields cultivated were blooming with mustard flowers and uncultivated were red with poppies and you knew underneath the beauty were (at the time) nearly 75 year old steel shell splinters, human bone fragments with every step you take. In another 1000, all the traces will be gone except a band of rust stains in the soil.
Maybe it is dark but it also makes me happy to see in places that have known war, the people and the Earth are resilient.

My thoughts on the Serbia video you sent and the Russian video by Elina Bukanova, where her Serbian friend showed her the enchanting park and fine people, but also some bombed out buildings in Belgrade when NATO was out to steal Kosovo to build a huge military base there (Ft. Blade). He was 4 years older than Djokovic and was in Belgrade for the 79 days of bombing as well.

In the US, we made it to most States. And most places are nice outside our Blue Cities. Curiously, we saw the Grand Canyon dozens of times from the air, once from the roads but my wife was spooked by the narrow trails, that so many hikers fall and die that it was a “no go” for visiting, hiking down and up again.
The Midwest can be monotonous. But it is hard to complain when the land is so fertile and the crops are endless.
My lesbian aunt who taught Zoology and Influence of Geography on Lifeforms and Evolution at Yale, Syracuse, and in Copenhagen (a lesbian mecca, I guess!) added to my Boy Scout, fishing&hunting knowledge. My Dad was a Boy Scout as well. Lifetime love of nature and species identifications.

Croatia, Serbia, and Russia are on my bucket list. Visiting was complicated by my military clearances even in the 90s. Then the Yugoslav wars.. I also want to sit in a restaurant overlooking the Bosphorus and dream of Trojan and Greecian galleys, the Viking and Venetian vessels that sailed those waters. The Royal Navy, the Russian fleets…Get a Turk tour guide as good as you are in OZ, to tell fascinating stories behind the sights. My curiosity is endless.

Big world. Lots to see and do if you have the time and money and companions that don’t want to fall off steep heights.
But time is short.
We both know we will die with unrealized dreams. But that we dream and never quit is the true gift.

Tennis, other sports feeds that part of the soul that is the dreamquest – just as nature does.

August 27th, 2024 at 2:42 pm

Travel to the US and see some of our tourist attractions. There is a massive endeavor going on in South Dakota to create a sculptor of a famous Native American called Crazy Horse. He was a warrior. When the sculpture is finished it will be the biggest sculpture in the world. It’s going to take years to complete. Mount Rushmore, the sculpture of past presidents will fit into the side of the head of Crazy Horse. It is something to see. I went to Kentucky back in May and saw another amazing sight. A replica of Noah’s Ark built according to the instructions that God gave to Noah to prepare for the great flood. It is a sight to behold. This boat is huge!! Now, if you happen to be an atheist, the ark won’t mean squat! Lol But you can google both of these sights. So glad I got to see them. Going through the ark was an experience. It was massive……..Since I won’t get on an airbus, I’ll just enjoy Europe and Australia through your stories! Thanks for that, Okie! 😊😊

August 28th, 2024 at 12:22 am

Dear Okiegal,

We might not have the same tennis faves in tennis, but I always enjoy your writings about USA, a place where I have never been and do not know if my finances will allow me to travel there. I enjoy USA through the television, stories, etc… but who knows, I might have once the occasion to be see the Central Park in NY or other amazing places. One can say, North America is a beautiful continent.

And I hope the Republicans will win the presidential election🙂

Peace!

August 28th, 2024 at 4:15 am

Okiegal,
Your story of the Ctazy Horse statue brought back memories of a holiday in Texas one late April years ago. There were huge swathes of Blue Bonnets in the fields, amazing wild open spaces and cities, great music scene in Austin, the river walkway in San Antonio … I loved it all except for the one major disappointment:- no cowboys and no horses!!!! I expected that away from the major roads and cities, there would be more traditional parts where people still had ranches and horses, but there were none. I passed by a field full of miniature horses / ponies grazing in the distance, about a metre tall, but they were not what I associated with the Wild West. In the end, the only life size horse I saw there was a statue of David Crockett outside the Capitol building. That disappointment didn’t stop me from finding Shepplers, a brilliant cowboy store, where they ask you to hand in your guns on entry, and the whole place smelled of leather. I had to buy a second suitcase for my souvenirs, two cowboy hats, two pairs of boots, several belts, with silver, with brass lone star decoration, one cowboy wat was black velvet with feathers and silver studs, the other was hardy leather for rainy days. Yes I’ve worn them all in London, gets a few stares on the tube… I still regret not buying a rodeo outfit, fringes and all. Texas has a lot to offer – except what they’re famous for – cowboys and horses.

August 28th, 2024 at 1:56 pm

Hey, Tennispompom…….. You will definitely see cowboys in Oklahoma. My late hubby was a cowboy and a good one. Come to the Sooner state! There are lots of cowboys in Texas. I guess you were in the wrong area. You will see lots of cowboys around the Fort Worth area. There are some great saloons there. Billy Bobs is a huge dance hall and they have the mechanical bull you can try to ride. I live in Ada, OK it’s north of Ft. Worth about 162 miles. The Palo Dura canyon is in west Texas around Amarillo. It’s a very big ditch!! Lol Nothing like the Grand Canyon, but worth seeing. We have sand dunes in Oklahoma. It’s called Little Sahara. I was shocked when I saw this desert in my home state! Google Ada, OK and see what pops up. We are noted for the hanging of 4 men in the early 1900s. Our judicial system is also the subject of a book written by the famous author John Grisham. The title was The Innocent Man. Two men sent to prison for a crime they did not commit. A very controversial case. I am retired from the courthouse. I got very close to this particular case. But as Chris says, it’s a big beautiful world out there!

August 28th, 2024 at 4:23 pm

@Van Persie
I traveled the east coast in 2016. Our destination was NYC. Going to spend the night in Jersey City, NJ and from there go to NYC. Was looking forward to a broadway play and seeing Central Park. It didn’t pan out. We heard on the news on the drive there that there were bomb threats in Jersey City. So we decided not to do NJ and NY! We went to Gettysburg instead. There are so many things this vast planet has to offer. I will miss out on so many because I refuse to fly!!
Oh, and we did spend two days in DC. Loved every minute touring DC. My one regret was the fact that I didn’t get to go to the Smithsonian Institute! My husband toured the Smithsonian and said it was awesome! Maybe another time for me. Oh, I’m voting RED!!
Thanks for the feedback! BTW…. VAMOS!! Lol
PS…. Yes, we can have our tennis favorites but still be adults and have decent discussions!! Back at cha! PEACE!!
❤️ 🇺🇸 with much 🙏🏻!! IN GOD WE TRUST! Sincerely, Okie! 😊😊

August 28th, 2024 at 4:44 pm

Russian Alexandrova beat American Jovic. A close 3 set battle unfortunately played in high heat. Cinderella is over – but the crowd was solid with Jovic and she left to cheers and applause for her play and grit fighting back against 6 match points. Reporters said she proved by her play and spirit that her 1st round victory was no fluke.
Poor thing!
After winning juniors doubles at the AO, RUP at Roland Garros, and winning at Wimbledon, she and her impressive juniors partner Tyra Grant go to start their US Open tennis.
Will young Iva fade away, will sponsors not check her out? Will talent agencies ignore?

Well, you look at a couple pics and decide if she might get deals selling stuff. Heeding, that she is still only 16.

With Daddy escorting her to the Wimbledon Ball:https://imageresizer.static9.net.au/zRjmfUCE3TNcvDlV8FBMDIzODXY=/0x510:1440×1590/792×0/https%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2Ffs%2F30c3341b-ba43-4983-a6a8-391e99c45198

Bookstore: https://imageresizer.static9.net.au/G97_pM9oTj19lcFzmr5c8XaTpTw=/0x360:1440×1800/792×0/https%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2Ffs%2F682b128c-76c2-42e9-8394-b6fd9e80706b

August 28th, 2024 at 7:27 pm