Tennis

Page 37 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
May 11, 2009
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Cycle Chic said:
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When would be a good time for Bartoli to have a forced retirement ? after New Haven and the US Open ? no - I think the ITF want the embarrassment gone and quick about it.

Bartoli anounced her retirement aweek or so ago. She has suffered from severe back pain while playing for some time and finally decided to pack it in.
Did you notice the great change in her serve this year?
 
avanti said:
Bartoli anounced her retirement aweek or so ago. She has suffered from severe back pain while playing for some time and finally decided to pack it in.
Did you notice the great change in her serve this year?

I suggest you read the last few pages of the thread about Bartoli.
 
Jul 15, 2013
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Bartoli's serve was v bad for the entire of 2013, she served a lot of double faults, had a very weak second serve and was broken quite often. Until Wimbledon, when it became uncharacteristically reliable (apart from the second set v Sloane Stephens when both players broke each other repeatedly). That may have a lot to do with grass though, which favours the server and which is a surface Bartoli has done well on before

http://matchstat.com/Player/Marion Bartoli click on the graph icons for stats

There is nothing too unusual about her beating the players she beat at Wimbledon though, she was ranked higher than all of them and in the final 3 rounds her opponents were massively out of form and played very badly. She didn't have to beat any players from the top 15 to win the title.
 
May 2, 2010
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bewildered said:
Bartoli's serve was v bad for the entire of 2013, she served a lot of double faults, had a very weak second serve and was broken quite often. Until Wimbledon, when it became uncharacteristically reliable (apart from the second set v Sloane Stephens when both players broke each other repeatedly). That may have a lot to do with grass though, which favours the server and which is a surface Bartoli has done well on before

http://matchstat.com/Player/Marion Bartoli click on the graph icons for stats

Saw Bartoli live at the Aus Open this year. Horrible service technique. Absolutely nothing on the ball.
 
Bartoli doping

Whats her serve got to do with any of this and her sudden retirement ?? Why would she tweet that she was so excited to play New Haven where she was on billboards the size of Big Ben and ecstatic to be playing the US Open ??

Bartoli reached at least the quarter-final stage at each of the four Grand Slams. Her win at Wimbledon made her the sixth player in the open era to win the Championships without dropping a set.[3] She is also the only player to have ever played at both the WTA Tour Championships and the WTA Tournament of Champions in the same year, in 2011.[4]

It,ll be a 'forced retirement' by the WTA. Someone's cocked up big style with Bartoli. Whether its the new management of Mauresmo and Novotna - who were both obviously on the peds - or the ousting of her DOCTOR father from the scene...it may come out at some point.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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yap, agree with cycle chick.
let's look at her results, not at her service.
if she really had any serious back problems, she would have cut back on the training to let the back recover and she then wouldn't have had those remarkable results in 2012/13.

if she retired voluntarily. why didn't she simply announce it as a (possibly temporary) 'break' or something? See how her body recovers and decide on retirement later?
Or retirement but with a farewell tour like most do? She could have cashed in big time on that farewell tour. Tournement organizers would be standing in line to pay her big starting money.
 
Jul 19, 2009
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We all know or believe that top tennis players dope since a long time. We know too that there is no serious testing from federations, thta is a biggest joke than cycling. We know too that failing a test is like failing a IQ test.
Why should Bartoli have failed a doping test now?
If she did, she was probably aware of it since a while, why would her have made such announcements?
She could have not played his last match and could have pretended an injury.

She never said that she was injuried, she said that her body is tired and she can not do as much work as she has done in the past. And to have good results she has to train seriously. After having celebrated her victory for 3 weeks, after having not be able to win again low opponents, she has understood that she would have a lot of difficulty to stay on top. So better to retire as soons as possible.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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poupou said:
We all know or believe that top tennis players dope since a long time. We know too that there is no serious testing from federations, thta is a biggest joke than cycling. We know too that failing a test is like failing a IQ test.
Why should Bartoli have failed a doping test now?
If she did, she was probably aware of it since a while, why would her have made such announcements?
She could have not played his last match and could have pretended an injury.

She never said that she was injuried, she said that her body is tired and she can not do as much work as she has done in the past. And to have good results she has to train seriously. After having celebrated her victory for 3 weeks, after having not be able to win again low opponents, she has understood that she would have a lot of difficulty to stay on top. So better to retire as soons as possible.

you can ask the same question about any athlete who tests positive: "why now and not earlier?" Why Floyd only in 2007? Why Contador only in 2010? Why Schleck only in 2012? etc. etc.

and who knows, perhaps the ITF counts infractions, and if you reach a number of infractions, you get a suspension or warning.
who knows this is bartoli's x-th positive.
the facts remain: she's been having the best season of her life, and absolutely nobody expected her to retire now.
 
Jul 15, 2013
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Quarter finals of all 4 slams? NONSENSE unless you are talking about her entire career perhaps. Check your facts before posting absolute BS There is a nice table on her wiki page which shows her GS record.

Best Season of her career? MORE NONSENSE, she was having one of her worst seasons in recent years. She hadn't won 3 matches in a row until Wimbledon.

The only thing about this season that might indicate doping is her serving uncharacteristically well at Wimbledon compared to the rest of the season and the fact that she was able to win 7 matches in a row. But I have already pointed out reasons why that might be the case. Her opponents in the SF and Final (Flipkens, Lisicki) both didn't turn up on the day and she had a cakewalk to the title.

Bartoli has weaknesses in her game but when she is focussed she is imo one of the mentally strongest players on the tour, doesn't give up even when playing badly. That is a rarity in WTA.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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bewildered said:
Quarter finals of all 4 slams? NONSENSE unless you are talking about her entire career perhaps. Check your facts before posting absolute BS There is a nice table on her wiki page which shows her GS record.

Best Season of her career? MORE NONSENSE, she was having one of her worst seasons in recent years. She hadn't won 3 matches in a row until Wimbledon.

The only thing about this season that might indicate doping is her serving uncharacteristically well at Wimbledon compared to the rest of the season and the fact that she was able to win 7 matches in a row. But I have already pointed out reasons why that might be the case. Her opponents in the SF and Final (Flipkens, Lisicki) both didn't turn up on the day and she had a cakewalk to the title.

Bartoli has weaknesses in her game but when she is focussed she is imo one of the mentally strongest players on the tour, doesn't give up even when playing badly. That is a rarity in WTA.

i think you just gave a perfect indication of possible above-average doping during wimbledon:
she was having one of her worst seasons in recent years. She hadn't won 3 matches in a row until Wimbledon.

you're right though that flipkens and especially lisicki were totally choking against bartoli.
anyway, the question is not if bartoli dopes. of course she does.
the question is whether she tested positive and if so what the itf did with that positive.
 
Jul 15, 2013
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Sniper I would say that Bartoli and her performances are not very suspicious at all.

She was rightfully favourite in all of her matches apart from the final and imo she probably should have been favourite despite Lisicki's impressive performances. Lisicki is one of the most mentally weak players (look at her history of choking at pressure moments at wimbledon, always the nearly girl despite having one of the most suited games to grass) and Bartoli one of the mentally strongest. The odds completely ignored this.

not every sudden retirement in tennis is down to a doping ban. The ITF secrecy doesn't help I know but Bartoli wasn't really tested by any of her opponents.
 
May 2, 2010
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bewildered said:
Quarter finals of all 4 slams? NONSENSE unless you are talking about her entire career perhaps. Check your facts before posting absolute BS There is a nice table on her wiki page which shows her GS record.

Best Season of her career? MORE NONSENSE, she was having one of her worst seasons in recent years. She hadn't won 3 matches in a row until Wimbledon.

The only thing about this season that might indicate doping is her serving uncharacteristically well at Wimbledon compared to the rest of the season and the fact that she was able to win 7 matches in a row. But I have already pointed out reasons why that might be the case. Her opponents in the SF and Final (Flipkens, Lisicki) both didn't turn up on the day and she had a cakewalk to the title.

Bartoli has weaknesses in her game but when she is focussed she is imo one of the mentally strongest players on the tour, doesn't give up even when playing badly. That is a rarity in WTA.

Winning Wimbledon automatically makes it the best season of her career.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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bewildered said:
Sniper I would say that Bartoli and her performances are not very suspicious at all.

She was rightfully favourite in all of her matches apart from the final and imo she probably should have been favourite despite Lisicki's impressive performances. Lisicki is one of the most mentally weak players (look at her history of choking at pressure moments at wimbledon, always the nearly girl despite having one of the most suited games to grass) and Bartoli one of the mentally strongest. The odds completely ignored this.

not every sudden retirement in tennis is down to a doping ban. The ITF secrecy doesn't help I know but Bartoli wasn't really tested by any of her opponents.
agreed on the mental aspect. and indeed her list of opponents in wimbledon 2013 wasn't very impressive.

but when do these players get tested anyway? perhaps the very fact that she reached the final (and won it) meant that she actually got tested, and could thus test positive. had she lost earlier, perhaps she hadn't been tested in the first place.

and the fact remains: her retirement at this young age was a shock surprise to every observer of tennis.
nobody had expected this. she could easily have taken an injury break of a couple of months, or whatever.
the timing of the retirement is simply suspect.
she still had loads of money to earn. easy bucks for a wimbledon champion. your starting money is doubled if not tripled if you're a wimbledon champion. she could've cashed in big time.
 
ITF complicity in aligning with suspected dopers is exemplified by the continuing Cilic case.

Here a player tests positive and presumably succumbs to a provisional ban, but is allowed to give a phony excuse to the public in order to excuse himself from further involvement in a tournament he is engaged in at the time. He pulls out of Wimbledon citing a knee injury. The ITF and ATP remain mute. They effectively go along with the player's obvious lies, allowing the public to remain duped.

This dishonesty is then compounded by those same organisations allowing the player and his entourage to give further bogus explanations for his test positive when the news breaks in his home country, as it almost inevitably does. Cilic and his mates claim it's all down to "elevated glucose levels" and blame a supplement; the "well he would say that, wouldn't he" kind of excuse we have all come to recognise as a standard fallback of dopers. At no point do the ITF or ATP contest or attempt to rectify the inaccuracies. They go along with it all. The lies are now at propaganda level as naive tennis fans fall for the ruse and think Cilic is merely serving a three month ban for basically technical reasons only. Again, nothing from the ITF. And little or nothing from the tennis press either, the journalists being too dependent on their "access all areas" passes to want to dig further.

Should it be any wonder why sceptics continue to suspect the existence of silent bans, cover-ups and that "all top-100 players dope" when we see institutional behaviour like this?

What we have with the ITF presently is an institution in denial. It keeps its head well in the sand and pretends, through the risible statements of its president and technical director, that doping in tennis is purely low-level and confined to occasional opportunists like Odesnik. The hapless Viktor Troicki and Marion Cilic have now presented problems they'd rather not know about - that doping is far more widespread than they are prepared to admit to. But there has to be a better way than keep the public in a state of continuing blind ignorance, surely?
 
Jul 19, 2009
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sniper said:
agreed on the mental aspect. and indeed her list of opponents in wimbledon 2013 wasn't very impressive.

but when do these players get tested anyway? perhaps the very fact that she reached the final (and won it) meant that she actually got tested, and could thus test positive. had she lost earlier, perhaps she hadn't been tested in the first place.

and the fact remains: her retirement at this young age was a shock surprise to every observer of tennis.
nobody had expected this. she could easily have taken an injury break of a couple of months, or whatever.
the timing of the retirement is simply suspect.
she still had loads of money to earn. easy bucks for a wimbledon champion. your starting money is doubled if not tripled if you're a wimbledon champion. she could've cashed in big time.
If she had tested positive at Wimbledon, she would have known it earlier, much before her last match.
Why have they let her play that match?
No sense again.

Or she had learnt it after having lost, so she announced his retirement. But again that doesn't make sense. That girl has a brain, she would have say nothing and would have faked an injury just a few days before US Open.

Her retirement is not a shock for some of our specialists, she had already big troubles, and some people say that Wimbledon was a gift for her father, and to be free of him. Now let me live my life of woman.
 
Oct 16, 2010
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zebedee said:
ITF complicity in aligning with suspected dopers is exemplified by the continuing Cilic case.

Here a player tests positive and presumably succumbs to a provisional ban, but is allowed to give a phony excuse to the public in order to excuse himself from further involvement in a tournament he is engaged in at the time. He pulls out of Wimbledon citing a knee injury. The ITF and ATP remain mute. They effectively go along with the player's obvious lies, allowing the public to remain duped.

This dishonesty is then compounded by those same organisations allowing the player and his entourage to give further bogus explanations for his test positive when the news breaks in his home country, as it almost inevitably does. Cilic and his mates claim it's all down to "elevated glucose levels" and blame a supplement; the "well he would say that, wouldn't he" kind of excuse we have all come to recognise as a standard fallback of dopers. At no point do the ITF or ATP contest or attempt to rectify the inaccuracies. They go along with it all. The lies are now at propaganda level as naive tennis fans fall for the ruse and think Cilic is merely serving a three month ban for basically technical reasons only. Again, nothing from the ITF. And little or nothing from the tennis press either, the journalists being too dependent on their "access all areas" passes to want to dig further.

Should it be any wonder why sceptics continue to suspect the existence of silent bans, cover-ups and that "all top-100 players dope" when we see institutional behaviour like this?

What we have with the ITF presently is an institution in denial. It keeps its head well in the sand and pretends, through the risible statements of its president and technical director, that doping in tennis is purely low-level and confined to occasional opportunists like Odesnik. The hapless Viktor Troicki and Marion Cilic have now presented problems they'd rather not know about - that doping is far more widespread than they are prepared to admit to. But there has to be a better way than keep the public in a state of continuing blind ignorance, surely?
excellent post. but how did cilic' positive become public in the first place? was it leaked?
 
Oct 16, 2010
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poupou said:
If she had tested positive at Wimbledon, she would have known it earlier, much before her last match.
Why have they let her play that match?
No sense again.

Or she had learnt it after having lost, so she announced his retirement. But again that doesn't make sense. That girl has a brain, she would have say nothing and would have faked an injury just a few days before US Open.

Her retirement is not a shock for some of our specialists, she had already big troubles, and some people say that Wimbledon was a gift for her father, and to be free of him. Now let me live my life of woman.

not much makes sense if you have your head in the sand.

If she had tested positive at Wimbledon, she would have known it earlier, much before her last match.
why, exactly, couldn't she have tested positive after her last match?
 
Jul 19, 2009
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sniper said:
not much makes sense if you have your head in the sand.


why, exactly, couldn't she have tested positive after her last match?
Thanks but I have a clear and cold head.

I am not saying she didn't dope but it makes no sense she had retired because caught for doping.

You are making a lot of assumptions.
When would have been caught? in Wimbledon?

Just to remeber you: she lost her match and announced in the following conference her retirement.
Now, in case of retirement linked to a positive control :
She kwnew it just before her match or she knew it after the match.
Surprise? As she could have asked for B testing, she had time to decide/ announce of a retirement.

She could just have announced injury, and be back like Nadal in 6months too... or so.

Please what is your scenario.
 
Jul 15, 2013
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The timing of Bartoli's retirement is indeed very strange, she seems to have given up on all the appearance fees and endorsements that would ensue and she had said that she was looking forward to New Haven etc and just enjoying playing tennis knowing that she could relax having achieved her goals. The timing is the only strange thing about it for me, very strange indeed. But then again Bartoli is a strange person, has an IQ of 175, higher than Einstein. It could be that she isn't that motivated by cashing in like every other player would be.

There is nothing strange whatsoever about her performances this year, however. It was her best season in terms of achievement, yes, but certainly not in terms of performance. She didn't perform at her highest level all season. She didn't even have to to win Wimbledon and it was no surprise to see her win any of those 7 matches.

In terms of testing, there was a big change in testing around or just before Wimbledon. I suspect it was certainly the first slam and perhaps the first or second/third tournament where they had blood-testing in competition and we saw Wozniacki tweet her surprise at being tested after a win at Eastbourne a couple of weeks beforehand. Previously it was exclusively loser-targeted testing before that with a tournament winner only being tested after the final.

Perhaps this caught a few players by surprise as we saw some shock exits from players, some without playing a match (withdrawals). I am not sure what the position is on withdrawing players being tested, however. Look at the Troicki case where he was willing to give urine but not blood and willing to undergo a ban as a result. I reckon he was caught totally by surprise by the requirement to give blood. His excuse was that he was feeling ill and giving blood would have made him worse, so he was willing to risk a two year ban so that he wouldn't feel worse?!! Expect this to be reduced on appeal.

But the shock early exits of some of the bigger players could be explained by the UK's ludicrous tax laws which tax a player 50% based on UK earnings and also tax a proportion of their worldwide endorsement/non-tennis income based on how long they have been in the UK during that year. For the very top players, these tax laws can actually result in them having to pay more tax than what they win in UK prize money, ie it can actually cost them money to play in the UK. This is why Federer and Nadal have prepared for the grass season/Wimbledon in Halle, Germany in recent years and not in Queens or in the UK. It is almost insulting to these players that they effectively have to pay money to play in the UK, costing more and more the longer they are in the UK.

For me the Cilic case is obviously much more suspicious than Bartoli, and as THASP has said, it constitutes a form of Omerta by the ITF in not making any details public when he is obviously banned from competition for some period. There was talk of Cilic having missed a few OOC tests years ago but as always this info was based on one or two quotes made by obscure people.
 
bewildered said:
But the shock early exits of some of the bigger players could be explained by the UK's ludicrous tax laws which tax a player 50% based on UK earnings and also tax a proportion of their worldwide endorsement/non-tennis income based on how long they have been in the UK during that year. For the very top players, these tax laws can actually result in them having to pay more tax than what they win in UK prize money, ie it can actually cost them money to play in the UK. This is why Federer and Nadal have prepared for the grass season/Wimbledon in Halle, Germany in recent years and not in Queens or in the UK. It is almost insulting to these players that they effectively have to pay money to play in the UK, costing more and more the longer they are in the UK.
An interesting notion. What I would say is that the top players receive huge sums to appear in pre-Wimbledon tournaments and the prize money on offer is largely irrelevant to them. Gerry Weber pays Federer a seven-figure fortune for Halle and Murray picks up £500,000, I believe, for turning up at Queens on his three year deal. Agassi used to show up at the Italian Open, trouser $250,000 then lose in the first round before flying back to the States again the next day. I think the Italians got quite hacked off with that so he did bother one year to hang around a bit longer and win the title.

I think it was Agassi himself who took on the UK tax authorities when they tried to snaffle a portion of his worldwide endorsement earnings. I forget now how it all panned out. More recently, Nadal may have made a stand too, snubbing Queens for the more lucrative pasture in Germany.