Australian Open '12: Point By Point Coverage

[falafaclese]

An amazing physical performance by both of them. The match itself wasn't as entertaining as I would have liked, but I guess that's because I love shotmaking, and this match was more about attrition and mental steadiness, which is impressive in its own way. There were a couple of points in the later going that Rafa had in hand but either made tough errors or small miscalculations which kept the door open ever so slightly for Djoker. Djoker handled that entire match very very well, but his composure down the final stretch was fantastic.

I started feeling very uncomfortable during the award ceremony when the two of them (more so Djoker at first, then Nadal) were obviously laboring physically trying to stand there while those speakers droned on. I'm glad someone had the presence of mind to get them chairs, but even that took too long.

[lt]

I found very little to like about that man while reading his book.

Ain't that the truth. He went from my favorite player of all time to my least--all in the course of book. printwhore, Agassi only admitted to non-performance drugs (what he took was actually anti-performance drugs). That doesn't mean he didn't take PEDs--just that he never tested positive for any of that.

I woke up to watch the repeat of the match in time to start with the fifth set. Looking at the comments about earlier in the match I'm glad I didn't see the boring parts because the 5th set was a corker! I was thinking the same thing as PMac at 5-5 in the fifth set--I wanted the match to stop and have them tell both Rafa and Djoker that both were winners and that they were going to call this one a tie and that both players would get the championship. What's brilliant about these two players is that they can turn it up when something big is about to happen so in the 5th set when they were both facing break points you could see them dig even deeper and refuse to lose the point that would give the other guy a break. It was fascinating to watch.

Also, that crowd was brilliant (at least in the fifth). So evenly divided! And heh, officials, your damn speeches are too long when they have to bring chairs out for the players to collapse in.

printwhore, here's a good article about HGH testing at baseball. No HGH testing during the season or the postseason. What WADA doesn't have to deal with and every sport does is that there are player's associations for all sports that put the kibosh on a CBA when there is something the players balk at. I'm afraid the two test tube A-B tests are nowhere near foolproof as backups. The media keeps saying that no one has every successfully won an appeal--but that's not true. The positive tests are not supposed to be made public if the player appeals and if the player wins the appeal the positive test is never made public. The problem is that the appeal process isn't foolproof either. The current situation in baseball is that the positive test was leaked to the press even though an appeal was put into the works. (And of course the current issue has nothing to do with PEDs.) Did'ja see the new thing? Stem cells. It's not legal in the US but players of all sports are going out of the country to use stem cells to help with coming back from injuries. The issue is that they're trying to figure out if using stem cells could enhance performance for healthy players as well as help the injured players to heal faster. And how could a test be created to detect something like that? It's from their own body--nothing foreign at all. I still believe the majority of players wouldn't cheat (I couldn't be a sports fan if I believed they would) but the cheaters sure piss me off. . .

eta: I love Djoker's girlfriend simply because the cameras never show his parents anymore (were they there? I didn't see them in the box). There was the shot of someone else in the box inciting the crowd to yell "Nole, Nole" (*sigh*) but Ristic just looks at her guy so I'm a fan.

HEH! ESPN2 is now re-airing part of the match and they already have the "Instant Classic" sign up on the screen.

[Printwhore2012]

Stem cell research is legal here but melatonin isn't. So strange. I have a friend at Monash who does stem cell research for a service lab (foreign pharmaceuticals takimg advamtage of Oz legislation that lets it happen) so i will ask her how this is going down. In any case, I just brought it up because I was a little bothered by how tennis, the ITF and WADA are not as vigilant ad they should be with these things. And even when they get caught like Odesnik, they get a little slap on the wrist. This is the rabbit hole I fell into after doing some research on what happened to David in this tournament. I thought WADA and the ITF leak the positives to the public after Gasquet made out with a coke ho in Miami? Anyway, this looks like an essay/ article worth writing so I will dig.

Sorry to hijack and for the digression. My brain runs away with me sometimes. But can I just say, that was the best men's final I had ever seen in my life. Djoko was down a break, limping around the court, falling and he still put arguably the toughest competitor in the game away. Amazing. I don't know how he did that but it was definitely worthy of a final and is perhaps already in the running for best match of the year.

[printwhore2012]

No, they were not there and thank god. Jelena Ristic does seem like a sweet girl, she didn't care I was taking pics of her and the whole time during Djoker's first round match she kept putting sunscreen on everyone in the box: his physio, his coach, and all random assortment of guys sitting with them. Like, whipping it out of her bag and putting I'm on their faces and their arms and stuff. And she did applaud Lorenzani when he would play well.

I will read up on the CBAs. Is baseball an olympic sport and do they fall under WADA? I think tennis is pretty much t the mercy of WADA because they're Olympic. Once WADA gets that new HGH test rolling for this year's games it will be interesting to see player reaction.

[falafaclese]

Was there some sort of PED issue with David? I saw that he got fined for an outburst, but I hadn't heard anything about a testing issue.

ETA: I just ran across this video of a ball boy who deserves a bonus:

[printwhore2012]

No, nothing like that with Nalby. He supposedly threw water at a tournament official during his drug test. I googled it and somehow it lead me down a rabbit hole of interesting google searches.

David is fine, I think he got treated very poorly during this tournament. I am a fan of the Nalbs, I think he is misunderstood. But then again, I only saw some bits of the Isner match

Lleyton Hewitt is a damn fine commentator, I thought. He was pleasant, and he knew what he was talking about. And he has played these guys before so he gave such good breakdowns of what makes them so difficult to play. He and Jim Courier also had good rapport. Hewitt told Jim to go out there and try to hit a volley against Nadal and Jim was all, " I'm fine here, thanks!" So Hewitt, even if he is a jerk, knows his ball.

[falafaclese]

Ahh. I didn't realize that it happened during his drug test. I was trying to figure out the connection. I like David too. Yes, he can appear dour at times, but I've been accused of the same on occasion, so I can relate.

[printwhore2012]

Parting shot of Jelena Ristic, whom the crowds were loving today.

[lt]

so i will ask her how this is going down.

Ooooh, send me a PM after you talk to her. I'm as conflicted about stem cell use for sports as I am about every other aspect of testing and I'd love more info. Baseball is an official sport for the Olympics but because of the timing of the summer Olympics the best players don't tend to play. Baseball puts more effort into the World Baseball Classic because it is a MLB event and because it is an offseason tournament. I have no clue how the testing with WADA works for the Olympics with baseball. eta: wait, I'm wrong. As of this Olympics, baseball is not an official sport--it and softball were replaced (with golf[?!?] and rugby sevens [whatever that is])

during Djoker's first round match she kept putting sunscreen on everyone in the box: his physio, his coach, and all random assortment of guys sitting with them. Like, whipping it out of her bag and putting I'm on their faces and their arms and stuff.

How sweet is that? You're going to make her my favorite WAG with this stuff!

ETA: I just ran across this video of a ball boy who deserves a bonus:

That catch was great and the crowd loved it. What was really funny was that just a couple of points earlier Rafa nearly hit the kid who was right there (unintentionally of course and I don't know if it was the same kid). The commentators were saying that the kid should have kept his eye on the ball because he wasn't even looking as the bullet shot nearly got him--guess the kid realized it because that catch happened soon after.

Lleyton Hewitt is a damn fine commentator, I thought. He was pleasant, and he knew what he was talking about. And he has played these guys before so he gave such good breakdowns of what makes them so difficult to play. He and Jim Courier also had good rapport. Hewitt told Jim to go out there and try to hit a volley against Nadal and Jim was all, " I'm fine here, thanks!" So Hewitt, even if he is a jerk, knows his ball.

So jealous you got to hear those two work together. Jim mentioned he was working with Hewitt when he interviewed Djokovic after one of his matches and it just sounded like they'd make a good pair.

[breezybee]

I woke up in time to see most of the 5th set. I don't think I'll bother watching the whole match. I have to hand it to Djokovic but I still wish he had lost.

[GrandSlamGuru]

chocula, that is a wild story -- I didn't know loud sounds could set off alarms. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while you were explaining that to the cops. They must have thought you were lying or crazy. Where do you live?

chestylarue, I feel your pain. At least Rafa didn't lose any points since he didn't make last year's AO final.

I'm thankful for the return of regular sleeping hours.

[chocula]

GrandSlamGuru

I live in Southern California.

It wasn't just loud sounds. My neighbor and I were sarcastically jumping up and down and pounding on the wall. We do this all the time because we're really good friends and play tennis together. (Yes, I'm a doctor, and I'm just that immature!)

Normally, no one else can hear our antics because our Duplex is at the end of the cul de sac. But I guess we got carried away this time. I felt simply awful because our alarms really worried our neighbors, and it was the middle of the night.

Anyhoo, I'm still in mourning. Congrats to Nole, I guess. His win means I have to hear the freaking Serbian National Anthem all damn day today!

[breezybee]

Too funny Chocula. Almost arrested all in the name of tennis!

[acre]

Damn, just about 6 hs is too damn long fo- a tennis match. I love tennis, I love it when it's competitive and tight, swings back and fo-th, so closely matched, such intensity, blahblahblah ... but not fo- 6 f-eaking hs.

It's just as well I didn't stay up/get up to watch this one. No matte- how th-illing (and it sounds like maybe it wasn't f-om all you saying it put you to sleep) I can't sustain my inte-est fo- that damn long. I can watch tennis fo- 12-14 hs, easy, can and have ... but that included multiple matches, some time at the p-actice cou-ts, a bite to eat, many matches, many playe-s, many styles.

So cong-ats to Nole, and cong-ats to Nadal cause he was se-iously in this one, I'd think it would make him mo-e hopeful fo- the next time, give him confidence that yes he can win.

[chocula]

I thought I'd add my two cents about HGH testing. Let me just say that it makes me nervous for several reasons.

One, the tests for exogenous recombinant HGH that are available commercially can sometimes, (though rarely), cross react with benign substances like Insulin. A Type I diabetic athlete who relies on insulin may get a false positive test, especially if he has injected himself with insulin just prior to a test.

Secondly, real human cadaverous HGH is easy to extract, and can be readily found on the black-market. This substance is indistinguishable from the HGH naturally found in people. My concern with this is that testers may try to combat the use of real human HGH by arbitrarily deciding that certain levels of HGH are normal and other levels of HGH are too high to be normal. The problem with this is that the range of physiological HGH levels varies widely from person to person, and from ethnicity to ethnicity, and many of the so-called "normal" lab values may not take that into consideration.

Furthermore, the performance-enhancing effects of HGH are still somewhat theoretical. Other than helping a short child grow a few more inches prior to the epiphyseal plates of the bones closing, the supposed anabolic effects haven't yet been proven. In fact, in theory, the effects have the potential to be more detrimental than beneficial especially when it comes to lipid profiles and the potential enlarging effects on organs like the heart.

Until I'm satisfied that the chance of false positives is next to zero, I'm not sure it's worth the risk of ruining an innocent athlete's reputation based on a test result that may be completely meaningless anyway.