lt
Semi Finals
Posts: 3,223
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Post by lt on Nov 9, 2009 16:52:45 GMT
I was very disappointed to see Katie Couric as the interviewer. I knew no hard questions would be coming from that fluffball. Her idea of a hard question was to repeatedly ask "how many times did you do crystal meth?" Um, who cares? That isn't journalism. Ask a good follow-up question about why Rafa and Roger were angry about the admission and that would have been good journalism. And, no, saying "how does that make you feel" about Navratilova comparing Andre to Clemens doesn't count either.
I wish people were concentrating on the other aspects of what Andre talks about in the book--my goodness, I would hate tennis too if that was my life. It's why child actors are all so fucked up. No child should have to be supporting the family. And here was a kid who wanted an education being told that schooling meant nothing and that to have any aspirations besides tennis was useless since he (was forced to) drop(ped) out of school in the 9th grade. Must have been a real kick in the pants to Mike Agassi when the first thing Andre did with his money was start a school.
I agree with Andre that instead of condemning an athlete for testing positive for a performance-inhibiting drug that it should be figured out why they are doing it. We know why athletes take PED--but to take something that only hurts your performance? And I don't understand why everyone is blaming Andre and angry at him instead of using his admission as a lesson--see how much he sucked when he was on the stuff, see how he turned his life around when he got off of it. Why isn't that something I'm hearing? Is the media owned by the drug cartels?
And why is it Andre's fault that WADA sucks? They must be thrilled! They get to have an insane reaction to something that shouldn't be such a big deal and everyone calls it the Andre-rule. Seems to me it is the WADA-rule. He just exposed a dirty little secret. They are the ones taking advantage. Well, it was stuff like this that have formed unions for generations. Hopefully tennis players will follow suit. Wish I was a lawyer, I'd be offering up my services.
eta: Oh, but on a different note--when they showed clips (heh, pun) of the first French Open final you could totally see the bobby pins. Cracked me right up.
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Post by falafaclese on Nov 9, 2009 21:48:41 GMT
I'm getting a little surprised about the level of anger that has been expressed by some people. I get the mistrust and assumption that maybe he brought all of this out purely to sell books, I still wonder about whether there was a little bit of that when he decided to inlude that information, but I can't imagine that he was expecting adoration as a result of this. I think he wanted to come clean, and maybe he thought it would assuage some guilt for him. After watching last night, I am more inclined to see him as a guy who knows he made some bad decisions, and who, as a public figure, wanted to explain himself. There's an inherent flaw in that type of behavior in that you're asking people who don't know you and never really will, to understand some pretty complicated motivations you were affected by, but it's pretty much par for the course for public figures.
I read somewhere today that Ilie Nastase said in the press that he feels Andre should give back all his titles if he hates tennis so much. A pretty simplistic response, and one I'm not surprised would come from Nastase given the behavior I have seen from him.
I just don't see this as being that damaging to tennis as a whole. It's certainly damaging to Andre, but I can't see many people devaluing tennis as a sport because of it, especially given the hits other sports have taken over the years because of drug/doping scandals. I personally assumed even before this that there was probably drug-taking going on, particularly in the '80s and '90s. I'm just not that shocked.
ETA: I do have to say that I feel kind of bad for Brooke Shields though, the way he refers to his relationship to her is not flattering.
Damn, I missed the hairpins.
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Mpol
3rd Round
Posts: 444
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Post by Mpol on Nov 10, 2009 11:25:50 GMT
What was their relationship like? Andre's and Brooke's I mean.
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lt
Semi Finals
Posts: 3,223
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Post by lt on Nov 10, 2009 14:31:45 GMT
Oh, I agree. That was not kind. Mpol, he said in the interview that he knew the relationship was never going to work and that he knew he shouldn't get married to her. According to Down The Line the book is fascinating and everything makes more sense in context. I hope that relationship does as well. I don't know if you can see the interview since you are not in the US, but he has them linked as well. eta: Ruh roh--Fer is down a set in his first match in Paris. He needs at least this win to keep some of the people behind him at bay for the YEC. And since I FINALLY (I was getting very concerned it was a big internet scam) got my tickets last night I'm starting to get very excited but I do want to see Fer. It also concerns me that Max seems to have disappeared. He and A. Ram haven't clinched yet and Andy is playing with Knowle in Paris so I know it wasn't a team decision not to play. eta2: My goodness watching this match on live scores is stressing me out. Third set, up a break, loses it back, some break point opportunities, loses them, etc. etc. And I like Seppi. I hate not rooting for him. Meanwhile, Feli is over there stinking it up against Clement. |
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Post by breezybee on Nov 10, 2009 18:57:17 GMT
Well if you insist on playing tennis with ugly facial hair that is what happens. Little men in pink headbands beat you.
Verdasco had me worried there. He's going to have to pick up his socks if he wants to get to London.
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Post by sapienta on Nov 10, 2009 20:37:49 GMT
But why should he? It's his emotional trauma and he should be allowed to vent as he wishes. That's akin to telling a victim of abuse,"Look, I get that it was terrible now shut up about it because I don't like you."
I think the "Blame Andre" tone that's taken over now is exactly what a body like WADA wants as lt says. Why should they ever have to take responsibility when they can just turn the hive to Andre?
Also, if they can take the doping lesson from Andre, why can't the also take notes when it comes to domineering tennis parents.
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Post by acre on Nov 11, 2009 14:47:14 GMT
I take your point about "why should he" shut up? I think the whole "tell all" thing just mystifies me, I don't understand the urge or the impetus - in theory I do understand that for many people, especially public figures, it's a way to come clean so to speak, to be truthful about their lives and experiences, to no longer live with the lie, or under the burden of unrealistic expectations. But in reality I just don't get it.
And I want to clarify that I do not dislike Andre, haven't for some years. This did bring up all my old feelings of loathing for him, and triggered a pretty negative reaction on my part, but I am mellowing on this, too, as time goes on. If I was speakng anywhere but in a private forum such as this I would never have been so openly angry about him - I hold myself, and here, to a different standard than public figures.
I agree with him that performance inhibitors, recreational drugs, absolutely need to be treated diffferently. Hell, I'm an alcoholic with 22 years sobriety, I have all the sympathy and encouragement in the world for anyone fighting a smiliar battle. So here again, I totally believe in telling all and having no secrets in the appropriate settings when you're in recovery - the saying goes "you're only as sick as your secrets". Maybe it's just that I can't personally imagine the whole world as being an appropriate setting. After all, I'm not a public figure.
I still do think however, that the facts and timing of this has definitely screwed some current players and brought disrepute upon the game, I really believe that.
So I'm a bundle of mixed and contradictory feelings on this whole deal. And now I must shut up and get the hell offline, I am moving one week from today aieeeeeee, frenzy!
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Post by breezybee on Nov 11, 2009 18:01:52 GMT
What an odd, odd match between Nadal and Almagro. Almagro should have won that match and will kicking himself for a long time because of it. While I was watching, even though it seemed Almagro would win, I really never doubted that Nadal would. Not because he's raise his level of play but because I was sure Almagro would lower his. Sure enough, that's what happened.
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Post by tuckatangent on Nov 11, 2009 22:43:14 GMT
Dang, what happened to Federer? I missed the match because I assumed Federer would win. At least Nadal is through - he was scaring me for a bit.
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Post by breezybee on Nov 11, 2009 23:10:41 GMT
Nadal was definitely the worse of the two. Federer played ok but he seemed a little "not there". Benneteau was in excellent form. Nadal was playing horribly. You could tell how frustrated he was. Had he been playing just about anybody but Almagro he'd be done.
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Post by roseha on Nov 12, 2009 3:43:10 GMT
Serena was on the Daily Show last night. I just caught the end of the interview but I had to laugh when Jon Stewart begged her to just once curse him before she left.
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Post by tikigirl on Nov 12, 2009 4:47:27 GMT
I saw that too, roseha, it was pretty funny. Mainly that was down to Jon Stewart, though; I find Serena a boring interview, all giggle and no insight. Did anyone catch James Blake on Stephen Colbert a while back? If not, YouTube it; it was hysterical. I heart Colbert. ETA I couldn't find it on YouTube, but it's here. |
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Post by roseha on Nov 12, 2009 5:55:40 GMT
I saw that too tiki! I also heart Colbert! (In fact that was why I turned on the end of the Daily Show, in case Jon was going to have a "toss" to Stephen which they did that same night.) James was a good straight man in that bit. Some people would have cracked up the whole time but James managed to keep it together. Very funny segment, I loved Stephen with the long pants and then the 70s-80s type tennis outfits.
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lt
Semi Finals
Posts: 3,223
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Post by lt on Nov 12, 2009 14:14:21 GMT
AWWWW! The reason Max didn't play in Paris is because his wife had a baby. Congrats to him. See you in London!
breezy, I watched the third set of Nadal/Almagro when I got home last night. Granted, I kept dozing off but it looked like Almagro was really hurt by the end. He did the stand-up thing though and just stood there for Rafa's last game instead of retiring so Rafa could get a clean win. The commentators were being quite nasty about all of it though. Saying Almagro should be ashamed of himself and that he needed to take a long look at himself in the mirror and that if he didn't get himself in better shape he was useless. Huh? Unless I slept through something quite embarrassing by Almagro, that seems way over the top. The commentators were also quite a bit annoying with their love for Rafa. I like a little objectivity by my commentators. Never happens, but I'd like it.
eta: How great for me to be able to wake up to tennis. I'm liking TTC so far. However, I really wanted Davydenko to beat Soderling this morning. Would have clinched Davydenko and taken Soderling out of the mix for London. Now I have to watch the scoreline for Fer vs. Cilic with bated breath. And Tsongo needs to lose to Simon (I HATE rooting against guys I like, but I like Simon so that's okay and I'd always be rooting for Fer over Cilic so that's okay too). Heh, and there's Tsonga--break point on Simon's first serve game.
eta2: Fer is giving me agita.
eta3: Oh, I don't want to keep bringing this up, but I thought of something in the shower this morning (I know, sad)--Andre talking about what he did is way better than someone else talking about it. I can just imagine "Slim" needing a little cash or Brooke writing her own story about those years. Brooke has a couple of books out there so what a scoop that would have been in a memoir about more of her life than post-children. To use Navratilova's Clemens analogy (which never made sense in her context): it wasn't Clemens who outed himself, it was his supplier. That made it far, far worse--for Clemens and his fans. It was just a matter of time, Andre just beat someone to the punch.
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Post by breezybee on Nov 12, 2009 15:51:38 GMT
lt - Almagro had a cramp, not an injury and I think that's why the commentators were acting the way they were. Not that they should be excused from their remarks. I was watching on my computer and I'm not sure what feed I had (I think Eurosport) but the guys commentating on my channel didn't seem to believe Alamagro. The whole match was odd. Almagro had triple match point in the second set and just stood there for three points slapping the ball in random directions until Nadal put it away. Right then I knew there was no way Almagro was going to win.
I like Cilic but I really want Verdasco to go to London. Right now I'd like to fly to Paris and slap Verdasco upside the head. He is
terribly frustrating to watch sometimes.
I leaving for Vegas in a few hours. I'm assuming there will be a channel in the hotel that has the Paris Masters on it.
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