Something is rotten in the state of sport

Wow, thanks for posting these. I hadn't heard about a single one of them.

Makes me so depressed though.

 

As far as Football goes it is almost like the commissioner is using a dart board to determine the penalties as half of them make no sense or have a at his discretion clause making penalties/suspensions/fines variable.

 

bureaucracy...

 

I am going to stick up for Serena here. She did make a threat which is clearly not good but that she threatened to kill the line judge is a factual error according to both the line judge herself and the tape recording, she did not actually threaten to kill the woman.

I am again not trying to say that that what Serena did was right but that call which was made against her especially at that critical time in the match was unclear and should probably not have been made and I can see how she could get very angry over that. This is the reason why other tennis players have not spoken out against Serena, they understand and would probably be just as angry and worst if such a call was made against them.

As a person who follows tennis closely I can tell you that I have been at tournaments where the whole crowd (except her family) was either unsupportive of Serena or just downright abusive and she has kept her cool and conducted herself with dignity through all that over the years. Then both herself and her sister hardly ever challenge calls made against them even when a fair minded person watching on would seriously wonder what is behind some of the extremely dubious calls made against them.

She did understandably lose her temper on one occasion, this is very uncharacteristic for her and goes against her general on court character and long-term reputation, in fact, she has long been known as someone with a reputation for being "serene". She is a good role in many ways for young underprivileged girls, they (she and her sister) have come from nothing worked hard and achieved much. You have never seen her falling out of a bar high with her skirt over her head or testing positive for drugs and producing some stupid alibi. She does much for charity and both her and her sister are always seeking to educated themselves and develop a focus much wider than tennis.

Frankly, I think they have long irritated a huge section of the stuck-up white tennis world and some in the sports media like to stir up prejudice against them by labelling them arrogant and so forth when if they were men they would be seen as having healthy self confidence and self belief. I think in this case, all things considered, her punishment is fair and adequate, she has apologized to the lines woman involved and I think now she must be forgiven and the incident somewhat forgotten.

 

Well if we are going to focus closely on how the tennis ball down the throat scenario I will say that it does not seem anatomically possible to get a tennis ball down another person's throat therefore there would be no need for any gills or anything like that . The ball is unlikely to get much further than the buccal cavity and therefore the lines woman would still be able to breathe through her nose and so she would probably not be killed. I suppose though that the lines woman could lose a couple teeth in the attempt to have the ball shoved down her throat and she could choked on her own teeth and die I guess lol.

No doubt Clijisters was outplaying Serena and probably would have won eventually even without the incident but you must remember that Serena has come back from match point and hopeless looking situations before... granted I do not think this would have been one of those situations but it is impossible to know for sure now. Serena has lost big matches quite badly before and did not behave like that, I believe that the circumstances under which she lost this particular match was more difficult for her to deal with and hence her reaction.

I agree with you, it is disgraceful that the technology is not applied to its fullest. It is important that the perception of fairness in tennis is not needlessly compromised and if technology exists which can prevent this then it should be used. Anyway, it is always great to make contact with a fellow tennis fan and I hope to see Kim do well at the upcoming Australian Open with no incident to detract from her successful return to tennis.