Week 25 - Wimbledon Qualifying 2nd Round

Josh · Challenger level

RE: Week 25 - Wimbledon Qualifying 2nd Round

john · Top national player

Thelakes wrote:

Have just joined up. I have followed your posts with interest as of late. I thought this site is to support. i can see where cakj is coming from, as i can everybody else. Its just an opinion, he still supports gb, he just seems to want them to do well quickly which i am sure we all do. I now feel that if I say anything that does notinclude praise and a little bit of negativity i will be bombarded with abuse the same as he has been given. Understandably he retaliated albeit not nice but you all got what you deserve. Why cant you all just stick together somehow and just urge gb players on, even if some critisism comes into it. Think you should all send out apologies to all concerned. You know who you all are.

You know you've lost an arguement when you create a new account so it looks like someone is backing you up even though you know deep down that your new supporter is entirely ficticious.

How very very sad.

Thelakes · Newbie

John. How dare you, i dont know who cakj is, i came on here yesterday after reading whats been going off. Hopefully he will come back on but if this is how you are treated i would not blame him if not. Fortunately i am a teenage girl who will not resort to the way you all speak to each other. Actually i am quite speechless at what youre saying about us both. If cakj is on here is there no way you can report this somehow. If these are "supporters" of British tennis you can keep your site.

john · Top national player

Cak, does your wife know you're pretending to be a teenage girl on the internet?

john · Top national player

If anyone doubts these two people are both cak, look at the evidence (I'll lay long odds on all of this being coincidence)

1. They both have the EXACT same writing style. Short sentences for instance.

2. Cak has on numerous instances started posts with the name of the person he is addressing followed by a fullstop. See:

john. have lost interest on this debate because nobody....

Jack. Thankyou. Like you i support them whole heartedly....

Now from thelakes:

John. How dare you, i dont know who cakj is, i came on he....

3. Both posters copied and pasted a post they made here onto GBTG. (thelakes opening post was exactly replicated sticking up for a poster called Josh who's posts were exactly the same as cakj)

4. thelakes date of birth is 1/1/89. Possibly it truly is but looks more like a piece of rushed account making to me

5. Both use the phrase gb and both put it in lower case

6. There's other little signs everywhere in their posts. Not to mention the fact that this person signed purely to stick up for cakj and even felt the need to point out "Have just joined up" in the first post. Read through cakjs posts and then look at Thelakes, it's clearly the same person.

cakj1234 · Lower Club Player

been at work lately so not been on here but interesting to read. John im a 53 year old bloke, i do not suffer from a split personality or take on rolls of women. i really think you need to get a life if this is all you can do on here. As for my wife she died last year, thanks you bas****.

Sheddie · administrator

"cakl" and "thelakes" do have exactly the same IP address so it appears they are the same person

Cakl I can see where you are coming from, its frustrating to see the likes of Amanda E and Georgie etc lose really close matches particularly at this time of the year when there's so much at stake points wise.........however with those players they're only 19-20 so time is on their side and both have made a lot of progress in the past year. This time in 2007 they probably wouldn't have managed to make the scores that competitive. If in 1-2 yrs time, they're still losing to those opponents by the same scorelines then that would show signs of stalling

Jack, I take your point....a number of posters on here have said that they feel voiced out when posting criticism........however on this board the aim is to encourage all kinds of opinion and debate.......there are strong feelings about many of these subjects and unfortunately these debates often turn out quite heated

maybe in future the mods here (including me) need to try and help make sure that such discussions don't get overheated and resulting in posters getting p*ssed off and leaving

However we do have to remember that this site is read by a lot of players on both tours so try and keep criticism as constructive as possible

Salmon · Tennis legend

Sheddie is the man!

Can we all now please go back to normal? There's no need for anyone to leave the board. And Jack, you should come back as you contributed a lot at one point. The same goes for Cak who posted many useful things before.

With regards to criticism, you must make sure you're absolutely right with it before making any. Further, make sure that it's something constructive and not plain bashing. You must remember that many people on this board are deeply annoyed by such posts and they will fight tooth and nail to defend certain players (I am top of that list, I admit). Obviously we respect freedom of speech, but we don't respect it more than communal harmony.

Plus it hardly helps us to encourage our players (one of the primary aims of this site in my view), as the Shedman says.

Saying that Keothavong's loss at Rosmalen was bad is of course fine (although Errani did okay against Elena D) as is saying that Boggo's underperforming. But the same cannot be said for a player who's six times as good as she was last year (Elliott) or a boy playing his first Tour match after playing Juniors full time (Evans).

Just a request to everyone...

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 02:28, 2008-06-21

cakj1234 · Lower Club Player

Damn, been busted, but it was fun. Truth was didnt intend to pi** folks off, just an opinion. To set things straight i am cakj not the lakes and what i have said about cakj was the truth including my post to John. But knew it was a long shot anyway so knew i would get caught but me and kids had a laugh. some one in a past post asked me my opinion on what i think the problem is, i will give this, later am off out now so will try and do it B4 Wimbledon.
So my sincere apologies to everybody, it was only an opinion, of course i support GB tennis women always will,but would be nice to see them challenge alot more on tour events.

seagull · Hall of fame

It's fun saying your wife died??

Thanks for wasting everyones time tho..

cakj1234 · Lower Club Player

Did you not read you imbecile. She did. Cakj is me. Youre unbelievable

john · Top national player

No, you're unbelievable. You seem like a very mixed up man/girl/i have no idea.

Peter too · Tennis legend

Regarding the issue of criticising and praising our players I think this interview with Anne Keothavong is relevant. It was from January this year when she was still ranked 135 and had stagnated for several years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/7176706.stm

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Good article. We need to remember negativity and bashing can affect a player's mentality. I have always thought half of Boggo's trouble was that he was too affected by criticism.

Fair enough to criticise if somebody is just not trying, but if somebody is doing their best and that best is just not good enough, then encouragement to try to become better seems to me to be the way forward.

Happycynic · Pro player

Indeed. Positivity is a wonderful force. Only stop exuding it if the person is taking the p**s by not trying.