Shrieky grass wildcards.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Shrieky grass wildcards.

indiana · Tennis legend

Relevant including scale of offense.

If Mr Fuller is making some direct correlation, more fool he.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

WTA look poor, the French stance and rationale is spot on.

JonH · All-time great

Fair points all, agreed. On the RG website it is interesting - they have a chat discussion thing on the article on the wild cards - howls of derision against the FFT from Sharapova fanatics!

blob · All-time great

Steve Simon, Ben Rothenberg, and many others all painting this as a punishment for Sharapova, that she has been denied her rights somehow.
Rothenberg phrasing it as, "Extraordinary moment for tennis. Maria Sharapova, currently oddsmakers' second favorite to WIN the French Open, not given chance to compete."
She does not have a sufficiently high ranking to enter a tournament, and so has not entered it. How is that an extraordinary moment for tennis? It happens every week, in every tournament.
She was given ample opportunity to qualify for that tournament by having preferential treatment to entry in to three other tournaments - none of which she had a sufficiently high ranking to enter on merit.
Her performances on court in those three prestige events that she entered not on merit of her ranking, were not good enough to earn her entry in to this fourth tournament.
She was not given a fourth round of preferential treatment.
We have never had a multiple GS champion on the WTA get banned for doping violations before, so it is a bit unprecedented, as she hoovers up WC on request (demand). The rule seems to be that you request WC everywhere you care to, and the assumption is that you will get all of them.
She has not been denied a chance to compete, she has been given opportunities to compete that no other player in similar circumstances has ever had.
It is not the fault of Roland Garros or the FFT that the date of her return left her with only 4 weeks to qualify. They did not dictate when she was doping, or negligent. It could have come at any time in the year. Just having a few weeks to qualify for a GS is her fault, by virtue of negligence and getting a ban - that ban reduced to even allow the possibility of qualification for Roland Garros. She took her chance to appeal the initial judgement, as is her right (again, which therefore were not deinied), and got a reduction. WADA/ITF could not appeal that second ruling as the system simply does not permit it, and so the reduction stands, and has been served, at net benefit to the player, who exercised her rights.
Indeed, Stuttgart organised their entire schedule around her to qualify her for an additional tournament by giving her preferential scheduling weeks ahead of time. allowing her to compete in that first possible week on the technicality, of the wording of the rules rather than the spirit of them, and the quirk of Stuttgart following a Fed Cup week, and so having first round play on Wednesday. Any other week and/or tournament, and she would have had only Madrid & Rome through which to qualify.
She's had more than enough help already to resume the livelihood that she, and she alone, jeopardised through her actions.
She plays again, having served her reduced ban, as is her right. Anything else is preferential treatment, to which she, or anyone, is not entitled. No matter their history.
The WC is in the gift of the tournament and it's organisers. We could do away with them altogether, and then she would not be competing: because she is not qualified.
She, somewhat uniquely, was given the chance to plead her case directly for a WC. This is not afforded to all those who would want a WC to MD or qualifying; they can make no such special and direct presentation. It is more preferential treatment. She had that chance, made her case, and it was politely rejected. Extraordinarily the tournament has to come out and give justification to it's decision not to award a WC to a player who is not qualified to enter their tournament. Even though the terms of entry on merit are completely transparent and understood. This player somehow gets a triple round of preferential treatment, and that is still not enough and somehow still consitiutes a denial of that to which she was entitled.

How has she been denied anything, or punished? Because the wording of the announcement that she would not receive a WC suggested upholding a clear anti-doping message as part of the reason? I suppose her surrogates in the WTA and the press (qv), and her fans will pretend that is the sole reason that this decision was made, and say that is unfair, as she has 'served her time'.
In counter, as detailed, there is no right she has to a WC, and she has hardly been unfairly treated throughout her ban or her period upon return. Unless the position is that she should be given WC every time a request is made, then there is no case. If you do believe she should get every WC she wishes, then that is somthing to litigate with the framers of the rules of the tour and GS events. Strangely enough, those rule makers had not had foresight sufficient to put in a clause about WC provision for former GS champions returning after drug suspensions. Perhaps they did not think such an occasion would arise.

Just play the game.

Etienne · Club Coach

Hear hear.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

chavkev wrote:
Neither MDWC or QWC. Guy Forget has taken a courageous decision. Even Jeremy Bates might have forgiven him now.

Now let's see whether Philip Brook, Andrew Jarrett & Tim Henman can put on a similar display of backbone!

the addict · Tennis legend

Well said blob, my sentiments entirely

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

That is some top ranting from Blob there. and as for the content - can't argue with that at all. Well said Blob.

Jan · Hall of fame

Wow Blob, you hit all the nails on the head there!
Excellent - should be compulsory reading for all journalists!
(I was about to post that she wasn't being penalised, just not getting preferential treatment.)

indiana · Tennis legend

Some excellent points, blob, though ultimately it is the case that she hasn't got a WC because of her doping. Her current ranking is basically due to her doping suspension time away so it really all comes back to that.

Any legitimate reason away from competition and back seriously competing and in pretty decent form and she would undoubtably have got one, been given understandable preferential treatment given her previous exploits.

I don't see anyone here with a problem re her doping suspension being the issue, just let's not steer away from that fact.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 17th of May 2017 01:15:23 PM

blob · All-time great

indiana wrote:
[...]
Any legitimate reason away from competition and back competing and she would undoubtably have got one, been given understandable preferential treatment given her previous exploits.

I don't see anyone here with a problem re her doping suspension being the issue, just let's not steer away from that fact.

A tangent based on Indiana's response above follows, not tennis related, so I've put it behind the spoiler to avoid clogging the thread.:

Spoiler

I tried to deal in the facts of how she has not been denied her due, and not make presumptions, or (too much) opinion based interpretation of facts. I was not entirely successful.
However, the statement above (highlighted) is different, it is supposition. It may indeed have been true. It is also entirely unprovable. This course of events did not happen. Therefore, it may equally have not been true (zero vs zero). We can't know.
There is no equivalency between actual events, and things which one can imagine could have happened or could have been true.
The imaginary scenario allows one to claim anything, and being entirely hypothetical, can not be refuted. This is all the more troublesome when the statement has at least a possibility of truth to it. For example: If Hillary Clinton had won the US election, America would undoubtedly have been in the midst of a second Civil War by now. How do you categorically disprove that? Well, with events, you look at what transpired and measure it against the claim. With an imagined scenario, there is nothing real to compare it to. It's a possibility, certainly, perhaps even a probability. That is not the same as a fact, and should not be offered up as counterweight to one.
You cannot weigh an idealised theoretical scenario against reality; something which legal systems have long understood, and guarded against.
The court of public opinion, of course, has no such burden and logical fallacies are free to flourish.
It leads to the sort of circular unproductive argument with which many may be familiar.

This is one of the spaces in which the idea of 'fake news' takes hold and is most easily perpetuated.

philwrig · Hall of fame

I do wonder whether she would have been treated differently if she had have been popular with her peers, she obviously did dope, but there does seem to be alot of folk revelling in putting her down.

I do think that the French were right not to give her a MDWC, and I'm pretty certain Wimby will follow suit. Assuming she does qualify at Wimby, our journos are bound to give her no end of tough questioning and negative stories. I for one think she is one of the real stars on the WTA tour, and if she didn't shriek I might enjoy her tennis a bit more, and we'll never know how much difference doping did make to her tennis results.

indiana · Tennis legend

blob wrote:
indiana wrote:
[...]
Any legitimate reason away from competition and back competing and she would undoubtably have got one, been given understandable preferential treatment given her previous exploits.

I don't see anyone here with a problem re her doping suspension being the issue, just let's not steer away from that fact.
A tangent based on Indiana's response above follows, not tennis related, so I've put it behind the spoiler to avoid clogging the thread.:
Spoiler
I tried to deal in the facts of how she has not been denied her due, and not make presumptions, or (too much) opinion based interpretation of facts. I was not entirely successful.
However, the statement above (highlighted) is different, it is supposition. It may indeed have been true. It is also entirely unprovable. This course of events did not happen. Therefore, it may equally have not been true (zero vs zero). We can't know.
There is no equivalency between actual events, and things which one can imagine could have happened or could have been true.
The imaginary scenario allows one to claim anything, and being entirely hypothetical, can not be refuted. This is all the more troublesome when the statement has at least a possibility of truth to it. For example: If Hillary Clinton had won the US election, America would undoubtedly have been in the midst of a second Civil War by now. How do you categorically disprove that? Well, with events, you look at what transpired and measure it against the claim. With an imagined scenario, there is nothing real to compare it to. It's a possibility, certainly, perhaps even a probability. That is not the same as a fact, and should not be offered up as counterweight to one.
You cannot weigh an idealised theoretical scenario against reality; something which legal systems have long understood, and guarded against.
The court of public opinion, of course, has no such burden and logical fallacies are free to flourish.
It leads to the sort of circular unproductive argument with which many may be familiar.
This is one of the spaces in which the idea of 'fake news' takes hold and is most easily perpetuated.

OK, I replace "undoubtably" by "in my opinion extremely likely, not that we could ever know for sure".

I'd hope that it doesn't get habit that general phrases like that are so legalistically argued with in the forum, when in essence I suspect ( not that I can in any way prove this ) that most folk would accept my initial post on face value. Or at most maybe just said well we don't know for absolute sure, but ... Though maybe you are just practising your debating skills, and you helpfully did hide it away ( I'm not so clever ).

Entertaining waffle though

Sim · County player

Sharapova signs 2 year Birmingham deal. I assume this was a condition of this year's WC??

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/39967123