From this week's mailbag:
On Reeshie and the uber harsh WADA rules:
On Serena's "arrogance" and "lack of class":
Some of the blame here lies with the players. For all their vocal
indignation about blue clay courts and mandatory video shoots and a
dozen other petty annoyances, where's the outrage over a drug policy
that triggers a two-year penalty for recreational drugs? And I blame
the tours, too. They essentially signed off on the WADA code and
delegated testing to the ITF for economic reasons -- Wait, you'll pick
up the tab? Sweet! -- without giving full consideration to the effects.
On Serena's "arrogance" and "lack of class":
So many of you were outraged over her "lack of class" and
"gracelessness," and that's fine. But where's the outrage over players
who are afraid of the moment, who buckle under pressure, who fail
upward, who can't summon their best when it matters most, the real test
of an athlete? Ana Ivanovic wins the French and has scarcely been heard from since. An almost unwatchably nervous Dinara Safina wins three games in the last Grand Slam final. Time and again Svetlana KuznetsovaElena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova fail to deliver in the big matches. Jelena Jankovic
has regressed in 2008. OK, the two aren't mutually exclusive, but I'd
rather have an impolitic athlete with Serena's track record than a
pleasant one who can't win.
