All England Lawn Tennis Championship 2014

Sport
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[QUOTE=“tazdedub, post: 971777, member: 312”]Federer on the other hand picks up an award by the ATP For his fairness on court for the 9th time.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/news/tennis/2013/moet-atp-awards/2013-atp-awards-federer.aspx[/QUOTE]

His bitterness towards Roger Federer knows no bounds. A discussion on Nadal and Djokovic’s respective 2nd round matches at the Championship over the past few days and he goes off on a tangent wading in to have a swipe at Federer, (who has been selected by his fellow players no less than 9 times as the fairest player on court) making outrageous and unfounded allegations of cheating over some nothing incident that happened in a mickey mouse tournament on the muck in Madrid in 2011.

82

And “preparation”.

83

The women tennis players are complaining at wimbledon because of the all white rule. It means some of the players not in the top ranking have had to go braless. Pity they couldnt have gotten a better example than Naomi Broady for show this. :frowning:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/wimbledon-women-forced-to-go-braless-due-to-allwhite-rule-clampdown-30389015.html

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[QUOTE=“tazdedub, post: 971960, member: 312”]The women tennis players are complaining at wimbledon because of the all white rule. It means some of the players not in the top ranking have had to go braless. Pity they couldnt have gotten a better example than Naomi Broady for show this. :frowning:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/wimbledon-women-forced-to-go-braless-due-to-allwhite-rule-clampdown-30389015.html[/QUOTE]

That’s one of the most bizarre articles I’ve ever read.

85

Indeed.

Brad Gilbert’s book ‘Winning Ugly’ is a very insightful read and spends a good bit of time on the thorny subject of gamesmanship. Gilbert refers to Lendl going into turtle time when behind, taking an age over every point. Connors & McEnroe were notorious for it as well. Compare the pace at which Federer and Borg played the game, then compare Lendl, Connors, McEnroe and Nadal. Each one of the latter group slows the game right down to put off the opponent. Umpire are to blame as well, they have always been completely gutless in not doing enough to stamp out it out. Dock a few points or a game and that would cut it out pretty quickly.

Some take the view that time wasting is cheating, others that it is not, I’m in the former camp. Fake injury timeouts are most definitely cheating. Look at Wawrinka’s initial reaction to Nadal’s injury timeout in the Australian Open. He absolutely blew a gasket. After the match he expressed the view that he felt Nadal was probably injured. The initial reaction was instructive though. The Wawrinka camp were clearly expecting Nadal to pull a stunt if he fell behind. Those commentators that condemned Wawrinka for losing his cool should have called Nadal on his long record of time wasting and gamesmanship.

An other unsavoury aspect to tennis is illegal coaching. Maria Sharapova has always been at it in the women’s game and again Nadal is the leading exponent of it in the men’s game. Uncle Toni should not be allowed attend matches due to blatant coaching.

86

It’s more operation puerto that put me off his completely, and his surprise return to form after the blood bags were destroyed.

87

Good win for Murray and djokovic today.

88

Andy is playing exceptionally well. Looks like he’ll be facing Dimitrov in the quarters.

Berdych the big casualty today, losing in straight sets to Cilic. Novak will be facing Tsonga in the last 16 on Monday. He demolished him at the same stage at the French Open, but Novak doesn’t look quite himself so far and I wouldn’t entirely rule out a shock there.

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Kukushkin who is playing Nadal seems like an arsehole, fist pumping after he wins every point. He’s playing quite well, he’s been very aggressive and is hitting very well but this is bound to run out at some stage.

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Kukushkin who is playing Nadal seems like an arsehole, fist pumping after he wins every point. He’s playing quite well, he’s been very aggressive and is hitting very well but this is bound to run out at some stage.

91

Kukushkin takes the first set in a tie break, Rafa a bit out of sorts but Kukushkin playing very well. I think every player raises their game to another level when facing Nadal as they know they need to.

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Sounds like another player I can think of.

93

Andy Murray?

94

Sad to report the type of news that will trouble all tennis lovers. One of the competitors in the Gentleman Singles competition has brought the game into the gravest of disrepute with his disgraceful behaviour.

Fabio Fognini slammed Wimbledon’s traditions after crashing out at SW19, claiming the All England Club banned him from show courts because of his fiery temper.

The unrepentant Italian refused to curb his hot-headed approach in the wake of his five-set defeat to 20th seed Kevin Anderson on Friday.

The 16th seed questioned Wimbledon bosses’ decision to schedule his clash with South African Anderson on Court Number 17, suggesting his first-round fine for threatening officials was to blame.

Fognini was fined ÂŁ27,500 for abusing official Wayne McEwen in his first-round victory over American Alex Kuznetsov.

‘I think so, yeah, but it doesn’t matter,’ said Fognini when asked if his third-round clash should have been on a bigger court.

'They make the schedule and it doesn’t matter.

'It’s strange because in the first round against a qualifier I play on Court Number 18 - today I am 16 and he is 20 and we play on Court 17.

'But I don’t really care.

'It can be difficult to play on these courts. I would want to play on a better court, for sure.

'It’s not my fault. The organisation makes the decision and that’s it.

'I don’t know if a bigger crowd would have helped me.

'On a better court of course you can have challenges and review points, when you don’t agree with the decision or the chair.

But we play on 17, and that’s it.’

Admitting he cannot change his hot-blooded style, he said: ‘I will always be the same - sorry guys.’

Rangy South African Anderson saw off Fognini 4-6 6-4 2-6 6-2 6-1, with the Italian admitting in the final set he simply wanted his misery to be complete.

Asked why he rushed a service game trailing 5-0 in the final set, Fognini said: ‘I thought if I played one more game I would be in the shower.’

Confirming he will not contest his fine from the first round, Fognini said he enjoyed his tennis in SW19 - but not the All England Club’s regulations.

‘I’ve really enjoyed it this year because I made the third round,’ he said.

'Also because of the years before I always come here with a lot of memories.

'I like it here because I’m really fast so I can run really well.

'The only things I don’t like are the rules, Wimbledon’s rules; the white colour.

'Today I crashed the racquets against my knee because the court is really soft and I can damage it a lot.

‘It’s true I haven’t had a happy time. But if we’re talking about tennis, I really enjoy that, but the other stuff, I say no.’

Big-serving Anderson admitted Fognini’s temper could have been to blame for their clash’s lowly scheduling.

‘You’re not sure what you’re going to get,’ he said of facing Fognini.

'I guess that’s the reason we were out on Court 17.

'It lived up to what I thought it was going to be like, a lot of talking

'Personally I just think that’s the way he copes with some of the stress of being out on the tour.

‘Regardless of what’s going on you have to play and beat him. I did expect that a little going into the match, so I definitely felt a bit more prepared to deal with it.’

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Fognini is a legend and right. Wimbledon probably seething after he destroyed Murray in the Davis Cup.

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Fognini is a journeyman who has never made it beyond the 3rd round of the Championship and indeed in his entire career has only made it to the 4th round of a Grand Slam on one occasion, at this year’s Australia Open. You earn the right to play on the showcourts. What did Fognini expect that Andy Murray or Novak Djokovic were going to play out on Court 18 and he was going to be on centre court? Yesterday, you had a mouth watering contest between the 2002 gentleman’s champion Lleyton Hewitt and last year’s semi finalist Jerzy Janowicz and it didn’t even make it on to the show courts, it was played on Court 2. You didn’t hear Hewitt or Janowicz complaining. Both of them understand the values of the Championship and its workings.

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I can understand his anger about games being held on the showcourts because some Brits ranked outside the top 100 are regularly staged there. Fognini is a great character, a highly skilled player and he smashed Andy Murray in a game of huge importance. I reckon the big wigs at Wimbledon were doing everything they could to stop this happening again.

98

Stop what happening again? Are you seriously suggesting if Fognini had made it to the second week of a Grand Slam for only the 2nd time in his underwhelming career that he would have dethroned the reigning champion Andy Murray?

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Fognini is a fucking disgrace with his carry on and doesn’t deserve to be on a show court.

Am thinking of putting a couple of quid on wozniacki to win the women’s. She is playing well and quietly winning her matches, I think she could sneak in and win it.

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[QUOTE=“tazdedub, post: 973138, member: 312”]
Am thinking of putting a couple of quid on wozniacki to win the women’s. She is playing well and quietly winning her matches, I think she could sneak in and win it.[/QUOTE]

Fucking Wozniacki, thank fuck I didn’t put any money on her.