08:36 – I had intended to write a long article about the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attack on our country, but it’s pointless. I’ve already said everything that needs to be said. Saudi Arabia still exists. Mecca still exists. Islam still exists. Mosques still stand, even within our own borders. All of these should be just distant memories. Islam delenda est.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
5 Comments and discussion on "Sunday, 11 September 2011"
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-12/stosur-wins-us-open-final/2881166
Go Samantha! 🙂
Yes, I like Stosur well enough, but I was pulling for Serena until the flagrant unsportsmanlike behavior, which she then compounded by throwing a temper tantrum at the chair umpire. All of that was obviously intentional, intended to break Stosur’s rhythm. In my opinion, Williams should be fined her entire earnings for the tournament and be disqualified from playing in the next 10 tour events. Barbara and I were cheering Stosur from that point on, and were delighted to see her win.
Of course, as I’ve been arguing for years, the grunting and squealing is equally unsportsmanlike. If I were the chair umpire, the first time a player made an audible sound when striking a ball, I’d issue a warning. The second time, I’d dock them a point, the third a game, and the fourth the match. The rules of tennis, at least the official rules at the time I was playing, prohibit a player from doing anything to distract or unfairly disadvantage an opponent. The grunting, squealing, and sometimes literal screaming while hitting a shot is not only a distraction. It conceals the sound of that player’s racket striking the ball, which is an important piece of information.
I never have liked the Williams sisters – they always struck me as just really unpleasant people. Thugs who try to put on pleasant masks for interviews.
Threatening the umpire should have cost her the game immediately. Since the Williams have been prominent, I’ve pretty much stopped watching women’s tennis. Maybe that is finally changing…
prohibit a player from doing anything to distract or unfairly disadvantage an opponent
If both players are grunting or screaming does it really matter. Neither has an advantage at that point leveling the field it would seem. I find the grunting almost as annoying as the noise makes at the last world cup.
Yes, it does matter, and in that case both players are guilty of unsportsmanlike conduct. A player is supposed to refrain from anything that unfairly disadvantages an opponent. In fact, before tennis became a big-money sport, it was common to see a player overrule a line call to that player’s disadvantage if he believed the call had been mistaken in his favor. I routinely did that myself, for example when my opponent aced me and it was called a fault, and I’ve routinely had opponents do the same.
Incidentally, no one has commented on why Stosur won that match. Early in the match, Serena was doing very poorly, and I kept pointing out to Barbara that it wasn’t that Serena was playing poorly. Stosur was hitting the ball very deep into Serena’s court. Stosur’s groundstrokes were routinely landing well under a meter inside Serena’s baseline, rather than the more typical mid-court. As a result, Serena was on the defensive, making short returns with no angles, which Samantha was hitting winners off of.