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Sesil Karatantcheva banned for two years Flu bug rages Down Under, Roddick cracks associations It's been a hectic few days of news reports … little of it positive. On Wednesday, Bulgarian teen Sesil Karatantcheva was banned for two years for doping, Kim Clijsters suffered another hip injury – her second in the last eight months – and Andy Roddick suggested the establishment of an independent player body (apparently outside of the ATP). Karatantcheva – just 16 years old – became the first Top-50 women's player to be been banned for a long stretch for a performance-enhancing drug. An independent anti-doping tribunal ruled that samples provided by the Florida-based player at Roland Garros and out of competition in Tokyo in July had tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone. The three-man tribunal heard the case over two days in London last month and rejected Karatantcheva's defense, which apparently (although the documents aren't available yet) included an explanation that reason for the high level of nandrolone in her system was because she was pregnant. She said she then had a miscarriage. A pregnancy test carried out by a French lab on the player's urine sample was negative, L'Equipe reported. The ban rules the teenager out until Jan. 1, 2008. But, she does have three weeks to appeal. "It's really very unpleasant. She is an exceptional talent and in my opinion two years is a very harsh punishment," Bulgarian Olympic Committee chairwoman Stefka Kostadinova told Reuters. If 15-year-old girls are now doping, exactly what will women tennis players look like in the future … Romanian gymnasts? Roddick cracks associations "For every person that says 'We are not healthy,' there's another guy who says, 'Hey, we need those two weeks at the end of the year for prize money.' So, it's kind of tough to get everyone on the same page," said Roddick, no stranger to playing exos during the off-season. "The ITF, the Davis Cup, the Grand Slams … they're all different entities and you'd think that they would want to work together for the greater good. But, they each want their little slice of the pie and they're not willing to give that up. As (with) most things, it comes down to business and dollars and cents as opposed to common logic as to what should be the best for the game. I don't think it takes a brain surgeon to figure out why people are getting hurt." Roger Federer took a different tack. "We all think it's the tour in the end, he said. "I don't quite agree with it because it's been like this for years and years and years ... But I think if you're playing carefully, and you're fit, you shouldn't have too many injuries, because you can always plan if you want to play more or less." Both me are right. The ITF – with the backing of the Slams – thinks that its competitions are too valuable to reduce the number of days on which they are held; so they won't budge. Just try talking to an ITF official about reducing the Davis Cup schedule and see what kind of response you get (But, it's the most popular team competition in the world!). Or, ask whether the Slams should go down to 64-draw and play for 10 days, rather than expanding to 15 days, like RG will do. A stone-faced glare is the best you can hope for. And the tours? They say they are international and must keep expanding into new markets. You can't do that and reduce the schedule. So, they continue to expand, but occasionally try to chip off a week of play once in a while with little success. Then, they hard designate tournaments – all the men's Masters Series, and in a huge show of East Coast, home office bias, the WTA tabbed Miami – instead of splitting up the stars at the various Tier Is tournaments. Then, they fib about whether there is an epidemic of injuries, which has a fact for two years now. And the players? How big of a list of exo participants
do you want? How many players have cried out for the off-season to begin
and then went out and played more, such as Clijsters, Roddick, the Williamses,
Maria Sharapova, etc. Sure, they aren't pushing themselves hard in hit-and-giggle
matches, but they are still competing, just like Roddick did the week
before he pulled out of Shanghai, like Serena and Venus did after they
pulled out of Sony Ericcson WTA Tour Championships, like Maria did in
Japan with a sore shoulder. Like Fed said, they have to be more conscious
of their own bodies and what over playing does to them.
Flu bug rages Down Under Clijsters' injury was the third withdrawal in
the women's draw with Nadia Petrova straining her groin and Dani Hantuchova
suffering gastroenteritis – likely possibly the same stomach flu
that is affecting Lleyton Hewitt and now has struck David Nalbandian in
Melbourne. If those three have the same bug, expect others at Sydney and
then the AO to catch it. Wash your hands, young players. Svetlana Kuznetsova scored another solid win, bearing Ana Ivanovic 7-6(3), 6-3. Kuzy will face Justine Henin-Hardenne, whom defeated her at RG as the Russian gagged. Had she won that match, Kuznetsova may have never slumped in 2005. If she beats JH-H in Sydney, consider her slump over. In men's play, Hewitt wasted Jurgen Melzer 6-1, 6-4 to reach the quarters, where the four-time Medibank International champ will face Italian qualifier Andreas Seppi. Melbourne's Peter Luczak put up a tough fight but Igor Andreev got the best of him 6-7(6), 7-6(5), 7-6(6). "It was a close one. I had chances – serving for it in the second set, and I had a couple of match points in the third. He's 26 in the world, I'm 150, so normally you don't get that close," said Luczak. Andreev will play Dmitry Tursunov, who defeated
France's Florent Serra, 7-6(3) 6-2. Nikolay Davydenko moved past Agustin
Calleri 6-4, 7-6(4). In Auckland, defending champion Fernando Gonzalez,
Nicolas Massu, David Ferrer and Mario Ancic are still alive. © TennisReporters.net 2006 |
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