Tennis 2012

[PeterWithesShin]

A lack of intent when you're negligently reckless is no defence. He may not have intended to injure the line judge but it was obvious that if he kicked the panel with that much force he'd follow through in to the line judges leg.

The guy's clearly a dick.

No, he was clearly very frustrated and took it out on the nearest object, in this case an advertising hoarding. Ever played sport? Never got annoyed whilst playing sport? If the line judge hadn't have inadvertently got in the way it would have been a code violation and at the most a one game penalty.
Did someone say life ban?!

Inadvertently got in the way? The judge didn't move from his chair.

Yes I did. Partly because he seems to think he shouldn't even have been disqualified. Mainly because I am sick of petulant sportsmen ans women.

[Dave Cooper please]

Petulance (or maybe passion?) is part of the game. Take the passion out of sport and you lose a lot of the appeal. He has since apologised, and he was rightly chucked out of the match, personally that's punishment enough for me. He doesn't have a history of this sort of thing anyway, it was a one-off strop.

[Ad@m]

You can have passion without violence.  What happened to self control?

I still havent seen an apology from him - just him ranting at the ATP. And as for form, he's renowned for throwing his racket around on court and earlier this year he threw a bottle of water over a drugs tester.

A life ban would be over the top but I think to just lose the current match for violent assault is nowhere near punishment enough.

[PeterWithesShin]

Petulance (or maybe passion?) is part of the game. Take the passion out of sport and you lose a lot of the appeal. He has since apologised, and he was rightly chucked out of the match, personally that's punishment enough for me. He doesn't have a history of this sort of thing anyway, it was a one-off strop.

I have no problem at all with passion in any sport, annoys the feck out of me how players can't celebrate goals with fans for example. However, there is a massive difference between passion and throwing a strop and injuring someone. By banning them for life it would probably stop anyone else doing it and potentially injuring someone else. I also look at the extreme scenario in cases like this, what if the hoarding had broken up and blinded the fella for example.
Must admit if I had my way i'd clamp down massively on a lot of things in sport, simply to make it a deterrent. A lot of it stems from Keane getting away with that challenge. Not saying my way is right but it's how i'd do it.

And I'm not a big tennis fan so wouldn't have a clue if he has any previous, although Ad@m's post seems to suggest he does.

[Louzie0]

If his actions resulted in somebody being injured - which they did - then he's disqualified.  End of, not a life ban or how will he learn to behave differently?
He didn't directly attack the line judge with his racquet.  He was just acting like a complete plonker.

[ADVILLAFAN]

I come on this thread expecting to see young lovelies like Maria Kirilenko only to find you all talking about a men's tennis match.

For shame.

[UK Redsox]

I come on this thread expecting to see young lovelies like Maria Kirilenko only to find you all talking about a men's tennis match.

For shame.

Sorry, I was away when the French Open was on. Therefore, I was unable to provide the expected level of Maria coverage.

Maria Redsox was knocked out in the first round, so here's a classic 2009 pic to cheer us all up.



OH, and congrats to the other Maria on winning

[UK Redsox]

Wimbledon Round 1 for Maria Redsox is today against Alexandra Cadantu 





In other news, Maria auditions for a job at The Playboy Club

[peter w]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Maria.

She's mine.

[UK Redsox]

ESPN are doing their freaky "Pong-Cast" again

http://espn.go.com/tennis/courtcast

[ADVILLAFAN]

I was just going to ask if the pong thingy was back

Cheers UKR

[Rotterdam]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/18595550

Some clunge here...

[UK Redsox]

Today sees Maria face Lourdes Dominguez Lino, who is apparently already stunned by Maria's beauty

[ADVILLAFAN]

Lisicki and Ivanovic bot on court now - yum! 

[UK Redsox]

Safely through to round three