lol come on, just comment away, even my Chinese friend's bashing Sharapova, most of the posters here are bashing her except Teddy. so you want me to do the same? or make comments like those pure class tennisfrontier posters like
"no one likes her except for a few ruskies like Sveta,Makarova and Vesnina,,hope they heckle her when she plays in the USA like they did to Sveta."
So as i saw you took your hat off to a lame hacker with flawed technique like Jenny Butcher and praised her for wanting to ban for life one of the greatest ones of women's tennis? so lame hackers can vulture the GSs even more easily? lol!!!!!
However, i can do nothing against this. These political activists and blind fanboys/girls have overrun the tennis world... i saw a guy on tennis.com saying ban Nastase (another great old one and a pioneer of tennis) for life otherwise he stops watching tennis where he's present lol!!!! Great tennis fans
But say what you want, i mean i've seen it all and heard it all, i'm just posting and commenting away too.... The pusher girls' toilet club's aim is clear too..... They just want to get rid of a superior player who stands in the way of their GS dreams...... the talk about cheating and what the kids think and role model crap is just that, crap... they are just defending their interests and trying to make life easier for themselves....
I think the Sharapova/PED thing is more complicated than an anti-Russian conspiracy and just plain jealousy from other players. I think there is more than one conversation/question here...
1) Was she banned fairly?
2) Was the drug for performance enhancement or medicinal purposes?
3) Did she deliberately cheat?
4) Was the ban the correct length of time?
5) Should she get wildcards into a main draw / Preferential treatment?
6) Should other players shut their mouths?
1) Was she banned fairly?
WADA issued notice that Meldonium was going to be banned in April 2016 - it's not like Team Sharapova had an unexpected dawn raid in the middle of the night without a warning. There was plenty of notice - all published.
That said, I have no problem with Sharapova using it until it was banned, and her slam count is all well and good. All players will use whatever means... and that's fine if they're within the legal limits of the sport.
However, she was given plenty of notice that this was going on the banned list. She admitted using it after the deadline (through ignorance).
If she was "let off" then that would have sent out a message - a huge message that top players are bigger than the rulebook. The stink would have been far worse than banning Maria Sharapova.
It was a fair cop IMO.
2) Was the drug for performance enhancement or medicinal purposes?
I know you don't think it's more performance enhancing than Vitamin C, but I'd ask why so many athletes were using it if it had little more effect than a placebo? Sports "scientists" will figure out all these marginal benefits before these drugs become widely used.
I didn't believe a word of Sharapova's presser when she said she'd been taking it as a precaution against diabetes/heart problems... the stuff's only supposed to be prescribed in small stretches covering weeks, not ten years. It was for performance enhancement... no doubt about it.
3) Did she deliberately cheat?
I would assume that she didn't deliberately cheat. Some will say she was cheating for years. I don't agree - players will and do take anything legal to get an edge. If it's legal at the time - it's fair game. Sharapova didn't cheat for a decade - she played the system. So does everybody else. However, if WADA decide a drug should go on the banned list, then athletes should obviously take notice and stop using.
I suspect it was an oversight by Sharapova... but ignorance isn't a defence, or everybody would just plead ignorance.
The fuzzy area for me was the implication that her team didn't know she was even taking it.
Anyway, benefit of the doubt for Masha on this.
I've read talk of an anti-Russian conspiracy for the reasons that the drug was banned - but on that basis, I'd suggest looking up drugs that were banned over the last few years. You'll find most weren't manufactured in the soviet states. I think the Russians have a got a bad shake in some other areas - like blanket bans based on the nationality rather than individuals failing tests (unacceptable IMO) but that's another conversation.
4) Was the ban the correct length of time?
If you went strictly by the rulebook - she should really have got 4 years. 2 was a compromise and 1.5 was a further compromise. The ban length wasn't unfair. I'd suggest who she was worked in her favour, not against her.
5) Should she get wildcards into a main draw / preferential treatment?
I don't have a particularly strong opinion about it, but I'd edge towards no - based on the circumstances of her absence. If she'd been injured, then yes.
I get the business side of it, and all these tournaments have to make money. I understand why she's getting preferential treatment and I read the commentary on Tennis-Prose too about the ability of rinky dink tournaments to accommodate her. I'd prefer another compromise - that she gets wildcards into the qualies. There won't be any problems with tournament infrastructure.
6) Should other players shut up?
I don't see why they should curtail their responses. So, it's OK for media hacks and posters around the web to voice strong opinions, but a grand slam finalist and two time grand slam semi final player Eugenie Bouchard who plays the same tournaments should just shut her mouth?
Doesn't make sense to me. I don't see why a player who has already achieved more on a tennis court than the other 99.999% of other people commenting on it can't have her say. You might not agree with it what she says, but she's entitled to an opinion.
