posted Nov 1, 2007

My heart bled for Davydenko today. It was clear to me he got the yips. He's never been proven guilty of wrong doing and all this 'not trying hard enough' nonsense and previous allegation is getting to him. You may not like his tennis, but he is one of the hardest workers on the tour and appears to be a nice understated guy. The umpire was out of order and patronising - disgraceful. I agree with the matter of fact analysis of Peter Fleming, he knows what he's talking about [Fleming admitted to having the yips himself and how easy it was to lose confidence and start panicking].

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 1, 2007

Davydenko plays hard in the important tourneys - I'd be amazed if he were to throw a masters series match.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 1, 2007

The umpire should umpire. period. Else all players should be allowed to legitimately question the effort put in by officials on over-rules (magic eye or otherwise) without the risk of warnings. I fear that this guys career could now be finished, unless he gets the right mental coaching.

Anyway, it could be worse for him - he could have been caught with "line" problems of a different variety!

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 2, 2007

This is ridiculous, the umpire should shut the hell up.

If you're going to bet on a tennis match you sure as .... aren't going to bet on Davydenko.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 2, 2007

This all seems somewhat ridiculous. Davydenko has never had the greatest of serves anyway, and now under pressure its just collapsed. Did Henman ever get this sort of abuse when his second serve disappeared under pressure? No.

The serve is the only point of the game that you have complete control of, but equally tends to be the first part of your game to collapse under pressure, because all the pressures on you and you have time to think about what you're doing. The ball toss goes, the body isnt quite moving as one, you're making contact with the ball a bit to high or low, you're snatching at it, etc etc. There are so many ways it can go wrong....and yet when you go and practice the next day its working perfectly because there's no pressure.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 2, 2007

I do feel sorry for Davydenko, but the people suggesting there's maybe no real problem with match fixing are living in a dream world.

Everyone knows that match fixing is a MAJOR issue in tennis, but no-one wants to admit it point-blank.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 3, 2007

What about Goran? I saw him 'tank' loads of matches. He played Santoro once and when Santoro was serving at match point Goran was walking to the net before Santoro had hit the ball. Anyway if you were throwing a match then you would maybe lose 7-5,6-4 and not 6-2,6-2.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 3, 2007

Davydenko isn't stupid enough to throw away matches 3 tournaments in a row (something like that) when he's under suspicion.

I agree that match fixing is a real problem, and that's because no-one could really know how serious it is.

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 4, 2007

I have been involved with tennis as a professional player and professional coach for over 30 years and I have never seen a situation as unfair Davydenko's treatment by the umpire yesterday! Peter Fleming, Greg Rusedski and the Sky commentators were all staggered by the umpires flippant insensitivity and blatantly ignorant comments. To anyone who knows tennis it was clear that Davydenko was trying his heart out, as keen to win as anyone could be, but simply having trouble with his serve. It is one of those things that happens to players occasionally and has nothing to do with lack of effort. Every tennis player knows this.
In the past it has happened to Kornikova, Coria, Sharapova and Dementieva. Cedric Pioline once served a game of straight double faults at Wimbledon. In all these cases, as the double faults flowed off their rackets, there was never a mention from anyone anywhere of issuing a warning for not trying but a general emotion of sympathy towards these struggling players.
Yesterday the umpire clearly had an biased agenda through which he was seeing and assessing the match.
Davydenko has always been a player who stands out for his extraordinary effort on court and his straightforward honesty regarding line calls and everything else. He is also generous is his acceptance of defeat and gracious when shaking hands at the net and complimenting his opponent. These qualities show an admirable strength of character. Note how Davydenko reacted at the end of his match yesterday, even shaking hands with the umpire. He should be applauded.
It must be remembered too that I have not heard one shed of evidence to point toward Davedenko's involvement with betting in his match that is under investigation. He pleads complete innocence.
It does seem that somehow the suspicions in this betting incident that are being directed towards Davydenko clouded the judgement of Cedric Mourier, the umpire yesterday, making him act with such extraordinary callousness. What made it even worse was that he smiled as he did it! It was simply a staggering mistake and gross injustice.
If every umpire acted like this there would be warnings for missing 3 forehands in a row. Anyone who served 10 double faults, or less because Davydenko was warned after about 7, would have to receive a warning. It is clearly ridiculous.
It seems likely that the warning that Davydenko received last week was similar to yesterday's - simply for double faulting.
The ATP should act immediately to put things right and issue a public statement. Davydenko should have his fine from last week returned and an appology from both umpires. They should also make it clear that there in no evidence at all against Davydenko arising from the thorough betting investigation that has been going on for so long. It is of serious concern that the ATP have decided to do nothing obout this outrage. Why not? It is very, very, very strange.
One final point. When an umpire at Wimbledon made the famous scoring error on the Centre Court and mistakenly added a point to Venus Williams' opponent's score it caused an erruption of discussion and criticism and the umpire has not been seen again with this level of responsibilty. This was just an honest mistake. How should this umpire be disciplined for such intentional victimisation of a player?

add comment | complain about this comment

posted Nov 11, 2007

"Davydenko retired injured in the third set, and it has since emerged that nine people based in Russia had bet US$1.5m on him losing."

I think unless people are saying there was a near terminal attack of mug puntery in Russia, that amazingly came off, that there is good reason to doubt little Niky - he is being investigated and rightly so.

Little Niky Davydenko's response is of course to hide behind lawyers and not co-operate - he won't even give up his phone records. Maybe he does not understand quite how mad anyone betting hundreds of thousands dollars at 1/3 on a 10 or 20/1 shot is but surely intelligent people do. If he did, Davydenko if he had any interest in tennis over himself, would beg to be singled out and pushed.

Mercifully sporting bodies do not need legal standards of proof or even civil standards otherwise they could never work. Hence personally, especially if they have other suspicious matches they are looking at, they should have suspended him rather than use this abrasive farce that has the naive crying tears for little Niky.

Maybe someone has decided to run him off the tour and that is not nice or right but why should anyone else care?

add comment | complain about this comment