GO FOR 2

Richard Gasquet – French professional tennis player and extraordinarily talented liar. Ok, maybe that’s not fair, there’s a chance he’s just the world’s most unlucky guy. For those of you who don’t know what the story behind this, here goes. It was widely reported on May 9 that Gasquet had tested positive for cocaine during the Miami Masters Tournament in March. As is standard, the lab tested a ‘B’ sample for Gasquet, which also came back positive for cocaine. Then, in a move that would have made Roger Goodell proud, the ATP banned Gasquet from competition for two years.

Gasquet then filed an appeal, and an ATP tribunal met in London and decided to completely lift the ban. What incredible, smoking-gun evidence caused such the ATP to pull such an immediate about-face? Gasquet said the cocaine must have entered his system while he was french-kissing some girl at a club between 2 and 5 am. I’m not saying that’s a ridiculous excuse, but only because ridiculous isn’t near good enough of a word. The theory here is that there was a relatively small amount of cocaine in his system, and he was tested later that same day, so if he had ingested such a small amount any earlier then it wouldn’t have been in his system. Ok, there’s only about a billion holes in that argument. First, like all things with a half-life, the amount of cocaine that shows up in your system will decrease over time. So unless they’re comparing this with a clean test a day or two earlier, then they have no clue when he ingested it. Second, even if there is an earlier clean test, all you’ve done is establish the time he ingested a small amount of cocaine. I’m just throwing it out there, but I don’t think there’s a rule that says cocaine can only be used in large amounts.

Sure this all looks pretty bad on its face, but hey, maybe this is really what happened and Gasquet is just really unlucky that his late-night rendezvous ended up getting some drugs in his system. If that’s the case, then he’s equally lucky that the ATP actually bought the story, though.

Oh right, why did I mention NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield in the title? Because after a second positive test for methamphetamines Mayfield kind of melted down, offering about a trillion bad excuses for what could have happened, then blaming everyone he could think of. Mayfield said his mother-in-law was paid by NASCAR for providing an affidavit about his drug use (did they pay her to rig the two positive tests too, big guy?) He then decided it would be a good time to announce that his step mother (UPDATE: Thanks for pointing that out, it was not his mother-in-law) also probably killed his father (the death was ruled a suicide) and said he would be filing a wrongful death suit. As for the drugs themselves, Mayfield alleges he tested positive because he inhaled toxic fumes after a crash at Talladega, and that the whole testing system was both rigged and broken. First off, you weren’t the only driver at Talladega but you were the only positive test, and second, the cars are neither made of nor powered by meth…but nice try.

I didn’t mean to get off on a tangent, I’m just saying, maybe Mayfield should try and get Gasquet to talk to NASCAR for him next time – that guy can convince people of anything.

Ok Andy Roddick, I’m impressed, and I owe you an apology.

Roddick outlasted Lleyton Hewitt yesterday to move into the Wimbledon semi-finals (some of you may remember me saying an American had no chance at making the quarters, touche’). Roddick has been very impressive so far at Wimbledon. He has showed guts, calm, and staying power in going 5 sets against Hewitt. He also showed dominance in hammering 20th seeded Tomas Berdych in straight sets in the fourth round.

This Andy Roddick seems to have all of the upside, but also seems to have fixed a lot of the problems. Roddick has a cannon of a serve, everyone has always known that, but he’s never been a great volley guy and he’s always underwhelmed in tie-breaks. Roddick hasn’t really impressed with his improved volley ability, but it is better, and he hit a few fantastic drop shots against Melzer and a beautiful backhand winner against Berdych. Roddick is still firing off the serves – he clocked one in at 138 against Hewitt, and recorded a tournament-best 43 aces – but the big story is his tie-break performance.

Roddick’s ability to serve well keeps him from getting broken often, but his questionable return and volley skills prevent him from breaking opponents. This means you’re going to play a lot of tie-breaks, in fact Roddick has been in 6 this tournament alone. Where Roddick has previously stuggled to get 50 percent of his tie breaks, he is 5-1 now going into the semis. In fact, until Hewitt won the second set in a tie-break (10-12) Roddick had won 13 straight. Then, Roddick showed some real focus and came back to win the third set by tie-break (7-1).

Andy Roddick is into the Wimbledon Semifinals because he has kept his best strength, and improved all his weaknesses at least a little, and some a lot. Roddick has proven a lot of his critics wrong (your’s truly), and is playing with renewed confidence. Whether Roddick is able to deafeat Andy Murray and move into the finals or not doesn’t matter, as long as Roddick takes his high level of play and his confidence out of this tournament, then he can consider this Wimbledon a huge victory.

American teenager Melanie Oudin (pronounced OOO-DAn) provided the biggest upset at Wimbledon so far by knocking off former WTA world number one player, and current world number six Jelena Jankovic. Oudin took down Jankovic 6-7 (8), 7-5, 6-2  in a match that was well-played and very contested up until the third set. Not too bad for a 17 year old who is ranked 124th in the world and had to win three qualifiers just to get into Wimbledon.

So, at the post-match press conference did Jankovic congratulate the young player on her enormous win, maybe tell the wolrd that she is an up-and-coming force? Nope. She made up excuses and whined.

Jankovic had a trainer and doctor come out on to the court during the third set, had ice packs put all over her body, and her blood pressure and pulse taken, and cried while sipping on an energy drink. At the press conference Jankovic blamed the loss completely on feeling sick because of “woman problems”, saying:

I felt really dizzy, and I thought that I was just going to end up in the hospital . . . I started to shake, I was feeling quite weak. No power . . . I wasn’t the same player.”

Ok, so a 24 year old woman, with no reported history of abnormal illness caused by femenine issues suddenly can’t handle ‘that time of the month’? Now, before any feminists get up in arms I’m not saying she’s being weak, or whiny because she’s a woman…I’m just saying she’s lying. Jankovic struggled to win the first set, and lost the second in eighty degree weather at the All England Club. Jankovic was playing against a young girl with great conditioning and energy. I think Jankovic largely exaggerated her exhaustion, calling out the doctor and trainer so that if she lost the match she would have plenty of excuses. And, if she had won, she’d simply be able to say she toughed it out.

Now, maybe Jankovic really was that ill and I’m just being paranoid here. Of course, maybe Jankovic just didn’t have the conditioning and knew she couldn’t keep going for the rest of the match. Either way, Jankovic should have acknowledged the excellent play of a young player getting the biggest win of her career on one of tennis’ grandest stages. Jankovic did herself no favors by only blaming her rather mysterious troubles for the loss, and not giving any credit to a player who simply bested her, a player of more than 5 years and 500 matches should learn how to be classier in defeat.

But Oudin, to her credit, has nothing bad to say about Jankovic and is clearly just loving the moment. And good for her, because she is the one playing in the second week at Wimbledon.

James Blake Wonders What Happened..? Photo Courtesy of Flickr.com/mandj98 (Creative Commons Licensed)

The most well recognized, greatest tennis event in existence kicked off this week at Wimbledon. The story most people are focusing on is the fact that the defending champion, Rafael Nadal, is out with knee tendonitis. This means that Roger Federer is under a tremendous amount of pressure to win, since there isn’t really any quality competition for him now (Andy Murray probably has something to say about that).

But something worth focusing on is the continuing collapse of James Blake. Blake has now lost three Grand Slam matches in a row, and has gone out in the first round of the last two Grand Slams (Wimbledon and the French Open). Blake came into this tournament seeded 17th , which makes since given that it’s also his current ATP rank.

Now, this is a guy who has been ranked 4th in the world only 3 years ago. He’s also accustomed to being a top 10 seed at majors prior to this year. On top of that, Blake tends to play better on grass than on clay (4-2 on grass, 6-5 on clay in 2009), making Wimbledon a good tournament for him.

Well, apparently not because Andreas Seppi dropped Blake in straight sets and ended his tournament early. Blake tried to sounds optimistic about his recent woes, saying:

“I still feel like I can play with anyone in the world, but it’s just for some reason lately it has been very inconsistent”

‘Lately’ and ‘Inconsistent’ are both massive understatements, James, sorry. I’ve always liked Blake better than Roddick, and I really hope he gets his game back together. However, the guy turns 30 at the end of this year, and has only made one quarterfinal at a major in the last 3 years.

We’ll see what happens to Blake in the future, as for Wimbledon, Andy Roddick is the only American hope now (So we clearly won’t have a player in the quarters – come on, even Andy Roddick knows Andy Roddick doesn’t stand a chance).