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OT: The Thread About Nothing

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I can't go there and automatically assume every great transcendent athlete that comes along now is on PED's. Does Serena's insane long-term dominance also mean LeBron's on PED's? Brady? Hell let's just accuse Federer while we're at it. Or great younger athletes like Aaron Judge or Mike Trout. There've been actual whispers about Tiger but nothing was ever proven there either. I mean if you're that jaded then don't watch sports period.

And not for nothing but the WTA DID pop Sharapova for drugs for a long time, granted she's a non-American but she was definitely #2 on the q scale for popularity among women's tennis players behind Serena and/or the Williams sisters as one entity. Now is Serena a bit of an entitled brat sure, and she shouldn't have flown off the deep end yesterday to the extent she did. I'd take the whole post-childbirth emotionally out of whack argument more seriously if she hasn't had some other episodes with refs in the past.

But yes I do think we're looking at this meltdown a little differently if it's a man. The same American tennis fans that long for the days of Mac and Connors showing personality were the ones booing yesterday. Really all she did was bust a racket, have a coach make an illegal signal (neither of which are unprecedented) and then fly off the deep end for a few minutes. I'm not even sure what constitutes verbal abuse of a ref, if calling him a thief is verbal abuse eh I guess but I just assumed verbal abuse was using a swear word/sexual insult or threatening them.
 
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tr83 said:
I'll remember that when you are ranting that Andy Greene or Hynes isn't screaming at the ref enough after a bad call
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Except you will never find a post from me saying that. So remembering that is wasted energy.

Apart from that, I'm not sure if comparing behavior in different sports is completely relevant. Hockey is just another kind of game, whether it's played by women or men. But to state that men in tennis do not get punished for bad behaviour is just false. I actually think that if a male tennis player would have said what Williams said to a female line judge "I swear to God I'll ****ing take the ball and shove it down your ****ing throat." my bet is he would be penalized a lot more than she was. It's a bit hypocrite to pull the sexism card and then turn around to treat other women below you in the pecking order like dirt.
 
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devilsblood said:
Nah, just controversial stuff we can watch highlights of.
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I actually just watched about 10’minutes of all this hub bub. I’m an outsider with no side in this but Serena comes off as a spoiled bratt (yep, 2 t’s) that is a horrible example for this child she keeps mentioning. It makes me sick to think their are people raising children in this world that will actually teach them that they are constantly judged and treated differently based on their sex or race. She is the one that owes that ump or whatever he is an apology for demeaning him like a child over and over in front of a crowd of zombies that do nothing but cater to the big star. Reminds me so much of how people still treat Tiger Woods as a star despite his huge public story with his now ex wife and the numerous stories that he is a horrible person to fans whenthte lights and cameras aren’t around. Honestly, screw her for not being a better example in this situation. So sorry... you multi million dollar athlete, you can’t win them all and you won’t be treated special by me or I guess he ump either.
 
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I've seen similar from McEnroe, and people loved him. I was young, really only caught the tail of his career, but I was a fan.

Were people Nauseated with a capital "N" when he went off on his rants?
 
devilsblood said:
I've seen similar from McEnroe, and people loved him. I was young, really only caught the tail of his career, but I was a fan.

Were people Nauseated with a capital "N" when he went off on his rants?
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Why the capital N?

But to answer your question for me... no, I always thought he was a fool for his rants as well. Why would that be something any adult liked?
 
Ripshot 43 said:
Why the capital N?

But to answer your question for me... no, I always thought he was a fool for his rants as well. Why would that be something any adult liked?
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Not sure on the capital N.

As per adults acting that way. Well we see it in all sports. Certainly football coaches go mad bonkers all the time. Tennis is different, more formal for sure, but I don't think it's an "adult" issue, since we do accept that type of behavior in other venues. Which further complicates the matter(in a fairly interesting way) right?

We accept that as human behavior from guys in football. But not from Tennis players. Even if we say that rules are different, and the penalties are more appropriate in one situation then another, it's odd that many find Serena's outburst so outlandish while 30 different coaches will have a similar outburst today and no one will even mention it.
 
NJDevs26 said:
There've been actual whispers about Tiger but nothing was ever proven there either.
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Whispers? It's a lot more than "whispers", Tiger Woods' is guilty as sin. Unless you want to believe the same doctor that administered PEDs to 1001 other athletes just happened to coincidentally be in Tiger's Rolodex. Another one that was suspicious under the "eye test" when he went from thin & whispy to JACKED in a short timeframe.

NJDevs26 said:
I do think we're looking at this meltdown a little differently if it's a man. The same American tennis fans that long for the days of Mac and Connors showing personality were the ones booing yesterday.
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Here's what you and devilsblood dont understand. Serena Williams IS John McEnroe. You could honestly make a case that she's worse than John McEnroe, it's just that somehow she hasnt gotten that bad reputation for whatever reason. Which is honestly amazing. I could fill your screens with Youtube video after Youtube video of Serena Williams screaming at Umpires and linespeople and smashing tennis rackets.
 
Ripshot 43 said:
I learned today that their are people that care about professional tennis... interesting :sarcasm:
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I mean, you might want to fact check yourself on that one, because if we're going to be honest about it, there are far more people that care about professional tennis than professional hockey.
 
And FYI, this isnt even Serena Williams first time ruining an opponent's first ever Grand Slam victory at the US Open by acting like a spoiled child while losing.

There's no ambiguity in the below, she's 100% in the wrong here and the Umpire is 100% correct (as Martina Navratilova the announcer predicted).

 
BenedictGomez said:
How about saying you're going to stuff a tennis ball down their throat, does that count?

Furious Serena Williams dumped out of U.S. Open after she told an official: 'If I could, I'd take this ball and shove it down your throat' | Daily Mail Online
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Did that happen yesterday? No. It happened, but it's only relevant in showing she has a history of being abusive toward refs, it has nothing to do with debating the severity of what she said yesterday though - which I didn't think was particularly vulgar unless impugning the guy's integrity is verbal abuse which is debatable.

BenedictGomez said:
Here's what you and devilsblood dont understand. Serena Williams IS John McEnroe. You could honestly make a case that she's worse than John McEnroe, it's just that somehow she hasnt gotten that bad reputation for whatever reason. Which is honestly amazing. I could fill your screens with Youtube video after Youtube video of Serena Williams screaming at Umpires and linespeople and smashing tennis rackets.
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Whether she was worse overall was debatable, she's likely had a couple of worse singular incidents though.

And how often did McEnroe get booed or jeered by a home crowd at the end of the US Open? In England or Australia sure, but I don't remember hearing about it happening from his supposed home fans. Now men's tennis fans decry the lack of 'personalities' in the game. It also usually took him doing or saying a lot worse than Serena did yesterday before he got called on it. I'm not saying Serena's meltdown wasn't cringeworthy but I'm just trying to understand what constitutes 'verbal abuse' enough to dock a warning/game for it and whether the ref should have told her to knock it off or he was docking a game first?

I do happen to agree that players shouldn't be penalized for illegal coaching, you want to discipline anyone fine the coach and (more importantly) remove the coach from their seat and escort them out of the building. That'll stop the wink, wink nod nod attempts to coach from the stands. Of course it's a rule now though and whosever fault it was - her, her coach or both - it was violated.
 
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devilsblood said:
Not sure on the capital N.

As per adults acting that way. Well we see it in all sports. Certainly football coaches go mad bonkers all the time. Tennis is different, more formal for sure, but I don't think it's an "adult" issue, since we do accept that type of behavior in other venues. Which further complicates the matter(in a fairly interesting way) right?

We accept that as human behavior from guys in football. But not from Tennis players. Even if we say that rules are different, and the penalties are more appropriate in one situation then another, it's odd that many find Serena's outburst so outlandish while 30 different coaches will have a similar outburst today and no one will even mention it.
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We don’t accept anything. I certainly haven’t. I think it’s ridiculous that it’s seen as quite normal for a baseball manager to be screaming in an umps face to the point where he is spitting all over him. How that’s acceptable I will never know. Back to the point... how Serena is looked at as a good role model for anyone, let alone young women is beyond me (on this day at least). To claim sexism and everything else is not the way young women should be raised.
 
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BenedictGomez said:
I mean, you might want to fact check yourself on that one, because if we're going to be honest about it, there are far more people that care about professional tennis than professional hockey.
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Sarcasm emoji good Sir.

I’m well aware that hockey is way down the list of popular sports.
 
Emperoreddy said:
I was on Serena’s side for the catsuit stuff, but here not so much.
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Ironically THAT was a much better example of sexism toward Serena than anything that happened yesterday.

Ripshot 43 said:
I learned today that their are people that care about professional tennis... interesting :sarcasm:
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It's hard to actually watch tennis cause the men's matches are damn long (and frequently at the US Open start at 9 or later) while the women's game - frequently it's either a Serena runaway in a major or a bunch of no-names battling it off in a who cares bracket. I do pay attention enough to know what goes on in the majors and watch some games here and there, almost never a whole match at once though.
 
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