Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Coming back to the Peng Shuai situation.
She was able to call Thomas Bach, president of the IOC. Why would she do that? Why call Bach and not Steve Simon, who is the chairman of the Association she works with/for?
Could it be that the Beijing Olympics are only two months away and the Chinese know that Bach will never utter anything bad about them?
er by the minute.

[ponchi101]

last.
Man, does it feel like am empty Monday, with no tennis on TV for the whole day

[meganfernandez]

Coming back to the Peng Shuai situation.
She was able to call Thomas Bach, president of the IOC. Why would she do that? Why call Bach and not Steve Simon, who is the chairman of the Association she works with/for?
Could it be that the Beijing Olympics are only two months away and the Chinese know that Bach will never utter anything bad about them?
er by the minute.

Yeah, surely it has to do with the danger to the Olympics that this is causing, and I'm sure Peng was encouraged or forced to call him.

At least she's alive and in one piece. Doesn't mean she's free or in a good place or that her allegations are being taken seriously, but wasn't the primary concern for her physical well-being? Some tennis people on Twitter are acting like that's never what WhereIsPengShuai was about, but I don't believe it. That was the first and foremost concern, that it was possible she was in real physical danger or worse, right? In plain language, being held in cruel conditions, being tortured, or had been killed. Or did I misread that whole thing?

[meganfernandez]

Great season. Now let's see if he can do better than those guys. Respectable careers but not really special. Why don't future top players have these kind of credentials? Is it because they typically don't have to spend a lot of time playing Challengers? They get wild cards to Tour events and climb up the rankings fast enough to bypass Challengers?

[ponchi101]

Because the real great ones don't play challengers for too long. The great ones jump into the ATP tour by, as you say, Wild Cards and never look back. The guys and gals in the Challenger circuits are simply in the NBA's G-League, and very few make the jump to the top permanently.
It has to be said. There is a certain level of innate talent that you need to make it to any professional sport, and no amount of training will give you that. I started playing at 8, and no amount of hours on court would have led me to even the Challengers. I could have hit not 10,000 forehands, but 10 million, and I would still be a 5.0 at best.

[ponchi101]

...

Yeah, surely it has to do with the danger to the Olympics that this is causing, and I'm sure Peng was encouraged or forced to call him.

At least she's alive and in one piece. Doesn't mean she's free or in a good place or that her allegations are being taken seriously, but wasn't the primary concern for her physical well-being? Some tennis people on Twitter are acting like that's never what WhereIsPengShuai was about, but I don't believe it. That was the first and foremost concern, that it was possible she was in real physical danger or worse, right? In plain language, being held in cruel conditions, being tortured, or had been killed. Or did I misread that whole thing?

Sure, this is better news than no news, reversing the quote. But serious here: do you see her being allowed to leave China? At any time not only in the near future but in many years from now?
I don't. Which means we will never really know what has happened to her, what she has been told, or even what happened in the incident that she claimed happened and led to this entire situation.

[ti-amie]

Confirmed: ATP to introduce timed bathroom breaks for 2022
Players will only be allowed to take one break per match, at three minutes, plus two minutes extra if they change their clothes


Simon Cambers
November 22, 2021

Extended bathroom breaks, one of the most contentious issues of the 2021 season, are set to be a thing of the past on the men’s tour in 2022 after the ATP decided to introduce new rules to clamp down on those taking advantage of the current system.

The news, first reported in French sports paper L’Equipe on Monday, was confirmed to Tennis Majors by an ATP spokesman. Players will be allowed to take only one bathroom break per match, timed at a maximum of three minutes from the moment a player reaches the bathroom.

In addition, players will be allowed two minutes extra to change their clothes, ensuring that players should be back on court within a maximum of five minutes of entering the bathroom if they’re also changing their clothes). The bathroom break must be taken at the end of a set.

The rule – which was trialled at the recent Next Gen Finals in Milan – is designed to end the kind of controversies we saw this year, particularly involving Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Tsitsipas used an extended bathroom break on a number of occasions over the summer, most notably in the first round of the US Open against Andy Murray. Tsitsipas had just levelled the match at two sets apiece when he took a break of eight minutes, leaving former world No 1 Murray, who lost the decider, to say he “lost respect” for the Greek, the long break making him start to cool down on court.

Tsitsipas said he was doing nothing different to when world No 1 Novak Djokovic took a bathroom break, trailing him by two sets to love in the final at Roland-Garros, but the contentiousness is mostly related to the length of the breaks.

Under the new rules, communicated to players and seen by Tennis Majors, players will have to take their one bathroom break at the end of a set. If they’re not back in time, they will face time violations.

In addition, medical time-outs will be modified. They will remain at three minutes but must now be taken at a changeover or at the end of a set. If a player can’t play on until the changeover or set break, they must give away the points necessary to do so. The start date for this change has yet to be confirmed.

https://www.tennismajors.com/atp/confir ... 16471.html

[ponchi101]

Well, there goes that plan for Stefanos to have his hair done between the 3rd and 4th set. Maybe a pony tail will be needed from now on.

[meganfernandez]

...

Yeah, surely it has to do with the danger to the Olympics that this is causing, and I'm sure Peng was encouraged or forced to call him.

At least she's alive and in one piece. Doesn't mean she's free or in a good place or that her allegations are being taken seriously, but wasn't the primary concern for her physical well-being? Some tennis people on Twitter are acting like that's never what WhereIsPengShuai was about, but I don't believe it. That was the first and foremost concern, that it was possible she was in real physical danger or worse, right? In plain language, being held in cruel conditions, being tortured, or had been killed. Or did I misread that whole thing?

Sure, this is better news than no news, reversing the quote. But serious here: do you see her being allowed to leave China? At any time not only in the near future but in many years from now?
I don't. Which means we will never really know what has happened to her, what she has been told, or even what happened in the incident that she claimed happened and led to this entire situation.

Honestly no idea. I'd think so... you think she could be living under threat, like if she leaves, something will happen to her family? I'm not saying China isn't awful and to be trusted. I just don't know what's realistic from here. Anyway, to me Where Is Peng Shuai was about whether she was alive and unharmed physically, and then secondary is Free Peng Shuai.

[ti-amie]

What did I say about wanting to do everything short of murder to win?

This is an excerpt from a much longer interview. It's for a documentary of some kind. Here's the interview in its entirety with the same English subtitles.

[ti-amie]

I didn't thinnk I'd listen to the entire interview but it is really very, very good. As a non Russian speaker I had to watch the subtitles so I couldn't do anything else while I was watching.

The woman doing the interview didn't pull punches at all and knows tennis. There were times Pavs had to avoid direct answers but she acknowledges the question.

If all you want is the idle chit chat about Sloane and yes Mugu (it seems no one likes her) that all comes towards the end, about 50m in.

The parts about the economics of tennis, how she started, the issues of having a parent as a coach, it's all there. Fascinating.

[ponchi101]

....

Honestly no idea. I'd think so... you think she could be living under threat, like if she leaves, something will happen to her family? I'm not saying China isn't awful and to be trusted. I just don't know what's realistic from here. Anyway, to me Where Is Peng Shuai was about whether she was alive and unharmed physically, and then secondary is Free Peng Shuai.

No. I get to work with Chinese crews every once in a while. The first time I work with them, upon arriving to the project, I was asked for my passport. I was surprised so I asked what for. I was told that the crew would keep it. I laughed, still being too stupid, and asked why they kept them. Then came the non-answer. and it dawned on me. They had all the passports from all the workers, so the Project Manager decided who could go. I said like hell they were going to keep mine, and if they did not like that they could talk to my rep.
The Chinese do that. They can simply keep her passport and not ever give her one again. It is that simple there. It is not that if she leaves, something will happen to her family or anybody else. It is that, if the Chinese government does not want her to leave, she simply can't. And they don't even need to retain her passport; they will block her at all airports. They do that.

[Suliso]

A bit like in USSR. You couldn't leave that country either whether you wanted or not. Difference is that there only those with a special exit visa could travel internationally. In China most can leave (pandemic aside) except those disfavored by the authorities.

Mind you US government could as easily block any of you from leaving, it's just that short of you being sought for some crime they don't.

[skatingfan]

The only thing that gave some assurance that the Peng Shuai call happened, and that it will be followed up on is that the chair of the IOC Athletes' Commission, Emma Terho, was on the call. If it was just Bach & a Chinese member of the IOC I wouldn't believe that they actually spoke to Peng Shuai.