Davydenko's Views On Murray

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Murray beat Davydenko in the first round of Wimbledon but Davydenko was less than impressed. Before the match he gave his views on Murray's displays of pain

The Russian, however, insisted that Murray’s on-court demeanour was not taken too seriously by the rest of the players in the locker room, saying: “We just laugh.”

"Sometimes he walks on court, he looks tired, like he doesn't want to run any more and then he runs like an animal. He has done that all his career. He's, like: 'Ah, I don't want to play any more.' Then he starts returning and running and you see his condition is very good. Maybe it is a special Scottish thing.

"It doesn't matter what he says; he will fight for everything, he will try to win. He may have a pain somewhere but if you ask any player they will all say they have pains here and there. Nobody says they are perfect. It's just not possible."


http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/davydenko-mocks-murrays-court-conduct-071414528.html


So the rest of the locker room not only talk about Andy but they laugh at him too? After his match with Murray on centre court he had this to say


Asked if he still believed Murray would not be able to win a slam, Davydenko replied simply: "Yes."



The 31-year-old said: "He played fast, he served well, he pushed me back on the return, he made less mistakes. It's always what he does. And I started to make mistakes from the baseline, I felt like I had no confidence "In the third set I relaxed a little bit and I tried to get a bit more control from the baseline but it was tough. I don't like so much to play on grass."


http://www.sportinglife.com/tennis/news/article/2/7843749/davydenko-unmoved-by-murray


Davydenko also said he was pleased to have played on centre court as he has never done so at Wimbledon because of his poor results. I have to say it may not be just his poor results that have kept him off centre court as his diplomatic skills appear to need a little work. Maybe next time Djokovic decides to visit Scotland he should take Davydenko with him. I'm sure he could teach him a thing or two about the British media...

lydian wrote:Thats some cojones to do that banbrotam!

BTW, I know your neck of the woods extremely well - have they still got that mongolian restaurant - Temujin's - there?

Indeed they do, Lydian. And what's more my partner's brother works there. What a small world!!

lol, indeed!
I've been for a many meal there.
I used to live in Ripponden!

When the tweet came out the reaction was like "oh he endorses cheating" which wasn't the case.

"MADRID -- Spain's sports minister acknowledged Tuesday the country has a doping problem that needs fixing after its record in the fight against drugs came under scrutiny with Alberto Contador's ban from cycling.

Jose Ignacio Wert, minister for education, culture and sport, said Spain needed to improve its record "to gain credibility" in the eyes of international bodies.

"We have a problem with doping and that's why we have every intention of making sure Spain's anti-doping law conforms with WADA's anti-doping code," Wert said at the Forum de la Nueva Sociedad."

When even the Madrid minister of sport is having a go at Spanish athletes we can't just sit back and say "but there is no proof"

Josiah Maiestas wrote:

When the tweet came out the reaction was like "oh he endorses cheating" which wasn't the case.

"MADRID -- Spain's sports minister acknowledged Tuesday the country has a doping problem that needs fixing after its record in the fight against drugs came under scrutiny with Alberto Contador's ban from cycling.

Jose Ignacio Wert, minister for education, culture and sport, said Spain needed to improve its record "to gain credibility" in the eyes of international bodies.

"We have a problem with doping and that's why we have every intention of making sure Spain's anti-doping law conforms with WADA's anti-doping code," Wert said at the Forum de la Nueva Sociedad."

When even the Madrid minister of sport is having a go at Spanish athletes we can't just sit back and say "but there is no proof"

Has he got proof or is it another one of those 'Jim i'll fix it' statements that all government officials make?

To me it sounds an admission of guilt and remorse.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

Josiah Maiestas wrote:

When the tweet came out the reaction was like "oh he endorses cheating" which wasn't the case.

"MADRID -- Spain's sports minister acknowledged Tuesday the country has a doping problem that needs fixing after its record in the fight against drugs came under scrutiny with Alberto Contador's ban from cycling.

Jose Ignacio Wert, minister for education, culture and sport, said Spain needed to improve its record "to gain credibility" in the eyes of international bodies.

"We have a problem with doping and that's why we have every intention of making sure Spain's anti-doping law conforms with WADA's anti-doping code," Wert said at the Forum de la Nueva Sociedad."

When even the Madrid minister of sport is having a go at Spanish athletes we can't just sit back and say "but there is no proof"

Has he got proof or is it another one of those 'Jim i'll fix it' statements that all government officials make?

I suspect that the problem he is identifying is twofold, for which there is ample proof, and which causes my scepticism about spanish sportsmen: (a) known doping amongst some cyclists - but wasn't it ever thus in every country and, more specific to Spain (b) a general credibility problem. The spanish authorities showed themselves more willing to support Contador than to get to the bottom of what happenend. Operacion Puerto has stoped amid a welter of suspicion and unanswered questions in the most unsatisfactory manner. What I suspect he is saying is that Spain needs to get tough to regain it's reputation, he's not necessarily saying that he knows that there are cheats out there who he wants to find, more that the way in which they have behaved means that if there is reasonable suspicion about cheats, which he acknowledges, people are also entitled to believe that they won't be pursued and tracked down in Spain.

There's no doubt that Spain does have a credibility problem in the way it protects it's favourite athletes (they are like Gods) and a reputation for having a hugely tough anti-doping stance would go some way to stop that.

For me that statement carries so much ambiguity around it. Why not shame the athletes they know to be 'doping'

That way it gives them a clean slate to train and bring through up and coming athletes.

legendkillarV2 wrote:For me that statement carries so much ambiguity around it. Why not shame the athletes they know to be 'doping'

That way it gives them a clean slate to train and bring through up and coming athletes.

That's a wee bit lazy - you know that it's not possible to start saying x is a doper unless you have the material to prove it conclusively, which no government minister is likely to have. Think of what you are saying transposed to the UK - if the sports minister stood up and asserted that Sir Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins are dopers he'd be crucified without putting out 100% proof, and even then it's not his role to prosecute and prove who's doping so he'd be crucified for mucking up a fair trial of the issue by the proper authorities.

However, if a Spanish sports minister surveying the scene which includes the Contador mess and Operacion Puerto and widespread scepticism in overseas media says that there's no problem he's going to be slated - he's got to acknowledge the credibility problem and say we're taking steps to crack down on it. After all, what he does know and is responsible for is whether they are doing what WADA wants. He may also have been told by WADA of their suspicions on the basis that he can't repeat them for lack of proof.

barrystar wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:For me that statement carries so much ambiguity around it. Why not shame the athletes they know to be 'doping'

That way it gives them a clean slate to train and bring through up and coming athletes.

That's a wee bit lazy - you know that it's not possible to start saying x is a doper unless you have the material to prove it conclusively, which no government minister is likely to have. Think of what you are saying transposed to the UK - if the sports minister stood up and asserted that Sir Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins are dopers he'd be crucified without putting out 100% proof, and even then it's not his role to prosecute and prove who's doping so he'd be crucified for mucking up a fair trial of the issue by the proper authorities.

However, if a Spanish sports minister surveying the scene which includes the Contador mess and Operacion Puerto and widespread scepticism in overseas media says that there's no problem he's going to be slated - he's got to acknowledge the credibility problem and say we're taking steps to crack down on it. After all, what he does know and is responsible for is whether they are doing what WADA wants. He may also have been told by WADA of their suspicions on the basis that he can't repeat them for lack of proof.

Not lazy.

He has made a statement saying 'Spain' needs to clean up and can only touch on Contador.

He then quotes 'It doesn't require proof'

That is lazy.

He has made a half-arsed statement.

Why not just say "In light of the recent incident involving Contador, we shall look to tighten all area's of athlete performances by being more rigorous in testing to ensure that Spanish athletes are clean and are regularly tested. We shall liaise with all sporting bodies to ensure that testing is carried out in occurdance with their regulations"

Who says "it doesn't require proof"?

JM might have done, but I don't see it with the minister. We have proof that Contador was protected rather than probed as he should have been, we know about Operacian Puerto and the fact that it's ending has resulted in a flurry of rumours and allegations that harm Spanish sport which have not been dealt with - any minister has to acknowledge that's a problem in the doping field and they are going to toughen up to regain credibility.

There's no harm in addressing the issue, but I think one athlete causing such a statement for collective responsibility among athletes who are regularly tested and are clean would cause some disharmony. I would be peed off if I was called into scrutiny and was clean. The minister needs to make sure he/she detracts from rumours and facts.

How many players in Sampras's day had the energy and the muscle tones of todays top players? There were none certainly at the top of the game

legendkillarV2 wrote:I think one athlete causing such a statement for collective responsibility among athletes who are regularly tested and are clean would cause some disharmony.

In response to your main point I guess in part it's semantics - you've got to decide what "doping problem" meant in the context it was reported, no doubt in a different language to what was said. If he's saying we have cheating athletes that are going undedected that's quite punchy I agree (although almost certainly as true of Spain as it is of every countery). However, he may have access to information identifying funny results inadequately dealt with by the various sporting organisations. If he's referring more to the perception problem he's got it spot on.

I have highlighted the extract because that is exactly the problem Spain faces in my view - their athletes do carry a degree of scepticism/suspicion purely because they are Spanish because of the shambolic investigations so far which have generated a huge amount of rumour and suspicion with insufficient answers. That, I suspect, is precisely what the minister wants to stop. Frankly disharmony is what Spanish sport needs in my view, because that might help honest athletes grass up the cheats, or at least make it more difficult to side with the cheats. There is usually a code of omerta which exists between sportsmen.

In short, Canal+'s little advert with Rafa weeing into the tank generated the coverage it did because a huge number of those seeing it thought that there was something in pointing the finger generally at spanish sporting authorities (even if it was pretty tough to focus on Rafa personally).

Very true there barry. It may well promote some much needed honesty, though not sure how many athletes would like to be the 'grass'

They did have a grass. Dr Fuentes. He gave them the names.

It was the Spanish authorities that 'decided' to do nothing about it.

We can understand the whole protection of the football teams thing, that's a multi billion pound empire, but there was obviously something that came up that required the tennis authorites both in Spain and internationally to make sure that little secret didn't get released.

I wonder what that could have been?

Sigh...

Sigh as much as you want. There was something on that list that Spain and the ITF needed to keep quiet. It probably cost them a fair bit to maintain that quiet.

Coupled with the fact that you can even state the facts in newspapers without fear of legal action (only a demand from the courts to retract the statement), kinda again points to only one thing.

You can't argue with the facts.

Why sigh Hawky?

It was a crap article in fairness and this side discussion made it much better

This site would be nowhere without hawkeye's pessimistic Murrayphobia essays Legend. You sound like a commie!

Josiah Maiestas wrote:This site would be nowhere without hawkeye's pessimistic Murrayphobia essays Legend. You sound like a commie!

You mean spamming?

djlovesyou wrote:They did have a grass. Dr Fuentes. He gave them the names.

It was the Spanish authorities that 'decided' to do nothing about it.

We can understand the whole protection of the football teams thing, that's a multi billion pound empire, but there was obviously something that came up that required the tennis authorites both in Spain and internationally to make sure that little secret didn't get released.

I wonder what that could have been?

I had forgotten how it played out - this is pretty good as a potted summary - Fuentes arrested in connection with cyclists, some are banned and names leak out, Fuentes says that he has not leaked any names, but the leaking is confused and unfair because some named in the press are wrong others are right and some names have been missed, he confirms that he worked in football, athletics, and tennis. Having got a few cycling scalps (and finding a way to avoid Contador being one of them) the Spanish authorities say that there are no other names and close it down.

Then of course there's Galgo too. In fact the main criticism of the minister is his timidity.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Eufemiano-Fuentes-Breaks-Off-Silence-28678.shtml

I would feel a tad annoyed and sad if the name in question was a little Majorcan

It's pretty clear that Nadal's was one of the 'leaked' names - but given what Fuentes said that doesn't really amount to much.

legendkillarV2 wrote:Why sigh Hawky?

It was a crap article in fairness and this side discussion made it much better

Seconded.