Tennis Message Board Etiquette

Just a little advice on how to reign superior over lesser beings who dare disagree with you at messageboards.


1) Attack the age of your combatant. Usually fantasising that they are much younger than yourself makes it easier to swallow their differing opinions. If they think they are right it's immaturity, ignorance or naivety right?

2) Attack nationality ie if it's an Aussie they are always loud, arrogant and hypocritical. Make sure to include all three. They come as a set.

3) Attack their education. It's easier to be right when your opponent never graduated from the 5th grade?

4) Attack their expert knowledge. You are the holder of all knowledge remember. No exception!

5) Pretend they can't read properly. That's they only way they could possibly be disagreeing with you right?

6) Act righteous when they start to swear at you - I mean fancy someone getting frustrated just because you know more than they do???

7) Finally, If all of the above fails all you can do is drop and run. Send condescending private messages, put the idiots on your Ignore List or change your user name. You ALWAYS have the fact that you can act like a gutless turd and hide behind the pseudonym "TFan1156" or "ILoveMariasButt" and preach away to your hearts content because hell, at the end of the day, you don't have to face your opposition (who could very well be "BigHairyBikerHal") and tell him (or her!) to their face that they are wrong and you are, and always will be, right!

Sesil and Condoms....an embarrassing mix.

Sesil Karatantcheva - a name to remember. For both the right and the wrong reasons.

Women's tennis suffers yet more idiocy as the teen makes her return to the sport after serving a 2 year ban for testing positive to the steroid nandrolone. To say her case is extraordinary would be making a massive understatement. She was 15 years old when she was suspended by the ITF. She also claims that a pregnancy (which miscarried in the 3rd month) caused her to return the positive test result. And just when you thought it couldn't get anymore insane it would appear that her parents failed to inform her about the pregnancy and still entered her into the French Open AND Wimbledon upon finding out their daughter was expecting all along while failing to let her know she was "up the duff"......damn priorities these tennis parents have to juggle. Fancy your 15 year old daughter getting knocked up during the middle of the Grand Slam season. Oh the inconvenience! What a hassle.....oh wait, we'll just not tell her......whatever!

OK maybe it's just me but this makes my head explode. On her return (she won the tournament BTW, this girl has Top 10 potential!) she was asked what she learned from her suspension. I quote:

"I learnt I should always use condoms"

I am quite literally speechless.

There are of course a few morons who are trying to defend this girl but I ask you this. If her pregnancy claims her true and backed up by medical evidence then why was she suspended for 2 years? I have an answer for you - the levels of nandrolone in her system was way higher than what would be expected to be naturally occuring in a pregnant woman.

I am gonna be polictically incorrect here and suggest that perhaps because she is Bulgarian (their long history of sordid drug use in sport cannot be ignored) her story is just a little to hard to swallow. I'm not buying and neither did the ITF and her comments on her return to the sport do little to change my mind and I champion the ITF and their stance on this.

I guess she and her parents are just another addition to the joke women's tennis is fast becoming and I'm sorry but the WTA need to start policing and if appropriate, punishing the stupidity that comes of the the mouths of its players.

I can honestly say in recent years nothing has made me more angry than that childish, careless and embarassing response from a 17 year old who clearly doesn't know better yet has no one around her to guide her and teach her to know better.

It's a growing shame that the WTA is becoming synonymous with this. It's time for the administration of the tour to step up their act. If I was in charge that girl would be back on the sidelines with lots of time on her hands to actually learn something because she clearly just sat around filing her fingernails and researching contraception in her time off.

What a disgrace.