" /> Tennis Hall of Shame: March 2006 Archives

« February 2006 | Main | April 2006 »

March 24, 2006

Hair loss

New Zealand player Mark Nielsen is in the news today: tested positive for a banned substance, finasteride.

Expect more of these cases: finasteride is commonly found in hair-restoration products. It's banned because it can be used to mask steroids, but it seems so much more likely (and funnier) that they really are taking it because they're worrying about hair loss. Plenty of players on the men's tour with hair loss problems over the years (Sampras, Agassi the first who spring to mind).

wg

March 21, 2006

Doping predictions for 2006

Interesting set of predictions. Among other things, that doping will be found in tennis; that new (and retro) forms of drugs will be used in droves to evade testing; and that testing itself will become too expensive and will need to be discontinued in favor of hormone profiling. Makes sense to me; whatever one may think about drugs in sports I don't like the way the testing authorities spout moral encomiums while violating every principle of democratic civil liberties.

wg

March 17, 2006

Remembrance of tantrums past

Sky Sports during Indian Wells has been running ads for...um...a car, I think, in which John McEnroe fights with a traffic warden over a "line call" -- that is, whether or not his car is parked within the legal lines. I guess we're supposed to be amused at the notion that either a) McEnroe is genuinely just like that all the time or b) that he is self-aware enough to make fun of himself. The ultimate impression, though, is neither: just an old, tired act that's been played many too many times. McEnroe may have grown up enough to recognize that it was bad behavior; if so, the right thing to do now is to Stop Making Money Off It.

wg

I wasn't watching tennis when McEnroe staged the original tantrum, though I get the impression he did them to psych himself up as much as he did to disrupt his opponents and express genuine anger. (It's often been commented upon that he tended to behave far better when he was playing opponents he truly respected, such as Borg, et al. I believe this was because the thought of losing to them bore no shame, and also because he didn't need to psych himself up for the really great occasions.) I think a lot of the pompous criticism of them was windbaggery, though: McEnroe's and Connors' bad behavior (and great play) brought an electricity to the game that has rarely been seen since. Nonetheless, that was then and this is now.