SHARAPOVA ON OFFENSIVE BY RICHARD EVANS

My colleague Chris Bowers, a British politician as well as a TRN broadcaster and author, has been writing a blog about L’Affaire Sharapova, as the French would call it, and thinks Maria would be well advised to play a gentler game in her reaction to the decision of CAS to reduce her doping sentence to 15 months from two years.

Bowers is not alone. I think Chris Evert, who basically supports Sharapova, agrees. Let me tell you why I don’t.

There will be an element of long standing emotion in my argument but let’s start off with some basic facts. On six occasions over the past six years CAS has seen fit to reduce drug-related sentences imposed by the ITF on tennis professionals. The score during that time is a bagel – 6-0.

If that does not suggest that the ITF is inherently over eager to punish players to an extent that does not fit the crime, I don’t what is. The question is why? To impose its authority? To flex its muscles? To put the fear of God into any player putting anything into their bodies?

Everyone accepts that illegal drug use is bad and that cheating by not observing rules is a huge – even fatal — detriment to any sport. But judgement is required and the ITF’s judgement, coupled with WADA’s oft proven incompetence, has left players having to defend themselves over simple mistakes as if they were in the Lance Armstrong class of cheat. The punishment has to fit the crime and the way the ITF have been ladling it out, it just doesn’t. Not in my eyes but, much more importantly, in the eyes of the independent and fair minded people who sit on the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

I referred to the Gotcha! Syndrome that seems to exist within both the ITF and WADA in previous articles. The Victor Troicki case provides a good example. He refused the take a drug test after a match in Monte Carlo on the grounds that he had the flu and was feeling ill, which was accept as fact, and that he had a needle phobia. That was also acknowledged in his medical history.

The doctor he went to see for the drug test should have said this to him, “If you leave this room without being tested, you will be banned for two years.”

She may have said that but she also gave him an out. “Maybe if you write a letter to the ITF…….” She had no right to say that. It offered hope when there should have been none.

As a result, Troicki was banned for two years and was not even allowed to enter the stadium in Belgrade where his Serbian teammates were playing Davis Cup. The rules treated him like a person unclean.

CAS came to his rescue and reduced the length of the ban but he still served 12 months out of the game. The doctor? Certainly there was no public admonishment. Maybe a quiet word behind closed doors but we don’t know.

“It was really amazing how many lawyers were pushing really hard for maximum suspension,” Troicki said later. “I’m a tennis player and this was coming from the ITF for whom I’ve played a lot of tournaments. That was really disappointing.”

To me this episode presents the ITF as pregnant with its own importance and showing scant regard for an athlete’s reputation, feelings or career.

And this is where we arrive at the nub of the situation. It is in the ITF’s genes to behave that way. I am afraid I have been around so long that I remember with great clarity how players were treated by amateur officials before the advent of Open Tennis and the subsequent Wimbledon boycott which, to a large extent, broke their power, leading the way for emergence and prominence of the ATP and WTA. But it did not break the old amateur regime’s influence completely.

No one would suggest that the current ITF leadership behaves in the deplorable way the former ITF secretary Basil Reay and the Presidents of Australia, the United States and various Federations behaved in the 1950’s and 1960’s. If you heard all the stories it would leave you aghast. But just a little of that authoritarian feel lingers. There is still that attitude of “We can make you bend to our will” that some of the excellent people working at the ITF, like Nick Imison, who cares deeply about the players, may not even recognize.

I was hoping for a complete change in atmosphere with the arrival of the personable and popular David Haggerty (who, oddly, shares a surname with Sharapova’s lawyer John Haggerty) as ITF President and I still have hopes that he will set the organization on a different course – one that listens, guides and acts in the best interests of the game and its players.

But that will not happen for as long as the ITF tries to ban one of the world’s biggest superstars for four years because she did not pick up on their very low key warnings that a drug, which WADA should have known she used, was about to become illegal. And it will certainly not happen while they put out press releases insisting that they never threatened her with four years. They did. It’s documented.

Maria Sharapova of Russia in action against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland during their fourth round match on day seven of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 24 January 2016. EPA/FILIP SINGER

 

It is to ensure that this Gotcha! culture changes that Maria Sharapova’s aggressive response in interviews with Charlie Rose and others to what they tried to do to her is a good thing for all players. The ITF need to be put on notice that they cannot get away with continually handing down sentences that do not fit the crime – sentences which leave a huge impact on a player’s confidence and self-worth before CAS come forward to try and alleviate the damage.

So many sports officials in so many sports from soccer, cricket, rugby and, of course, the Olympics appear to have very little understanding of what an athlete goes through to reach the top. Yes, it is their duty to ensure that the road to fame and riches is trodden in a fair manner but so often one comes away with the feeling that, like WADA, they are simply trying to justify their existence. And far too often pick the wrong target.

Maria Sharapova made a bad mistake; openly admitted it within three days of learning of the positive test for a drug she had been using for ten years and took full responsibility without putting the blame on her staff.

At about the same time WADA were forced to admit that they been so incompetent that they had no idea how long Meldonium stayed in the human body and immediately started reducing sanctions against athletes who insisted they had ingested the drug before the January 1st cut off. Maria did not try to do that. She told the truth.

But the hysteria which surrounds major sports stars with Sharapova’s Tall Poppy profile results in excellent and normally serious minded sports columnists like Oliver Brown of the London Daily Telegraph actually suggesting she should be ashamed of herself for accepting an invitation to participate in Elton John’s Aids Foundation charity event in Las Vegas this week-end with Billie Jean King.

Why? Because she is an international doper? CAS specifically insisted that she should not be regarded as such. Even putting that aside, some would view participating in an event that raises millions of dollars for such a worthy cause to be an act of atonement rather than something for which one should be ashamed. But the damage, you see, has been done. Her reputation will never recover 100% because perception is everything and those who do not like her will always want to cut that Poppy down.

But one of the greatest fighters in international sport has proved her inner strength before and will do so again. And it will be to the benefit of athletes everywhere if, with the help of her lawyer John Haggerty, Sharapova continues to be on the offensive. It might help the people who sit in judgement at the ITF, WADA, IOC and other male dominated organizations realize that they must start treating those athletes who make sport what it is with greater respect and fairer judgement.

 

 

 

Topics: 10sballs.com, CAS, Chris Bowers, Chris Evert, Itf, Maria Sharapova, meldonium, Richard Evans, Sharapova tennis, Sports, Tennis News, Wada, Wta

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