Monday, January 26, 2009

Idle Chit Chat - Melbourne

by Savannah
The Tennis Police were busy during the first week of the Australian Open. Here's a list of the miscreants I found.

Russia's Dmitry Tursunov has copped the heftiest dent to his wallet in the first five days, being fined $3,820 for verbal abuse and $763 for racquet abuse
Both fines stemmed from the 29th seed's first round loss to Italian qualifier Flavio Cipolla.

Australia's Lleyton Hewittreceived the next highest penalty after he received a $2,290 fine for verbal abuse in his first-round defeat by Chile's Fernando Gonzalez.

Australian up and comer Brydan Klein was fined $1,527 for audible abuse during his second-round loss to Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka.

Croatian Roko Karanusic's wallet is a $1,000 dollars lighter after letting slip an audible obscenity.

American Ryan Sweeting, who lost in the final round of qualifying to Algeria's Lamine Ouahab . He received three separate fines totaling $1,000 for racket and verbal abuse.

Other players misbehaving include the following.
Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis $763 for racquet abuse.
Serb Janko Tipsarevic $763 for racquet abuse.
Argentina's David Nalbandian $763 for racquet abuse.

Giancarlo Petrazzuolo, Scoville Jenkins, Amer Delic, Gianluca Naso, Dudi Sela and Xavier Malisse were all fined $381 for code of conduct violations for either ball abuse, racquet abuse or verbal abuse

Nicole Vaidisova was fined $2,000 for not showing up for a mandatory post-match press conference following her first-round loss. So far she is the only woman to have been hit with a fine.


Reports are it was a virus that weakened Andy Murray. Those pesky things turn up at the most inopportune time don't they?


The estranged father of Jelena Dokic now says he will not fly to Melbourne after what his daughter and Australian tennis officials have said about him. I guess all the talk of Jelena showing up bruised and battered while under his care has hurt his feelings.

No one knows how far Jelena Dokic will go in this event but it's clear that she's captured the hearts of tennis heads around the world. She's got work to do as I've said but with good coaching she should be able to fashion a good game for herself. The test is going to be how she performs away from Melbourne once her run is over.

1 comment:

vmw3 said...

Amazing how Murray got the virus right after Fed told him ...I'll take Andy on in 5 sets anytime. LOL