[JamieOwen3]

The MAIN reason we're here is Maria's TENNIS! Yes we can talk about her beauty but what we're supposed to care about more is her results on the tennis court!

[roddo1234]

Originally Posted by JamieOwen3

The MAIN reason we're here is Maria's TENNIS! Yes we can talk about her beauty but what we're supposed to care about more is her results on the tennis court!

Just what I was thinking.

[trimtrab]

Originally Posted by roddo1234

Just what I was thinking.

good for you.
still i've never seen you discussing her tennis, let alone analysing her results, her state of game, her state of commitment and so on and on. but i've seen him doing all that.

anyway it wasn't the point. after 4 years of reading his posts (not only here at tennisforum. you yourself know where else) i'm quite sure that he really DOES know a LOT of things about Maria and her tennis. that knowing helps understand/analyse what's going on now and why.

the point is there was no reason to be rude of you.

[denny5576]

Sharapova ditches Hong Kong for Auckland




Here's just one of the reasons we respect Maria Sharapova's way of doing business.
The Russian, who typically banks a huge cheque for playing that meaningless exhibition in Hong Kong before the Australian Open, had decided to play the small tuneup event in Auckland, New Zealand instead.
Here's an excerpt of the way tournament director Richard Palmer said it went down, in terms of negotiations.
"Her agent telephoned to say she was interested in playing Auckland, and to ask, were we interested – silly question.
"There was an asking rate and it was fair and reasonable, given who she is and our limited resources, and it was all tied up in just over two weeks – a lot less stressful than some of these things, which can take months."
Sharapova then did a conference call, with the only stipulation being no questions about her recent engagement to Sasha Vujacic of the Lakers.
Easy as pie.
We'll contrast that with the courtship of Serena Williams in Istanbul.
“We have been working for six months to bring Serena to play in Istanbul. We have talked to her agent, her father, her mother. We have to go through from every detail, from where she will stay to what events she will show up during her time in here. It was a tiring effort but it will be worthwhile."
What was striking about that entire Istanbul affair was that this event took place the last week of July. But even 10 days before (after the "broken glass incident," and after she pulled out of her Team Tennis commitments in the U.S., when Serena had to know she was in trouble, she still didn't do anything to stop them from announcing and confirming her participation in an event there was no chance she'd show up for.
It is a huge deal for these smaller events to have players of that magnitude. They base their entire limited marketing funds around it. And with women's tennis playing to so many empty seats these days, it's probably a budget breaker if they don't show (Istanbul was pretty sparse in the wake of Williams's eventual withdrawal).
Serena was to be paid $150,000 to show up in Istanbul, which tournament organizers said was less than the going rate for someone of Williams's stature.
We don't have a number on Sharapova's guarantee in Auckland.
This isn't as much a criticism of Williams (who can do as she pleases in running her career, and does) as much as it is a shoutout to Sharapova, who has myriad business interests and is a money-making machine, but somehow seems to manage to keep it all reasonably low-maintenance, at least from the outside.

http://communities.canada.com/montre...-auckland.aspx

[Vodkapova]

Originally Posted by denny5576

My daughter is nearly the age of Maria and my son is several years older. My sister is 8 years younger than me. So I know very well how brother and sister make fun of each other. More than that I know how father, son and daughter make fun of each other as well.
I am not against having fun and not against joking. I love joking and if you are with me and after 5 minutes you are not laughing it means only two things - you are deaf or I am very ill.
But jokes can be positive and negative. They are negative when are used to point to the weak side of the person and used as a proof of that weakness. Joking "Maria has no friends" was negative because of that. In reality none of you believe Maria has many friends. Even now after such long discussion you do not believe as well. Look at your post - you doubt I know even you do not know anything about me. I know many things about Maria which none of you knows and will never know unless becomes a friend of Maria, which theoretically is possible.
But the list of the friends of Maria I gave above is such that all of you could have known it, if were following carefully what Maria said or did.
And last remark - your logic, making conclusions about Maria's friends based on the quantity of friends-female tennis players which she has, is completely wrong.

Sorry, wrong again. You don't know any of the posters here either, yet you say "In reality none of you believe Maria has many friends...". You don't know that. She's one of the most well-known athletes in the world, of course she'd have friends. If you don't like what other people are posting, then don't read. You know there's this thing called an ignore button. Use it.

[Monzanator]

I guess he means friends among the tennis community. I personally don't see Maria having such close friends as Vika, Caro and Radwanska have been with each other. Yes, Maria has some colleagues on the tour, but I don't see her hanging out with other players off the court.

[denny5576]

Originally Posted by Teerin

Sorry, wrong again. You don't know any of the posters here either, yet you say "In reality none of you believe Maria has many friends...". You don't know that. She's one of the most well-known athletes in the world, of course she'd have friends. If you don't like what other people are posting, then don't read. You know there's this thing called an ignore button. Use it.

It's very simple - if you believe or know Maria has many friends just say it. Especially when reading posts saying the opposite.
There is nothing to discuss ...

[Vodkapova]

Originally Posted by denny5576

It's very simple - if you believe or know Maria has many friends just say it. Especially when reading posts saying the opposite.
There is nothing to discuss ...

And did you happen to smack your head on the pavement that you'd forgotten it's a joke? But if to some people, they really do believe that, what's your problem anyway? It's non of your business and you can't control what other people think. There's a popular (mis)conception that she doesn't have that much friends, people supporting that or not does not change anything.

[Reptilia]

Originally Posted by denny5576

It's very simple - if you believe or know Maria has many friends just say it. Especially when reading posts saying the opposite.
There is nothing to discuss ...

Stop posting

[SHAPY]

Keep posting!

[Vartan]

Let's stop the drama, we don't have enough



to meet such high demand

[Marilyn Monheaux]

Originally Posted by Vartan

Let's stop the drama, we don't have enough



to meet such high demand

Right click / save.

*mentally kicking myself that denny didn't even get a nomination *

[itzhak]

Hello. As you can see from the pic, I'm from Elena section of the forum. As you know, Elena's era as an active player came to an end this week. She was admired by almost all the other players in the tour and she was especially in very good realtionship with all the other Russian players. Well, almost all of them but not all of them. I'm wondering what Masha's reaction to Elena's retirement was and if we will read something from her about this news.




The non-existence of Maria-Elena realtionship is well known. They had mutual respect in terms of tennis and some good compliments were said by them about this but in terms of minimal friendship it was Zero. You could see even when they were together in ceremonies or events, how they are not close and even don't look at each other. It wan not hate just nothing between them, they almost ignored each other.

the main reason for this was their different background: their age was not the same, they were from different origin and the process of learning tennis was very different. It seems that the main reason for their lack of contact was different view about life and career and their intersts seems quiet oposite. It is important to say that there was no single incident between them like what happened with Myskina or some early Sveta comments. Their personalities seems to be not match each other.

However, for me it was kind of shame. I don't blame anybody but I think that despite the different background, they could overcome it and behave like all the other Russian players. For me, their tennis passion and atittude was very similar. In the recent years when masha was facing her serve problems, I think that they really could find similar language and I even think that they could have fantatstic practice sessions together as good preparation for tournaments. There are many players who have different character but when it comes to tennis, they just put them outside and focus on their similar expereience. It was shame that two of the great represantive of the Russian revoulution could not do it.



oh, and I really want to see Maria not retiring before her 29th birthday....

[slamchamp]

I'm also hoping maria says something about elena

[cyannnnn]

she says nothing when amelie, henin(1st) and kim(1st) retired
why now for dementieva???