[Philbo]

Paul McNamee is the tournament director, so I assume the final decison of whether to let Serena wait til tomorrow to play was his...

Was he right in not allowing the extra day rest???

Im not a fan of Serena, but my first reaction is YES!!!

The tournament is going to suffer with her absence (not to mention my FFC teamLOL!!)....

I mean, you could argue that if she couldnt play today, how would she last through a whole tournament, and you have a point...

But I am at a bit of a loss to explain why it was impossible for the match to be rescheduled... Any thoughts??/

 

[Lisbeth]

It seems odd to me that they couldn't give her an extra day, especially for a high seed. Especially if a doctor could say that it seemed to be one of those injuries which would improve with rest (such as a sprained ankle). However I have never run a tennis tournament so I don't know! Perhaps they are frightened if they start a precedent every second person will want the first day off for some niggling injury.

 

[Infiniti2001]

It's over, so let's not dwell on it... *hit happens... Rest up and come back soon Miss Rena

 

[smygelfh]

No.

I guess they judged that it would make no difference if they waited a day, she'd still be injured, so they preferred to have her out before the tournament started, making it possible to alter the draw.

If she was in such a bad shape that she couldn't play at all today, it's quite unlikely that she'd be able to play well tomorrow and after that.

It's unfortunate, but I do believe it was the right thing from the organizers.

 

[Infiniti2001]

I know I said let this go, but I was just looking at the schedule... Serena and Conchi were scheduled to play on Monday, but Rena withdrew---- Lina took her place, so how come these 2 now play on Tuesday the 15th??? Could someone splain this to me??

I don't think that makes sense because they moved Lina out of her spot into serena's so she moved into a different match- rather than moving Conchi back into Lina's match.

 

[Jovon]

IMO rearranging matches for player injury is a bad idea for ANY tournament, ANY player, even one of my favs.

When it's your turn to be on court , you're up, no excuses. I know time has been granted in other cases, but IMHO they are all bad ideas in the field of competion---tennis or any other sport.

Serena is injured, and needs to avoid furthur injury, and she did the right thing to withdraw. Granting her time off would not have helped in the least, whether it was in his power to do so or not.

Besides that, Serena has voiced her disappointment in an interview, and did not appoint blame to anyone. Serena's greatest disappointment is Serena.

She will return to the tour at some point and do well.

So, enough said. This is old already. No controversy here.

 

[Becool]

I have to admit that I don't see a reason for do not put Serena tomorrow... Wouldn't affect nothing... Would only help...


But like some porters are saying, I guess Serena did the right thing withdrawing (it's hard to not see my favourite playing but it's true ), or she might and play and only aggravate the thing, and possibly not play through the rest of all year

So I guess this tournament is over for Serena, she has now to think on her health, if everythin' s ok, and support Big Sis' cause, I know Venus will do very well, and Serena will be in home resting and watching Venus play

Wish her a wonderful luck on her treatment, and positive thoughts for Venus!!!


GO SERENA!!!!! ( )
AND VENUS!!!

 

[sartrista7]

yeah, I agree - there are still matches from the bottom half which haven't been played, so they could have fitted Serena in on the Tuesday. But then I guess they - and eventually she - thought that if she couldn't play on Day 1, she wouldn't be able to make it all the way through.

Infiniti, they probably rescheduled the Lina - Conchita match because Serena withdrew so late - Lina hadn't been expecting to play that day, so it would have been really rather unfair to make her go into such a big match with no preparation.

 

[maccardel]

The more everyone says it makes sense to do this change slot hing, the more it's not making any sense......why not just put the lucky loser in against Conchita?.....and let the match play out on monday...I'm sure that Lucky loser would have done anything to apear in the main draw and an early or late notice would have been no problem at all.......go figure.....so many years running a tournament and still can't run one......

 

[sartrista7]

maccardel: I do think the Aus Open officials screwed up, but not with the draw changes. I think it's actually the official rules - if a seeded player pulls out before start of play, the next highest unseeded player (Lina) moves into her spot and a lucky loser (Pavlina Nola) moves into Lina's spot. It's better than what happened at Roland Garros when Lindsay pulled out, anyway, when they rearranged the entire draw (favouring French players, incidentally). Think of it this way: if Serena pulled out and they DIDN'T move Lina, you'd have three players with ranks high enough to be seeded in the same section (Sugiyama, Lina and ASV) and only one in the section Serena was in (Torrens-Valero), which would technically be an unfair disadvantage to Ai/Lina/ASV and an advantage to Cristina.
They really should have given Serena the extra day, though.