Bonne décision on Maria

"I've been asked a lot lately if tennis is clean or not. I don't know any more how you judge whether a sport is clean. If one in 100 players is doping, in my eyes that isn't a clean sport."
--Andy Murray

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- I used to write good articles about Maria Sharapova during her halcyon years.
Aside from her beauty (her golden hair is unique, she reminded me of ABBA's Agnetha Faltskog), the Russian tennis queen was the only player in the world to legitimately give the dreaded Williams sisters--Venus and Serena--plenty of trouble in the clay, hard, and grass courts.
I watched her conquests in the Australian Open and in the Wimbledon where she dominated tennis the way Laila Ali ruled women's super middleweight and light heavyweight boxing.
I also used to chronicle the games of the talented Martina Navratilova, Pam Shivers, Steffi Graf, and Martina Hingis. But none of them can match Sharapova, a combination of beauty, brains, and prowess.
I thought Sharapova was a symbol of tennis rennaisance, the sport's "great white hope" despite the presence of Venus and Serena.
But not anymore when Sharapova self-destructed by taking a banned substance.

DECISION

Thus, we support the decision of French Tennis Federation president Bernard Giudicelli to deny Maria Sharapova the wild card entry in the French Open set on May 28.
Bonne decision, Monsieur Giudicelli.
In a "live" broadcast via Facebook, Giudicelli announced May 16: "I'm very sorry for Maria, very sorry for her fans. They might be disappointed; she might be very disappointed. But it's my responsibility, it's my mission, to protect the game and protect the high standards of the game."
He added: "I read the results of several polls and I could see that about two-thirds were in favor of Maria being granted a wild card. Of course I felt some pressure. We did not want to treat Maria Sharapova differently."
"While there can be a wild card for return from injury, there can't be a wild card for return from doping," Giudicelli explained.
In the first place, Sharapova should not have been allowed to play again after serving a 15-month doping ban.

INSULT

It's a big insult to tennis and to other clean-living tennis stars when Sharapova, the two-time champion at Roland Garros, was given the green signal to the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) last moth after testing positive for the newly banned heart drug meldonium at the Australian Open in January 2016.
The former No. 1-ranked player and one of the world's most recognizable athletes, was given a two-year suspension after testing positive for the banned heart drug meldonium at last year's Australian Open.
Bu the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the ban on appeal, ruling she bore "less than significant fault" in the case and she could not "be considered to be an intentional doper."
Sharapova had been taking meldonium for many years, but overlooked announcements by WADA that it added the drug to its banned list on Jan. 1, 2016.
A tournament may grant a wild card to any eligible player.