Anyone else have an eerie feeling there will be a tennis doping scandal unveiled?

[Federer20042006]

I don't want to throw around accusations regarding particular players, but I'm not naive. Lance Armstrong and co. have piled onto the mountains of evidence that all sports are full of cheating. Well, if you can even call it "cheating" given how widespread it is.

If it comes to a point where we learn doping is widespread in tennis, it's also going to come to a point where all the top guys are implicated eventually.

Is there anyone here who is confident the vast majority of the Top 100 players on tour are clean? The more I learn about the prevalence of this in other sports, the more suspicious I grow of tennis players.

[Prisoner of Birth]

Originally Posted by Federer20042006

I don't want to throw around accusations regarding particular players, but I'm not naive. Lance Armstrong and co. have piled onto the mountains of evidence that all sports are full of cheating. Well, if you can even call it "cheating" given how widespread it is.

If it comes to a point where we learn doping is widespread in tennis, it's also going to come to a point where all the top guys are implicated eventually.

Is there anyone here who is confident the vast majority of the Top 100 players on tour are clean? The more I learn about the prevalence of this in other sports, the more suspicious I grow of tennis players.

I like to not think about it. I like the sport and the players too much.

[Jeffrey573639]

I certainly hope not

[Steve0904]

Originally Posted by Federer20042006

I don't want to throw around accusations regarding particular players, but I'm not naive. Lance Armstrong and co. have piled onto the mountains of evidence that all sports are full of cheating. Well, if you can even call it "cheating" given how widespread it is.

If it comes to a point where we learn doping is widespread in tennis, it's also going to come to a point where all the top guys are implicated eventually.

Is there anyone here who is confident the vast majority of the Top 100 players on tour are clean? The more I learn about the prevalence of this in other sports, the more suspicious I grow of tennis players.

I don't think about it when I'm watching matches. Never really thought about it before I started posting on this crazy forum tbh. Not that I don't think it happens, I just never thought about it until I started posting here, mostly because I don't think about it when I watch matches. If you spend all your time thinking about it you'll never enjoy the matches.

[Jeffrey573639]

Well I think if there is such a scandal and it involves the top players i.e. Fed, Nads, Djoko it would absolutely tear tennis apart- a thousand times worse than what happened to cycling if that's even possible. But that being said I also think we should have a bit of faith in Rog, Rafa and Novak and the rest of the tour

[hedera]

I don't really care if any one of them uses PED. It would not change my opinion of them because they are all great athletes and I'm sure that no matter what kind of substance they might be using it hasn't miraculously turned them into super humans. There is still hard work behind it all.

The rules in place against certain substances are an arbitrary system. What might be banned today, could easily be allowed tomorrow. So who is to decide what is wrong, bad, good etc.? All it takes is a change in perspective.

I would allow it. Demonizing certain substances only results in pointlessly judging great athletes who most likely would've stood apart from their peers anyway, with or without PED.

[*Sparkle*]

I think some people would love there to be a scandal. Some because they get their thrills from the thought of scandals, and conspiracies, and then there is the cycling community who is desperate for another sport to come under the spotlight and take the heat off of them.

Tennis is an obvious target, due to the big money involved, and the tennis authorities don't help by not being pro-active enough with their anti-doping policies, but I still think most players are clean. If I genuinely believed a substantial number were doping without getting caught, I couldn't keep watching. I don't really understand people who are convinced they are all at it, who still seem to follow the sport.

[The Bawss]

Can we PLEASE stop going on about Djokovic's 2011 season!? Come one people he went gluten-free, hello? There are probably loads of medical reports that gluten-free diets boost performance by about 100%. I can't believe the sheer number of jealous haters on here.

[Jeffrey573639]

Originally Posted by The Bawss

Can we PLEASE stop going on about Djokovic's 2011 season!? Come one people he went gluten-free, hello? There are probably loads of medical reports that gluten-free diets boost performance by about 100%. I can't believe the sheer number of jealous haters on here.

Who mentioned Djokovic 2011?

[smoledman]

Imagine if it's revealed Nadal & Djokovic are blatant dopers. All of their slams stripped.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by Jeffrey573639

Who mentioned Djokovic 2011?

I think his post was littered with sarcasm. By saying "lets stop talking about Djokovic", he implied Djokovic was doping without actually accusing him.

[Bulldog93]

Originally Posted by smoledman

Imagine if it's revealed Nadal & Djokovic are blatant dopers. All of their slams stripped.

That would give Fed 34 slams. YAY.

[smoledman]

Originally Posted by Bulldog93

That would give Fed 34 slams. YAY.

Yeah he'd instantly have 4 career slams to boot.

[The Bawss]

Originally Posted by McLovin

I think his post was littered with sarcasm. By saying "lets stop talking about Djokovic", he implied Djokovic was doping without actually accusing him.

Glad to see at least someone is awake.

[heninfan99]

Dr. Zaius: Don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.

[smoledman]

Originally Posted by heninfan99

Dr. Zaius: Don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.

Damn you all to hell!

[hedera]

Originally Posted by smoledman

Imagine if it's revealed Nadal & Djokovic are blatant dopers. All of their slams stripped.

I think that would be pathetic. Taking away someone's titles ages after they've won them is just stupid, imo. If they didn't get caught back then, they shouldn't suffer the consequences now. The authorities should do a better job if they insist on these anti-doping rules. Same with Lance Armstrong. He's been stripped all of his titles and what happens if the guy who inherits them now is found out to be a doper too, say, five years from now? Are they going to continue with the circus forever?

All this doping scandals reveal is that the authorities are doing a pretty bad job, whether it was intentional or due to negligence. Nobody ever talks about that.

[zagor]

Originally Posted by smoledman

Imagine if it's revealed Nadal & Djokovic are blatant dopers. All of their slams stripped.

Originally Posted by Bulldog93

That would give Fed 34 slams. YAY.

Originally Posted by smoledman

Yeah he'd instantly have 4 career slams to boot.

Not the way it works, Fed "fan".

[*Sparkle*]

Originally Posted by hedera

He's been stripped all of his titles and what happens if the guy who inherits them now is found out to be a doper too, say, five years from now?

No-one has inherited his titles. Partly because they can't be sure who the top non-doped cyclist was, and also because they couldn't be sure that the 2nd placed person would be there if Armstrong had been simply absent.

I do agree that if there is widespread doping in any sport, the authorities need to take responsibility for it more than any individual athlete. It was slightly different in Armstrong's case, because of the team aspect and how he supposedly bullied other cyclists to dope too, which IMO is 10 times worse than doping yourself. It's not just the cheating, it's the forcing others to believe they had no choice, and stuff the health consequences.

[Steve0904]

Originally Posted by hedera

I don't really care if any one of them uses PED. It would not change my opinion of them because they are all great athletes and I'm sure that no matter what kind of substance they might be using it hasn't miraculously turned them into super humans. There is still hard work behind it all.

The rules in place against certain substances are an arbitrary system. What might be banned today, could easily be allowed tomorrow. So who is to decide what is wrong, bad, good etc.? All it takes is a change in perspective.

I would allow it. Demonizing certain substances only results in pointlessly judging great athletes who most likely would've stood apart from their peers anyway, with or without PED.

I agree. I really don't care if any one of the top 4 (using them because they're the most important) is doping. To me anyway, it's quite obvious that all 4 of them have immense amounts of talent that is greater than everybody else with or without PED's. The whole Armstrong thing is a sham anyway. Yes he cheated, and he got caught, but I'd say 95% maybe more are using in cycling. I'm far from an Armstrong apologist, but the fact that he won 7 TDF using drugs just shows me he was the best among users which as I said is probably almost everybody in cycling. So what makes anybody think that he wouldn't win 7 TDF if everybody was clean including himself?