Two Sets Vs A WTA Pro

Scoop, we have talked a lot about reopening tennis. Get a load of this one.

Palm Beach County sent out guidelines to neighborhoods on how to reopen their facilities. It lists Item A. Tennis Courts and Item B. Community Pools. Under Item A. it says neighborhoods should post a sign saying singles use only. Under Item B is says a supervisor must be available during operating hours to maintain social distancing or the pool should remain closed.

Our HOA sends an email to all residents that copied the part about requiring a supervisor for the pool, pasted it into the tennis court section to make it appear that the County was requiring full time supervisor for both. Then the HOA said the tennis courts had to remain closed because they needed a full time supervisor.

Pure spite, purely done to mess with the residents who play tennis and made noise when they were closed, and likely illegal to cut and paste a county ordinance to change its intent and email it out as if it was official.

And people wonder why we have a distrust for government at all levels.

Scoop, never been one to hide or respect authority when it overreaches. We have not missed one hitting or fitness session. We have ignored rules that have not made sense when it suited our purposes and did not endanger others.

However, that does not change the fact that Trump is incompetent, surrounded by incompetents, and their bungling made this 10 times worse than it should have been. Its possible to walk and chew gum at the same time….rebel against overreaction while still calling out the moron that is Trump.

Not all of us are in either the raging liberal cult or the Trump cult. There is a middle ground the realizes both extremes can be harmful. I can respect gay rights while not going down the road of having 10000 genders or nongenders. It is possible to call it out when the left goes too far or the right goes to far.

The problem is Trumpers, just like the guy himself, never can admit they are wrong about anything ever. That is a sign of weakness, not strength. Trump can’t laugh at himself or ever admit fault, and that is the ultimate sign of a true coward and fraud.

Scoop- you keep hinting that everyone but you is a coward and shrinking in terror from the virus because of course it doesn’t exist and hospitals are full of fake patients and morgues full of fake bodies.

Did read some women in the US (Michigan ?) protesting v lockdowns tested positive and now she’s in lockdown too. Karma.

What have you got against the ‘media’ ? You’re part of it.

No one seems very worried about this episode, if and when it happened – no telling. I wonder where he landed ? We’ll never know of course because it was all covered up.

No more comments here from me.

“Sam thanks for your support.”

No problem, Scoop.

“Criticism and crazed rants don’t bother me.”

Well, let’s say you invited someone over to a dinner party. And let’s say that they insulted you, the host, during the dinner. Would you invite them back? 😉

Now, posting on a Web site isn’t quite the same thing. Still, posting on someone’s blog is a *privilege*, not a right. Anyway, if you’re okay with people posting comments questioning your sanity and the like, that’s very courageous. 🙂

“I know the truth always wins. Truth annihilates falsehood…African proverb. I have no doubt the darkness these evildoers do and have done will be exposed.”

That’s a good attitude. Of course, the truth does win eventually, but that can take decades–sometimes even centuries!

Anyway, I’ve learned that staying away from people who routinely spout falsehood definitely helps the truth win faster. LOL. 😉

I like this quote from author Patricia Evans:

“Spellbound people can show up on radio and television, defining others and haranguing against people who aren’t just like them. Spellbreakers change the station or the channel. If enough people do so, the spellbound person has no audience and the spell becomes weaker instead of stronger.”

Anyway, that’s great about the tennis event in Germany. Hopefully that’s the beginning of better things to come.

Cherkasov daughter must be way better than the ranking to take out Scoop. Scoop, have you or anyone read the book by the challenger player Gregory Howe? Called Chasing Points?

I don’t get how the Rios shots didn’t do wonders?!

Andrew – I’ll be back when the discussions get back too but now I just don’t want to know. Scoop has no idea just how unpleasant a lot of this stuff sounds outside the US – as if there’s a little group of rabid Republicans down there in Florida and no one else in the world matters. I feel really sad for this site.

Wonder if this post will show up ?

Looks like I’ve been blocked.

Sam, I am actually with you 100% on your last comment regarding the vulnerable. In the vast majority of cases the virus only makes seriously ill the elderly or when the people are younger, they already have serious underlying health conditions.

There are rare cases of healthy people taking a terrible turn from the virus, but that is something that remains under study. Sadly, there are cases of healthy young people and even children who die from flu and sinus infections every year, its rare and a mystery in most cases. Thats a tragedy but the fact is in rare cases either this virus or something else will shockingly kill a very few young and healthy.

I agree with you now that we have more information about who 99.9% of the serious cases will hit, its time to let the rest of us do our thing and the vulnerable should be protected as much as possible. A family of 2 young kids with no elderly around is different than a family that lives in a large house with both sets of grandparents. Not all of us should be forced into the same set of rules.

Here is a close to home example of the vulnerable using power to make everyone protect them at a cost to others. Our neighborhood has a home owners association. Most people work and have little time to get involved. The lady who runs it has done so for 20 years. She is elderly and her husband is elderly and always has been sick. So they are quite vulnerable.

She has sent email after email making up new rules. They become more and more restrictive to kids and younger people, and obviously are done to decrease even the very tiniest chance that her or her husband get exposed. Basically her attitude is if we can decrease our risks .000000001%, the heck with you and your kids quality of life.

We recently documented a string of emails where she cut out parts of county ordinances, and pasted them to support her rules. The county attorney told us this was illegal. We have been able to threaten her with legal action and get some of the rules rescinded. She is under investigation by the county attorney from altering official documents

So like I always say, both extremes must be taken on. People that wanted to ignore the virus from the beginning made things much worse, and people who now want to restrict everyone else from all activities to protect themselves are also wrong.

We actually have people in America who smoked, drank, never exercised, are obese, have self induced diabetes and other health issues….and they expect families with little kids to not go outside until a vaccine is developed…1 year, 2 years….they just do not care. So they spent a lifetime abusing their health and now little kids should sacrifice everything to protect them? BS.

Lets make sure front line workers have protective equipment, increase the availability of testing, and do what we can to protect the vulnerable. But at some point people will need to be allowed to take calculated risks and resume activities. And an 85 year old will have to take different precautions to attend a sporting even than a healthy 20 year old would. Common sense.

Comment somewhere.

The U.S. is a gambling, roll the dice kind of place. It’s why our tennis sucks these days – few (outside a few players on the women’s tour, we know who they are) have the patience, wisdom to take a tried, true approach of developing good technique, mental toughness, and informing that with a match-time competitiveness for the ages. We all know this and hide it from ourselves here in the states. When a good player comes along it’s usually in spite of that way of thinking, because their supporting cast knew that the sport requires sacrifice and all sorts of unpleasant things in the service of greatness. We want some sort of direct line between whatever they say in the press room and whatever they do on the court, and there isn’t anything like that. You have ruthless killer on the court and some resemblance of a person off it.

Even Djokovic with his off the wall comments has some kind of disconnect between whatever he does and the fiend in him that outprepares anyone and everyone. He’s an amazing headcase – of someone that’s so competitive he will do nearly everything in terms of training to make himself as formidable as possible, and then at the microphone says all sorts of things that make you realize on the court the guy is a beast and off the court he is wacky.

Agassi off the court, more or less an uber statesman in his latter years on tour. On the court? Ruthless, just a ruthless guy; methodical; wanted to make sure their opponents turn an ankle and head off in a stretcher. In training? Ruthless. Over a meal? Normal. Nice.

I’d say another player is this way but again I live in fear that their sport’s agent or sister or whoever it is will come to their defense for my giving them the ultimate compliment of “uber competitor on court, nearly a sociopath, possibly worse” and “gentleman, world class sportsman, gem of a person off it”. Because I did not write their name here I will probably be spared. But you never know.

Anyways, like I said, I pray you take the precautions anyways, just in case. This virus has no cure and you never know what disease you may already have in your body that was diagnosed. Taking comfort in statistics is fine, but when a virus that spreads in a ruthlessly efficient manner is forcing all sports to in effect end, with tournaments turned into hospital wards, etc, it may not hurt to have a little extra H2O2 hydrogen peroxide spray nearby. You know, just to be on the safe side.

I’d rather everyone be like Doc Brown in Back to the Future part I, where he rips up the letter from Mardy because he refuses to accept any warning about the future. But who also pastes the letter back together, reads it, and wears a bullet proof vest, just in case. So I wish you the public health equivalent of a bullet proof vest, just in case you know, we may be taking ourselves less seriously than we should.

Yes I am taking another hiatus. Like I said and have said, I truly appreciate the depth of tennis knowledge on the site. Anytime Dan posts on Spadea or his boy Callum at local tournaments, or Scoop drops some knowledge on a player or a match, or sees a shot ya may not even know exists, etc. Catherine’s take on British tennis and women’s tennis is hilarious, just makes me laugh. I even laugh at myself to see how Andreescu WILL in all likelihood be able to defend her Indian Wells title (!). Ya can never predict the future with much accuracy, that’s for sure.

But I o/d on politics as it is, and it messes with me too much. Some addictions aren’t worth that. I think tennis is a good balm, but when it merges with politics, then it’s what I was escaping from. So see y’all later.

Catherine, everyone know she you should call some Indian guy for tech support. They’ll fix all your problems. One problem with this site is that it relies on a lot of cookies and scripts, and you may have issues if you upgraded a browser or something like that. My experience here varies with the evidence I use. Of course, your case may be entirely different. Tuppence from an Indian guy.

catherine, great points. True the statistics for health care workers and minorities are higher. A deeper look at those studies show that its simple math, health care workers, especially early on, were exposed a lot more before we understood the virus. Minorities tend to be poorer and have a higher level of underlying health conditions.

My point was not to dismiss the virus in any way. I am a microbiologist by education so I understand the science. But now that testing is growing, many people have been exposed the the virus and have the antibodies to it. Most have no symptoms and the virus is a lot less lethal than we thought 3 months ago.

A month ago the US thought its hospital system would collapse. Now friends who work in hospitals say workers are being laid off due to no work. Health care workers are not dying at the present time at a higher rate now that we have more protective equipment for them. Those scary numbers were from when the virus was new, not now.

The US had predicted up to 2.2 million total deaths 6 weeks ago, now the prediction is closer to 80000-90000. And most of those will be folks that were already quite ill. A normal season of cold and flu kills 50000-100000, again mostly the already sick.

This virus is real. But long term we must allow young and healthy people to have their lives too. As we understand the virus more we need to protect the vulnerable as best as possible but it can not be one size fits all.

We must allow the young to do their thing. We must have different mask precautions in inner cities than the rural country. An 80 year old must protect themselves differently than a 20 year old.

Life is risky. But the overwhelming odds are a healthy person who exercises and eats right, is under the age of 60, will not get very sick even if they get this virus. They are more likely to die in a car crash. Its simply not right to lock down everyone exactly the same.

Scoop, you and I agree about the effect….the over reach to lock everyone down the same. The ruining the lives of kids to protect 90 year olds who already had great long lives. The scared who think life should be risk free and would keep things locked down for years if we let them.

But we will have to disagree on the cause and intent. I just am not a conspiracy guy and have had quite a wonderful life believing the things I do. So there is no motivation for me to change my way of thinking. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if it works for you, no problem.

Vijay – my browser is Firefox which I’m not about to change and my tech experts they tell me the problem’s with the site, not me, so my appearances here will be delayed,intermittent or non-existent because it’s just not worth the hassle.

Jon – the majority of people in the UK are in favour of the lockdown, even at this stage. So there’s clearly a significant divide between the UK and US on this issue. Maybe it comes from our different attitudes to ‘freedom’, historical reasons.

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