Nikolay Davydenko's Fine

Controversy has erupted about Nikolay Davydenko's fining for tanking a match against Marin Cilic, a Croatian teenager ranked outside the world's top 100.

Commenting on the umpire's warning that lead to the fine, Davydenko gave us the old....

This is just outrageous. How does he [the umpire] know what I was trying to do?

Ordinarily, I'd be firmly on his side, because I hate demonizing people by feigning omniscience to DIVINE their inner motives and intents and then condemning them for what YOU say they THINK and are UP TO. That rot is what politics has degenerated to, today. You just divine that they "don't care about the poor" or "want an excuse to wage war."

Case closed. How can the accused defend himself by proving a negative = that it isn't true?

But sometimes you can prove what a person's real intentions are. Here's a simple example. Let's say someone is complaining about a problem he has with someone else, say his doubles partner. He says that his partner always does this, and his partner always does that.

You get sick of hearing this every day, so you finally think about this problem and come up with some ways the complainer might try to resolve the issues with his partner. But guess what? He doesn't want to try any of them! In fact, his tone completely changes the moment you suggest actually doing anything about this problem. Suddenly, it's "no problem" anymore ... till the next time he crybabys in your ear about it.

You needn't be an omniscient mind reader to know that this "problem" ain't no problem, because he likes things the way they are and works to keep them that way.

So, concrete actions can reveal inner motives and intents, by pure logic. But always in a negative way, by proving insincerity, hypocrisy.

I don't know whether they did in Davydenko's case or not. So, I can't second-guess the official's judgement. All I know is that the official had the authority to make that judgement and did.

And, if you allow players this "How-can-you-tell-what-I-was-trying-to-do?" dodge, you have just opened wide the door to corruption, by making it virtually impossible to ever establish the fact when players throw matches. You have made match fixing so easy to get away with that it will run rampant.

What's more, even when childish players just tank matches because they're mad about something, the perception of corruption as the possible cause arises, which is almost as damaging to tennis as real corruption would be.

The circumstantial evidence against Davydenko weighs heavily against him. There are suspicious gambling patterns occurring around him. We are talking about Laws of the Universe here, laws of mathematical probability. So something untoward was going on to create that gambling pattern. Either inside information was leaked to some betters, or Davydenko just threw that match.

Either possibility is bad, but a leak needn't have been by Nikolay himself or with his knowledge and consent.

So, he's innocent till proven guilty, but I don't feel a bit sorry for the big baby.

He's a professional tennis player. One of the luckiest men in the world. He gets paid big money to accept gifts of the best clothing and equipment. He gets paid big money just to show up at tournaments. He gets paid so much big money for his wins as the World No. 4 that he could afford to throw matches any time he wants.

People pay money to watch him play. It's about time he grew up and realized that he enters into a contract with them when he enters a tournament. And his end of the deal requires him to do his utmost to win. Any less is breech of faith.

He owes us his best performance. Every single time he steps out there. So, it's time the crybaby grew up and stopped acting like a four-year-old every time he has a bad day.

He whines at us that...

Maybe my problems are psychological; maybe it's in my head.

Duh, you talk like this means it ain't your fault!

It's YOUR head, Dufus.

We know about the psychological battle in tennis. We play too, you know. We all experience the same emotions. But do we all act like you?

Did it ever occur to you that you should control what goes on in your head? What? is your mind some sort of race car that you "drive" with both hands off the wheel?

If you psychologically can't handle a bad tennis day, you have no business being a professional tennis player. The ability to retain your poise in competition is just as necessary as the ability to rip an 80-mile-an-hour forehand. You either have it, or your don't.

So, suck it up, Nikolay, or quit. Whacking the next two serves in anger over your last shot, in what amounts to an intentional double fault, is nothing but a professional tennis player's temper tantrum. Spare us, please. We pay to watch a man play, not a four-year-old.

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