AP Retracts Account of Christian Harrison Racquet Throwing; Unstrung in Atlanta; Kids Play For Good in LA
The original AP story on racquet throwing (I've always used the old-fashioned spelling; it's a style thing) that was the source of some discussion here because it included a reference to Christian Harrison, has been corrected, or at least the part of it that refers to him has. Here is the correction from AP:
Correction: US Open-Such a Racket story
Sep 8, 5:34 pm EDT
NEW YORK (AP)—In a Sept. 4 story about players at the U.S. Open abusing their rackets, The Associated Press reported erroneously that a tennis official told junior player Chris(sic) Harrison to stop hitting the sponsors’ signs. No such warning was issued to Harrison, nor was there any warning or penalty for throwing rackets.
Since I hadn't seen the entire match, I couldn't categorically say the incident hadn't happened, but I did speak to the AP's Ben Walker on Sunday in the media center to make sure he knew that there were people who did see the entire match and disputed his account. He defended his sources, but apparently he shouldn't have.
Jerry Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune, spoke to Coco Vandeweghe's agent about her future, and he made this rather rash statement.
"The way women's tennis is being played, if you're not at least a six-footer and can't hit hard and deep and never miss, you have no chance.” Have we forgotten Justine Henin so soon?
There is a screening of "Unstrung" Wednesday, September 10th at the Georgia Tech Bill Moore Tennis Center that will also include a pro set between John Isner and Donald Young. 
NOTE: THE LA EVENT MENTIONED BELOW HAS BEEN POSTPONED
And TJ Pura and Joe DiGiulio, two of the top 14-and-under players in the U.S., who starred in the documentary 50,000 Balls, are going to Rally For The Cure on Saturday, September 13th at the Los Angeles Tennis Center at UCLA, as part of the Kids Play For Good initiative. For more information about this event or Kids Play For Good, click here.
14 comments:
“I began with Maria when she was 11,” the agent remembered. “Coco is 16. She is green; she doesn't have a lot of experience. At 16, Maria was No. 4 in the world and already had won Wimbledon.”
I believe Maria was 17 when she won Wimbledon?
Who were his sources and why would he print a retraction if he still believed his sources or he were right. He obviously didn't see it personally and the identity of his source should be checked so they too can be reprimanded. The bottom line is he or his source flat out lied and they ought to pay a penalty.
In the womens games if you play as coco descirbed you would be by far the greatest women player to ever step on a tennis court. I have never seen a girl tennis player play with that description.
The agent is alluding to Davenport and the influx of the Amazon Eastern European/Russian ovas's; Sharapova, Vadisova, Dementieva, Ivanovic, Zvonareva, Hantuchova, Petrova and Safina.
Looks like the UCLA event is postponed, from the Kids Play for Fun website :
"Due to unforeseen circumstances this event is going to be post-poned. Please check back, it will be rescheduled"
James Blake pulling out of Davis Cup...interesting. I unfortuantely do not have inside scoop on this, but my uninformed opinion on this goes as follows:
P. McEnroe did not believe James was the best choice to play against Spain on clay, therefore he told him they would let him say he couldnt compete due to mental and physical exhaustion. Kinda like when you get fired but a company lets you resign so they dont have to pay you severence and you can keep a bad mark off your resume. Based on everything Blake said this is very fishy.
austin your an idiot, i happen to know what happened and that is way off base, do not write on topics u have no clue about and u have no idea who james is so do not comment about him.
Colette, I am "amazed" that you would let this person call Austin an "idiot", and allow the message. Some past entries concerning Pat Harrison were not allowed by you, and they did not contain any such personal attacks as this. This is your blog, and you can do what you want. This instance just confirms that fact.
I find it interesting that some of the people who wrote in to condemn Harrison on the racket throwing incident and say that it was proof that he shouldn't have been in the tournament didn't respond when the statements were retracted.
Exactly, wonder. That wasn't the brightest post I've seen here. I mean, are we to think Roddick doesn't belong in the men's draw, because he broke his racquet against Gulbis? Let's disqualify most of the American boys while we're at it.
And it was rubbish anyway: Christian never threw his racquet. He also happened to have a closer match with Llompart than Kalamazoo Boys' 16's champion Jordan Cox.
"reallyamazed" -- I believe that Colette usually supports the players. She is not being inconsistent here.
ya i watched the llompart - cox match and cox played terrible. he didnt look like he was there. christian is a great player though. what a kid!
Reallyamazed sounds like manonthemoon in disguise.
I completely understand that this has nothing to do with whether Christian threw his racquet during this specific match, however, I just returned from both the Kentucky ITF and the Urbana ITF where Christian played both singles and doubles. I saw a handful of his matches personally from start to finish. There was plenty of racquet throwing, some no worse than bouncing a racquet as happens on almost every junior court, to throwing hard against the back fence and getting a posted warning. While Christian is a very talented junior, he is also a very volatile kid on the court and the reports of what happened at the open didn't surprise when I heard them that afternoon. One does unfortunately live somewhat by their reputation.
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