It's no surprise to me that this article does not have any comments.

Totally agree with cash. Gamesmanship should try to be avoided by implementing the rules more strictly and creating new rules. MTO to break the opponent rythm, excessive time between serves, coaching, ...

Many of this infractions go unpunished.

"Cash said that free use of medical timeouts corrupts the essence of the sport and called for a crackdown on bending of the rules by players seeking a competitive edge."
Couldn't agree more.

Also "...the numerous players who blatantly abuse the rules just to give themselves an added chance when things are getting tough and get off scot-free."

fear...fear is your worst enemy...talking to yourself, bleck? Do you get any sleep? Having nightmares? Take some medicine and relax...

The old-school star, 46, said that five-set men's Grand Slam tennis is meant to be a tough test. "It isn?t just a test to find out who is the best player, it also defines just who is the fittest and best physically prepared to withstand the most grueling conditions."


Says who? where does it say that in the ITF rules that it's a test of physical fitness? The trouble is, tennis rules appear to be a free for all, people seem to make up rules as they go along. If it was a test of physical fitness, they wouldn't have MTO's at all, would they. The next thing, they'd want to ban toilet breaks, because it's a test of how long you can go without needing the toilet.

For heaven's sake, ex-players, just give present players a break. You were no saints in your day. Mats Wilander said yesterday that if a challenge is wrong when the ball is half way on the line, two challengers should be lost. Ah mean, please!!!!

ahahaha, nad...lol...

I personally believe that players should be allowed to get coaching in between sets!!!! Many other sports do this.............what the hell is so special about tennis?!!!

Especially with the WTA rules which do allow coaching in between sets...what is so special about female players?! Don't we fight for equal rights? So it should apply to both male and female tennis players...:-)

Nad - totally agree with you. For a start those players did not play such gruelling tennis because most of them served and volleyed - no long rallies for them on a regular basis. Also their gamesmanship was more commonplace than it is now and it is because of their behaviour that we have all these rules in place now.

I have given up taking Mats Wilander et al at Eurosport seriously because they come out with some real B..S... Chris Bradnam takes every opportunity to have a go at Rafa and sometimes I just have to turn him off. It seems that when Rafa does something they make a mountain out of a molehill but if another players does the exact same thing they even make excuses for him or just ignore that it even happened. Talk about being biased.

@ schatz,

Its not 'biased' it envy/hatred!!! Rafa will never be liked by a lot of people bcos he's made Federer cry!! Now they are happy to see Novak beating Rafa bcos it makes them feel so mcuh better about Fed's constant loses to Rafa!!! And I suspect they will hate Rafa even more tomorrow!!!

VAMOS!!!!

Players like Cash are the last ones to be lecturing players today about bending the rules! What a joke! I am old enough to have been around back in the day in tne 70's and 80's and well remember how the game was played. There was so much craziness going on, so much gamesmanship, that it wasn't even funny.

He seems to be having some memory loss as he gets older. I would just say one name to him - Ilie Nastase. Just check out some youtube clips to see the kind of things he pulled. McEnroe's endless temper tantrums, Connors' taunting and playing to the crowd, hitting other players with shots to the body intentionally, and on and on.

I love someone reading so much into the lack of comments on this topic thread. Maybe it's just that they are too busy actually talking about the great tennis we have seen and the great semifinals ahead?

How about we just accept that most people here are focusing on the tennis and not Pat Cash's lectures about how it's supposed to be played. Hypocrisy at its worst!