Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Hunh. I would have guessed cocaine.

So, the top eight women in the world (now minus Dinara Safina with a back injury) are battling it out in Doha. Venus and Serena Williams just finished a heckuva match with a lot of great hitting and entertaining points, especially at the end.
But, really. Who cares about that?
So Andre Agassi used meth while he was playing tennis! As far as autobiographies go, it's no Mackensie Phillips-sized revelation, but this is a pretty big deal and not for the reason one might think.
Yes, Agassi is a role model and he ought to be ashamed of himself and his image (which is everything, remember) might take a hit. But, hey, it's the bombshells that sell books, not being a philanthropist who came back from being 141 in the world all the way back to 1 and winning "the" Grand Slam. Go figure.
The real question for me is why it took 12 years for this to see the light of day. The man failed a drug test while playing pro tennis. His excuse? His assistant, a drug user, used to put meth in his soda and Andre accidentally had a swig of Meth-Dew. That, and an apology, apparently was the end of that.
Really? I thought Richard Gasquet's line for testing positive for cocaine was lame.
And how is it that the Martina Hingises and Gasquets of the world are exposed the second their drug tests come up dirty and Agassi tests positive for meth ... and all is quiet on the drug-testing front. Is there a double standard? If Roger Federer or Serena Williams test positive for drugs, would we ever know about it? If that positive test had come up, it might have derailed Agassi's career, and tennis, the business, would have taken a hit. Is that a consideration these days?
Put plainly, is there some sort of double standard for athletes who are doping? If there's not, then the drug-testing policy is pretty lame. If you can tell folks you kissed a girl who had cocaine-crusted lips or that you drank some meth juice -- and it works -- that's a problem, too.
Really, the only way tennis looks good here is if we find out that Agassi made this up to move some books. It'd make his fans feel better, and it would also hold out hope that Mackensie Phillips is telling lies, too. Because that's just disturbing.

1 comment:

Greg Delaney said...

well Agassi is in the book selling business now, so he's gotta do what he can to make 'em fly off the shelf. Pretty soon he'll start naming names to sell the next few books he writes...