Matt Cronin over at Tennisreporters.net is reporting the quote from the Russian Express about Maria Sharapova supposedly attributed to Anna Chakvetadze's father, Djambuli, is most likely false:
For those of you whop read the Russian Express story that alleged that Anna Chakvedatze’s father Djambuli told Yuri Sharapov that he has lost all control of Maria, that story is said to have no basis in reality. Mr. Chakvetadze and Sharapova are not friends and would never have such a conversation.
Due to the massive cutbacks in the publishing industry, reporting, or lack there of, has grown increasingly sketchy, while the editing, or the lack there of, has also hit the skids. How is it, for example, that two separate wire stories on Sharapova’s withdrawals from Paris and Dubai hit the news rolls a week apart and that the second one is being treated as a new story with real news value? How is it that it was reported that Sania Mirza pulled out of Fed Cup last week with a torn abdominal muscle and is back on court this week at the Pattaya Open. It must have been no more of a muscle strain.
Due to the lousy world economy, there are fewer on site reporters these days, which increases the size of the black hole of tennis reporting. Outside of the Slams, there are not enough common threads running through the sport, and fans are forced to guess as to the playing level and the lifestyles of the competitors. There are tons of fans blogs, and some of them are very good, but because they aren’t out there reporting, they are forced to rely on the same small information flow coming out of most tournaments and are forced to guess as to what’s really going on. Moreover, the tours are once again not doing a good enough job promoting their players and are frequently waiting for journalists to come to them rather than pitching interesting stories. They need to help the sport come alive, rather than watching it sleep post the Aussie Open.
Great work
Matt. And, the point about the Tours not doing enough to promote the ballers is spot on. But I would go one step further and say some mainstream tennis media are also lacking in real, in-depth reporting and not vetting the information they're receiving either.
Exhibit A: I got the quote from
TENNIS.com's "The Ticker" which I believed had information that was verified as "true" by the editors at the site. Clearly, it was not and now seems to have been taken down from their site.
If we, as bloggers who don't have "access", can't trust the information coming from mainstream tennis sources, who can we trust?
PS - Thanks to an anonymous
DtL reader for the tip off on
Matt's story!
(image via phonesreview.co.uk)
