[hacyOrgachbic]

Moose, you got to give Ferrer a HUG? I'm totally green with envy now! That said......

1. I wouldn't go so far as to say that David was ahem.....abused. I've read that article you spoke of and I've heard David in interviews. He loves tennis and he loves competition, but he has admitted to a period of laziness when he didn't want to train. Rather than.....let all that talent go to waste, it sounds to me like an extreme measure in this VERY specific situation to get David to make a decision and a commitment. I think that the method of getting David to commit is probably more extreme than abusive...it sounds more like a kid having a tantrum. I wonder how great Agassi could have been if he didn't go though that rebellious obnoxious period he had. At any rate...if David had decided to give up on tennis...that would have probably been the end of that. But to say you want to play tennis and then not do the work.....coaches need to get creative anyways.....if it seriously was abuse...maybe we'll hear about it one day in a tell all book from that cutie that hasn't been performing on the courts as late like he should be

2. Jelena's statement that she's basically had it worst than anyone on the tour just doesn't give me a vibe that...she's being narcissitic or caught up in herself. It gives me a vibe that she is looking at something that happened to her that was so horrible it has crippled her severely for years. It doesn't mean that nothing bad happened to other players ....I just think that Jelena is looking at what happened....and having a social worker for a mother who used to bring her cases home (and I would sneak downstairs after she went to bed and read her case files) I know what horrors exist and the monsters that commit them. Until Jelena opens up some more.....I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

3. Some of the players on the tour are HUGE survivors. It isn't fair to compare one person's pain and rising above it to another's pain who has been unable to rise above it. Seriously, how many female players on the tour...can suffer a huge emotional devastation like the murder of a beloved sister, fall down to a ranking of 81 and then come back to win the Aussie Open? Everyone is not like Serena. To each their own. Anna Chaks has never been the same since that home invasion that she suffered from. Seles eventually overcame....but truthfully.....she never reached the heights she would have if that stabbing had never occurred. We honestly don't know to what depths Jelena has been scarred by her father. We know she suffered horrific emotional and verbal abuse from that bully and now she is confirming something that has been suspected all along...that she suffered physical abuse also. Let's let this story and her healing unfold at the rate that she takes it and just empathsize with her.

4. If Dokic was talking about something like...her fitness or her training routine or some newspaper of something....I'd take it with a grain of salt. But for Jelena and her story over the years....sorry guys I don't doubt the abuse at all. And I bet the Aussie Federation knows something or they wouldn't have worked so darn quickly to keep Damir away from the Australian Open.

And please don't think that I'm biased because I'm so loving Jelena's being back in the top 100 and back on the tour.....working on her fitness, playing Fed Cup for the Aussies etc....I'm not at all biased.. But I will always give the benefit of the doubt to abuse victims....any kind of abuse be it physical, sexual, emotional, verbal.....................they all take their toll on the heart and soul of the victim.