Multimillionaires Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal may be upset over the reforms on the ATP circuit, but their problems are nothing compared to those encountered by tennis players in Iraq.
Even putting together a team for next month's Davis Cup Group IV Asia/Oceania tie in Burma is an achievement as three of their group were murdered last August.
"It [the shootings of Naser Ali Hatim, Wisam Adel and Hussein Ahmed Rashid] was not sectarian violence -- one was Shia, the other two were Sunni," said Iraqi No. 1 Akram Mustafa Abdulkarim. "They were wearing tennis shorts and sports gear after training."
"They were killed because they were athletes. Many athletes are killed without reason. Ten minutes before [they were shot], I was talking with them on the phone. They were good friends. It's a catastrophe for Iraqi sport," he said.
Theirs is not the only sport to have suffered its share of tragedy in a country that is believed to have seen 30,000 killings, according to the UN figures, last year alone.
Last May, 15 members of the national taekwondo team were kidnapped and have never been seen again.
Numerous players and coaches from football teams -- their national side created a sensation by reaching the Asian Games final -- have been killed leading the Baghdad clubs to take the drastic step of playing their games in Kurdistan.
"It's hard to focus on tennis in these conditions," said the 25-year-old Akram. "A few weeks ago, I was playing a `selection match' for the Davis Cup. It was in al-Shaab stadium. There was crossfire right next to the court. Instinctively, I kept on ducking. It's dangerous to play tennis. You don't feel free to play."
Akram said that the continuing violence had seen standards slip in Iraqi tennis.
"We play fewer matches and tournaments," said Akram, who revealed that even the equipment provided for them is either stolen or of poor quality. "We don't meet as many players as we used too. We don't have money to travel abroad anymore to play against other players."
"Before, Iraqi tennis had a good reputation in the Arab world but now our level has gone down. I feel I don't play as well as I used to. Our level would go back up if they gave us the means to do it," he added.
Akram receives a bursary of 200,000 dinars (US$150) a month and will receive a bonus of US$10 per day when he goes away on Davis Cup duty.
"Most of people who used to play tennis before were wealthy, and had high living standards. Most of those have now fled Iraq," said Akram who counts Federer as his role model.
"I love looking at Federer," he said. "He is much stronger than Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras used to be. He never loses. It would be a dream to play against him."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier