As rain falls, ruining the end of what, right up until Thursday, had been a fabulous US Open, allow me to take issue with a couple of comments on this site’s message boards. Generally, I love the passion and expertise shown by most of the people who post almost daily on Tennis Week.com and I hope the major networks are taking note of the opinions voiced concerning some of their coverage.  Tennis Channel do it best; ESPN are pretty good but CBS have to get their game together if they not going to turn off the real tennis fan.

However — two points. First of all KingArthurUSA hands Wimbledon a backhanded compliment by lauding them for having built a roof. That,however, that seemed to surprise him because he then accused Wimbledon of “not being forward thinkers.”

Excuse me? The All England Club may put on a very traditional sort of tennis tournament that resolutely sticks by all the things that make tennis great but it is precisely their forward thinking that has enabled Wimbledon to keep pace and even outstrip many other sporting institutions in the world. There is nothing backward or old fashioned about the way Wimbledon works. 

They made sure of that under the chairmanship of John Curry when the decision was made to tear down the old No. 1 Court and replace it with a truly magnificent building of modern design that somehow managed to mesh perfectly with the overall “feel” of the All England Club. Apart from spacious areas for players’ and member’s restaurants and patios, The Millennium building also houses a big umpires’ restaurant, interview rooms and state of the art press facilities for the written media. Then, next door, there is another huge building that offers the BBC and other international television companies three floors of studios and high tech productions rooms with a large canteen and bar in the basement.

While all that was being built, so was the new 10,000 seat No. 1 Court. Then, when Tim Phillips replaced Curry as chairman, the modernization continued apace with the installation of the roof — a three year process because the old Centre Court had to be bolstered and strengthened so that it could take the weight. For much of that process, the club was a dusty, chaotic building site but, in 2007 and 2008, no one arriving on the first day of the Championships would have seen anything other than spic and span complex draped with purple and white flowers, the club colors.

It was another sleight of hand which under its two recent CEO’s, the now retired Chris Gorringe and his successor Ian Ritchie, has become the hallmark of how the All England Club manages to change while basically remaining the same.

This year, apart from the translucent roof which worked perfectly on the one day that it was required, there was a new mini-stadium at the back of the grounds which became the new No. 2 court. Next year, the old No. 2 Court, infamously dubbed the Graveyard of Champions because so many big names — John McEnroe amongst them — have lost on it, will be re-built and enlarged.  

So I am afraid trying to accuse the All England Club of not looking to the future; costing it, planning it and executing the necessary changes, is absurd. It’s complete bunk.
 On the second point, I have to take issue with Vinko’s assertion that the Guardian — once the venerable Manchester Guardian and London based for decades now — is “not regarded as a high quality news source …and is basically a gossip sheet.”

Now there a plenty of newspapers in the UK that could be dismissed as gossip sheets but, I can assure you, the Guardian is not one of them. Throughout it’s long and illustrious history, the Guardian has a set a standard for fine writing and accurate reporting that few other news publications in the world can match. I will deflect any hint of bias in this statement by pointing out that, although I have written for the Guardian and its sister paper, the Observer, I have also written for every other paper — many now defunct — published in what used to be known as Fleet Street since 1957. So, hopefully, this is an objective viewpoint.

The Guardian now has a much wide readership internationally because it was one of the first to grasp the importance of the internet and, as a result, has built an on-line readership that attracts nine million hits a day — more than the London Times. It’s unpopularity with some people in America is not hard to fathom because it has always been the standard bearer of the Liberal Party and that, of course, makes it hopelessly left wing by those of a Republic bent who think Gordon Brown is Karl Marx.

Vinko was picking up on an article by the Guardian correspondent currently covering the US Open who wrote a piece about the British press and their relationship with Andy Murray. It was not gossip. It was an opinion. I know opinion is frowned upon if it appears on anything but the op-ed page in most American publications but, with a few shining exceptions, that is the reason so many newspapers in the US are so dull. But that’s just my opinion which, last time I looked, was free.

So carry on posting, folks. It’s great for a rainy day.

Amidst the fun and games of this sun-splashed US Open we should spare a moment to remember two young men who might have been playing here had they not died far too young.

Federico Luzzi of Italy died suddenly from a virulent form of leukemia in 2008 while Frenchman Mathieu Montcourt collapsed and died from apparent heart failure earlier this summer after he had competed at Roland Garros.

Both these deaths are tragic but, to make it worse, by some strange and awful co-incidence both were involved in the ATP’s attempts under the Etienne de Villiers regime to make a big stand against betting on matches. Like many of the former CEO’s decisions, the campaign to stamp out betting in the wake of the unresolved Nikolay Davydenko affair was worthy but ill-conceived.

Like WADA, the anti-doping organization who has proved itself to be far more interested in nailing drug cheats than worrying about ruining an athlete’s career and reputation on the off chance that they might be not guilty, the ATP started handing large fines of up to $50,000 and three month suspensions because a bunch of Italians and other European players had placed 50 euro bets on a few matches for a bit of fun.

Yes, it was against the ATP rules but, back in 2005 when the bets were made, it was in the fine print that few people read. A rap on the knuckles was in order but as soon as the severity of the penalties were made public not only did the game of tennis take an unnecessary rap in the media as a sport ‘mired with betting scandals’ but the word match fixing started to be banded about.

The result is that Luzzi and Montcourt will be forever stigmatized as players who were trying to do something sinister and illegal. And if you want proof, just try checking some of the posts about Luzzi on Google. One I came across read in part: “Luzzi was better known for being involved in a match fixing scandal and was banned for 200 days.”

The scandal is not that Luzzi placed a little, harmless bet but that this should be the legacy of an honorable sporting career. Can you imagine what his family feel about this? It should be actionable because it is simply not true. Neither Luzzi nor Montcourt, who has been tarred with the same brush, were ever guilty of match fixing or anything like it. They were honorable young men who were following a sporting career with some success and deserve far better than this.

Rules and regulations are necessary and there is no question that tennis, as a sport which is highly vulnerable to the real criminals who would like to influence the course of matches, should adopt strict safeguards against the infiltration of undesirable influences. But that, in no way, should mean destroying the reputations of the innocent.

The ATP is probably unable to try and put the record straight until a lawsuit, levied against it by a group of Italian players who, like Luzzi, were fined and suspended, is resolved in a Miami courtroom. 

But when that case is settled, it should be too much to ask the ATP to issue a clear and unequivocal statement to the fact that Luzzi and Montcourt, who are no longer here to defend themselves, were guilty of nothing more than a minor infringement of the ATP Rule Book and were, in no way whatsoever, guilty of match fixing or any action intended to harm the sport they played with such dedication and skill.

We should let them rest in peace and reduce, in any way possible, the pain of their families’ loss.