Mornin'. Let me just clarify something about yesterday's post (below). I wasn't criticizing Juan Martin del Potro's actions or statements; I have no beef with him or how he conducts himself. He seems like a nice, shy, quiet guy. I was just analyzing and commenting on his situation - now that it appears to have become a "situation." Pablo Q's well-informed comment, posted at 7:21 PM yesterday, is useful as a backgrounder. And it certainly confirms that the fans and media in Argentina are neither apathetic onlookers, interested only in the on-court events of the day, nor inclined to greet del Potro's struggles with a shrug of indifference and lack of opinion.
It's funny, but I can only wish that the plot would get as thick as Pablo makes it sound up here in the U.S. when Serena Williams or Andy Roddick blows out a shoulder, or gets in a tiff over Davis or Fed Cup. I'm basically of the school that believes that when it comes to tennis, almost all press is good press. When a newspaper with the heft of La Nacion devotes two full pages to a tennis story, that's a good thing for the sport, if not (in this case) for the subject of the story. Compared to some South American and European nations, the U.S. has a puff press.
James Joyce famously remarked, of his native Ireland, that she's "the old sow that eats her farrow." It's a useful if not entirely pleasant metaphor. And the same can be said for other nations, at least when it comes to their sports heroes or, as Pablo Q so colorfully put it, "supersportsmen." I doubt that La Nacion was simply making stuff up; more likely, the newspaper was digging a bit and connecting dots - perhaps the wrong ones, or conveniently skipping a few to bolster the preferred narrative, but that's what newspapers do. How you feel about it may be determined more by the message than the nature or identity of the messenger.
On the other hand, if this is outright "let's just throw it out there" speculation about del Potro, shame on the paper. What more can I say, I'm not the editor of La Nacion. Nor am I a trusted adviser of Juan Martin's. In fact, I'm just a myopic, xenophobic American who has the gall to find it comment-worthy that US Open champ del Potro appears to be in a bit of a fix, and maybe one that many of his ATP peers might have been able to avoid (Roger Federer's mono or bad back, anyone?). I'll tell you this, though, if I were a passionate fan of Delpo, I wouldn't want the poor kid to have to be dealing with the kinds of pressures a "situation" can create.
Am I just adding fuel to the fire writing this? It's a legitimate question. I don't believe so. I'm reacting to news not of my making, but of sufficient interest - and currency - to warrant comment. You know how it is around here, we try to go Meta.
More critically, what if Juan Martin actually were having panic attacks? Suffering from depression? Seeing a therapist? So what? Would that somehow be a more hurtful and damaging revelation than a false report claiming he had tennis elbow? Nobody wants to have untruths about himself floating about out there, but there's an issue of kind here, and comment poster Diane picked up on it when she wrote, at 6:06 PM:
What's striking about all this, on a personal, anecdotal level, is that one of my earliest reactions to Del Potro was a sense that he was "depressed" - and I use(d) the term in the most general, non-clinical sense. Having had some exposure to varying degrees of the condition, I don't attach a stigma to it. You could just as well have told me that Juan Martin suffers from athletes foot, or vision impairment. It's just something else to deal with, although I wouldn't want to minimize the degree of effort required to manage or even battle tendencies to depression.
Anyway, I hope Del Potro makes a speedy recovery and that all the white noise in his homeland doesn't hamper his full comeback. And if this controversy has been utterly fabricated, it should pose no real impediment to his successful return.
There's no pressing need to rehash much of what was discussed yesterday. Some days, I just feel I want to follow up on a post, and that's often on days when I feel that either I didn't express my feelings accurately or that an inordinately large number of readers mis-read my intentions. The latter happens quite often, and it can be frustrating because a fan's passions run hot, and most of you are fans. I've also learned a lot, writing this blog, about how people read and what some readers are looking for, irrespective of the actual content in any post. Also, I sometimes enjoy singling out Comments and remarking on them; it's kind of a post-modern. comment on the comment commenting on the comment thing, right? Welcome to TW.
And on another note, Ana Ivanovic chalked up her first win over a Top 10 player (Victoria Azarenka)since 2008 in Rome today, although I'm irritated by the "apparently injured" descriptive used in the brief AP bulletin. I don't know, 6-4,6-4 sounds like a fairly competitive match, so I'm assuming that Azarenka wasn't playing with a fractured Tibia or bullet-hole in her right shoulder. Anyway, carry on talking about whatever is on your minds - I have to hunker down in the writing bunker.