Talking Points: Hello? A $2,000 fine? It’s for you

1

The player who used his phone to snap a photo of a ball mark during a French Open match was fined $2,000.

Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine was cited for unsportsmanlike conduct for setting aside his racket and taking a picture of the spot in the red clay where a shot landed near a line in his 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 loss to seventh-seeded Richard Gasquet at Roland Garros.

The penalty was listed Thursday among other fines of players at the Grand Slam tournament. The match was Monday.

Stakhovsky said he spoke to a tennis official in hopes of avoiding losing some of his prize money. But he wound up getting docked about 7 percent of the roughly $27,000 he earned as a first-round loser.

2

We’ve got to say that Texas athletic director sounds like a wise man.

A longtime playoff proponent, Dodds calls the new four-team system that will begin with the 2014 season a good “baby step.” His preference would be eight teams.

“I think there will be a lot of conversation about the fifth team that didn’t get in, or the 11-1 team that didn’t get in because somebody’s 12-0 that maybe wasn’t quite as good as the 11-1 team,” Dodds said Thursday at the Big 12 meetings. “If you take eight, then you don’t really have that. The ninth team has got a concern but it’s not really like the fifth team.”

West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck said he has wanted to look back over the last 10 years at what teams qualified for the BCS games, and how big of a gap there was between the fourth and fifth teams, and then between other teams through the top nine.

“Let’s give four a shot and see,” Luck said. “A lot of years, there seems like there’s three or four really good teams, then there’s a little bit of a dropoff, but I’m not sure I’d advocate eight at this point.”

1

2

Related Stories