Skip to main content

You've got to have respect for this bloke

American Taylor Dent has made a comeback to tennis this year and faces Roger Federer tomorrow in the fourth round at the Miami Masters Series. Dent has returned from major back surgery, something that 99.9% of people would have retired from.

From the Times...

It is difficult to put into words the courage shown by Taylor Dent, who will be 28 next month and has qualified for the Sony Ericsson Open, where he will be Roger Federer's fourth round opposition. Let him take up the story of his absence from the sport from March 2007, and how he had his sights sets on becoming either a commentator or a coach because he did not know if he would ever play again. He suffered from an injury called spondylolisthesis. He tells The Net Post: "That's the technical name for it, but in layman's terms, my last vertebrae, the L-5, was broken on both sides. It was a bilateral pars fracture. The first surgery was to try and put this bone growth compound over the fractures and hope that it mended on its own. That didn't work, so I had a fusion. They took out the bottom half of my L-5 vertebra and put a rod in there, some cages and some screws, and fused it all up."

Dent said that he spent close to a year in bed between two surgeries. "I had a cast from my armpit down to my knee for, you know, pretty much the whole time." He says that the fact that he is out here, slugging away, and fighting hard is "a dream come true." He remembers playing Federer once before in the juniors in Rotterdam. "Oh no, I mean Roehampton, where they play the Wimbledon qualifiers, it's been a long time away, you've got to cut me some slack."


A year in a cast from the chest to the knee, in the prime of his life! Now that's dedication....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spot-fixing - you will never, ever be able to stop it

According to this report , IPL tournaments so far have been rife with spot-fixing - that is fixing minor elements of the game - runs in a single over, number of wides bowled etc. The curious part of that article is that the Income Tax department are supposed to have found these crimes. What idiot would be stupid enough to put down 'big wad of cash handed to me by bookie' as a source of income? Backhanders for sportsmen, particularly in a celebrity- and cricket-obsessed culture like India are not rare. They could come from anything like turning up to open someone's new business (not a sponsor, but a 'friend of a friend' arrangement), to being a guest at some devoted fan's dinner party etc. The opportunities are always there, and there will always be people trying to become friends with players and their entourage - that is human nature. This form of match-fixing (and it's not really fixing a match, just a minor element of it) is very hard to prove, but also,

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...