Message to Elena D.: Shut the hell up

The WTA "doping" issue continues, with Belgian sports minister Claude Eerdekens now getting some competition for Tennis Butthole of the Week. When he first announced that someone had a positive drug test, he said the women tested were Savetlana Kuznetsova, Justine Henin-Hardenne, Natalie Dechy, and Elena Dementieva. He was also quick to say that the "guilty" party was not his countrywoman, Henin-Hardenne.

Of course, the guilty party was Eerdekens, who not only violated every drug-testing protocol, but who knew damned good and well that what Kuznetsova did was perfectly legal. The WTA has asked for an apology, and he has refused to give one.

Both Dechy and Dementieva say that they are victims, too, and they are. Having your name announced to the world--especially at the start of a Grand Slam tournament--as a possible drug violator is a terrible experience.

Dementieva, however, claims that she and Dechy are the only victims, implying in a not-so-veiled way that Kuznetsova is guilty of something. "The WTA are trying to handle this problem by saying there is three victims," she told the press, " but I see only two victims in this story-- me and Nathalie Dechy, who really have nothing to do with this."

If Kuznetsova didn't have enough pain already, now she has her ridiculous, narcisisstic countrywoman labeling her guilty while she asks for sympathy for her own suffering. What happened to Kuznetsova is outrageous, and I feel bad for Natalie Dechy, but the only sympathy Dementieva stirs in me is pity that she is such an ass.