Friday, December 12, 2008

Tertiary Tennis

I graduated from university today - something which has little to do with tennis. (Surprisingly, there are other things than tennis I'm interested in... Renaissance theatre, for one!) But I thought it thus appropriate to talk tennis and university - more specifically, this so-called ATP university.
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Question: does anyone actually know what the hell it is?
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There are tennis players who have earned degrees, and they are thus exceptional - Mario Ancic, for one. But this ATP university is not so much a university as... well, a seminar, really. It's a very misleading name. There was a story on the ATP website the other day about how sixteen players graduated from it. Naturally, I was intrigued, so I went and looked... and on the list of graduates was Thomaz Bellucci and another one of my Stars (can't remember which), who are both VERY young, nonwithstanding them being professional tennis players.
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Turns out all you have to do to graduate from the ATP university is attend a three day seminar about management and some other stuff (unsure of specifics) and probably not burn anything down. As someone who has slaved away earning their degrees for five years and only now comes away with the precious testamur, I think I object to the use of the term 'university...'
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In the same vein, Sania Mirza got given an honorary doctorate the other day. I hate honorary doctorates. I know she's awesome and what she's done for Indian tennis is good and everything, but a doctorate is something you work at, damn it! As someone who is intending to do a PhD, I am always really pissed off when someone gets handed something that I, who am not famous, will have to study for for years and years and years...

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