Talk:Gustavo Kuerten

Re: Title Details subsection

I think recording the score of every single match in a tournament is excessive, unless it is used to show something important about Kuerten. Need to find a way to summarize the main point conveyed through these "individual tournament tables" yet not overdo it like they are done right now.

(1)First of all, it is hardly the case of listing "every single match in a tournament", the only matches that have been listed on this article were those involving Kuerten, and only those in the tournaments listed as important in his career, such as those he won.

(2)A Davis Cup performance list does not seem too much, since this is usually regarded as an important part of a player's career, and I'm listing only Kuerten's matches (not the entire confronts of Brazil), which are, as with any player, only between 1 and 3 matches per confront, and that's when they actually play (Kuerten has not played for Brazil in the last 3 or 4 confronts in which Brazil was a part, besides having missed a few other events in past years due to injuries).

(3)About Muster:

Now, about my most recent revert of your edits: You asked how the Muster story relates to Kuerten, well, it happened in a Kuerten match, and it was written to illustrate how it was that the match was interrupted, as shown on the board (otherwise people just assume that an injury was responsible). So that passage serves three purposes:

First, it explains what actually happened in that match; Second, it tells the tale of an incident that happened in a Kuerten match that's quite unusual in modern tennis (players throw fits of anger all the time, but they don't walk off court); Third, it elucidates why there were no matches on the third day of that confront (in the article, it explains why Kuerten didn't play a second singles match, which, incidentelly, would have been against Muster himself).

And also to the point, as a matter of policy, we do not erase information from articles without discussing first (unless it is a clear case of vandalism), regardless of what the personal opinion of one individual user may be.

I can't help it if you don't think the information is interesting/important, but at the very least it does no harm to the article, and others shouldn't be deprived of learning about that event (again, in Kuerten's career, even if the more direct protagonist was Muster). If they have no interest, they can just skip the passage and not read it.

(4) Furthermore, some users tend to want to rewrite entire passages of an article because they believe it could be better written, but that usually proves complicated (I'm talking about massive rewrites for no other reason than the editor's belief that the text "could be better", not specific edits in some passages, to correct grammar, style or typos or adapt the text to new info that may have been added), because the text may loose consistency, spawning several follow-up rewrites/reversals to solve it. Pardon me if that is not the case here (I don't know if you are new to Wikipedia, although your status as an anon contributor would suggest so, plus I did think that your rewrite of the "personal and early career" passage was quite good – I had wipped it out late at night, and it wasn't all that well written –

(5) I reverted the rewrite in the "2004 to present" subsection because it was giving information about Kuerten's 2002 meeting with Federer, which should go in the 2002 subsection, and the text on the 2004 Roland Garros meeting was well-written enough – again, no need to rewrite passages that are already clear, although I know you did it because you were adding new information). Regards, Redux 12:14, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry, but the reasons you give behind your actions are tenuous at best. Let me elucidate.

About (1), I know it "is hardly the case of listing "every single match in a tournament", the only matches that have been listed on this article were those involving Kuerten". I can read very well. But that is not the point I was raising. I see very little point in describing the scoreline of Kuerten vs for example, Marcio Carlsson (Brazil), ranked 131 with a scoreline 6-1 6-3 in the first round of Monte Carlo Masters. This match (and all other matches like thiso ne that are mentioned) holds no major significance in Kuerten's career, unless you think EVERY WIN in Kuerten's career is equally important, in which case I think hardly anyone will agree with you to use that unwarranted assumption in Wikipedia. In short, I find this arbitrary and excessive.

(2) First off, "confront" is not used to describe what you want to describe. It seems odd that you throw out remarks about what is "well-written" quite frequently when you yourself seem to know little about English diction. But let us ignore that for a while here. I didn't mentiuon anything about Davis Cup matches. So I don't why you are jumping on this one. Although I do plan to take a closer look later at the subsection.

(3) Fair enough. But I still think it can be written much more concisely. I will try to do that in this talk section first.

(4) Sure. Although I am not sure what you mean by wiped out some portions. I don't see them.

(5) I think your explanation here is lacking. The "new information" I added was not from the perspective of Kuerten's chronological career, but from the perspective of Keurten-Federer rivalry on clay, which is totally relevant to the match description at hand (Federer v Kuerten in 2004). I think it is justified. If you can add an entire paragraph on Muster's tantrum for a small asterisk beside a match scireline, I can't see why a relevant one-sentence mentioning of a rivalry between Federer and Kuerten should get the chop.

Some more thoughts regarding the article in general:

I think you have done a wonderful job in gathering all the info about Kuerten, something probably only a Brazilian fan can do with his access to local media. I am touched not only by the stories, but also the contexts behind the stories. But I also think there is a need to revise this article to maintain proper diction, brevity and a lack of redundance. I have read some sections of this page intently and tried to edit what was necessary. Other sections I have read only cursorily but found a lot of redundaccies, superfluity and not mention, not so good English. I think we should work together to make this one of the best tennis pages on Wiki, if only because Guga is a one of a kind tennis player (and one of my absolute favorites).

I also think that all the tennis player pages should maintain similarly structured subsections. Makes sense for an encyclopaedia. This doesn't mean that I am suggesting certain subsections here should go away, but that a little more conformity among similarly-themed pages (pages of tennis players in this case) should be maintained.