Talk About Tennis 2.0

And the world of sports continues to accept this charade of Russian athletes competing as "neutral".
Let's see what will happen at the Olympics. Won't matter to me as I never watch them, but Russia will be there. Blank flag and all.

Formula 1.
Max Verstappen, two time defending champion, just won his 8th consecutive race of the season, stretching Red Bull's dominance to 13 straight wins, starting with the final race of last year's championship. This was a guy that won 10 races between 2015 and 2020, and now has won 35 in three seasons after moving to Red Bull.
That is one sport that has truly make the athlete totally disposable. It is simply the car. Second in the standings? Checo Perez, his teammate.

Ouch. Canada loses 4-0 to Australia to go out at group stage. They didn't look very good in the bits I saw them ... but wasn't expecting this bad a result. A draw would have been enough to go through.

ptmcmahon wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2023 4:16 pm Ouch. Canada loses 4-0 to Australia to go out at group stage. They didn't look very good in the bits I saw them ... but wasn't expecting this bad a result. A draw would have been enough to go through.

With everything that happened this year, this world cup was always going to rough, and a game against the home team was a recipe for disaster.

On watching Youtube Highlights:
there are lies, d-- lies and highlight videos.. unfortunately, that is all I get to see most of the time, in tennis -
this is a cricket story (i happened to be at the airport, waiting for my flight, not that I watch much cricket)

I remember once I was watching the great Australan fast bowler Glenn McGrath bowling to England's captain Nasser Hussain, known as the best opener in the world at the time.. McGrath, operating with the new ball, was bowling on a lifeless pitch, getting no help at all from the pitch - he bowled ball after ball, 4 that I saw, a foot outside the off-stump. Nasser calmly let them all go, and I was thinking - what an idiot McGrath is - he is wasting the new ball - Nasser knows where his off-stump is, he is not going to take the bait and nibble at the ball. Then came the fifth ball, McGrath bowled it six inches closer to the stumps - Nasser started to let it go, as before, then suddenly realized this one was a bit closer, tried to bring his bat down -and ended up giving a nice simple catch to the wicketkeeper. I realized then, what seasoned watchers know, it was not that ball that caused Naseer to get out, it was the entire sequence... if I had seen only the highlights video, I would have wondered why on earth Nasser would play a silly shot like that...

I imagine it happens in tennis too - you miss a return, not because there was anything great in that particular serve but because the previous 7 ot 8 serves have conditioned you to expect something else..
Youtube videos will never show you that..very sad!

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 30, 2023 4:23 pm Formula 1.
Max Verstappen, two time defending champion, just won his 8th consecutive race of the season, stretching Red Bull's dominance to 13 straight wins, starting with the final race of last year's championship. This was a guy that won 10 races between 2015 and 2020, and now has won 35 in three seasons after moving to Red Bull.
That is one sport that has truly make the athlete totally disposable. It is simply the car. Second in the standings? Checo Perez, his teammate.

I secretly am rooting for RB to run the season just to make it a "mess" for F1.
What I hope is that they don't institute some arbitrary rule during mid-season in an effort to increase competition.

PS - Max made Checo look terrible on Sunday. Yes, Max gets some benefit to being the team lead car - but he shouldn't be that much quicker in essentially identical cars

I didn't watch it (way too early) but US tieing Portugal is very surprising for me. Especially since Portugal could have knocked out US with a win.

Looks like it has likely set up US - Sweden in round of sixteen... which could easily have been a predicted final for many.

Some woman commentating for Fox said the USWNT shouldn't have been celebrating the 0-0 final score proving that idiot commentators aren't limited to tennis in the US. She's been ripped a new one of course.

Not following...why SHOULD they have been celebrating it? They barely squeaked through to second round and now have a very hard round 16 match? Apparently Portugal hit the post two minutes into extra time as well so it was very nearly.

Edit - ok I read the comments... apparently Cary Lloyd was questioning the US's drive to actually win the game. Her comments were:

""You never want to take anything for granted," Lloyd said. "You put on that jersey and you want to give it everything you have, for the people that came before you and the people that are gonna come after you, and I'm just not seeing that passion.

"I'm just seeing a very lackluster, uninspiring, taking-it-for-granted, where winning and training and doing all that you can to be the best possible individual player is not happening.""

Doesn't seem to bad to me (and does match some of what I saw the game I watched). Sounds like she has been speaking out quite a bit about team since she retired so guessing people are eager to lash out at anyone who has any kind of non positive opinion in this case.

I know Jordan always frowned up celebrating any win that didn't result in your team holding a trophy and taking a champagne shower Are you saying that's what she meant?

No - what I read is that she was implying they weren't playing very hard, not with enough "passion" and were happy enough with a 0-0 tie. But it also sounds like she's been critical of team for awhile - I think I even remember her being critical while she was still on team. So this sounds like nothing new and everyone else is probably not wanting to here someone who is constantly critical - even if they may be right.

Jamaica holds Brazil to a 0-0 draw and advances ahead of them in another pretty big upset.

In the last round robin games tonight, Germany (world #2) may need a win to go through as well.

There's video in the link;

"I Saw The Potbelly...": Outrage Over Somali Athlete's 100-Metre "Sprint"
Twitter users are calling her the worst athlete in history to have participated in international games.
A video of a women's 100-metre race during the 31st Summer World University Games in Chengdu, China, is going viral on social media. The clip doesn't show any records being made or broken, but is making waves for the performance of one particular athlete from Somalia, who reportedly completed the race in 21 seconds. Local outlets identified her as Nasra Abukar Ali. Users who have posted the clip have slammed Somalia's Ministry of Youth and Sports for sending the "untrained" athlete to a high-profile event.
Others users are calling her the worst athlete in history to have participated in the international games, saying she has set the "record for the slowest finish" in the history of the competition.
'I Saw The Potbelly...': Outrage Over Somali Athlete's 100-Metre 'Sprint'
Nasra Abukar Ali reportedly took 21 seconds to complete the 100 metre race.

A video of a women's 100-metre race during the 31st Summer World University Games in Chengdu, China, is going viral on social media. The clip doesn't show any records being made or broken, but is making waves for the performance of one particular athlete from Somalia, who reportedly completed the race in 21 seconds. Local outlets identified her as Nasra Abukar Ali. Users who have posted the clip have slammed Somalia's Ministry of Youth and Sports for sending the "untrained" athlete to a high-profile event.
Others users are calling her the worst athlete in history to have participated in the international games, saying she has set the "record for the slowest finish" in the history of the competition.

The video shows other female athletes gearing up for the race and taking the stance before the start while Ms Ali struggling to even do that.

She doesn't appear to be fit and as soon as the buzzer rings, the crouching athletes race ahead, leaving Ms Ali far behind.

Others athletes quickly finish the race, but Ms Ali takes her own sweet time to reach the end, jumping on the track in between.

Elham Garaad, who shared the clip of the event on Twitter, accused the Somalian authorities of nepotism. "That's the niece of the President of the Somali Athletics Federation. What you expecting? Nepotism; we have good athletes in Somalia but when it comes to (money emojis) is a different story," she tweeted while replying to another user.

Somali Olympic Committee sources told African news outlet Horn Examiner that the real reason behind their participation in the international games was not competition but to help an athlete obtain a Schengen visa and seek asylum in Europe.
https://www.ndtv.com/feature/i-saw-the- ... nt-4261599

World #2 and two time champion Germany tie South Korea and are eliminated when Morocco win. Definitely the biggest name out at the group stage.

ptmcmahon wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 1:26 pm World #2 and two time champion Germany tie South Korea and are eliminated when Morocco win. Definitely the biggest name out at the group stage.

Wow