cup Page 78 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Jack Sock Blasts Two Forehands
The Laver Cup, which began today in Prague, is like a men’s tennis All-Star game—except good, because the players try. Over three days, some of Europe’s best are pitted against some of the best from everywhere else, on a greyscale court that makes every match look like an expensive cologne ad....
Apparently Shapo Did Not Know How To Hit A Dang Slice As Of Three Months Ago
The slice is one of the most basic tools of tennis, a versatile shot that can do any of the following and more: safely chip back big-ass serves, buy time to recover from aggressive attacks, inject a surprise change-up to the rhythm of a rally, send an annoyingly low ball to an opponent, or handle a ...
Nick Kyrgios Took A Beating
Given the prim tone of the sport, genuine trash-talking is an unlikely sight in tennis. When Alexander Zverev visibly uttered “fuck” while starting down his vanquished opponent, fans in the gallery may have dropped their champagne flutes and lost their monocles due to violent eye-popping. That was f...
South American World Cup Qualifying Is Dope As Hell
For most of the world’s elite national teams, qualifying for the World Cup is a charade. Sure, Spain and Germany and the other powerhouses have to earn their places into the world’s biggest sporting event, but because those countries are so reliably great, they can generally nab their spot without t...
FIFA Orders World Cup Qualifier To Be Replayed After Referee Banned For Life
Last November, South Africa beat Senegal 2-1 in a World Cup qualifying match, their only win through four qualifying games. However, a few months after the game, Joseph Lamptey, the referee in charge, was found guilty of “unlawfully influencing match results” and was subsequently banned for life. He...
The USMNT Doesn't Deserve To Qualify For The World Cup
For the majority of casual fans, international soccer is a game of tournaments. Outside of high-profile friendlies or marquee qualifying matches, this sort of ephemeral casual fandom more or less hibernates between the big tournaments, the beginnings of which reawaken rabid patriotism and communal p...
Costa Rica And Mexico Draw After Gorgeous Marco Ureña Golazo
Costa Rica got their only goal of the night in tonight’s World Cup qualifying match against Mexico from Marco Ureña, who tied things up with this laser into the corner of the net:...
Uruguay Probably Through To The World Cup On Two Goofy Goals
Fede Valverde, the 19-year-old Real Madrid prospect who is not racist, just made an enormous impact with what Ray Hudson dubbed a “wicked deflection” in his debut match for Uruguay. The young midfielder got lucky in the 76th minute, scoring a long-range goal that bounced through the defense and beca...
USMNT Lose 1-1
The USMNT avoided disaster in the most depressing way possible today against Honduras, riding a late short-range tap-in from Bobby Wood off a screaming Kellyn Acosta free kick to draw Honduras, 1-1. The score flatters the U.S., who gave their second consecutive pitiful performance and are lucky to r...
Pick Up The Stanley Cup Before Someone Tells You Not To
I got paired up with Jim on senior retreat. Holy Ghost Prep, our high school in suburban Philadelphia, had shipped 36 of us to Delaware for spiritual guidance and sleep deprivation. On the last day, we had an activity where we had to make a gift for another person. Jim was a big hockey fan and playe...
Live-Tweeting Of Soccer Match Interrupted When Social Media Manager Subbed Into Game
We’ve seen before just how versatile lower league soccer players have to be in order to keep their clubs functioning and their fans informed. Just this weekend, we saw another example when a Baldock Town player continued in the proud tradition of Sleaford Town’s Harrison Allen by dutifully tweeting ...
Soccer Match Interrupts Security Guard's Very Important Phone Call
We’ve all been there, trying to have a phone conversation at a desk in a room when all of a sudden something like a school class breaks out around us and we’re getting yelled at as if we’re the jerks. ...
The Best Thing In Tennis Last Week Was A Teen In An Ill-Fitting Hat
Denis Shapovalov is a Canadian teen who could probably use a new hat, because the portion of the strap that dangles off the hat is at least twice as long as the portion of the strap that is cinched to the hat. He was ranked No. 205 at the start of this year and entered the Rogers Cup last week with ...
Roger Federer's Dream Season Might Be Finally Catching Up To Him
Roger Federer showed up to the Montreal final Sunday in the stuff he’d been winning in all week: stubble of a sleepless new dad (he is an old dad), toasted tan, shirt the color of a very clean piglet. He also showed up with a 35-2 record. Federer has alternated between two modes this season: rest or...
This Is The Slowest Possible Way To Not Lose
Alexander Zverev was down match point against Richard Gasquet in the third set of their second-round Rogers Cup match Wednesday. The resulting exchange wasn’t exactly fun to watch, but it was impressive, in the way endurance sports are. The best comparison would be two people pushing the last bite o...
Gael Monfils Wouldn't Lose
Kei Nishikori had Gael Monfils beat today in Montreal, thrice over. Nishikori was up 5-3 in the second, serving for the match. He was up 5-3 set in the third, serving for the match. He was up 6-2 in the third set tiebreak. And Monfils still won 6-7(4), 7-5, 7-6(6)....
Nick Kyrgios Hit In Butt
After retiring from three straight matches—at Queen’s Club, at Wimbledon, and in Washington, D.C.—Nick Kyrgios won a match Monday, a 6-1, 6-2 dismissal of Victor Troicki at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. A day later, he willingly got hit in the butt....
You Can't Hit A Tweener Any Better Than This
Yesterday was only day one of the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but we might already have the shot of the tournament, courtesy of 20-year-old Russian Daria Kasatkina, who came up with one of the best tweener shots I’ve ever seen. ...
Christian Pulisic Starts His Season Off By Embarrassing Bayern Munich
America’s Wonderteen, Christian Pulisic, scored the opener of the German Super Cup for Dortmund against Bayern today, dispossessing a concerningly louche Javi Martinez and easily finishing....
FC Cincinnati Continue Their Thrilling, Surprising U.S. Open Cup Run
Tonight’s most compelling American soccer match was a little tricky to find, but it was well worth your investment. In the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Cup—which pits teams at all levels of American soccer against each other in a single-elimination format—FC Cincinnati beat the Miami 1-0 off a Bay...