open Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Tiafoe taking things to another level
The U.S. Open went plaid yesterday. ...
Et tu, WTA?
The WTA, the most successful professional league in the history of women’s sports, announced at the start of Week 2 of the U.S. Open that this year’s WTA Finals tournament will be held in Fort Worth, Texas. ...
Relieved to miss the redemption arc we didn’t need
It certainly speaks to the world’s ability to completely turn over and surprise you that Nick Kyrgios was installed as the favorite to win the U.S. Open after he pretty much paddled Danil Medvedev and Francis Tiafoe overturned Rafael Nadal. This is Nick Kyrgios after all, who never needed more than ...
Who needs the NFL after a sports weekend like the one that just passed?
Usually, the best sports weekends happen in October. A few days of dramatic playoff baseball, a good old-fashioned upset Saturday in college football followed by a championship bout, and then a dizzying Redzone Witching Hour on Sunday....
Margaret Court’s resentment is proof that envy and racism were Serena Williams’ only true rivals
Most of the time, feminists are feminism’s biggest problem. It’s why Margaret Court has chosen this moment to hate on Serena Williams. Because like tennis, feminism is/was supposed to be something just for white women....
It’s come together for Frances Tiafoe
There’s a pretty common narrative for tennis players, which has been blunted on the men’s side for a while because well, there’s been three guys stopping anyone else from taking the final step. The arc is supposed to be that a player shows up in his late teens or early 20s, flashes some serious game...
It’s just a game
The first time I wrote “professionally” about Serena Williams, back when Bleacher Report was still an onslaught of slideshows, I called her overrated. I was just out of college, and my terrible, awful, horrendous take was she didn’t win as much as she could. This was more than a decade ago, and it w...
No one wants to let go
It is obviously going to take a brave woman to stare down Serena Wiliams at Ashe Stadium, where 24,000 (minus the handful they have in their player’s box) will be backing the legend to keep her career alive for just a couple more days. It is perhaps the most unique advantage in tennis history, a wal...
Novak Djokovic is stopping Novak Djokovic from playing in the U.S. Open
Update (8/25/22): It ain’t happening, chief....
Kamaru Usman and the other athletes who’ve been stopped at history’s doorstep
Kamaru Usman’s loss to Leon Edwards in the final minute of the fifth round was the fourth latest finish for a UFC championship fight. Usman, the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC will be granted a rematch to regain his title, but his chance to tie Anderson Silva’s 16 consecutive wins is likel...
And, voila, Cameron Smith’s charisma is gone
We’ve reached a point where a golfer has to take a blood oath on their mother’s grave while stabbing a voodoo doll of Greg Norman for me to believe that any of these amoral sociopaths are staying with the PGA Tour. My hopes weren’t high for Cameron Smith, the young Australian who just won the Open C...
Serena Williams calls it a career
One of the greatest athletes ever has signaled the end of her playing career. Serena Williams will hang up the racket after the US Open, tennis’ final major of the calendar year, she confirmed to Vogue Magazine in a personalized essay. Williams, 41, has one final chance to tie Margaret Court’s all-t...
John Daly won’t be on the Saudi tour, but it’s not for a lack of trying
Before your Thursday gets worse, ask yourself if you’re really surprised that a self-indulgent huckster, the inspiration for Roy McAvoy’s storyline if “Tin Cup 2” ever happens, would be pro-Saudi tour. John Daly sets up HQ at a Hooters near Augusta every April, will sign anything from a cocktail nap...
The Jimmy G to Tampa Bay rumor was asinine, but another NFC team makes sense
Now that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is on the mend following shoulder surgery in March, trade rumors are starting to resurface, with one sounding too ridiculous to be true. The rumor that Tampa Bay is interested in bringing Garoppolo to Florida has been floating around....
You can’t run from yourself and beat Novak Djokovic
We’ll never know what Nick Kyrgios really thinks, late at night when he’s all alone and there’s no one to impress or deflect to (and he may have a lot of those nights to himself soon). Maybe he genuinely doesn’t care that he lost his first Grand Slam final, considering the way that most people have ...
Tiger has the 150th Open Championship 'circled' on his calendar
The British Open, the final major golf championship of the year, doesn’t tee off until Thursday, but it’s already dominating the sports headlines this weekend as 2022’s Tiger Woods comeback and Saudi drama come to a head....
The Saudi Golf Tour idiocy continues to astound
If you were too busy getting drunk and setting off fireworks in your cousin’s backyard this weekend to keep up with the newest Saudi Tour drama, I don’t blame you — but the weekend’s over, and we’re diving right back in....
Get to the net, Taylor Fritz!
American tennis, on the men’s side, has been a desolate wasteland for over 20 years now, pretty much. Since Andy Roddick took the U.S. Open in 2003 and then spent the rest of his career getting clubbed by Roger Federer in the biggest matches of his career, no Yank has taken a major. No Yank has even...
The U.S. Open Twitter account went all in clowning a Seattle Seahawks fan and Drew Lock
The Seattle Seahawks are about to embark on a long NFL season. And whoever runs the U.S. Open’s official Twitter page knows that and isn’t shy about throwing it in the face of Seahawks fans. The tennis account fired back at a Seahawks fan that said tennis wasn’t a sport. They took down that fan, the...
Kobayashi was the GOAT
In one of the weirder federal holiday traditions in America, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, takes place every Independence Day. The 2001 event will go down as a turning point for the event as a 23-year-old skinny Japanese man named Takeru Kobayashi burst onto the Brooklyn stage and stole the show....