Wimbledon Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Ben Shelton's moment has arrived
I went to the US Open last night. First time inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and on the grounds in Flushing. It was also my first professional tennis event since attending the semifinals of the 2003 Legg Mason Tennis Classic and watching Andre Agassi lose in a third-set tiebreaker. The US Open dangles be...

Coco Gauff is proof that tennis is wack without Black women
They used to not want Althea Gibson’s “kind” around. Now we don’t know where tennis would be without them. That’s how you ace an opportunity....

Ben Shelton feels limitless
There’s been a lament, until recently, that on the men’s side American tennis just had a ceiling. And that ceiling wasn’t anywhere close to winning a Grand Slam. Which is a little unfair to Andy Roddick, who without the existence of Roger Federer would have been a multi-Wimbledon champion and probab...

After 30 years (!!), it is finally time for Venus Williams to call it a career
Unlike at this time last year, the central figure of the US Open isn’t a Williams sister. Serena’s matches were all appointment television, maybe because of the known stakes, being one of tennis’ all-time great’s last event. And Flushing lost its luster after Serena’s third-round exit, until the sta...

Maria Sakkari didn’t complain about the smell of weed at the U.S. Open, she simply noted its presence
This is how marijuana gets a bad rap. A tennis player says she could smell weed during her match, and goes out of her way to say it didn’t affect her whatsoever, yet media outlets still take it out of context. During a changeover, Maria Sakkari informed the chair official that she detected a hint of...

Spanish FA President Luis Rubiales is a creep
Update Aug. 24: According to multiple reports, Luis Rubiales plans to resign....

Everyone wants to love women’s soccer without taking any responsibility for it
It wasn’t quite the theater of the idiotic that his pre-Qatar speech was, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino had to get in front of a mic before the kickoff of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and certainly wasn’t in any more of a mood to take any responsibility for problems with ...

History has its eyes on Carlos Alcaraz and his early quest to become tennis’ GOAT
Tennis is undergoing its Steph Curry moment. The way Carlos Alcaraz controls the country club sport through his racket is unlike anything we’ve seen before. Nearly a decade after Curry’s rise to superstardom, every high school sophomore thinks swishing a 40-footer is routine. It’s not, and every air...

Carlos Alcaraz out-Djokovic’d Novak Djokovic
There is a vision of how to beat Novak Djokovic at a major, especially at Wimbledon, and even more especially at Centre Court, where he hadn’t lost in 10 years. It’s only a vision, because so few have ever achieved it. Only Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev had managed to beat Djokovic in a major in th...

Lionel Messi went to Publix, and if you know, you know
There are seminal moments in the lives of humans: First sexual experience, drink, cigarette, joint, child, marriage, family death, trip to Publix, among others. Once you’ve been through each, your world view changes, and ideally it’s accompanied by a boost in wisdom; for those who’ve never been insi...

The next Olympics will be held without Russia and Belarus, but maybe not Russians and Belarusians
World sports fans in search of a natural antagonist for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will have to find countries other than Russia and Belarus to root against. The IOC has decided not to invite the countries due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which started mere days after the Beijing Winter Oly...

Despite Wimbledon exit, Chris Eubanks proclaimed himself as an irreplaceable part of the American tennis scene
What a rollercoaster sport can be sometimes. In the first set of his Wimbledon quarterfinal against Daniil Medvedev, little hope existed for Chris Eubanks to overcome the world’s No. 3-ranked player. Eubanks’ serve and volley game were on point, but while Medvedev was serving, the American upstart l...

Wimbledon brings Venus back showing the Williams sisters still own tennis
Athletic greatness is proven by performance. Athletic immorality is defined by how debilitated your sport becomes when you aren’t around. Tennis doesn’t know what to do without the Williams sisters and it’s why Wimbledon keeps bringing them back. ...

Tomorrow is going to have to wait on Novak Djokovic
Eras don’t end on schedules. There wasn’t an assigned time when Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal exited the royal hall of the ATP Tour, it was just sort of a nebulous “time.” Federer’s knee eventually gave out, it might be that Nadal’s hip has done so as well. It would appear that Novak Djokovic is not...

Alcaraz’s cramps robbed us of satisfying conclusion to dream match against Djokovic
Well, that escalated quickly. It was nearly even in one of the biggest matches tennis has had in decades with a clash of the generations between old-standard Novak Djokovic and rising star Carlos Alcaraz. Then that damn charley horse in Alcaraz’s right leg happened and Djokovic won 10 of the next 11...

The Garbiñe Muguruz tennis selfie-turned-seduction story is an outlier
Attractive people can get away with things non-thirst-inducing people cannot, and as fucked up as it is to overtly tell anyone that they’re not pretty enough to do something, it’s true. Whether that’s cutting in line, waiting for drinks, wearing crop tops, or turning a selfie with a Wimbledon winner...

The Masters was supposed to be LIV’s big moment, but a Brooks Koepka choke turned it into their big disappointment
It’s the obvious joke, so let’s get it out of the way. The LIV Golf representatives at The Masters aren’t used to playing 72 holes! That’s why Brooks Koepka crapped the bed on Sunday and blew his lead, only to be passed by Jon Rahm, who won his first green jacket by four strokes! If only the Saudi-b...

Better sports villains: LIV golfers at Augusta or Russians at Wimbledon?
It’s time to break out your finest polos and bone up on the latest stock market trends because we’re going to the country clubbing. The Masters are next week, and Wimbledon is in a few months, but we have news from both, and I don’t want to write two separate stories, so we’re going to combine and t...

Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk refuses to shake hands with Russian opponent after win
As her father and grandfather remained trapped in Kyiv with war raging around them, Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk was making headlines, taking down Russian competitor Varvara Gracheva in the finals of the ATX Open on Sunday. After winning the match in two sets (6-3, 7-5), Kostyuk shook the ump...

Andy Murray can’t help himself
Andy Murray must really love tennis. At least he’d better, considering what he puts himself through every match in the past few years and over his whole career. It’s like he can’t get off the court when there have definitely been times he should get off the court, both in making his wins easier and ...