Monzanator

Paula Badosa moves into QF after a win over Elena Rybakina and plays Karolina Pliskova. Meanwhile Jil Teichmann takes out Naomi Osaka in three sets. Osaka needs to stop being a celebrity and actually focus on her primary job. Obviously she will still soak up all the money but it's a terrible loss overall.

No athlete got the US visa to attend the Eugene DL meeting. Must be some wider political/clerk problem since Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova complained she didn't get a visa either and had to withdraw from Cincinnati tournament. She might get one for US Open though.

Varvara Lepchenko (tennis) has been provisionally suspended today (andrafinili & modafinil). She's 35yo so probably tried to stiff-arm Father Time

Aryna Sabalenka can be annoying at times (and very loud) but she offered a nice handshake after losing to Paula Badosa in Cincinnati R2 just minutes ago.

[hide] Preliminary Round August 20th - August 26th, 2021 10 Nations, All Nations from Group A and 1st, 2nd and 3rd from Group B will qualify for the Quarterfinals Group A Date & Time (GMT -6) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 August 20th 2021, h. 16:00 Canada 2 Finland August 20th 2021, h. 19:30 Switzerland 5 United States August 2st 2021, h. 16:00 ROC 2 Switzerland August 22nd 2021, h. 16:00 Canada 3 ROC August 22nd 2021, h. 19:30 Finland 1 United States August 24th 2021, h. 12:00 United States 3 ROC August 24th 2021, h. 16:00 Switzerland 4 Canada August 25th 2021, h. 12:00 ROC 3 Finland August 26th 2021, h. 12:00 Finland 4 Switzerland August 26th 2021, h. 16:00 United States 1 Canada Group B Date & Time (GMT -6) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 August 20th 2021, h. 12:00 Czech Republic 3 Denmark August 21st 2021, h. 12:00 Germany 5 Hungary August 21st 2021, h. 19:30 Denmark 3 Japan August 22nd 2021, h. 12:00 Hungary 5 Czech Republic August 23rd 2021, h. 12:00 Germany 4 Denmark August 23rd 2021, h. 16:00 Japan 2 Czech Republic August 24th 2021, h. 19:30 Hungary 2 Japan August 25th 2021, h. 16:00 Czech Republic 1 Germany August 25th 2021, h. 19:30 Denmark 2 Hungary August 26th 2021, h. 19:30 Japan 2 Germany Top 3 Place 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place Nation [/hide]

Well, don't expect much joy after winning one game. If you don't like Giorgi then you must truly hate Karolina Pliskova Or maybe it's Sakkari that causes all this drama?

Allen wins 3-2. No handshake in the end (obvious given their history). Evans should have won it 3-1 but wasted two big opportunities in the fourth frame.

Mark Allen plays his ex-partner Reanne Evans now...

Yes, I don't see how Shia Muslims could support Sunni Muslims here at all. That's one split of Islam the so-called Western democracies have never understood and probably never will.

Almost every player on tour has had icy handshake one way or another. Some of them more often than others (Yulia Putintseva or Jelena Ostapenko come to mind). Giorgi is by no means a standout in that regard.

She's not rude, she simply doesn't show much emotions on court. Like never. Probably very shy to show up in public. Even her interviews are limited to minimum, it's like she wants to get away from the attention as soon as possible. I know she gets negative vibes due to her father who annoys a lot of people but it's not on her at all. I watched all her WTA Katowice finals live in the arena and in the Cornet final like 90% of the audience was cheering for her. She was far & away the most popular player not named Radwanska back then.

The first and obvious question here - how will the downhill course look like? Lake Louise or Bad Kleinkirchheim? Don't tell me they'll have a huge turn so late in the run? (at 3:00 in the video). That could send some people flying...

The only thing missing is Berrettini winning US Open now

She's done it! Biggest title of Camila Giorgi's career! She beats Karolina Pliskova 6-3 7-5 to win the Canadian Open (I forgot the sponsors' name since it's not Rogers Cup anymore ). What a summer for Italy, ESC, Euro 2020, Olympics haze and now even WTA follows suit! I haven't been this happy since like 2016 when it comes to women's tennis!

Joao Almeida has won Tour de Pologne. Matej Mohoric and Michal Kwiatkowski round out the podium.

Guess things are moving fast, Kabul has fallen basically two days after my last post. Politico was right, all that US money spend (ultimately wasted) for 20 years and Taliban needed 20 days to take over the country. Well done! Another spectacular failure of US warfare politics. The ghosts of Vietnam are alive and doing just fine!

Don't look now but Camila Giorgi is into the Montreal final! She beats Jessica Pegula in three sets and books the biggest final of her career vs Karolina Pliskova. What a week this has been!

Out of nowhere Anna Kielbasinska becomes the 2nd fastest woman at 400m in Polish history. She run 50,38 in La Chaux-de-Fonds today That's 0,03 faster than Swiety-Ersetic's PB. Only Irena Szewinska's old WR 49,28 is better.

Camila Giorgi beats Cori Gauff and advances into Montreal SF! And she even smiled on court!

Brentford - back in English top division for the first time since 1947 - beat Arsenal 2-0 on opening day of the 21/22 season!

Politico has written a piece that 20 years of American "gains" in Afghanistan will be (are being) wasted in 20 days Makes you wonder what all those billions were spend on in the end? The Afghan Army looks completely useless and it seems like Kabul will fall way sooner than even I expected. I don't even give them 2 months if Taliban keep going with this.

Ineos has a budget of 50 million GBP. I doubt Team UAE has a bigger one especially that the emirates seem more invested in football and Formula 1 than cycling (which is way more expensive). The Arsenal sponsorship money would buy Ineos five times over. Yeah, the oil sheiks have the money but also know how to spend them. And cycling will never be their priority.

Obviously cycling is the most doped sport outside of weightlifting but IOC seems to be fine with it for whatever reason. Plus Sky/Ineos is the best funded team in sport so they have more money for "jiffy bags" than others. Let's see if Geoghegan Hart becomes the next Wiggins/Froome.

Ad 2: The Olympic silver in women's discus was a surprise. Plus you used to have 3 discus/javelin throwers vying for Top 8 places. So now that you have ONE athlete capable of such results is a sign you're going down. No way one Hussong means more quality than Obergfoell/Nerius/Stahl trio

I don't see where that funding goes though? They're still good in equestrian and that's it, lol. They have fallen off in swimming too, I mean Steffen and Biedermann were kinda one-offs 12-13 years ago already and it's gotten worse in 2021. It's not like Germany isn't the biggest economy in EU. So where does the money go? I don't see them suddenly rising to power in other sports?