Monzanator

Because FIFA wants money. However if UEFA and CONMEBOL are against it, that will never happen.

Osaka has no business playing tennis right now as she rides the mental health martyr train, Barty pulled out due to crazy COVID protocols at home, if she played IW, her preparations for Australian Open would be affected. The real mystery is Sofia Kenin who has hardly played this season as well.

Cardinals won 17th game in a row and eliminated Cincinnati Reds from NL wild card competition. Meanwhile Red Sox lost to the lowly Orioles and suddenly Mariners vs Athletics series looms very large indeed.

[hide] Knockout Round September 22nd - Ocotber 3rd, 2021 4 Nations, the Winners of each Semifinal will qualify for the Final, the Losers will play the Third-place Match Semifinals Date & Time (GMT +3) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 29th 2021, h. 20:00 Brazil 1 2 Argentina September 30th 2021, h. 20:00 Kazakhstan 2 3 Portugal [/hide]

Hmm.. I wonder if this decision was influenced by NHL approving return of their players to WOG? I mean IOC could be fine with China playing against non-NHL rosters but now that the best guys are set to come, this could get ugly.

@phelps I kinda know Italians still didn't forget about that OG final where Cammarelle should have won?

Yeah, I was fearing a decision shade in favor of Joshua but thankfully it didn't happen. Terrible gameplan from him, he was never going to outbox Usyk, maybe they thought Usyk will run out of gas and be an easy target in the latter rounds but it was Usyk was won the last three in convincing fashion. 8:4 in rounds was the fair split. AJ won rounds 5-6, 8-9 and even if you gave him the 4th it was never good enough.

Our Greek friend is silent so you probably can guess Anett Kontaveit won the Ostrava tournament

At the time Stosur had 0 WTA MD wins herself Her first came two weeks later in Australian Open R1 vs Conchita Martinez.

Yankees won two in a row vs Red Sox. The Rays series at the end of the season might not matter even if Rays won't have anything to play for. Mariners are 1-11 down to Angels (sic!) while Dodgers could drop one to D-backs. If NL wild card turns out to be Dodgers vs Cardinals that would be quite a game! LAD pitching staff is something else when Kershaw is basically #4 guy on the depth chart!

Oleksandr Usyk beats Anthony Joshua on points (117:112, 116:112, 115:113) and becomes new WBO, IBF & WBA heavyweight world champion. Really impressive and well deserved victory.

[hide] Knockout Round September 22nd - Ocotber 3rd, 2021 8 Nations, the Winners of each Quarterfinal will qualify for the Semifinals Quartefinals Date & Time (GMT +3) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 26th 2021, h. 17:30 Morocco 1 6 Brazil September 26th 2021, h. 20:00 RFU 3 4 Argentina September 27th 2021, h. 17:30 Iran 4 3 Kazakhstan September 27th 2021, h. 20:00 Spain 5 3 Portugal [/hide]

It was from Casablanca quals in March 2003 until Boca Raton ITF in January 2004. It was at the start of her career (2003 was the first time she won a WTA MD match). She obviously did a lot better in the late 00s and even won WTA title in 2011. Scheepers' first WTA MD win was vs a certain wild card named Samantha Stosur in Gold Coast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Uncle_Tobys_Hardcourts_–_Singles

Meanwhile former RG junior champion Whitney Osuigwe lost her 17th match in a row (Chicago Q1). She's three losses away from tying the WTA Open Era record (Channelle Scheepers in 2003/04 & Abigail Spears 2005/06 both lost 20 matches in a row). Osuigwe was basically on par with Cori Gauff in the summer of 2019 and she's completely fallen off since the COVID break.

@MakedonasYes, reaching the deep end of these Premier/500/1000/GS events is worth more than winning three-four Internantional/250 events. Obviously the lack of tournament wins is a problem but Eugenie Bouchard reached Top 5 while only winning Nuernberg Internantional event which remains her only WTA trophy.

Apparently English speakers can pronounce this name too Admittedly my first name would be even more difficult to pronounce

Sakkari beat Swiatek and Kontaveit beat Kvitova so Sakkari will be Top 10 on Monday. As for Raducanu's new coach, Darren Cahill split with Simona Halep few days ago. I wouldn't be surprised to see these two hook up next.

Finally a World Championship medal for Katarzyna Niewiadoma!!!

And the Cardinals keep on winning. They tied a franchise record of 14 wins in a row last night matching the feat from 1935. The NL wild card race is basically over unlike AL where Blue Jays suddenly look cold after a bad loss to the Twins. The long-time suffering Mariners are sniffing to move into one spot away from the 2nd wild card alas I believe Red Sox and Yankees will probably get in.

First two QF in Ostrava are over so we have a vs semi-final. Swiatek vs Sakkari @Makedonas

He's simply a hypocrite. That's all. Obviously Democrats don't mind shipping immigrans back where they came from since they are in power so it doesn't matter they're doing the same what Trump did Another example that two-party system is a complete dumpster fire because both parties are doing exactly the same thing and there's no way to remove them from power any which way.

Back in Ostrava, the usual drama is on with Ostapenko. However Sakkari snitching to the ref was poor. Nouni said he didn't hear what Ostapenko said. Move on!

Meanwhile Great Britain used to pay money for civilian deaths. 4,000 pounds for death of four children? Man, life must be valued cheap in the UK. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58653492

USA is so desperate to get rid of immigrants they ship them back to Haiti by plane. So much for Joe Biden being any different with the immigrants than Trump https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58650753

Gregor Schlierenzauer (ski jumping) announced his retirement. He won everything except the individual OG gold medal.