Monzanator

Has Julia Kowalczyk fought already?

Clippers win it... 

Atlanta Falcons have traded WR Julio Jones to Tennessee Titans for picks.

Falcons are in rebuild mode and 32yo Jones will be a high-profile mercenary for a playoff contender. He is a Top 5 WR of the past decade but trending down due to age & injuries. He can still make a difference on the field even if he's not gonna post 1,000 rec yds anymore.

First time Grand Slam finalist confirmed from the bottom half as Elena Rybakina takes out Serena Williams 6-3 7-5.

The last four standing in the bottom half are Rybakina, Badosa, Pavlyuchenkova & Zidansek.

Finally a rare Hamilton error that gets punished!

Perez wins after all

There will be a two lap shootout. Back in the old days the race would be called under yellow and Perez would have won it. But Liberty goes for the useless GWC soap opera crap.

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Third Place Match

Date & Time (GMT +3)	Nation 1	T1	T2	Nation 2
June 6th 2021, h. 15:15	United States	1		Germany

Final

Date & Time (GMT +3)	Nation 1	T1	T2	Nation 2
June 6th 2021, h. 20:15	Canada	1		Finland

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TART COPYING HERE --->

And she did. Badosa saves MP and wins 6-4 in the third.

Sabalenka is out which means my final pick is narrowed down to Swiatek/Badosa

Magda Linette advances into R3 after Ashleigh Barty retires in the second set. At this rate the women's draw heads into a Swiatek vs Badosa/Sabalenka final

1 hour ago, rybak said:

Our girls (with the best squad) lost 1-3 to

Smarzek & Efimienko didn't play but it's still a bad loss alright.

Yes, Kostyuk's emotions is one thing that puts a question mark if she can make Top 10. That's a huge road block once you reach a certain level.

Meanwhile Camila Giorgi never makes it easy for her fans but battles past Petra Martic 6-2, 6-7, 6-4 in vintage WTA chokefest.

18 minutes ago, Illya said:

She is so talented . I love her play too much , she is more smart than Svitolina

Svitolina's ultra-defensive game just doesn't win Grand Slams in this day and age. You can reach Top 10 and win some big events but there's an obvious ceiling to it. Svitolina reached the high-water mark with YEC victory.

It's gonna be curious to see how Kostyuk does in the upcoming years. She's got tools to become a Top 20 player for sure.

Marta Kostyuk dumps out Garbine Muguruza 6-1 6-4.

Teenagers on the rise! Kostyuk can obviously go places in the future.

4 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

 

Excellent and clear statement. Too bad social media is then filled with pathetic people bashing her, probably out of a sort of frustration that she actually has a talent for something, while they don't have the ability to do anything else but doing nothing and sitting on their ass bitching about everything. I guess that's a quality too.

Seeking twitter mob approval is the LAST thing any pro athlete from the spotlight should do. Unless Osaka lives in some sort of yes men bubble that is.

As for "clear & excellent", well, she must be paying a lot of money for people to write such statement so they better be worth it. It's like those politicians who never write their own speeches to begin with

1 minute ago, heywoodu said:

What's with Goffin  

Getting older and irrelevant

The shitshow is complete. Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from Roland Garros

I wonder if she tries to play the "ignore journalists" card at Wimbledon? Grass isn't exactly a good surface for her either and AELTC won't tolerate her antics given the press release yesterday.

The drama tour keeps rolling!

PS. Paula Badosa can easily reach the QF now - that's if she doesn't succumb to pressure. She is easily the best clay court player in Osaka's section of the draw.

35 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Wait, the tournament threatened to default her? What kind of nonsense is that (from the tournament organisers, of course)?  

USTA or All-England Lawn & Tennis Club would be disappointed to hear you call them nonsense.

It all comes down to an old truth - no player is bigger than the game itself - even someone whom WTA hand-picked to be the Face of the Tour for the next decade. Naomi Osaka just got a hard reality check.

She created a PR disaster and I don't know if she came up with this idea herself or someone told her to make such a move. Let's see if she pulls the race card in last-ditch effort to salvage any pride? Either way, she's lot a ton of credibility and it can only get worse from here.

It's funny, since her "media silence" has created a massive response in the media anyway - way bigger than if she only mumbled five lines during a quick press conference. First week of GS is usually flatline for all top seeds regardless and all of these players usually say the same things over & over anyway.

Yep, Mari Osaka has created shitstorm by night (European time zone). She has deleted her reddit account though already. More high-profile names like Kei Nishikori are distancing herself from Osaka's approach now. The high gamble play with "mental health" has been exposed as total fraud. Everyone and their mother knew Osaka's media silence was all about her below par clay results and avoiding ineviteable questions during RG.

I have a feeling this is a controlled distraction from the Osaka camp. Make Mari look like the bad sister and focus the backlash on her.

I guess basketball is so far down the ladder in Belgium and Netherlands they will do anything to gain media attention - even create some stupid ass name for a league nobody will follow to begin with

29 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Why wouldn't I know the second best Dutch male tennis player at the moment?  

 

He's not exactly a star, but one of the many, many players who sometimes appears left or right for a match or two. I wouldn't recognize him face to face, but that goes for probably at least 180 of the other 199 top-200 players.

 

Is Hurkacz ranked that much higher? His name sounds sort of familiar, but that's about it  

Don't tell me Robin Haase is still the Dutch #1? At this rate Paul Haarhuis would probably still be Top 10 if he was active

Poland actually qualified for the Olympics in a team sport not called volleyball & handball? I'm shocked!

1 hour ago, Vektor said:

Great, clean race (few cautions for an Indy500), with an amazing finish. And it was so good to see so many spectators at a sport event again. 

Two cautions for basically pit-related incidents and only 3 DNFs in a 500 mile race is truly insane stat. Last time there were only two cautions in this race was 1969.

I believe the rain-shortened 1976 race had fewest DNF record with six - and that race only lasted 102 laps.

4 hours ago, rybak said:

Pablo Andujar just throwed out Dominic Thiem already in first round! 

Angelique Kerber lost already too, with Anhelina Kalinina 

Sadly Kerber is totally past-prime. She could well retire at the end of the season or next year at worst.

Meanwhile Hubert Hurkacz lost in five sets to someone called  Botic van Zandschulp    I bet even @heywoodu doesn't know who that guy is