Makedonas

Another A Final for our Olympic gold medalist Stefanos Ntouskos in M1X! This is now his 7th A Final in a row in a major championships (2020 Europeans, 2021 Europeans, 2021 Olympics, 2022 Europeans, 2022 Worlds, 2023 Europeans, 2023 Worlds). Still think his Olympic gold was suspicious? @OlympicsFan

Medvedev beat Alcaraz, which I certainly did not expect after their previous meetings this year!

Welcome, neighbour! @Bulgaria87

You spoke too soon If only I put my money where my mouth is, I would've become a very rich man today...

I keep mentioning that our W2X girls are 20 yo and 18 yo, but actually they are 20 and 17 At this point just invite the Kyridou sisters next year and have them do W2X and they will 95% qualify. I don't know the details of the drama but having them and Anastasiadou/Bourmpou compete with each other for the W2- spot is so dumb when they can clearly be used in another boat class. And as of now it looks like even if Anastasiadou/Bourmpou win the quota for Greece, they will have internal races against the Kyridou sisters to see who goes to Paris The simple solution is just to have one of the teams compete in W2X this way all four of them can go to the Olympics, otherwise with the current format two very good rowers will miss out on the Olympics.

Sabalenka loses first set 0-6 to Keys...somehow I think she will still win!

Disaster for Greece yet again Our W2- finished 4th in their SF, which is sad, but they really SHOULD get a quota here. Nothing has indicated that they will finish last in Final B, so I'm not too concerned about them but you never know. Our LW2X will probably have to try again next year, as it will be very difficult for them to win Final B especially from Lane 5. In the end it looks like we will only qualify M1X and W2- from here, which is very disappointing as we were expecting to have 4-5 crews to qualify. LM2X and LW2X really let us down...

We've failed at the OQT the last three times, maybe we should try to host this time. Also we were very good with the team we had last year, won our first 6 games at Eurobasket (beat Italy in Italy, Croatia, Czechia etc) and lost to Germany (in Germany) who had a red hot shooting day and played one of their best games in German national team history.

Can any of our Polish friends tell me what happened to Natan Wegrzycki-Szymczyk? He was so promising but I guess he gave up?

Yes, really a bad day for us. Not surprised about our W2X, they are a new combination and despite their U23/U19 individual successes, they are still only 20 yo and 18 yo and clearly too inexperienced for this level. M2X is also not surprising given their form this year which is a shame because they were so good last year and relatively young. I know one of them was injured since then, so hopefully by next year they can get back to their 2022 form and still qualify for Paris. The big disappointment for us was LM2X. This is a team that we thought could even win a medal so yeah, shocking. And they were less than one second away from winning their quarterfinal race but instead they finished 4th Ntouskos won his heat and quarterfinal both pretty convincingly, so I definitely expect him to get the M1X quota. Also with 11 quotas for W2-, it would be a shock if our girls don't get it at this point. Lastly we have LW2X. We really need our girls to do it so it is one less boat to worry about for next year. Plus we have a tradition lately of having teenage rowers qualify for the Olympics (19 yo Ntouskos and 19 yo Petrou in LM4- for Rio, 18 yo Asoumanaki in W2X for Rio as well, 18 yo Bourmpou and 18 yo Kyridou for W2- in Tokyo), so we need 17 yo Kontou to get the quota

Kurugliev won't be competing due to injury. Prevolaraki and Kougioumtsidis are the only Greek wrestlers with a realistic chance of getting an Olympic quota here (Pilidis is focusing on MMA).

Not a great day for us. W2- seems like they will still get the quota regardless, but now the LW2X doesn't look so sure and W2X too young and inexperienced (20 yo and 18 yo). Their U23/U19 success in recent years can only take them so far in such a competitive boat class at the senior level. That being said, I expect them to be much better next year to fight for a quota, as they'll each be one year older. The other option is to send a W4- with the Kyridou sisters, Fragkou, and Tsamopoulou which should qualify and then hope a teenage combination of Dalidou with Lioliou or Natsioula can do it in W2X but it won't be easy. At this point, only M1X and W2- seem 95% likely for us. LM2X and LW2X have been disappointing so far, and I didn't have such high expectations for M2X and W2X anyways.

Congrats to our Canadian friends here!

2023 US Open: Men's Singles: Round 2: (Q) Dominic Stricker SUI d. (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE 7-5 6-7(2) 6-7(5) 7-6(6) 6-3 Men's Doubles: Round 1: Tsitsipas GRE/Tsitsipas GRE d. Reyes-Varela MEX/Vega Hernandez ESP 7-6(2) 6-4 Round 2: (2) Dodig CRO/Krajicek USA d. Tsitsipas GRE/Tsitsipas GRE 7-5 6-7(5) 6-4

Kasatkina is currently 11th in the race

Decent start for us with the three boats we had competing today all advancing to QF, though our LM2X were far from convincing finishing 4th in their heat after having won bronze at the European Championships early this year and 6th in the World Cup event they competed in

Both Greek teams lost in the playoffs

2023 US Open: Women's Singles Qualifying: Round 1: Haruka Kaji JPN d. Valentini Grammatikopoulou GRE 6-3 6-3 Round 1: Despina Papamichail GRE d. (4) Jule Niemeier GER 6-3 6-4 Round 2: (PR) Vera Zvonareva RUS d. Despina Papamichail GRE 7-5 7-5 Men's Singles: Round 1: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE d. (PR) Milos Raonic CAN 6-2 6-3 6-4 Round 2: (7) Stefanos Tsitsipas GRE vs. (Q) Dominic Stricker SUI Women's Singles: Round 1: Rebeka Masarova ESP d. (8) Maria Sakkari GRE 6-4 6-4 Men's Doubles: Round 1: Tsitsipas/Tsitsipas GRE/GRE vs. Reyes-Varela MEX/Vega Hernandez ESP

2023 U23 European Championships Silver: Sotiria Angou and Gavriela Lioliou (women's lightweight double sculls) Nikolaos Cholopoulos and Dimitrios Papazoglou (men's double sculls) Bronze: Ioanna Asvesta and Nefeli Ntara (women's double sculls) Panagiotis Makrygiannis (men's single sculls)

We won four medals with 7 rowers, 6 of whom were U19 athletes. 16 yo Makrygiannis won bronze in M1X which normally would be an amazing achievement for a 16 yo, but it's hard to judge based on how weak this year's U23 field was.

Your post literally had nothing to do with what I said, it's like you just wanted to find a way to talk about your dislike for Tsitsipas...Yes, he beat Coric (who I like) three times this year. And he seems pretty popular on social media, for example on Instagram he has more followers than Medvedev and the same amount as Zverev and they are from much bigger countries than Greece, so surely it's not only Greeks who like him. You can say his character and behavior is bad, so then I wonder what you think about Medvedev, Zverev, Rune and Kyrgios...

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but Tsitsipas was "randomly" drawn against Milos Raonic in R1. Let's remember that at Wimbledon he was "randomly" drawn against Thiem in R1 and Murray in R2. Also in past US Opens he has faced Murray, Medvedev, and Rublev in the opening two rounds. Tiafoe at Wimbledon R1 in 2021 as well, and Musetti R1 Roland Garros last year. Really doesn't seem like a coincidence at this point...

The European U23 Championships are currently taking place, but I want to know who had the idea to do them just a week before the World Championships?! There are not many big names competing and for example there are only 4 boats in the women's pair

Lytra was so close Tokyo was the first time we did not get any RG quotas since 1984, now it looks like it will happen again but both Lytra and the group will have a chance at the continental qualifier next year

I'm not 100% sure. She wasn't with the national team from 2022, but they called her up for this tournament and she didn't play.