Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff reach quarterfinals in Stuttgart
STUTTGART, Germany — Third-ranked Jessica Pegula cruised into the quarterfinals of the Porsche Grand Prix with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Magdalena Frech on Thursday.
Pegula, who won the Charleston Open title this month, needed just 59 minutes to oust her Polish opponent at the indoor clay-court tournament.
The third-seeded American will next face Ekaterina Alexandrova in a rematch of their Charleston semifinal. Alexandrova advanced by beating sixth-seeded Mirra Andreeva 6-3, 6-2.
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New York Times
7 minutes ago
- New York Times
Tiafoe on the board
Follow live reaction from Roland Garros after Carlos Alcaraz convincingly beat Tommy Paul in straight sets (6-0, 6-1, 6-4) Getty Images Both American men that reached the 2025 French Open quarterfinals were eliminated on day 10. Carlos Alcaraz (2) needed just 94 minutes to see off U.S. No. 2 Tommy Paul (12) in straight sets after compatriot Frances Tiafoe (15) was beaten in four sets by Lorenzo Musetti (8). Earlier in the day, Aryna Sabalenka (1) beat Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen (8) to set up a mouthwatering semifinal against defending champion Iga Świątek (5), who beat Elina Svitolina (13) in straight sets. TV: TNT, truTV, Tennis Channel (U.S.); TNT, Discovery+ (UK) TNT, truTV, Tennis Channel (U.S.); TNT, Discovery+ (UK) Streaming: Max for main coverage, Fubo (try for free) for secondary Max for main coverage, Fubo (try for free) for secondary Join the discussion: live@ GO FURTHER French Open recap: Lorenzo Musetti avoids default after kicking ball into linesperson Connections: Sports Edition Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Getty Images Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 *3-1 Tiafoe Phew! Frances Tiafoe needed that. The American is on the board in the fourth set with a critical service hold. Lorenzo Musetti was beaming with confidence. He's dazzling on the court with his running, retrieving the ball with a volley or blasting an on-the-run forehand winner cross court. Somehow, Tiafoe escaped that game, utilizing his big serve to get the hold. Now, the 15th seed needs to build on that... Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 3-0* Tiafoe It's all Lorenzo Musetti now. The Italian is oozing confidence while Frances Tiafoe is faltering. The No. 5 seed has won 18 of the last 22 points over the American. He's serving big while Tiafoe is committing too many unforced errors. It seems like this match is all but over, doesn't it? Unless Tiafoe can turn it around quickly! Getty Images Musetti 6-2, 4-6, *2-0 Tiafoe The train is coming off the tracks for Frances Tiafoe. Lorenzo Musetti has won 14 of the last 18 points and is up an early break in the second set. Tiafoe is starting to pile up the unforced errors. I'm also noticing that the positive, upbeat energy has evaporated. The American is walking slower and looking dazed. The Italian is rolling. Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 1-0* Tiafoe Frances Tiafoe is starting to run out of answers to deal with Lorenzo Musetti. The Italian is FLYING around the court, showing his tremendous court coverage. No better than game point, where he ran to the net to convert the volley en route to the service hold. The American needs to find another gear... fast! Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 Tiafoe Wow! I did not expect that poor of a service game from Frances Tiafoe. After winning his last 10, the American gets broken, giving Lorenzo Musetti the third set. Entering that game, Tiafoe had lost only four points on his second serve. He dropped the first two points of the service game, immediately putting him in a hole. Musetti sensed the 15th seed was getting tentative, not his usual powerful self. So the Italian adjusted, just keeping the ball in play, which resulted in Tiafoe making unforced errors. The game ended with a backhand up the line winner from Musetti, before the fifth seed let out a huge fist pump. The Italian is up two sets to one. Inching closer to the French Open semifinals. Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 6-5* Tiafoe Things were looking dicey for Lorenzo Musetti as he was down 15-30 against Frances Tiafoe. But the Italian relied on his powerful serve to get him out of trouble. The exclamation point... a 190 km/h kick ace out wide to secure the hold. Here comes Frances, serving to get in a third-set tiebreak. Getty Images Musetti 6-2, 4-6, *5-5 Tiafoe Another quick service hold for Frances Tiafoe. As the TNT broadcast notes, it's been a relatively quick match. As we head to 5-5 in the third set, the match eclipses two hours and five minutes. Plenty left in the tank for both players as this contest trudges along. Frances Tiafoe is right on top of the baseline, as he has been most of the tournament. In the first set, Musetti's spins and variations in his ball speed were troubling him, but he's since stopped letting the Italian string him around the court. He's spoken all tournament about not giving much quarter to playing clay-court tennis, instead playing his way. Whether or not Musetti can make him make concessions to the surface will likely define the rest of the match. Getty Images Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 5-4* Tiafoe I'm sorry but that's a missed chance for Frances Tiafoe. After Lorenzo Musetti, who was up 40-0, committed some loose unforced errors, the American was poised to get the break. But suddenly, the 15th seed got very tight. At deuce, Tiafoe dumped a forehand off the second serve in the net. Then on advantage, the American's winding forehand cross court sailed wide. Musetti escapes. Tiafoe fails to capitalize and will serve to stay alive in the third set. From 40-0 for Lorenzo Musetti to deuce. My oh my how things can change. Can Frances Tiafoe somehow complete the comeback to get the break? Musetti 6-4, 4-6, *4-4 Tiafoe Frances Tiafoe with a quick game to hold at love. Since getting broken twice in the first set, the American is nine for nine in service holds. He just told his team that this upcoming game is the one to break Lorenzo Musetti. The wind is at his back. Can the 15th seed finally take a lead in this third set? Musetti 6-2, 4-6 4-3* Tiafoe It's another service hold for Lorenzo Musetti. It's evident that the eighth seed is attacking Frances Tiafoe's forehand off the serve. The Italian knows the 15th seed likes to crunch his forehand return like a slap shot. While it comes back with force, it's more likely to lead to an unforced error. That's exactly what happened at 40-15, as Tiafoe's forehand landed in the net, giving Musetti the hold. Musetti 6-2, 4-6, *3-3 Tiafoe Despite Frances Tiafoe missing the easy volley on a wild point earlier in the game, he was able to hold. The American is just clapping his forehand with blazing speed. Lorenzo Musetti has no answer. We're tied at three in the third set. Who will blink first? Getty Images Oh my WORD! That was the point of the match. Lorenzo Musetti is running around the court, showcasing his angles on his shots. After running from the net to the baseline to get the unlikely shot, Frances Tiafoe misses the easy volley. Goodness these two are raising their level right now. Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 3-2* Tiafoe Am I watching a magic show on Court Philippe-Chatrier? Because Lorenzo Musetti is employing some real tricks on the court. At 0-15 for Frances Tiafoe, the Italian connected on a running forehand, hooking the ball behind Tiafoe to land on the right far baseline in to get the point. Musetti would eventually hold, as the game progressed to deuce. On advantage for the eighth seed, Musetti crunched a cross-court forehand, which clipped the line. Still on serve in the third set. Tiafoe looking to keep pace... Getty Images Musetti 6-2, 4-6, *2-2 Tiafoe This set is breezing by. Frances Tiafoe gets another quick, pressure-free service hold. Lorenzo Musetti's put no pressure on the American's serve thus far. Now the Italian aims to take a 3-2 lead. Tennis is weird about defaults — the ultimate penalty for bad behavior, which involves automatically losing the match. Whether or not a player smacks a ball in frustration, or throws or kicks it like Musetti, the penalty more often than not is outcome-based. If the person struck is in distress, the player gets defaulted, they are allowed to continue. But per the rulebook, that should be irrelevant. 'Players shall not violently, dangerously or with anger hit, kick or throw a tennis ball while on the grounds of the tournament site except in the reasonable pursuit of a point during a match (including warm-up). 'For purposes of this rule, abuse of balls is defined as intentionally or recklessly hitting a ball out of the enclosure of the court, hitting a ball dangerously or recklessly within the court or hitting a ball with disregard of the consequences.' The most famous default for ball abuse in recent times came in the 2020 U.S. Open, when Novak Djokovic was defaulted from his match against Pablo Carreño Busta after accidentally striking a linesperson with the ball. The problem with the logic currently applied is that it gives players credit for being in control of something which they are not in control of. Smashing or kicking a ball into a crowd of people or an enclosed space is risky. Whether or not it hits someone with a glancing blow or square on is pure luck. Musetti is lucky to still be on court. Musetti 6-2, 4-6, 2-1* Tiafoe Things got a bit testy in that service game. It got to 30-30, with Frances Tiafoe eager to get a break point chance. Lorenzo Musetti said, 'Not this game.' The Italian blasted a 191 km/h ace, his fifth of the match. Then, he crunches a cross-court forehand winner, before letting out a loud 'Come on.' Still on serve in the third set. How does the American respond? Musetti 6-2, 4-6, *1-1 Tiafoe I blinked and Frances Tiafoe's service game was over. Getting a quick hold is critical for the American to keep pace with Lorenzo Musetti. We're tied in the third set. The Italian serves now...
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Is FIFA's Club World Cup the Biggest Flop in Soccer History?
Is FIFA's Club World Cup the Biggest Flop in Soccer History? originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The FIFA Club World Cup 2025, set to dazzle in the U.S., is stumbling out of the gate with lackluster ticket sales, even after slashing group-stage prices by up to 50% [The Athletic]. Fans appear unmoved by the expanded 32-team tournament, leaving stadiums at risk of echoing emptiness. Supporters aren't buying the hype, or the $30 tickets, per The Athletic. Advertisement FIFA's bold revamp, hosting 63 matches across 11 American cities from June 14 to July 13, aimed to rival the Champions League's prestige [The Athletic]. Yet, despite featuring heavyweights like Manchester City, Chelsea, and Real Madrid, the tournament struggles to fill seats. Dynamic pricing, a controversial strategy adjusting costs based on demand, has backfired. High initial prices, some reaching $2200 for the final, alienated fans [The Athletic]. FIFA responded by cutting semi-final tickets to $140 and final tickets to $300, but empty seats loom large, especially at venues like the 90,000-capacity Rose Bowl. Manchester City, the 2023 champions, face Juventus, Wydad AC, and Al Ain in Group G, yet even their star power hasn't sparked demand [The Athletic]. Fans on X express frustration, with some calling the event a 'flop' and others skeptical about traveling across the U.S. for matches [X]. The lack of media buzz from outlets like BBC and Sky Sports further dims the tournament's shine per BBC, Sky Sports. LAFC secured their place among soccer's elite teams in the Club World CupPhoto byFIFA's marketing ties ticket packs to 2026 World Cup access, a desperate bid to boost sales. A standard pack offers two to three matches, while the Super Ticket Pack, covering 20 matches, guarantees a 2026 final ticket [The Athletic]. Still, fans remain wary, burned by high costs and logistical hurdles like travel and accommodation. Advertisement The tournament's timing, clashing with the CONCACAF Gold Cup, adds to the challenge. UEFA's frustration with FIFA's scheduling changes, noted by The Athletic, highlights organizational tensions [The Athletic]. Meanwhile, FIFA gifted 30,000 Los Angeles tickets to first responders, a move to fill seats amid the wildfires' aftermath. Social media posts on X reveal doubts about the tournament's value, with one user lamenting, 'Half-empty stadiums and terrible atmosphere' [X]. The lack of coverage from and UEFA's platforms underscores the event's struggle to capture attention per FIFA's $1 billion prize pool, with winners potentially earning $125 million, hasn't translated to fan excitement [The Athletic]. As the June kickoff nears, the Club World Cup risks becoming a costly misstep. Will FIFA's gamble on U.S. audiences pay off, or will this global showcase fizzle out? This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Mt. Everest's Xenon-Gas Controversy Will Last Forever
It was a travesty—two travesties, actually, separate but inextricably linked. In May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a challenge that had killed more than a dozen people in the preceding decades and that scientists had once declared impossible. The catch: They breathed canisters of pure oxygen, an aid that the Everest pioneer George Mallory—one of those who died on the mountain—had once dismissed as 'a damnable heresy.' A month later, a young British medical trainee named Roger Bannister just missed running the first sub-four-minute mile, another long-standing barrier sometimes dubbed 'Everest on the track.' But he did it in a race where his training partner let himself be lapped in order to pace Bannister all the way to the finish line, violating rules about fair play due to the advantages of pacing. Bannister's American rival, Wes Santee, was unimpressed. 'Maybe I could run a four-minute mile behind one of my father's ranch horses,' he said, 'if that's what you want.' Funny how history repeats itself. Fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago: A controversy erupted in the world of mountaineering, when four British climbers summited Everest just five days after jetting to Nepal from the United Kingdom. To skip the usual weeks or months spent gradually adjusting to high altitude, they paid a reported $153,000 each for a bespoke protocol that included inhaling xenon gas to help them adjust more rapidly. Meanwhile, on the track, Kenya's three-time Olympic champion, Faith Kipyegon, is preparing for a carefully choreographed, Nike-sponsored attempt to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes. It's slated for June 26 in Paris and will almost certainly violate the same pacing rules that Bannister's run did. Both initiatives are, by any measure, remarkable feats of human ingenuity and endurance. They're also making people very angry. The xenon-fueled expedition was organized by an Austrian guide named Lukas Furtenbach, who is known for his tech-focused approach to expeditions. He has previously had clients sleep in altitude tents at home for weeks to pre-acclimatize them to the thin mountain air. What made the new ascent different is that, in addition to sleeping in altitude tents, the four British climbers visited a clinic in Germany where they inhaled xenon gas, whose oxygen-boosting potential has been rumored for years. The World Anti-Doping Agency banned xenon in 2014 after allegations that Russian athletes used it for that year's Winter Olympics. But subsequent studies on its athletic effects have produced mixed results. Other research in animals has hinted at the possibility that it could offer protection from potentially fatal forms of altitude illness, which can occur when climbers ascend too rapidly. For now, the strongest evidence that it helps high-altitude mountaineers comes from Furtenbach's own self-experimentation over the past few years. When news of Furtenbach's plans emerged earlier this year, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation's medical commission put out a statement arguing that xenon probably doesn't work and could be dangerous because of its sedative effects. Other critics have pointed out that shorter expeditions mean less paying work for the Sherpa guides in the region. But these criticisms can feel like post hoc justifications for the fact that many mountaineers simply have a gut-level aversion to what seems like a shortcut to the summit. Their objection isn't to xenon itself but to the idea of making Everest easier. That's the same problem many runners have with Kipyegon's sub-four-minute-mile attempt. Women have made extraordinary progress in the event since Diane Leather notched the first sub-five in 1954, but under conventional racing conditions, no one expects a sub-four anytime soon. Kipyegon is the fastest female miler in history: Her current world record, set in 2023, is 4:07.64, which leaves her more than 50 yards behind four-minute pace—an enormous deficit to overcome in a sport where, at the professional level, progress is measured in fractions of a second. Nike has promised 'a holistic system of support that optimizes every aspect of her attempt,' including 'footwear, apparel, aerodynamics, physiology and mind science,' but hasn't revealed any details of what that support might look like. That means critics—and there are many—don't yet have any specific innovation to object to; they just have the tautological sense that any intervention capable of instantly making a miler 7.7 seconds faster must by definition be unfair. (I reached out to Nike for further specifics about the attempt, but the company declined to comment.) It's a safe bet that new shoes will be involved. Kipyegon's effort, dubbed Breaking4 by Nike, is a sequel to the company's Breaking2 marathon in 2017, in which Kipyegon's fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge came within 25 seconds of breaking two hours at a time when the official world record was 2:02:57. Kipchoge's feat was made possible in part by a new type of running shoe featuring a stiff carbon-fiber plate embedded in a thick and bouncy foam midsole, an innovation that has since revolutionized the sport. But the reason his time didn't count as a world record was that, like Bannister, he had a squad of pacers who rotated in and out to block the wind for him all the way to the finish line. That's also likely to be a key for Kipyegon. In fact, scientists published an analysis earlier this year suggesting that a similar drafting approach would be enough to take Kipyegon all the way from 4:07 to 3:59 without any other aids. Bannister's paced-time trial in 1953 was ruled ineligible for records because, per the British Amateur Athletic Board, it wasn't 'a bona fide competition according to the rules.' Still, the effort had served its purpose. 'Only two painful seconds now separated me from the four-minute mile,' Bannister later wrote, 'and I was certain that I could cut down the time.' Sure enough, less than a year later, Bannister entered the history books with a record-legal 3:59.4. Similarly, Kipchoge went on to break two hours in another exhibition race in 2019, and Nike's official line is that it hopes that feat will pave the way for a record-legal sub-two in the future. (It's certainly getting closer: The world record now stands at 2:00:35.) In 1978, a quarter century after Hillary and Norgay's historic ascent, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen. One view of innovation in sports, advanced by the bioethicist Thomas Murray, is that people's perceptions are shaped by how new ideas and techniques are introduced. The status quo always seems reasonable: Of course we play tennis with graphite rackets rather than wooden ones, use the head-first Fosbury flop to clear high-jump bars, and climb mountains with the slightly stretchable kernmantle ropes developed in the 1950s. But many of these same innovations seem more troublesome during the transition periods, especially if only some people have access to them. When Bannister finally broke the four-minute barrier, he was once again paced by his training partners, but only for about the first three-quarters of the race. This form of pacing remained highly controversial, but because none of the pacemakers had deliberately allowed himself to be lapped, the record was allowed to stand. These days, such pacing is so routine that there are runners who make a living doing nothing but pacing races for others, always dropping out before the finish. The full-race pacing that Kipyegon will likely use in Breaking4 remains verboten; the slightly different pacing that leads runners almost all the way through the race but forces them to run the last lap alone is simply business as usual. Oxygen in a can is good; xenon in a can is bad. These are subtle distinctions. Sports are, in at least some respects, a zero-sum game: When one person wins a race or sets a record, it unavoidably means that someone else doesn't. Even at the recreational level, if everyone decides to run marathons in carbon-plated shoes that make them five minutes faster, the standards needed to qualify for the Boston Marathon get five minutes faster. 'Once an effective technology gets adopted in a sport, it becomes tyrannical,' Murray told me several years ago, when I was writing about athletes experimenting with electric brain stimulation. 'You have to use it.' In the '50s, a version of that rationale seemed to help the British expedition that included Hillary and Norgay overcome the long-standing objections of British climbers to using oxygen—the French had an Everest expedition planned for 1954 and the Swiss for 1955, and both were expected to use oxygen. Less clear, though, is why this rationale should apply to the modern world of recreational mountaineering in which Furtenbach operates. What does anyone—other than perhaps the climbers themselves, if you think journeys trump destinations—lose when people huff xenon in order to check Everest off their list with maximal efficiency? Maybe they're making the mountain more crowded, but you could also argue that they're making it less crowded by getting up and down more quickly. And it's hard to imagine that Furtenbach's critics are truly lying awake at night worrying about the long-term health of his clients. Something else is going on here, and I'd venture that it has to do with human psychology. A Dutch economist named Adriaan Kalwij has a theory that much of modern life is shaped by people's somewhat pathological tendency to view everything as a competition. 'Both by nature and through institutional design, competitions are an integral part of human lives,' Kalwij writes, 'from college entrance exams and scholarship applications to jobs, promotions, contracts, and awards.' The same ethos seems to color the way we see dating, leisure travel, hobbies, and so on: There's no escape from the zero-sum dichotomy of winners and losers. Kalwij's smoking gun is a phenomenon that sociologists call the 'SES-health gradient,' which refers to the disparities in health between people of high and low socioeconomic status. Despite the rise of welfare supports such as pensions and health care, the SES-health gradient has been widening around the world—even, Kalwij has found, among Olympic athletes. There used to be no difference in longevity among Dutch Olympians based on their occupation. But among the most recent cohort, born between 1920 and 1947, athletes in high-SES jobs, such as lawyers, tend to outlive athletes in low-SES jobs by an average of 11 years. As Kalwij interprets it, making an Olympic team is a life-defining win, but getting stuck in a poorly paying dead-end job is a loss that begets an endless series of other losses: driving a beater, living in a lousy apartment, flying economy. These losses have cumulative psychological and physiological consequences. Some things in life really are competitions, of course. Track and field is one of them, and so we should police attempts to bend its rules with vigilance. Other things, such as being guided up Everest, are not—or at least they shouldn't be. The people who seem most upset about the idea of rich bros crushing Everest in a week are those who have climbed it in six or eight or 12 weeks, whose place in the cosmic pecking order has been downgraded by an infinitesimal notch. But I, too, was annoyed when I read about it, despite the fact that I've never strapped on a crampon. Their win, in some convoluted way, felt like my loss. Another detail in Kalwij's research sticks in my mind. Among American Olympians, silver medalists tend to die a few years earlier than either gold or bronze medalists. Kalwij theorizes that these results, too, are related to people's outlook. Gold medalists are thrilled to win, and bronze medalists are thrilled to make the podium; silver medalists see themselves as 'the No. 1 loser,' as Jerry Seinfeld once put it. With that in mind, I've tried to reframe my attitude about the xenon controversy. Let the annual Everest frenzy continue, with or without xenon, and let its allure continue to draw the most hard-edged and deep-pocketed summit baggers. Meanwhile, leave the other, lesser-known mountains for the rest of us to enjoy in tranquility. I'd call that a win. Article originally published at The Atlantic
