Raducanu shows glimpses of best form in beating former Wimbledon champion Vondrousova
She may have to up her level even further in the next match, though: the British home favorite will be up against No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka .
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New York Times
18 minutes ago
- New York Times
Footballers close to going on strike over ‘nonsensical' playing calendar
Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) chief executive Maheta Molango believes players are closer to going on strike over the 'nonsensical' playing calendar than ever before in his time in charge of the players' union. Speaking at the PFA's pre-season camp for out-of-contract players on Wednesday, Molango said players at the Club World Cup this summer 'will be struggling to know which season they are in' and suggested that the coming campaign could be the breaking-point in terms of fatigue, injuries and loss-of-form. Advertisement 'It's almost as if the lines are blurred between seasons — this is our problem,' said Molango, who became PFA boss in 2021. 'We're not trying to single out a specific competition. It's this feeling of accumulation of competitions that just do not talk to each other and create a calendar that's just nonsensical. 'We always said that this season would be one that would give us tangible examples. Because sometimes you can talk about stuff but when people are in the middle of it, then they really realise what it means. 'I think (Manchester City head coach) Pep Guardiola said the other day, and we agree, let's see what happens in October, November — that's when you're going to start seeing (the impact), because you pay the price.' Unlike North America's traditional 'Big Four' sports, European football has not experienced many industrial disputes. There were short strikes in Italy and Spain in 2011 but English players have not even threatened to strike since the PFA organised a successful campaign for the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961. Molango, however, pointed out that more and more players have been talking about the effect of too many games, too much travel, not enough rest and no breaks between seasons. He has also played a central role in launching two legal challenges against world football's governing body FIFA — one through the Belgian courts and one via the European Commission — for what global players' unions claim is a failure to consult on the calendar. And the Swiss-born Italian, who played professionally in England, Germany and Spain before becoming a leading sports lawyer, said the crowded international calendar is not just a problem for the world's best players, as the need to find room for more FIFA and UEFA club football has already seen FA Cup replays scrapped and now there is pressure on English football to drop its second cup competition and reduce the Premier League to 18 teams. He also pointed out that there is a finite amount of broadcast and commercial money out there and companies are reassessing where best to allocate it. 'The TV money pot is what it is — it's not getting any bigger,' he said. 'A new competition means a new guest trying to eat into that pie, so what goes to that competition may not go to another. Advertisement 'And people who come from the French market know this very tangibly. The broadcasters only have €500million (£430m) to spend. Do I spend on Champions League? Do I spend on the French League? 'They go for the premium competition or what they perceive as being premium. This is not speculation. This is what is happening right now, just across The Channel.' When asked specifically about the risk of a strike, he said: 'It comes to a stage when you expect the authorities to look after you, and they don't look after you, then you need to take your own measures to protect yourself. 'When you go to those pre-season meetings with other stakeholders, you can see the tension. I've been doing that now for four years and the tension has been escalating because people are saying 'this is my career and this may become shorter – that's my problem, not the problem of other people who put together these competitions'. 'It's very tangible that people are worried about that.' Molango also backed this week's calls from global players' union FIFPro to avoid playing any games at next summer's World Cup during the hottest parts of the day at many of the chosen venues in Mexico and the U.S.. 'We've reached a stage where it's no longer a question of what the players feel, it's damaging the actual product,' he said. 'I've been to games held at 4pm in Philadelphia — it was unbearable for me as a fan, let alone for people on the pitch, and the quality of what we saw was just not good. 'There's no way you can have a good game if you play at 4pm in Mexico. It's impossible, because the players say to you 'I need to manage my efforts', which means what you see on the pitch is not good (and) the audiences drop. 'It's as simple as that. It's not good for us as an industry. We're devaluating the product. 'And it's a shame, because if I'm a U.S. fan and that's my first exposure to soccer, that's not good. We need to be mindful that we're competing with other sports.' (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)
CNN
25 minutes ago
- CNN
For the first time in 148 years, Wimbledon has no line judges. Some say that ‘takes away the humanity' from the tournament
Pauline Eyre still remembers the 'extraordinary feeling' of making her first appearance at Wimbledon aged 21, taking in the noise and the crowds as she marched onto the pristine grass courts, neat and pillowy under her feet. Eyre, however, had no intentions of hitting a serve or swiping at a forehand, nor dreamed of lifting a trophy in two weeks' time. She even calls herself 'a pretty bad junior player' who regularly lost in the first round of local tournaments. But under the looming shadow of Centre Court, she had reached the pinnacle of her vocation as a line judge. That moment, Eyre tells CNN Sports, was 'a great feeling of pride … going out as that team of people so visibly different.' Line judges have long been an iconic and instantly-recognizable facet of Wimbledon, decked out in Ralph Lauren uniforms and often considered the sporting world's best-dressed officials. But as of this year, that tradition has come to an end. Organizers announced in October that an electronic calling system would be introduced at future tournaments, doing away with human line judges. For someone like Eyre, who called the lines at Wimbledon on 16 occasions, the decision marks a sad chapter in the tournament's near 148-year-old history. 'At the end of the day, a tennis match is sport, and sport is about people,' says Eyre. 'And I don't think technology necessarily makes everything better. I don't think it's improving the quality of the line calling because line calling was always excellent. 'It takes away that bit for the players where they need to deal with adversity. If they don't like a call, they can't argue with the technology. … It's about the player who does the best in adversity. You take away the humanity from tennis, you're taking away a lot of what it is: human beings striving against each other and competition.' Line judges, Eyre adds, were 'part of the furniture of the court' at Wimbledon, their uniforms 'so striking and so different to any uniform anywhere else in the world.' But the tournament's shift to electronic line calling (ELC) is in step with the rest of the tennis world. The ATP and WTA Tours have adopted the system, as have the Australian and US Opens. Roland-Garros remains the only grand slam competition using human line judges for 'out' and 'fault' calls. For Wimbledon to follow this trend might not seem like a particularly radical move, but the grass-court grand slam, brimming with history and old-school values, is often viewed as a separate entity to other tournaments, a world unto itself. The decision, according to All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) chief executive Sally Bolton, was made to ensure 'maximum accuracy in our officiating' and to give players 'the same conditions' as for most other events on tour. '(It) was probably inevitable,' Andrew Jarrett, the tournament referee at Wimbledon between 2006 and 2019, tells CNN Sports. 'It is almost certainly correct to go down this route. Why? Well, provided it is set up correctly – and that's crucial – then you get a very good result, and it's proven to be better than human eyesight, so therefore it's seen as being an improvement. 'From a technology point of view, if it exists and if it improves, why wouldn't you use it as the line that's been taken across the world?' Jarret, however, acknowledges the 'cost to the human side' of the sport, as well as disincentivizing young officials who can no longer aspire to call lines at Wimbledon. Eyre makes the same point. 'You have to be a bit of a saint to want to spend your weekends umpiring children's tennis matches at the local club without the carrot of Wimbledon at the end of it,' she says. 'Why would a 15-year-old who's a club tennis player or a county tennis player want to go into line judging when there's nothing really in it for them?' As for the players, the reaction has been mixed. Women's top seed Aryna Sabalenka said that she is '50/50' but 'probably leaning towards the electronic system' because it removes the question of challenging a line judge's call. But defending women's champion Barbora Krejčíková said that she 'like(s) the old traditional style,' while American star Frances Tiafoe enjoyed the 'fanfare' of being able to challenge a line judge. There have been occasional teething issues with electronic calling, too. During Wednesday's second-round match between Madison Keys and Olga Danilović, the automated system made an unprompted 'out' call between points, causing brief confusion and a ripple of laughter from the crowd. And after her first-round match on Court 8, located in one of the busiest parts of the grounds, China's Yuan Yue said that the automated calls were sometimes too quiet to hear. From observing other tournaments, Eyre also thinks that electronic calls aren't always loud enough. Line judges, by contrast, are instructed to shout their calls clearly. 'We had to sell the call: out, definitely, it's out, in one very short, sharp syllable,' says Eyre. 'It did feel a bit odd when they were super calm – it changed the environment, changed the atmosphere.' CNN Sports has contacted Wimbledon organizers for comment on the volume of the electronic line calls. According to Reuters, the tournament's pool of around 300 line judges has been reduced to 80 at this year's event, with those remaining deployed as 'match assistants' who step in should the ELC system fail. Wimbledon first used Hawk-Eye cameras to provide electronic officiating in 2007, and since then players have been able to 'challenge' the calls made by human line judges, potentially overturning a decision against them. Jarrett was serving as the tournament referee when Hawk-Eye was introduced, but says that scrapping line umpires 'was not on the agenda' during his time in office, which ended six years ago. 'There was no real suggestion for the replacement of line umpires,' he says. 'I think we all knew right from the outset that we were starting a journey that would possibly lead to this one day, but that was not on the immediate horizon.' As for Eyre, she felt that the threat of her old job being extinguished 'was always there' once HawkEye was introduced, even though she thought it simply proved that line judges were 'almost always' correct during player challenges. 'After a while, I think it made us more confident that we knew that we were doing it right, and that was really good,' she says. But even that wasn't enough to save the jobs of line judges, who are now destined to be talked about with a nostalgic appeal by the sport's traditionalists. Like many things in life, the charm of a Wimbledon line judge is perhaps only being appreciated once they've been taken away. That might feel ironic to someone like Eyre, who these days is a stand-up comedian using her line-judging days as a source for material. She never saw herself as a popular figure among players at Wimbledon, once being stared down by John McEnroe – the most famous protestor of a line call – and on another occasion getting booed by the crowd for foot-faulting home favorite Greg Rusedski. Line judges, she thinks, had a reputation as failed players and hangers-on, 'terribly officious people who wanted to exert some power.' But the true reason they devote so much time to the cause, Eyre believes, runs much deeper: 'We just wanted to be part of something we loved.'
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Home-grown players delight Wimbledon fans on hunt for 'new Andy Murray'
Seven men including Jack Draper made it into this year's second round at Wimbledon -- Britain's best tally at any Grand Slam event since 1997 (HENRY NICHOLLS) Host nation Britain is hungry for its next big tennis star to emerge at Wimbledon after two-time champion Andy Murray's retirement last year, with Jack Draper leading a new generation of home men's players. British fans endured 77 years without a male player lifting the title, after Fred Perry's third win in 1936. Advertisement First came "Henmania", then "Murray Madness", before the Scot ended the wait with the first of his two Wimbledon triumphs in 2013. Now, a surging new generation of British players are making their mark, with fourth seed Draper, 23, leading the pack following Murray's farewell in 2024. Seven men including Draper, Dan Evans, Jack Pinnington Jones and amateur Oliver Tarvet all made it into this year's second round -- Britain's best tally at any Grand Slam event since 1997. The strong showing has set the home crowd up for some exciting tennis on Thursday with Evans due to face seven-time champion Novak Djokovic while Draper will play Croatia's Marin Cilic. Advertisement "Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!" said chartered physiotherapist Carol Sweet. "Seven into the second round is amazing." Centre court erupted Wednesday as Tarvet hit a string of winners before he was knocked out by reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz. "It's great, you can hear the noise and how much louder it is," said engineer Cameron Maxwell, 27 as the crowd roared in support. "As a spectator you're just more revved up for it," added accountant Guy Millward, 59. - Results, at last - Long-time British tennis fans John and Sarah Pickthorn said it was encouraging to see so many UK players finally making progress after years when they were few and far between. Advertisement "For a very long time we've been here watching Germans and Swedes and Americans and Australians and it is very nice to see that we can produce -- not just one player -- Andy Murray," added John, a retired banker. Money pumped into the sport by the the Lawn Tennis Association, British tennis's governing body, was "at last starting to show results", he said. "It gives you that extra bit of excitement when they do go through," his wife Sarah, a retired interior designer, added. Draper has been keen to dampen down expectations although he says British tennis is currently "in a good spot", partly due to Murray's influence. Advertisement "Andy has had a huge effect on a lot of the younger generation, watching his success over the years, major success on the big stage. "It's really exciting what we're going to have in the next 10 years.... It's cool to be a part of that," he said this week. Prominent tennis figures predict big things for the well-rounded Londoner who studied criminology, enjoys whizzing up a cocktail and has even turned his hand to modelling. "I'll be surprised if he doesn't win multiple majors," John McEnroe said last month at the French Open. - 'Next tennis superstar' - Advertisement Former mixed doubles champion Jamie Murray, who is also Andy Murray's brother, is even more certain. "He is Britain's next tennis superstar. There's no ifs or buts about that." Home-grown winners have been in short supply since Perry enjoyed three consecutive wins between 1934-36 at the All England Club in southwest London. It was another six decades before Tim Henman burst onto the scene in the 1990s and provided some long-awaited buzz. His four semi-final appearances sparked "Henmania" among British fans but the title ultimately eluded him. Murray finally managed to follow in Perry's footsteps, a year after losing in the final to Roger Federer. Advertisement For now Draper is keeping his feet on the ground. "I'm not trying to be the next Andy Murray," he told The Times in January. "He's one of the greatest players there ever was and ever will be, and to put that level of pressure on myself, I just don't do it. I focus on achieving my own potential," he added. har/jc
