Latest news with #Wimbledon
San Francisco Chronicle
31 minutes ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Wheelchair tennis returns to US Open after break for Paralympics
FLUSHING, N.Y. (AP) — Wheelchair tennis is back at the U.S. Open after taking a break last year for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. The U.S. Tennis Association announced Friday the entry lists for the upcoming U.S. Open Wheelchair Championships starting Sept. 2 through Sept. 6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. This tournament also will mark the 20th anniversary of wheelchair tennis at the U.S. Open. These championships have grown tremendously over the years first with the addition of a quad division in 2007, followed by the U.S. Open becoming the first of the four majors to have a junior wheelchair division in 2022 with singles and doubles for both boys and girls. The U.S. has six players in the field, and the Netherlands has the most with nine. Alfie Hewett of Great Britain will be competing for his third straight men's U.S. Open title in a field featuring Wimbledon champ Tokito Oda — the world's No. 1 player who will be looking for his career Golden Slam featuring the four Grand slams and the Paralympic Games. Diede de Groot from the Netherlands can become the winningest women's champ by winning her seventh straight singles title. She currently is tied with Esther Alf Vergeer who retired in 2013.
Winnipeg Free Press
31 minutes ago
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Wheelchair tennis returns to US Open after break for Paralympics
FLUSHING, N.Y. (AP) — Wheelchair tennis is back at the U.S. Open after taking a break last year for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. The U.S. Tennis Association announced Friday the entry lists for the upcoming U.S. Open Wheelchair Championships starting Sept. 2 through Sept. 6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. This tournament also will mark the 20th anniversary of wheelchair tennis at the U.S. Open. These championships have grown tremendously over the years first with the addition of a quad division in 2007, followed by the U.S. Open becoming the first of the four majors to have a junior wheelchair division in 2022 with singles and doubles for both boys and girls. The U.S. has six players in the field, and the Netherlands has the most with nine. Alfie Hewett of Great Britain will be competing for his third straight men's U.S. Open title in a field featuring Wimbledon champ Tokito Oda — the world's No. 1 player who will be looking for his career Golden Slam featuring the four Grand slams and the Paralympic Games. Diede de Groot from the Netherlands can become the winningest women's champ by winning her seventh straight singles title. She currently is tied with Esther Alf Vergeer who retired in 2013. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. ___ AP tennis:
Fox Sports
an hour ago
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Wheelchair tennis returns to US Open after break for Paralympics
Associated Press FLUSHING, N.Y. (AP) — Wheelchair tennis is back at the U.S. Open after taking a break last year for the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. The U.S. Tennis Association announced Friday the entry lists for the upcoming U.S. Open Wheelchair Championships starting Sept. 2 through Sept. 6 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. This tournament also will mark the 20th anniversary of wheelchair tennis at the U.S. Open. These championships have grown tremendously over the years first with the addition of a quad division in 2007, followed by the U.S. Open becoming the first of the four majors to have a junior wheelchair division in 2022 with singles and doubles for both boys and girls. The U.S. has six players in the field, and the Netherlands has the most with nine. Alfie Hewett of Great Britain will be competing for his third straight men's U.S. Open title in a field featuring Wimbledon champ Tokito Oda — the world's No. 1 player who will be looking for his career Golden Slam featuring the four Grand slams and the Paralympic Games. Diede de Groot from the Netherlands can become the winningest women's champ by winning her seventh straight singles title. She currently is tied with Esther Alf Vergeer who retired in 2013. ___ AP tennis: recommended Item 1 of 1 in this topic
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Cricket diplomacy can serve India in the neighbourhood
Broadly, soft power is utilisation of a country's cultural strengths as opposed to being coercive to influence and prevail over other nations. More commonly, the arts, entertainment, language and institutions have been components of cultural diplomacy. But sports, too, plays a role, from the extravaganza of the Olympic Games and football World Cups to the Wimbledon championships. In the early 1970s, ping-pong diplomacy broke the ice between the US and China. Cricket diplomacy has occasionally been employed by India and Pakistan as confidence-building measures. Today, the game has bestowed India with a valuable soft power ingredient. In 1928, India, despite being under British rule, stunned the world by lifting the gold medal in hockey in the Amsterdam Olympiad. Other than Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent freedom struggle, no facet of India in that period made an impact on the international community as Jaipal Singh's team's triumph did. Thereafter, India completing a hat-trick of golds in the 1936 Berlin Olympics rather jolted the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, whose world view was of white Aryans constituting a superior race. To his dismay, India thrashed Germany 8-1 in the final. In short, independent India inherited hockey as an instrument of soft power. People worldwide would yearn to witness the Indians' dribbling skills. Fast forward to Mexico 1968: India earned neither a gold nor a silver in hockey for the first time in 40 years. In contrast, three years later, India caught the imagination of the cricketing world by notching back-to-back Test series victories in the West Indies and England. Then, India's unexpected triumph in the 1983 World Cup pitchforked cricket as its new soft power implement. The win instigated the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to reach out to the Pakistan Cricket Board to jointly stage the next such event in 1987 — after England had monopolised hosting rights for the first three competitions. The Indo-Pak collaboration conjured a financial package neither England nor Australia could match. India's friendship with other stakeholder countries ensured decisive support for the bid. As cricket burgeoned in popularity in India and the footprint of television simultaneously expanded, Indian corporates started bankrolling broadcasts. This, in turn, created an opening for the BCCI to demand licence fees undreamt of before from broadcasters. Progressively, India became cricket's financial powerhouse. Today, BCCI's monetary stranglehold over cricket is such that not merely other cricket boards, but also the International Cricket Council (ICC), are at its mercy as in no other sporting discipline. India, contrary to Brazil in soccer, have never been undisputed champions of the game, indeed are yet to win the most prestigious World Test Championship; but BCCI unequivocally controls the sport. India as a team are the darling of BCCI's counterparts, because they fill their coffers with bountiful revenue from digital and TV networks, advertisers and sponsors. But they are not always popular with host cricket lovers, as they perceive BCCI to be a bully and as having inequitably captured the ICC. BCCI was party to ICC's decision to award this year's Champions Trophy tournament to Pakistan. Therefore, India's refusal to play in that country was not only a breach of its commitment, but an infringement of the ICC rules applied in the 1996 and 2003 World Cups, namely forfeiture of points for abstentions, which Australia and England suffered. India also derived unfair benefit from playing at a solitary venue and by summoning spinner Varun Chakravarthy as a replacement in their squad to suit the consistent conditions. ICC allowed the special dispensation. A majority of the participating sides permitted this for pecuniary gains; but it did not please the non-Indian public — thereby impairing India's potential goodwill. It is also opportunistic to meet Pakistan in over-limit World Cups, but not in the World Test Championship. The powers-that-be in India are understandably displeased with Pakistan. So, the principled approach would be to have no links with them at all. In 1974, India preferred to default against South Africa instead of playing against them in the Davis Cup final because of its apartheid regime. The BCCI's muscle is best channelled towards magnanimity, consequently in winning hearts and minds; not arm-twisting and seeking undue conveniences in the field. India can capitalise diplomatically on the robust following the Indian Premier League enjoys in England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the West Indies and South Asia, many of whose cricketers figure in the tourney. In 1987, with the anti-India General Zia-ul-Haq holding the reins in Pakistan, India's ties with it were unsatisfactory. But BCCI seeking PCB's cooperation helped to temporarily soften Pakistani people's wariness towards India. Therefore, South Block could consider lifting its long-standing ban on Pakistani cricketers partaking in the IPL. This year, Bangladeshi cricketers were also de facto debarred. Lifting the barrier would encourage people-to-people friendliness. The Indian government's anger with its neighbouring counterparts to its west and east and their proxies need not spill over into punishing individual cricketers. Pakistani and Bangladeshi cricketers crossing swords with the world's best in franchise Twenty20 would likely delight and suitably melt cricket fans in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ashis Ray is a journalist and author of The Trial That Shook Britain. The views expressed are personal.
NBC Sports
2 hours ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Daniil Medvedev won a U.S. Open and made 5 other hard-court Grand Slam finals, so this is his time to shine
WASHINGTON — Daniil Medvedev figures this is his time to shine: He loves playing tennis on hard courts like those used at the D.C. Open. And he loves the U.S. Open, in particular. Doesn't matter what else he's done this season or how things ended for him at the Australian Open, French Open or Wimbledon. He's reached six Grand Slam finals in his career — all on hard courts. 'Usually, this is the most important part of the season for me,' Medvedev said in an interview in Washington, where he was scheduled to play Corentin Moutet in the quarterfinals. 'And this year, it's really important for me, because I didn't have the best year. I had a lot of time after Wimbledon, so I'm feeling ready and I feel in good shape.' After dropping his opening set at the D.C. Open against big-serving Reilly Opelka, Medvedev took the next four sets he played at an event where he was the runner-up in 2019. What works so well for the 29-year-old Russian on hard courts? 'A lot of different things. My ball goes through the air the most. My serve goes faster. And this year, the courts seem pretty fast. On the ATP lately, the courts seem to only get slower and slower. But here it's super fast. I like the way it plays,' said Medvedev, who has been ranked No. 1 and now is No. 14, his lowest spot in more than six years. 'It's one thing to like the way it plays and it's another thing to win. But I do feel like I can do big things.' He certainly has in the past. Any list would have to start with his championship at the 2021 U.S. Open, where his victory in the final prevented Novak Djokovic from completing the first calendar-year Grand Slam by a man since Rod Laver in 1969. Medvedev was the runner-up to Rafael Nadal in New York in 2019 — who could forget the back-and-forths with spectators that year? — and then to Djokovic in 2023. Medvedev also participated in three finals at the Australian Open, losing to Djokovic in 2021, to Nadal in 2022 and to current No. 1 Jannik Sinner in 2024. He's twice been a semifinalist on Wimbledon's grass, and even made it to the quarterfinals at the French Open on red clay, his least favorite surface. This time around, Medvedev bowed out in the second round of the Australian Open in January, and then the first round of both the French Open in May and Wimbledon in June. He hadn't lost consecutive first-round matches at majors since 2017 — in his first two appearances at those events. Asked whether he tends to dwell on that sort of thing or tries to forget it, Medvedev said he would put himself 'kind of in the middle.' 'It does bother me,' he said, thinking back to his 7-6 (2), 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-2 setback against 64th-ranked Benjamin Bonzi at the All England Club. 'Like after Wimbledon, I was sitting there, and I actually felt like I didn't play that bad. And you're losing (in the) first round. You know that the guy is probably going to lose in the second or third round — he did lose in the second round. You're like, 'Damn, I didn't play that bad and I'm losing first round of a Grand Slam, second time in a row.'' Medvedev said he got over it, in part, by heading to Ibiza for a couple of days of relaxing on the beach and having fun. And then it was time to get back to work — with a positive mindset. 'I know that when I come back to this level, I can beat anyone. And so that's where the optimism is coming from,' he said. 'Just work hard and try to find back this rhythm, this level, and then results can come and rankings can come.'
