July 16, 2011

SportsFilter: The Saturday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 6 comments

Hey, did anybody know that the Tour de France is going on? Amazing what happens to foreign competitions (as it relates to US attention) when you eliminate Americans as major competitors. Is this the future of tennis and golf?

posted by graymatters at 11:11 AM on July 16, 2011

Pia Sundhage: U.S. team feelin groovy ahead of World Cup final.

posted by rcade at 12:50 PM on July 16, 2011

Amazing what happens to foreign competitions (as it relates to US attention) when you eliminate Americans as major competitors.

That's a bit harsh. Versus is still doing full live coverage, with NBC handling the weekends. It's one of the most even Tours in years, and has had a real old-school feel about it, especially since Tommy Voeckler is doing a reprise of his 2004 heroics.

posted by etagloh at 02:27 PM on July 16, 2011

Ben Revere somersaults between second and third running out a triple.

posted by rcade at 03:14 PM on July 16, 2011

No English SAP on the broadcast but the just-concluded Argentina-Uruguay match was a showcase for Uruguay's terrific young keeper Fernando Muslera. He stopped so many shots from the field of play that near the end of extra time the great Lio Messi slumped to the ground in frustration after yet another brilliant stop.

posted by billsaysthis at 09:20 PM on July 16, 2011

Hey, did anybody know that the Tour de France is going on? Amazing what happens to foreign competitions (as it relates to US attention) when you eliminate Americans as major competitors. Is this the future of tennis and golf?

The tour (in the US), through the doping crap has turned it into the Indy 500 after the IRL and CART spat. Two of the most wonderful spectacles of sport are just reduced to side notes, by their own doing.

Tennis and golf? No, they'll be fine. Not sure what's up with tennis in America though.

It hardly qualifies as news these days when another athlete gets in Twitter trouble. But there was something a little deeper going on in the case of the tennis player Donald Young a few weeks ago. Young, upset at how the U.S.T.A. was allotting the wild-card entry it had to the French Open this month (the association used a playoff that Young lost), leveled a tweet at the organization that we can't print. Patrick McEnroe, the head of player of development, blasted back and demanded an apology from Young before his organization would back Young any further. (Young closed out his Twitter account and apologized.) Beneath it all there seemed to simmer tensions over coaching, player development and support and maybe even race.

The Times Magazine profiled Donald Young four years ago. Two years before that, as a 15-year-old, he became the youngest winner of a junior grand slam and the youngest male to occupy the top spot in the junior rankings. But by the time of our article ("Prodigy's End"), there were already worries that Young, then 17, was failing to live up to expectations. Had this prospect from the South Side of Chicago been overhyped? Were his parents to blame? His agents at I.M.G.? Was his strategy of accepting wild cards into big tournaments rather than working his way up through minor-league events mistaken? Was the U.S.T.A. failing to develop American talent properly?

The writer, Paul Wachter, also asked another, broader question: "Has there ever been a bleaker moment in American tennis?" The answer, four years later, is yes right now. This week, for the first time in four decades of computer rankings, there isn't an American player in the men's or the women's Top 10. There are only nine American men in the Top 100. The last, at No. 94, is Donald Young.

posted by tselson at 11:07 PM on July 16, 2011

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