F1 Sprint Race... Spoiler Shocking start for Lewis, Bottas gets penalties putting him at the back of the grid too. Excellent result for Super Max; pole position with Lewis fourth behind two McLaren's. Get in!
Spoiler: F1 well that's the cat amongst the pigeons. Hamilton had a terrible start. He will now start 4th and bottas goes to the back and verstappen starts on pole with two McLaren's behind him. Verstappen has also increased his lead in the championship. Pretty much a disaster for one and a dream for the other. Verstappen wont be changing that engine now. Hamilton actually.might decide to get his over and done with here as he needs a 4th engine but can he afford to throw a good chance to get back to 1st here and hand verstappen a potential win? Hard to know.
Spoiler: F1 Sprints not going well for Mercedes so don't expect to see them next season #anythingforlewis
If he had the procession of best cars he'd win them all. It's a reality check here. Red bull 8 wins Mercedes 4. The sprint race today wasn't half the race that the first one was. There has to be more reward for pushing imo. Verstappen was happy with his 18 lap position. The safety car helped mclaren on the soft tyres. Very little else happened really.
Ball boys and girls should be just that. Its creepy that the ball boys/girls are all probably older than both girls in the final
Fair play to both. 18 v 19 in the final. First ever qualifier to with a major tournament. That’s some achievement.
Didn't drop a set, even through qualifying most games anyone took off her in a set was 4 (no tie breaks) frankly she dominated from start to finish.
Can’t say I follow tennis a huge amount (and women’s even less so) and I’m guessing there are new names at the top from 5/6 years ago where Williams sisters were dominant along with others as I don’t really recognise the names she beat on the way to win it, but given they are all seeded then obv still a brilliant achievement. But didn’t know if she’s caused any huge major shocks along the way, has she beaten the modern day Venus Williams for example?
F1 Sprint thing whatever it's called but definitely not a race ... it's an interesting idea but doesn't really work given the current racing with the drs train, inability of cars to closely follow and overtake and all that (i.e. actual racing), it's just not exciting enough and the length is weird, really all it offers is a different looking race weekend with meaningful running on a Friday as well as the normal Saturday and Sunday. Raducanu ... incredible achievement, wins a slam with an ace from qualifying without dropping a set. Doubt that will ever happen again. F*cking Billie Jean King trying to take over the podium after p*ssed me off though tbh, just do one you has been.
The women's game isn't really comparable to that anymore. There are no dominant players as there were when Venus, Serena and Sharapova were winning every slam, over the last few years there have been multiple GS winners and no one player has achieved supremacy, the level in the women's game is really very close from top 10 down to the hundreds. I suppose you could say either the gap has just been closed or that there are no one of a kind exceptions. The same will happen with the men once Djokovic hangs it up. Federer is done, Nadal pretty much. Once those three finish it will be wide open.
For the Womens game I'd say its very difficult to pull off a genuine upset these days. There isn't really a dominant group and the tournaments are wide open. For Raducanu she coming into the sport just at the right time. Because Serena was so dominant most of the group that followed her have either never won a slam or are now themselves suffering the slow decline of age, form and injuries and also the pressure to fill the void left by Serena; Kerber, Halep, Muguruza etc Wiliams x2 are now both so old that neither stands a chance of wining an Open again. Then there is the current 'big 2' Barty and Osaka. Barty is physical quite fragile and suffers injuries and its well documented about Osaka's emotional fragility. The rest of the top 20, a few have won 1 open and some have been to finals, but never been consistent challengers, so would be considered beatable. Raducanu did beat Bencic, who has just won the Gold Medal, so I'd say that was the biggest scalp. I suppose her winning is a big schock as shes the first qualifier to win any major and barely played on the tour thus far, but in terms of where the womens game is at the moment maybe not that big a shock. One huge plus point, she will push the hysteria over Ronaldo off the back page, he'll love that.
Sadly now question of sport cant afford her. Judging by the photo with the trophy bbc have in their website she is about to become a massive massive centre of attention for the globe so I hope her parents and support team are ready for it as well. We all know what crass comments can be made but she's made herself a multi millionaire here.
Not a tennis fan, but can appreciate the scale of what she has achieved. Also anything that can take the attention away from the despicable individual Utd have just re-signed is good enough for me.
Yeah guess two ways of looking at it. Either the standard isn’t as high which means anyone can win so you’re more likely to get these wins from lower ranked players. Or the standard is as normal without the extraordinary standout talent which makes the whole scene more competitive. I guess it’s comparable to football in that what’s best. A competition where you have 3/4 extraordinary teams competitions for every title every year, or a league where the standard maybe not quite as high, but you have 8/9 teams who have a chance to win things. Most would say the later is a better option as adds more intrigue and variation to things.
