[theo_luddite]

The top two seeds played each other in both the womens and mens finals in Paris. It's likely been mentioned a dozen times on TV and Radio when that last happened, but I've missed every mention and if it jumps out on Google when I'm not really looking I'll let you know.

When I left the first pub of Saturday afternoon, to go meet my bro in the 2nd, Sabalenka was battering Gauff 4-1. The 2nd pub had the RL Challenge Cup Final and the Donkey Derby on (more of that later), no sign of the tennis. Gauff seemingly started to get her act together as the first set went to a tie-breaker won by Sabalenka. Writing on the wall or not Gauff went on to win 2 sets to one. Sabalenka has apparently gone on the piss for a few days on a Greek Island and who can blame her?

Did I mention I was in Yorkshire this weekend? Well, driving back I was listening to the cricket, until they put the tennis on because it took that long, what with Sunday drivers that can't drive in rain and all that. Anyroad, once I got home, sorted my shopping out, had a shower and all that I wandered down The Cut to one of my locals. England had just beat the Windies in the 20-20 and Alcaraz was staring 3 match points in the face to Sinner as I pushed the pub door open. Nearly two hours and a few beers, a bus back home and half a bottle of red later, he won.

You Tennis freaks have had one helluva weekend but the weekend in my opinion has to go to Hull KR who beat The Wire with a last 2 minutes try and a conversion from way further out than the doddle that Don Fox missed, way back when. Just because we all picked teams from t'other side doesn't mean we can't salute a Yorkshire win .... even if it was a team from Hull.

Other fun things we missed this week was Isle of Man TT racing where apparently one guy finished 2nd in his race/class, but didn't put his bike in immediately for scrutineering, then went out on another race and his engine seized at the far end of the course. By the time they got it back it was too late. So they disqualified him.

Then there was the fiddle that won't get 3-coats-of-looking-at that was at Epsom, because race horse fiddles never get much of a look at unless someone really complains enough.

The first 4 donkeys across the line
1 Lambourn 13-2
2 Lazy Griff 50-1
3 Tennessee Stud 28-1
4 New Ground 50-1

The 2-1 favourite finished 9th, the 2nd favourite finished 2nd last and so on it goes through the field. The winner was somewhere around 4th/5th favourite and more or less won from start to finish. The only ones laughing, all the way to the banks, were the bookies and a few folk that had an each-way fiver on any of the above 4. I avoided this one for the Predictions but silks colours seems to be as good a way of predicting winners than er, going with (cough) "the form".

Did I mention England beating the Windies in the 20-20 game?

They are dragging out that NBA/NHL stuff on t'other side of the pond so don't get too excited. I'll update you if either get close to finishing this month.

jjamez still has his nose just in front of Snoots and SHEP though the rest of us aren't too far behind.

More fun stuff next weekend folks and the World Test Cricket Final tries to avoid the rain at Lords too.







I might have also missed England beating Andorra 1-0. I could get started but, hmm, yeash? Any real surprise?

[theo_luddite]

One that I missed - CR7 and the Pork Chops beat Sunnies Pain 3-2 in the Nations League.

Correction - 5-3 on penalties after drawing 2-2

[theo_luddite]

What a way to end your career.
Get 3x more trophies/medals for winning stuff you never played in and only put your nose to the grindstone twice.

If only it was that easy for the rest of us .....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art...g7dxm472ro

Well done for being in the right place at the right time. What was that about footballers wanting to play?

[theo_luddite]

Coming up ths week, well, the Ladies have already started at Queens for the first time in about 50 years. I missed that one, let alone them renaming their No. 1 Court after a certain Mr. Murray. I take it they didn't do it in a hurry. Has it replaced Nottingham or Eastbourne or do they still survive too?

Elsewhere, The World Test Championship Final between the Aussies and the Windies turns it's arm over at Lords, rain permitting, though the forecast is improving, and the US Open starts on Thursday, Plum on time in Pennsylvania.

The F1 boys are burning more rubber over the pond in Montreal where the weather always blows hot and cold, not to mention occassionally very wet at this time of year down the St. Lawence River, and the shale shifters have a double header in Manchester for some reason. Part 1 on Friday and Part 2 on Saturday. No idea why they have two meetings let alone one when there's still the annual Dust Bowl down in Cardiff. Temporary stands have been constructed to accomodate the extra fans, with Saturday sold out and some shale sandwich seats still available for Friday if you fancy a face full of concrete dust according to the FIM website.

[jjamez]

Al Murray centre court?

[Amelia Chaffinch]

I love Queen's. I went once and saw Andy play. British women going good so far.

[theo_luddite]

Al Murray centre court?

Who else? Cheers!!

[theo_luddite]

Another weekend of sport at it's most unpredictable best, for the most part, both competition and weather wise.

Seth Efrika beat the Bent Stick Throwers at Lords in a game that looked like it could have finished by Friday lunch or tea-time at one point.
Take a bow AmChaff, the only one that didn't bet on an Aussie win and the only one to pick up a point this weekend.

You'd have to be really Spaun-y to have predicted that JJ Spaun would win the US Open. On a course that had been described as impossible to play by some, the toughest test in golf lived up to it's name. That the winner was the only one to break par over 4 days, not helped by a Sunday afternoon deluge that stopped play for 90 minutes says a lot about how the course was set up. Our best efforts, Scheffeler finished tied 7th on 4 over and Shauffele was tied 12th on 6 over, despite the pair of them having two of the best rounds of the final day. No points all round there then.

I missed the first half of the shale shifting on Friday night, but the 2nd half was some of the best Speedway racing I've seen at this level. After a slow start, Dan Bewley showed that home track knowledge and riding the boards was the way to go to win the final on Friday. What he did afterwards to himself or his bikes later on Friday night didn't help him on Saturday as his first 4 outings only produced 3 points. A last race heat win put him in the last chance qualifiers, but he gated badly, stuck to an inside line and came last again. Meanwhile, Bartosz Zmarzlik, who looked a bit out of sorts on Friday but still finished 2nd in the final produced a master class on Saturday. Winning his first 4 races he'd already more points on the board than anyone else could muster. A lacklustre 3rd in his 5th race still gave him prime gate position in the final, which he won easily in comparison to some of the other racing this weekend. The other Belle Vue favourite, Aussie Brady Kurtz, finished 3rd on Friday and 2nd on Saturday and he came 2nd in the Sprint Race on Friday.

Zmarzlik is back at the top of the leader board, 11 points clear of Kurtz.

The biggest surpise, to me anyway, was that with a few laps remaining in the Fi in Montreal, nobody had given the "Wall of Champions" the traditional annual good hard smack. Then a few laps from the end, Lando Norris tried to squeeze what is essentially a rectangular box into a cheese wedge shaped gap between the pit wall and his team mate. To say his wheels fell off is an understatement. George Russell won from Crash Verstappen, with Crash never really getting close enough to add more points to his licence. Most of the action with regards to overtaking was going on more than a slack-handfull of places back from the front 5 until Lando didn't quite land his attempt.

In those two North American Winter Competitions that go on until almost next Winter ......

Florida are leading Edmonton 3-2 at Slap-Shot and Indiana and Oklahoma are currently 2-2 in the Peach Basket shoot-out.

Elsewhere in competitions we're not covering, I'll admit I didn't see a single serve and volley but apparently the Ladies put on a darned good show at Queens and it looks like being a fixture going forward. Doff of the cap to Tatjana Maria, a 37 year old mother of 11 year old and 4 year old daughters for winning the final. She hopes to hang around long enough to play Doubles with her eldest daughter. Keeping it in the family, her coach just happens to be her hubby. The men start today.

Apparently there was also some football played in some daft competition in the USofA. How the hell a part-time side from New Zealand qualified defies logic. That they got battered 10-0 doesn't. The only surprise was they stopped Harry Kane scoring. Then again, if you mark him with all 10 outfield players ....
England U21's drew 0-0 with Slovenia in the Euro U21 Championship in Slovakia. I listened to this on 5 Live and it made one of Town's worst performances of last season sound interesting. Another similar result, or better still a win, v Germany will see both go through to the knockout stages as England defend their trophy from 2023.