I’m now stone deaf, thanks to Allison Riske’s incessant hooting.
Bad News & Good News for Ash Barty
It was Mad Monday at Wimbledon, and unfortunately for ‘us’, Ash had her 15-match Disney quoting streak ended by a white hot Allison Riske, who turns into a Komodo dragon on grass every year, before reverting into a gecko on hard & clay courts.
The old Court 2 at Wimbledon was known as “The Graveyard of Champions”, due to the long list of greats that were eliminated on the court… fair to say it was well and truly back in vogue yesterday.
With the amount of times Riske screamed “Why” hitting a simple ground stroke, you’d think Nancy Kerrigan was having her knees bludgeoned.
Far out, it was annoying.
If there is a bright spot to a slightly disappointing ending, Ash’s position as World No.1 Post-Wimbledon is at least secure, thanks to Karolina Pliskova failing to serve out the match TWICE against her fellow Czech and Karolina in Muchova, losing the final set 13-11, narrowly denying us all the first ever 12-all tiebreak at Wimbledon.
Pliskova had to at least reach the Final to overtake Barty, while Petra Kvitova could’ve gone to within 10 ranking points of Barty if she won the title, but alas, she hurt herself and was run over by Johanna Konta in 3 sets.
In fact, Ash has actually managed to increase her lead at the top; It was 118 points over Naomi Osaka pre-tournament, it will be 348 points when the new rankings come out next Monday.
Looking at the bottom half of the Ladies’ draw… if Halep loses either tonight or in the Semis on Thursday… the WTA will have yet another first-time major finalist!
Cricket World Cup Semi-Final Changes
So India and New Zealand are on tonight, and we have to wait until Thursday for the Aussies to suffer another painful defeat at bloody Edgbaston to England.
The big changes since the Aussies won at Lord’s an age ago is that England have regained Jason Roy, plus Chris Woakes, and the Aussies have now lost Usman Khawaja + Marcus Stoinis (Not if, when), and will probably replace them with Peter Handscomb and Mitchell Marsh instead of Matthew Wade, who is too busy destroying the English countryside for Australia A.
Of course, we all remember the last World Cup Semi-Final at Edgbaston….
The Netball World Cup begins on Friday!
I don’t even know if my own mother & sister knew about this, but the Netball World Cup in Liverpool is due to begin in a few days (Games will be on Channel 9), with our defending World Champion Diamonds first up at 9am BST (4pm AWST/6pm AEST) against Northern Ireland!
A problem I can see developing is that it’s starting on the same weekend as the British Grand Prix and the finals of Wimbledon, and as well as that, it finishes on the 21st, which is a Sunday… and unfortunately for the organisers, also happens to be the final day of The Open Championship.
“I will become a 6000 pound gorilla on this”
A contender for AFL Quote of the Year, uttered by Gold Coast chairman Tony Cochrane, and no, he wasn’t describing Stewart Dew, he was talking about applying for a priority pick, to go with the Number One pick they’ll probably receive for winning the wooden spoon.
The full quote from the article is Cochrane talking about making a submission to the August Commission Meeting:
“You can’t keep tinkering at the edges. You need to give clubs hope of making finals at least once every seven or eight years, and we need a circuit breaker, genuine player assistance, or we are not being genuine in what we are doing.
“One of the things we will have to have a serious look at is the priority pick… it is no good just giving us pick 19.”
“Are you serious about real help, or not? I will become a 6000-pound gorilla on this. We are at the pointy end of the argument, we need some proper assistance, and I’m not asking for Tony Cochrane, or the Suns, but the tens of thousands of juniors playing the games on the Coast.”
“We want to keep them playing, want them to be rusted on to AFL via the Gold Coast as we continue to try to develop a footy side in an NRL heartland.”
Personally, I’d be all for the AFL allowing the Suns to improve in a manner that completely violates all form of human ethics and the laws of the game… Like a PED allowance!
Round 16 Rising Star: Nick ‘Souv’ Larkey
North’s nickname, and definitely not mine.
But more to the point, Nick Larkey has notched up a milestone- He’s the 600th player to earn a Rising Star nomination, since it was introduced in 1993!
Ah, Steven Greene, son of St Kilda Hawthorn champion Russell Greene and another obscure Hawks player from between 1992-2007!
The ‘Wobblies’ going to Johannesburg a fortnight early
The shortened Rugby Championship doesn’t start for another two weekends, but the Wallabies are already in South Africa to get acclimatised to the altitude, ahead of the first match on the 20th against the Boks in Johannesburg.
Full credit to Michael Cheika and the brains trust on this one, at the very least trying to do something different, before the Springboks inevitably kill them on the Highveld.
Considering the Wallabies haven’t won at Ellis Park in 56 years, why don’t they just travel to Zimbabwe and hire a witch doctor to put some voodoo on the Springboks?
My Super Rugby Tipping Performance
Like an arsehole bragging about backing a winner after not telling anyone pre-race he’d backed that horse, all I have to say about my performance is FIGJAM.
And you know what the funniest part was?
I still finished 2nd in one of my tipping comps…. because the winner finished 4th overall.
Manly offering the Trbojevic brothers $10m to both stay
So as both Jake and Tom prepare for Game III tomorrow night, Dean Ritchie of the Murdoch press used his ‘sauces’ to claim that the Sea Eagles want to spend eight figures to keep the brothers at the club.
This was brought up on the old Controversy Corner last night, where Buzz pointed out something that perked my interest- The owners of the Sea Eagles want to sell the club within the next year, and to keep the value, they have to keep their major assets- I.E, DCE and both the Turbo boys.
$3 million a year on 3 players…. Is that 20 back-ended contracts I smell?
Manchester United hitting the ground running in Perth
And the Paul Pogba Circus is apparently about to get blown up by the British tabloids, after he apparently tried having a punch-up with Jesse Lindgard on their morning walk around Burswood, seen 11 seconds into this video on the Club’s Twitter.
Save it for Northbridge, Paul.
Anyway, he did train alongside Lindgard at the WACA, so for all we know, it could be nothing except The Sun being the usual steaming turd.
None of them have entered a race yet, but a mere 2,435 horses have been nominated for the Golden Slipper… which isn’t run until next March.
Leading the nominees; Ciaron Maher & David Eustace (133) Lindsay Park/Hayes (125), Chris Waller (97), 2019 winner James Cummings for Godolphin (91), Peter and Paul Snowden (85), Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott (81), Tony McEvoy (69), Mick Price (66), Team Hawkes (65), Aquis Farm Pty Ltd (59) and Kris Lees (55).
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