When an athlete wins a championship two years in a row, but then slips to second the next two years, it’s fair to assume that he may be starting a downswing – that he is a cut below the new champion and that he will struggle to beat him in the years ahead.
If you’re feeling frisky and blasphemous, you can carry on believing this U.S. men’s basketball roster is better than the Dream Team. Recency bias is a helluva drug. However, the current squad ought to have greater concerns than wondering about a mythical game of legends.
We gave you Scottie Scheffler at the Masters and Bryson DeChambeau at the U.S. Open. Last year, we journeyed well down the odds board to give you 100-to-1 long shot Brian Harman at the British Open. So you could say these major-championship predictions have been doing pretty well of late, and we’ll look to end the season with another winner at this week’s British Open at Royal Troon in Scotland.
WIMBLEDON, England – On the doorstep of Sunday’s final, the man with the most Grand Slam singles titles of all time spoke about the magic of Wimbledon.
NEW YORK – Lindsey Horan gets giddy just thinking about it: “The Star-Spangled Banner” echoing in Marseille as American athletes take the field and Olympic soccer unfolds before a packed Stade Vélodrome.
Chris Evert’s schedule is packed again. Six months after announcing for the second time that she had cancer, Evert, one of the greatest champions in sports history, is back to work as a tennis commentator, coach and charitable fundraiser. She seems to have beaten cancer again.
The criteria were rigorous. The data analytics were advanced. The metrics were sophisticated, and the hiring methods cutting-edge. Most important, as U.S. Soccer set out on its global search for a new men’s national team coach last year, it had at its disposal the one thing every successful soccer team needs: a multifaceted evaluation mechanism.
The U.S. players, for the most part, are not going to change. This is a national team, not a club. There are no transfers and trades. Coaches, they change. The U.S. failure at Copa América – the most important competition until the World Cup comes to North American shores – was Berhalter’s failure.
On the final night of Copa America Group C play, the U.S. men’s national team had to match or better Panama’s result against Bolivia. The challenge was that the U.S. would have to do it against unbeaten group leaders Uruguay.
WIMBLEDON, England – Carlos Alcaraz made history twice over when he defeated Alexander Zverev to win the French Open last month. The Spaniard became the first male player to win his first three Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces – hard court, grass and clay – and became the only man in tennis history to win a Grand Slam on all three surfaces before turning 22.
ATLANTA – Tim Weah is usually as cool and graceful on the soccer field as off it, but in a moment of madness Thursday, the 24-year-old winger put the U.S. national team in a terrible spot. And because of it, a berth in the Copa América quarterfinals now hangs in the balance.
Former Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won a record 23 gold medals in his career, warned a House subcommittee Tuesday night that he worries the Olympics might die unless doping issues are addressed with more urgency.
ARLINGTON, Tex. - Gregg Berhalter and the U.S. men’s national soccer team see Copa América as a steppingstone to the 2026 World Cup, and over the course of this summer’s fabled tournament they will measure their growth and learn whether they carry the capital to defeat the sport’s elite when it matters most.
