Wimbledon cancelled
coolstanley
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Wimbledon was canceled on Wednesday because of the coronavirus pandemic, the first time since World War II that the oldest Grand Slam tennis tournament won’t be played.
Britain imposed a nationwide lockdown just over a week ago, and the All England Club announced after a two-day emergency meeting that the event it refers to simply as The Championships is being scrapped for 2020. That hadn’t happened since 1945.
Wimbledon was scheduled to be played on the club’s grass courts on the outskirts of London from June 29 to July 12.
Instead, the next edition of the tournament will be June 28 to July 11, 2021.
Eight-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer surely spoke for many with a one-word message on Twitter: “Devastated.”
Also Wednesday, the ATP and WTA announced that the men’s and women’s professional tours would be suspended until at least July 13, bringing the number of elite tennis tournaments affected by the coronavirus to more than 30. The top tours already had been on hold through June 7. Lower-level events on the Challenger Tour and ITF World Tennis Tour also are called off through mid-July now.
Wimbledon first was held in 1877 and has been contested every year since, with the exception of two stretches: from 1915-18 because of World War I, and from 1940-45 because of World War II.
“It has weighed heavily on our minds that the staging of The Championships has only been interrupted previously by World Wars,” club chairman Ian Hewitt said in a press release, “but, following thorough and extensive consideration of all scenarios, we believe that it is a measure of this global crisis that it is ultimately the right decision to cancel this year’s Championships, and instead concentrate on how we can use the breadth of Wimbledon’s resources to help those in our local communities and beyond.”
Wimbledon joins the growing list of sports events called off completely in 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
That includes the Tokyo Olympics — which have been pushed back 12 months — and the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments.
Wimbledon is the first major tennis championship wiped out this year because of the coronavirus. The start of the French Open was postponed from late May to late September.
Shortly after the news came from Wimbledon, the U.S. Tennis Association issued a statement saying it “still plans to host the U.S. Open as scheduled,” from Aug. 31 to Sept. 13 in New York.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
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Comments
What can ya say?
Nothing surprises me at this point.
wise decision
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think we have located the Zodiac Killer.......I'll be sending @perkdog and a S.W.A.T. team over soon!
Dimeman is a good example of why we need our sports back and quickly. 😉
This week I have been watching a DVD of John McEnroe beat Mats Wilander (Sweden) 9-7, 6-2, 15-17, 3-6, 8-6 in the final Davis Cup quarter-final rubber, 1982 on carpet(a surface no longer used) in St. Louis. It was originally broadcast on ESPN. Notice a 32 game 3rd set. In those days, there were no tiebreakers in davis cup competition, so all sets were played out. This is one of the longest matches in history(top 5). Lasted 6 hours and 32 minutes.
USA, the defending champion, would go onto beat France in the final to defend their title. Wilander was 17 years old and had recently won the French Open. McEnroe had lost the Wimbledon final to Jimmy Connors about a week before this match. This was the first match the two played against each other.
Failure to enforce rules is a feature of the match.
McEnroe is in one of his moods and is regularly confronting umpire and lines people - usually at least hotly and more often than that, abusively. Apparently there's a rule in the Davis Cup that players are not allowed to approach the officiating team and only the team captain can.
I would think this is a 'soft' rule, like time violations, and a player having a word with umpire or a linesman wouldn't be seen as a major problem, and the rule is only in place to prevent excessive or abusive protests. Excessive and abusive is exactly what McEnroe does - about once every two game, I'd estimate. This is akin to a player taking 2 minutes between points regularly, when the (soft) rule limit in place is 30 seconds.
Simple solution is to warn him. Its more than a solution, its the rule. The chair umpire seems to have no interest in doing so. The Swedish captain approaches the chair and reminds the Chair of his duties more than once to no avail. That failing, he takes to holding up a copy of the rulebook and directing Mac's attention to it. You can guess how much effect that has. McEnroe waves back to him once.
McEnroe is finally given a warning at 14-14 in third set when he casually hits a ball into the stands. He'd just held serve and there was no anger in the gesture... the sort of thing you could let slide. But the umpire gives him the long overdue warning.... having let go dozens of worse violations.
McEnroe eases up on going at the officials but not completely. He has 3 to 4 more confrontations, 1 particularly over the top at a lines women who called him for a foot fault.
No violations awarded. Should have lost a point first offence after. Presumably he would have ceased then but if he hadn't, there were the next two steps waiting to happen.
Things take an unofficial turn. The chairman of referees is courtside and apparently is prepared to pull all linesmen from the match if Mac continues abusing them. This is conveyed via court-side commentary team man Vic Braden. Presumably McEnroe would have been informed of this by his captain, Arthur Ashe.
No more outbursts, but he does hit a ball suspiciously near the lines women who had called him for a foot fault awhile earlier. And is given a second code violation and loses a point. Its at a critical juncture.... the point gives Wilander break point in opening game of the 5th (Mac goes on to hold)
The umpire had not overruled a single call all match. Commentators talk specifically about the umpire in questions philosophy - that he only overrules if there's a clear mistake.
The game after Mac's second violation, the umpire calls a Wilander ball long at a critical point, giving Mac break point (which he converts). Not only is the call too close to overrule, it isn't even out. Not only isn't it even out, it isn't even on the line but a couple of inches inside.
The whole thing looks very much like having very reluctantly called McEnroe - after letting him go with about 2 dozen offences - he wanted to give him one back.
Commentators spoke earlier about the umpire being well known for handling Mac well. During Mac's rants, he's usually stone faced with an occasional hint of being amused. Cliff Drysdale calls him "unflappable". "Spineless" might be a better word... and "cheating" not too strong a one to describe what he does
After a call goes against Mac, he addresses somebody at courtside - the match referee I think - saying something like, "Come on, we're pals". Head of Swedish Tennis Federation apparently stood up and declared something like "Now we know what's going on" in response. On another point, when McEnroe's strong first serve is called a let by the net chord judge, he addresses the latter with words to the effect of "come on, you're an American"
In a nutshell, very poor behaviour from McEnroe, enabled by very poor umpiring.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
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Mac was a great player, but very abusive.
I am surprised that he was allowed to take things as far as he did.
Its really surprising. Wouldn't happen in todays game. He probably would've gotten suspended and fined after he called the chair umpire a F%#%#%# moron in the first set.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
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I went on youtube and watched a bunch of his tirades. He was certainly an A hole, but even with the poor quality video, he SEEMED to be right most of the time. Some of the calls were just horrible.
I don't watch a lot of tennis any more, but don't they get the calls correct much better now?
Perhaps it would have been a completely different story if they were better back then.
It's absolute now with the computer replay. It shows exactly where the ball hit. Nobody has to make a judgement call anymore. It's like that computer box in Baseball....only better because it is one dimension not 3 and not adjustable by hitter size.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
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Not too shabby. Maybe I should consider purchasing lightning insurance on my house.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
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this week I painted a board and watched it slowly dry. That board's ratings were higher than tennis on TV
Also higher than the NFL.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21