U.S. Open: Well, almost

 

So I did something rare and posted on-time about the U.S. Open tennis championship last week. On the women's side, I said that the odds would favor Swiatek and Sabalenka at the time.  I also said that Jessica Pegula, who had yet to fulfill her promise, could win too.  Well, if you've been following along, Sabalenka did win, and she defeated Pegula, who made the final, so that was much better performance in the service of fulfilling her promise. 

Pegula might still win a Slam, but she suffers from lack of size and power, something that Sabalenka has a lot of.  With her, Swiatek, Rybakina (when she's healthy), a resurgent Naomi Osaka (maybe), Coco Gauff, and lots-of-potential Emma Navarro all in the mix, along with the usual assortment of players with names ending in "-ova" who always seem to show up in the draw, Pegula might not make it back to a Grand Slam final ever. But I hope she does. Same goes for Rybakina.

On the men's side, I said that I wanted one of the three T's:  Francis Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz, or Tommy Paul -- to get into the final. Lo and behold, one of them did. And it was the one that I think the network brass would have wanted, along with many of the male heterosexual fans of the game, because by Taylor Fritz being in the final that means they can intersperse the coverage of the play on the court with shots of Morgan Riddle in the friend's box. 

Unfortunately, Fritz has to play Jannik Sinner, so like Pegula vs. Sabalenka, the American is decidedly lower-ranked than the opponent. It'd be nice to get the upset, but the smart money is on the currently better player.

By the way, I found out that Taylor Fritz got married young and had a child with his then-wife, before they divorced a couple of years ago, which allowed him to connect with Morgan. It turns out that the ex-wife tennis player Raquel Pedraza was also an attractive blond young woman.  I guess he's got some consistency in that game.

Now I'm not going to post another picture of Morgan Riddle. Here's Fritz doing what he's paid to do.