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Australia

There was some Tennis after all to finish off the Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday from Malaga in Spain with the Billie Jean King Cup involving Australia. 

The good news is that they had the early round Finals bye to begin straight from the Quarter-Finals tie v Slovakia, but the bad news is that the Aussies were outclassed following a 2-0 series straight defeat. 

Yes, we saw some brilliant tennis at times from Kimberly Birrell including that 2nd set fight to open up the deciding set while it was good seeing Ajla Tomjlanovic back in action in a while after a long layoff from injury. 

It just wasn’t enough unfortunately to fight on another day even a 1-1 tie might have encouraged our doubles pair of Ellen Perez & Daria Saville to live on another day – at least on the Tennis court that could’ve seen them face Great Britain in the semis that will begin tomorrow night.

Alex De Minaur’s British girlfriend Katie Boulter is having an excellent impact so far for Team GB and so does her team-mate Emma Raducanu who won the US Open back in 2021. Who knows what could happen and they could do in the hope of going one step further towards Wednesday’s Final for that one prestigious trophy named after our female Tennis icon (Billie Jean King) against either Poland or Italy.

Want more of De Minaur? The Davis Cup Finals week will then begin this Thursday to Sunday starting with the USA & he too would love to go big and go home with the Davis Cup trophy for our Aussie team. 

Would’ve it been lovely if Katie won the BJK Cup and Alex won the Davis Cup for their won countries? That would be another couple goals success story of Tennis in 2024 after they won three other weekly tournaments all within the same time during that same weekend together.

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Oh so close when Alexei Popyrin gave the Aussies a lifeline following his win in the 2nd singles match v Pedro Martinez & if Jordan Thompson won that first game, then we’ve would’ve been on top. But hats off to Spain though on bringing home the deciding doubles win (2-1 series win) that puts them on top of Group B. At least we know that the Aussies are already safe into November Finals week where the Top 8 will battle it out for one trophy also within Spain in Malaga since the Aussies finished 2nd with wins already warranted v France (2-1 series win thanks to our doubles duo of Matt Ebden & Max Purcell) and Czech Republic (3-0 whitewash win).

Gotta say we could’ve won that opening match with Jordan Thompson – who came back off a terrific US Open run lately up until the 4th round – being so close at one stage to try close it out v Pablo Carreno Busta. It’s a shame that his poor serves let him slip away off the back of a really good start before Busta won that opening singles match instead. The final score was 6-2, 2-6 and 6-7 via 7-3 tiebreaker. 

Then as said, Popyrin kept Australia’s hopes alive in the series going into the deciding doubles match for Ebden & Purcell to settle where he continued to be at his best this time v Martinez. His standards continued to soar also coming into the group stage week off his recent career best US Open run (4th Round) with the straight sets win 6-4 & 6-4.

Now we hoped Ebden & Purcell can get the job done v Marcel Granollers & Bautista Agut (again) since we’re always so strong in our doubles performances following a brilliant 2024. Yes, they too didn’t do bad where Ebden & Purcell were so close but not quite enough today unfortunately to hold back the Spanish duo to try bow out on top of Group B. The final score was 7-5, 4-6 and 4-6.

Even though it was a difficult finish to the series v Spain, the Aussies still had a brilliant week in Valencia nonetheless.

Now we have to find who will be our Quarter-Final opponent in the next few days before the road to reclaiming that prestigious trophy begins in late November. Hoping Alex De Minaur will be back fully fit for the right time alongside Popyrin with back up from Thompson as well as our strong doubles combo strikeforce of Ebden, Purcell & John Peers.

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Gotta say the Aussies were too good v Czech Republic in their 2nd match of the 2024 Davis Cup group stages following a 3-0 whitewash ahead of the 3rd and final series tie this Sunday/Monday AM v Spain.

Glad to hear that Thanasi Kokkinakis was superb once again through the best of three sets in the opening singles game v Jakub Mensik. The first set was easy and although he was unlucky to close out the first attempt during the 2nd set tiebreak, but he found a way though to get things done without too much of a fuss towards the end though by 6-2, 6-7 (2-7 tie) & 6-3.

Going into the next game with Alexei Popyrin, okay, this was a bit different when Tomas Machac had to retire hurt not long after the 2nd singles game was started – in which was so unfortunate to hear.

But a win is a win for the Aussies as they were happy to take it with the series win now already locked in 2-0 before we had one doubles tie to finish off the day featuring Matt Ebden & Max Purcell. The duo have been an unstoppable force as always this time in straight sets 6-4 & 6-2 v Jakub Mensik & Adam Pavlasek.

Now the Aussies still sit on top of Group B with one more series tie left to settle this weekend – they should be good to go for November’s Finals week as long as Spain win tomorrow v France. That way, they will do their absolute best with that Playoffs spot warranted by going all the way against one of the Top sides – especially when playing against one of the host nations over in Valencia. And let’s hope they will bring back Alex De Minaur back in time instead of Popyrin for one of their two singles matches alongside Kokkinakis.

Bring it on to wrap up Australia’s Davis Cup group stage week regardless of result that will hopefully put in a position where they can win that legendary trophy at some point soon enough.

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Gotta say it has been a great finish to the 1st of the three Davis Cup 2024 group stage series matches for the Aussies v France from overnight in Valencia, Spain. Thanasi Kokkinakis got away with a pretty good start when he was simply at the top of his game v Arthur Fils in straight sets, even though this opening singles game wasn’t so easy indeed – 7-6 via 7-4 tiebreak & 7-6 via 7-3 tiebreak. Although in the second singles match, Ugo Humbert was too good for Alexei Popyrin also in straight sets (3-6 & 2-6) which was so unfortunate where Humbert tied with the Aussies at 1-1 apiece for France.

But this tie wasn’t over just yet with the doubles match to settle v the French featuring one of the Paris 2024 men’s double Olympic gold medalist Matt Ebden & one of the new US Open men’s double champ Max Purcell going up against Pierre Hueges Herbert & Edouard Roger-Vasselin. Fortunately, Ebden & Purcell saved the day thanks to our best doubles playing strikeforce as seen regularly across the grand slam tournaments and team group circuit.

They fired off really well where there were some bumps along the way when it comes to the second set but eventually found a way to close out though with the 2-1 series win v France. The final score was 7-5, 5-7 & 6-3 as the Aussies are now onto the 2nd of three series ties in Group B v Czech Republic on Friday morning. Then they will do the best they can possible depending on other results to finish off the group stage weekend on Monday morning v one of the top-ranked sides in Spain.

All they have to do is keep on fighting as another series win would see them one step closer towards locking in that November Finals week spot where the final eight teams will be competing for that one prestigious silverware & no doubt we’d like to have it back this time around after back-to-back recent Final attempts like last year and the year before (in 2022).

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This is the moment we’ve been waiting for all year long as the Alpine F1 Team have finally settled their 2nd seat to replace the Haas-bound Esteban Ocon today for their upcoming 2025 Formula One Season alongside Frenchman Pierre Gasly and it’s none other than our Aussie own Jack Doohan from the Gold Coast, Queensland. His big announcement today won’t impact Alpine’s future plans that much in the meantime going into the new engine rules era from 2026 at Enstone when it’s looking more and more likely now that they will ditch their own Renault engines by becoming a privateer outfit with Mercedes-Benz. 

Then it remains to see what happens after that if Alpine still wants to be a Formula 1 outfit after 2026 as they could either be morphed into Hitech since Oliver Oakes has just taken over the Team Principal job at Alpine or else Andretti can take over for at least $1 billion dollars & they can finally race Formula 1 when the sport doesn’t feel confident about expansion at this time.

Great to hear that Alpine has made an excellent choice by bringing Doohan into a full-time race seat where he might not have collected a season championship so far in his career but he too can do well across qualifying and race day with a few wins under his belt as proved in Formula 3 and Formula 2 in the past. Don’t forget he’s also the son of former legendary 500cc motorcycle Grand Prix champion Mick Doohan as sure he has the family racing calibre to make his mark albeit at the different highest levels of Motorsport in four-wheels of Formula 1 rather than two-wheels which is MotoGP.

Yes, Mick Schumacher was also in the mix having also took part in a top-secret test recently for Alpine alongside Doohan where they were both family friends for a long time with Mick being named after Jack’s dad while Jack was given a go-kart by Mick’s dad Michael who won so many World Championships throughout his career as hope is all well with him following his unfortunate skiing accident a decade ago.

But again, even though Mick first came into F1 with the Formula 3 and 2 championships, he didn’t set the world alight when he was at Haas a few years ago & if he wants to go back at the top-level again, then taking the risk at Audi which is currently Sauber in the short-term under Ferrari engines would be his last best hope ahead of its big break in 2026 with fellow German Nico Hulkenberg.

At the end of the day, it’s up for Doohan to score regular Top 7-10s with some podiums or even 1-2 wins onboard since there’s only 20 Formula 1 seats to battle upfront nowadays. Let’s hope he does well with our best backing from Australia as he will be the third driver there on the grid alongside McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and also Racing Bulls’ Daniel Ricciardo if Riccardo can keep his ride within the Red Bull family next season.

Depending on Sergio Perez’s performance later this year, we could see Ricciardo going back to Red Bull again or else he will be given the flick with NZ’s Liam Lawson getting a full-time ride after all in Ricciardo’s current spot at Racing Bulls.

Looks like F1 is growing across the Trans-Tasman in both Australia and New Zealand with as many as four drivers on the grid and with Doohan, it remains to be seen which race number he could take ahead of his F1 race debut next season.

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What a Final it was at Court Phillipe Chatrier as Matt Ebden and John Peers are now Olympic champions in the Men’s Doubles Final over Team USA’s duo of Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram out of a tight three set contest. The last time Australia won a gold medal there at an Olympics level was back in Atlanta in 1996 by both Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde. Now fast forward to 28 years, Australia finally got their first gold medal in the 21st century for Tennis thanks to the superstar doubles duo of Ebden & Peers.

It wasn’t the easiest of starts when Ebden and Peers were behind earlier on, even though they had some fair share of battles before Team USA locked themselves in with the 1st set lead. But the game wasn’t over just yet when they began to turn themselves around from the set down & that paid off big time where they kept on going by putting their opponents under pressure until the very end. Now they might have almost lost 3 out of 4 gold medal points but at least that crucial final serve was good enough to see off both Krajicek and Ram for the gold medal win.

Commiserations from Krajicek and Ram whom they played oh so well off the back of a good headstart to stay ahead of Ebden and Peers. They never gave them an easy run for sure but they did however have slipped away at times following the 1-0 set lead where the final set best of ten tiebreak decider has been activated by Australia before Peers had the last say for the final serve for that gold medal point.

And how good was China Qinwen Zheng who finally got her breakthrough that may not be exactly at a grand slam at this stage but at least she won a gold medal at the Roland Garros with the straight sets (6-2 & 6-3) win over Croatia’s Donna Vekic. She too had a powerful first set performance while Zheng took her time well v the improving Vekic as the match goes on before she stood her ground that made her an Olympics champion for China. Sure she has unfinished ahead and that will be winning a grand slam after she fell short to Aryna Sabalenka back in late January of this year at Melbourne Park.

On Vekic, it wasn’t the match she wanted when she fired off not bad on both sets including some progress from the opening set down. But just couldn’t catch up nor found the long run consistency to put Zheng under pressure. She did make Croatia proud though as Vekic collected the silver medal ahead of Iga Swiatek from Poland who won bronze v Anna Karolína Schmiedlová from Slovakia (6-2 & 6-1).

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While the on-air talent and silly season rumour talk is ongoing, there has been some progress as of late when it comes to NASCAR’s International ambitions. Off the back of several International drivers coming here over the last 1-2 years mainly on road courses, they would like to hold an International Cup series race as early as next year. We’ll find out where that might be? And what does it mean for Australia.

If hosting NASCAR races off shore isn’t enough, we got two Cup racers looking to get some extra race time elsewhere that will appeal to local race track promoters and race fans. There’s one who is set for a one-off outing in an International NASCAR-sanctioned series coming up soon while another is set for a return to Australia to race some sprint cars like most other US racers when their respective seasons usually finishes in November.

Time will tell but for now, great to see the sport taking some right steps in order to promote to stock car racing worldwide rivalling Formula 1, MotoGP & IndyCar .

NASCAR’s International Cup Series plans update this week beginning with Mexico and Canada

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule hasn’t been fully released yet other than a couple of important races and some of the in-tournament summer events that will be on both Amazon Prime & TNT – such as February’s season-opening Daytona 500, May’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the Championship 4 Finale in Phoenix in early November.

While there’s still ongoing talk as to which of the current races will stay or go, there’s no surprise that NASCAR wants to host at least one if not two Cup races outside the USA. However, those two overseas races they’re looking at will likely be just within the North American border for a start.

We’ve heard so far that Mexico City in Mexico and Montreal in Canada are the key destinations, although Montreal would more likely be a realistic target for 2026. 

NASCAR has been there and done that before in the mid 2000s-early 2010s with the second-tier series with Mexico City between 2005-2008 followed by Montreal between 2007-2012 where both of these venues are usually home to their respective Formula 1 Grand Prix races like the Mexico City & Canadian Grand Prix.

I, for one, would like to see this happen with the sport doing an excellent job on being serious about their International footprint. It’s been going on over the last few years alongside a couple of International drivers coming in to race for a couple of occasions, especially on road courses where these drivers have been usually specialists there for so long.

What’s not going away though is taking some Cup events off on Sundays to accommodate their International ambitions, even if it’s going to be held in Mexico City and/or Montreal. 

It’s the best part business and fan-centric wise of finishing the race weekend as always with most of their viewers coming from across the county in the US while some do come from Canada as well as Europe. So they’re happy where they’re are when their main focus these days is the West Coast market & race day starts tend to fall in the early afternoon rather than putting it at midday like it used to be or else fans who live in the West Coast will miss out the start first thing at 9am PST.

What does it mean for NASCAR in Australia? 

While we continue to see more and more of our Supercars drivers trying their hand in NASCAR since last year with New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen now racing the Xfinity Series for Kaulig Racing full-time, it looks like we won’t see a big NASCAR race weekend here anytime soon since they want to keep most of the focus locally and domestically across the USA.

Sure, never say never but it’s gonna be a long shot for management to consider in the rear view mirror. Yes, we also had an IndyCar race in the Gold Coast, QLD a long time ago until 2008. But don’t think IndyCar would also want to sacrifice its domestic audience either when racing only within the North and South America other than Toronto, Canada is the series’s only realistic International hotspots right now. 

We can always dream and even having an NASCAR-sanctioned Australian series would help just like they do to Mexico, Canada, Brazil and Europe. But we’ve always got Supercars and even SpeedSeries, so no room at all unfortunately in the meantime for NASCAR to sort out contracts with race tracks as well as suppling their fleet of stock cars to a customers wanting to take part here – which does cost the time of travel & $$$.

If NASCAR isn’t enough to keep you updated here when we all got work on a Monday morning unless you’re a big SVG fan of course in Xfinity level, there’s always highlights and replays to look back in the evening or in a few days whenever you can. Plus, Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson is coming to Perth at the end of this year to race in sprint cars – a discipline he knows all too well growing up while still racing some mid-week for fun.

Daniel Suarez to compete in a one-off race in Brazil for NASCAR’s sanctioned domestic series there

And lastly, another NASCAR Cup Series driver is going to get another race elsewhere – this time during the two-week break while the Olympics is on – in none other than current Trackhouse driver Daniel Suarez. He will arrive in Brazil next week to get married first with fiancé Julia Piquet, who is the sister of former NASCAR & Formula 1 driver (also Formula E champion) Nelson Piquet Jr. & daughter of 3 x Formula 1 champion Nelson Piquet. 

Then he’ll stay in Brazil a bit longer to compete on a one-off outing at Interlagos in São Paulo in NASCAR’s sanctioned Brazilian series on August 2-4 before they will return home together in Charlotte after this in time for the 2nd half season, with a Playoffs berth already sealed due to his win in Atlanta earlier this year (February).

Congratulations to Daniel on getting to marry the love of his life Julia while he’s able to score some extra race seat time at his future wife’s home soil in Brazil like he did during the Busch Clash weekend back in February at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the Mexico Series – a series he regularly competed a long time ago before he went on to make a name for himself in America in which he’s just been an naturalised citizen there last month. No doubt this will hopefully put him on the map when it comes to the upcoming Playoffs in the same way that helped him win his next Cup a couple of weeks later. He ended up 10th in drivers’ points two years ago off the back of his first ever Cup win at Sonoma back in June and what he needs to now is to close in on team-mate Ross Chastain to provide better competition for Trackhouse before looking at the top teams.

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It’s been an excellent two days from the Australian Billie Jean King Cup team who were too good for Mexico in Brisbane as they became the first team to lock into November’s 12-team Playoff finals that will take place in Seville, Spain. We thought Mexico had the upper hand in the opening singles tie thanks to a great opening set spell by Giuliana Olmos before Arina Rodionova turned herself around with a 1-1 all lead going into the decider before she quickly completed an amazing comeback that lasted just over the two hour mark 3-6, 6-3 and 6-1. Then Daria Saville finished off Friday quicksmart in under an an hour against Marcela Zacarias 6-1, 6-1 where the Aussies only need one more tie to wrap up this five-tie contest.

Come Saturday today, enter 18-year-old Taylah Preston from Perth into the fray against Zacarias once again thanks to team captain Sam Stosur. Although it’s heartbreaking to hear the opponent having to suffer an injury as hope this isn’t too series, but Preston has stood out really well also in straight sets (6-1, 6-1). With that being said, there was no need for another singles tie since Australia already won this qualifier so a finals doubles tie was brought forward as Saville played once again alongside Ellen Perez v Maria Navarro and Jessica Hinjosa Gomez. Great to see Mexico add some spice earlier on but this was a match Australia wanted to make the most out of as if they’re playing in the Finals week today with another straight sets win 6-3, 6-1.

The only blow we’ve learnt from this two-day qualifier that Storm Hunter hurt her achilles earlier this week and unfortunately she won’t be playing at the Paris Olympics later this year. She’s so good in the doubles with Matt Ebden earlier this year in the United Cup while going as far as the 3rd round at the Australian Open including a fairytale 2nd round United Cup semi-final revenge win v Laura Siegemund before she was run down from 1-0 up by Barbora Krejcikova from Czech Republic. For Saville, she still has a long way to go having now been the best ranked Australian women’s singles player recently as a great run on clay at Roland Garros next month or a Wimbledon breakthrough will back up her goal of returning Top 20. And lastly, here’s hoping we have our next grand slam star in Taylah Preston after the now-retired Ash Barty who attended the game inside the hospitality box with her baby son and former player Casey Dellacqua. She had a brilliant game as said against the experienced Zacarias, having known a bit more about Mexico well after she made it all the way to the Final two months ago in the Mexican WTA 125 tournament before she fell short to USA’s McCartney Kessler despite holding a close opening set lead. Look out for her in the years ahead who has amazing potential to win lots of trophies including grand slams. For now, Roll out the next grand slam on the Tennis calendar come late next month to early June for the Roland Garros (French Open) in Paris, France.

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Day 6 of the 2024 World Swimming Championships was all about Shayna Jack for the Dolphins Swim Team even though she was the only Aussie to take out the bronze for the night after she finished 3rd in the Women’s 100m Freestyle Final. Now she might be nowhere near Marrit Steinbergen from the Netherlands (52.26) and even Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey (52.86) by just a second behind these two but she didn’t do bad though where Jack managed to keep the last medal podium spot right through the end of the wall at 52.83 secs. There is a few gold medal opportunities up for grabs this weekend starting tomorrow with promising signs from Cam McEvoy who was fastest in both his heat and the overall the Men’s 50m Freestyle semi-final as he will look to take out the gold again tomorrow morning. He will be joined by Isaac Cooper in this meet as they both want to make a 1-2 for our Aussie Dolphins. Look out for Alex Perkins having been second fastest in semi-final 2 of the Women’s 50m Butterfly ahead of team-mate Brianna Throssell in 4th where they will both look to get the job done inn the final tomorrow. Don’t forget there will be another USA v Australia challenge this time in Jaclyn Barclay v Clare Curzan in the Women’s 200m backstroke & Barclay hopes it’s her moment by ending Curzan’s unreal dominance up front for the gold. And both Maddy Gough & Kiah Melverton will round out the Super Saturday golden line-up in the Women’s 800m Freestyle Final.

As said, forget about smashing the medal tally again since most of our top swimmers are going for the Olympics which is more important than just going in at another World Champs in such short time. But again, it gives some other swimmers a chance to make a name for themselves including a few teenage/juniors who are part of our next generation cohort & sure they will make that count this weekend on a high note before looking ahead at the National Olympic trials around June.

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Still no gold on Day 3 of the 2024 World Swimming Championships but the Dolphins Swim Team collected just the one silver from Iona Anderson in the Women’s 100m backstroke final that includes fellow Aussie Jaclyn Barclay, who finished 4th in that race. Good effort up front in the last dash but just not enough to stop Clare Curzan in time for the gold by nearly one second (+00.83). It’s her first World Championship medal at only age 17/18 as WA has a brilliant talented swimmer right there & sure she will get better in the years ahead with lots of gold medals being earned all over it. The same goes to Barclay, who fell short outside of the podium spots, but again Barclay is 16 from QLD & also one of the brightest next crop of stars to light up in the next few years including the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the home games in Brisbane for 2032 as well.

Other than that it’s not Elijah Willington’s day as we hoped for in the Men’s 200m Freestyle Final where he finished 7th. So does Maddy Gough after she also came home in the same position as Elijah in the Women’s 1500m Freestyle Final, having competed in the open water World Championship races with Moesha Johnson earlier this month in 18th.

Going into Day 4, we might not have the time to catch up and dominate this medal tally again like last year in Fukuoka, Japan, since most of them have skipped this WC on what is going to be a huge Olympics year in July-August. But there’s a few gold opportunities we can look forward to with Sam Williamson in the Men’s 50m breaststroke (fastest in his own semi heat & will start from lane 4) as well as Shayna Jack & Brianna Throssell in the Women’s 200m Freestyle with huge competition up for grabs, Winnington again in the 800m Freestyle & the 4 x 200m Mixed Medley Team Relay. So 2-3 would be great but to be real with USA & China comfortably in front, the Dolphins should finally take out the gold tomorrow.

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