SI:AM | Rafael Nadal Injury Throws a Wrench in Dream Wimbledon Final
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Let’s take a look at what’s going on across the pond.
In today’s SI:AM:
🏈 The NFL’s unique sibling duo
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The fortnight is nearly over
With four days of action remaining at Wimbledon, things are getting very, very interesting.
The women’s semifinals begin today (actually, they’re going on right now as I write this) with third-seeded Ons Jabeur facing unseeded Tatjana Maria. The winner of that match will go on to face the winner of Elena Rybakina vs. Simona Halep in the final Saturday morning.
The men’s semis will be tomorrow, and they had been shaping up to be quite intriguing, although recent developments have dampened excitement a bit. Novak Djokovic defeated 20-year-old Jannik Sinner in five sets to advance to the semis, where he’ll face Britain’s Cameron Norrie. The other semi will feature lightning rod Nick Kyrgios against Rafael Nadal—maybe.
Nadal survived a five-set challenge from American Taylor Fritz yesterday, prevailing in a tiebreaker in the final set. But he did not emerge from the match unscathed. Nadal was forced to take a medical timeout during the second set and be examined by a trainer for an abdominal issue. It’s a good sign he was able to finish the match, but Nadal did not rule out the possibility he’d have to withdraw from the match with Kyrgios.
“I don’t know,” Nadal said, when asked whether he would play his next match. “Honestly, I can’t give you a clear answer because if I gave you a clear answer and tomorrow another thing happens, I will be a liar.”
Nadal’s injury, if it forces him to withdraw or hinders him against Kyrgios, is a major disappointment. Until he got hurt, it appeared that we were headed for another installment of one of modern tennis’s great rivalries: Nadal vs. Djokovic. (That’s what Jon Wertheim wrote before the Nadal injury.) Djokovic leads their all-time head-to-head series 30–29. A meeting in the final would also have significant implications for Djokovic’s pursuit of Nadal’s all-time major championship record.
A Nadal-Djokovic final is still quite possible, but a Kyrgios-Djokovic final would also be headline-grabbing. Kyrgios has made plenty of noise during this tournament, particularly during his heated third-round match against No. 4 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. He’s drawn criticism for his on-court antics and for flaunting Wimbledon’s strict dress code. He’s also due in court on domestic violence charges in his native Australia next month.
Kyrgios is as divisive as any player in the sport and will surely be viewed as the villain in his matchup against the legendary Nadal. It’ll be a match you won’t want to miss.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated
In today’s Daily Cover, brothers Stefon and Trevon Diggs told Alex Prewitt about their unbreakable bond:
“Elite sibling tandems are hardly rare in football, from the Mannings to the Watts to the pair of pairs (Jason and Travis Kelce, and Joey and Nick Bosa) who made the 2022 Pro Bowl alongside the Diggses in February. Yet never before have two existed on opposite sides of the game’s one matchup—out on the island, mono a mono, receiver vs. cornerback—that perfectly encapsulates the essence of the sibling rivalry.”
Conor Orr breaks down the Panthers’ acquisition of Baker Mayfield. … As part of the Strength Issue, Julie Kliegman examines what sports commentators mean when they harp on “mental toughness.” … Michael Pina makes the argument for why the Blazers should trade for Kevin Durant. … The women’s soccer European Championships begin this week, and Andrew Gastelum has a tournament preview.
Around the sports world
The Tigers haven’t heard from pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez since he was placed on the restricted list in May. … Zambia’s Barbra Banda has been ruled out of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations due to gender eligibility tests. … A Canadian Olympic swimmer says she was drugged at the world championships. … Longtime NHL player Bryan Marchment died suddenly at age 53.
The top five...
… most interesting things I saw last night:
5. Oneil Cruz’s diving play at shortstop
4. Kyle Schwarber’s fourth home run in two games
3. Chris Sale’s meltdown after a disappointing Triple A rehab start
2. Aaron Judge’s 30th home run of the season
1. Sabrina Ionescu’s 31-point triple double (the first in WNBA history)
SIQ
On this day in 1978, NBA owners voted to approve an ownership swap between which two franchises, allowing one of them to move to San Diego?
Yesterday’s SIQ: On July 6, 1932, Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges was shot twice in a Chicago hotel room by a woman with whom he had been romantically involved, inspiring (at least in part) which ’52 book?
Answer: The Natural. Jurges’s story and a similar tale involving Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus are believed to have inspired a scene in Bernard Malamud’s novel, which was later made into a 1984 movie starring Robert Redford.
Jurges had met Violet Popovich at a party in 1931, and they remained involved after she went to New York to pursue an acting career, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. In July ’32, she returned to her hometown of Chicago and rented a room at the Hotel Carlos, where Cubs players frequently stayed. There, on the morning of July 6, she planned to confront Jurges. When Popovich got to room 509, Jurges told her that he was breaking up with her. According to baseball historian Thomas Wolf, Jurges said, “I’m not going to go out on any more dates. We’ve got a chance to win the pennant. I’ve got to get my rest.” Here’s how Wolf described what happened next:
“Popovich asked for water. Jurges went to the bathroom, filled a glass, and brought it back to her.
“At that point, Popovich pulled the gun from her purse and pointed it at her head. Jurges reacted immediately, lunging for the gun and trying to wrest it out of her hands. They struggled for control of the weapon. Three shots were fired: The first ripped into his right side, colliding with a rib. Another hit his left pinky. And the third penetrated Popovich’s left hand.”
Jurges declined to pursue charges against Popovich, and his injuries proved to be relatively minor. He was back in the lineup three weeks later.
The shooting brings to mind a scene in The Natural in which the main character, baseball player Roy Hobbs, is shot by a woman in a hotel room, but it’s unclear whether Malamud was thinking of Jurges when he wrote it.
Malamud never said what inspired the Hobbs shooting. It could have been the Jurges incident, or it could have been Waitkus’s similar case. Waitkus was also shot in a Chicago hotel in 1949 by an obsessed fan, Ruth Ann Steinhagen, who had become infatuated with him when he played for the Cubs. But when Waitkus was traded to the Phillies, her obsession became more severe. Steinhagen shot him with a rifle, collapsing one of his lungs. Waitkus missed the final three months of the season but returned in ’50 and was named Comeback Player of the Year, helping lead the Phillies to the NL pennant. His story is perhaps a bit more Hollywood-worthy than Jurges’s.
From the Vault: July 7, 2003
Michael O’Neill/Sports Illustrated
The 2003 Cubs came pretty much out of nowhere. They’d gone 67–95 the year before and halfway through the ’03 season were improved but not setting the world on fire. When Daniel G. Habib’s cover story went to press, Chicago was 42–38, one game behind the Cardinals in the NL Central.
The key behind the turnaround was the pitching duo of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, who were mowing down hitters at a historic rate. Habib laid out the impressive statistics:
“[T]he Cubs had 705 strikeouts through 80 games and were on pace to break the league single-season mark (1,344) set by the Cubs in 2001. They could also join the 1968 Cleveland Indians as the only clubs in history with more strikeouts than hits allowed. Wood (143 K’s in 115 innings) and Prior (127 in 110 1/3) ranked first and second in the majors in strikeouts, and could become the second set of teammates in the last 27 seasons, after the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, to finish one-two. Armed with similar fastballs and tightly wound breaking balls, Wood (8–5, 2.90 ERA) and Prior (8–3, 2.61) are poised to become the game’s most dominant power-pitcher combo.”
All three of Habib’s hypotheticals came to fruition. The Cubs did break the record for total strikeouts (finishing with 1,404), did record more K’s than hits allowed (1,304) and Wood and Prior did finish first and second on the NL strikeout leaderboard (266 for Wood, 245 for Prior).
Behind that imposing pitching staff, the Cubs—by virtue of a 19–8 September—took the division and came painfully close to winning the pennant. (We all know what happened there.) Even though Wood and Prior both missed significant time in 2004, the Cubs actually finished one game better than they had a year earlier (89–73) but finished third in a strong division and missed the playoffs. Wood’s and Prior’s injuries were a sign of what would keep them from becoming, as Habib had proposed, “the game’s most dominant power-pitcher combo,” and Chicago had to wait more than a decade for that elusive championship.
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