Naomi Osaka exits French Open in first round, may skip Wimbledon

By OlympicTalkMay 23, 2022, 5:15 PM EDT

Naomi Osaka lost in the French Open first round, then said she may skip Wimbledon after the WTA and ATP tours announced last week they will not award ranking points because Wimbledon is barring Russia and Belarus players.

“I didn’t even make my decision yet, but I’m leaning more towards not playing given the current circumstances, but, you know, that might change,” Osaka said in an English answer to a question in Japanese that media on site reported to be about Wimbledon. “I’m not sure why, but I feel like if I play Wimbledon without points, it’s more like an exhibition. I know this isn’t true, right? But my brain just like feels that way. Whenever I think like something is like an exhibition, I just can’t go at it 100%.”

Osaka, a four-time major champion on hard courts, made the comments after losing 7-5, 6-4 to 27th-seeded American Amanda Anisimova in the marquee first-round match at Roland Garros.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Men | Women | TV Schedule

Also Monday, the women’s bottom half of the draw was blown open. Upset: No. 2 seed and defending champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic (in her first match since February due to an elbow injury) and No. 5 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia. With No. 6 Ons Jabeur and No. 10 Garbine Muguruza ousted Sunday, one top-10 player is left in that half: No. 4 Maria Sakkari of Greece.

In the top half, No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland throttled Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko 6-2, 6-0 in 54 minutes for a 29th consecutive match win, the longest women’s streak in nine years.

Rafael Nadal began his bid for a record-extending 14th French Open title by sweeping Australian Jordan Thompson 6-2, 6-2, 6-2. Nadal next gets French wild card Corentin Moutet, who dispatched 2015 Roland Garros winner Stan Wawrinka 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3. Novak Djokovic rolled Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan 6-3, 6-1, 6-0.

Osaka, unseeded after taking two breaks last year, struggled with her serve — eight double faults, first-serve percentage of 45 — and had 29 unforced errors to 13 winners.

On Wimbledon, Osaka said she expects more “back and forth” regarding the ranking points situation before she makes her final decision. The tournament starts June 27.

She also said she’s “a bit scared” about playing on grass after previously suffering an injury on the surface.

Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open before her second-round match. Back then, she announced that she suffered “long bouts of depression,” one day after tennis’ Grand Slams threatened disqualification or suspension if she continued to skip press conferences, as she had announced before the event, citing mental health.

“For the most part I think I’m OK,” Osaka said last week after deciding to do a pre-tournament press conference. “When I first came here, I was very worried. … I was worried that there were people that I offended some way and I would just kind of bump into them. But I think everyone has been really positive, for the most part.”

She entered Roland Garros with a lack of match prep on clay, including withdrawing from her last tournament with an Achilles injury.

“I tried really hard, and I just feel like it was a bit unfortunate because I wasn’t able to play as many matches leading into this tournament,” Osaka, who took a painkiller before the match and felt her Achilles in the second set, said Monday. “So there were probably some really bad decisions that I made on certain points, but I think overall I wasn’t too bad.”

The two-time U.S. Open and two-time Australian Open champion’s best result at the French was making the third round in 2016, 2018 and 2019. She has never beaten a player on clay ranked as high as Anisimova.

Anisimova, who broke through in 2019 to make the French Open semifinals at age 17, is at her best ranking since September 2020.

“It’s good going into this tournament knowing that I was so close back then and just having a very good run, so I know it’s in me,” Anisimova said.

She gets former top-20 player Donna Vekic of Croatia in the second round with Sakkari potentially waiting in the third.

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U.S. women’s rugby team qualifies for 2024 Paris Olympics as medal contender

By OlympicTalkMar 31, 2023, 1:31 PM EDT

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The U.S. women’s rugby team qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by clinching a top-four finish in this season’s World Series.

Since rugby was re-added to the Olympics in 2016, the U.S. men’s and women’s teams finished fifth, sixth, sixth and ninth at the Games.

The U.S. women are having their best season since 2018-19, finishing second or third in all five World Series stops so far and ranking behind only New Zealand and Australia, the winners of the first two Olympic women’s rugby sevens tournaments.

The U.S. also finished fourth at last September’s World Cup.

Three months after the Tokyo Games, Emilie Bydwell was announced as the new U.S. head coach, succeeding Olympic coach Chris Brown.

Soon after, Tokyo Olympic co-captain Abby Gustaitis was cut from the team.

Jaz Gray, who led the team in scoring last season and at the World Cup, missed the last three World Series stops after an injury.

The U.S. men are ranked ninth in this season’s World Series and will likely need to win either a North American Olympic qualifier this summer or a last-chance global qualifier in June 2024 to make it to Paris.

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Oscar Pistorius denied parole, hasn’t served enough time

Associated PressMar 31, 2023, 1:05 PM EDT

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Olympic and Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius was denied parole Friday and will have to stay in prison for at least another year and four months after it was decided that he had not served the “minimum detention period” required to be released following his murder conviction for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp 10 years ago.

The parole board ruled that Pistorius would only be able to apply again in August 2024, South Africa’s Department of Corrections said in a short, two-paragraph statement. It was released soon after a parole hearing at the Atteridgeville Correctional Centre prison where Pistorius is being held.

The board cited a new clarification on Pistorius’ sentence that was issued by South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal just three days before the hearing, according to the statement. Still, legal experts criticized authorities’ decision to go ahead with the hearing when Pistorius was not eligible.

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, are “relieved” with the decision to keep Pistorius in prison but are not celebrating it, their lawyer told The Associated Press.

“They can’t celebrate because there are no winners in this situation. They lost a daughter and South Africa lost a hero,” lawyer Tania Koen said, referring to the dramatic fall from grace of Pistorius, once a world-famous and highly-admired athlete.

The decision and reasoning to deny parole was a surprise but there has been legal wrangling over when Pistorius should be eligible for parole because of the series of appeals in his case. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide, a charge comparable to manslaughter, in 2014 but the case went through a number of appeals before Pistorius was finally sentenced to 13 years and five months in prison for murder in 2017.

Serious offenders must serve at least half their sentence to be eligible for parole in South Africa. Pistorius’ lawyers had previously gone to court to argue that he was eligible because he had served the required portion if they also counted periods served in jail from late 2014 following his culpable homicide conviction.

The lawyer handling Pistorius’ parole application did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

June Steenkamp attended Pistorius’ hearing inside the prison complex to oppose his parole. The parents have said they still do not believe Pistorius’ account of their daughter’s killing and wanted him to stay in jail.

Pistorius, who is now 36, has always claimed he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law student, in the pre-dawn hours of Valentine’s Day 2013 after mistaking her for a dangerous intruder in his home. He shot four times with his licensed 9 mm pistol through a closed toilet cubicle door in his bathroom, where Steenkamp was, hitting her multiple times. Pistorius claimed he didn’t realize his girlfriend had got out of bed and gone to the bathroom.

The Steenkamps say they still think he is lying and killed her intentionally after a late-night argument.

Lawyer Koen had struck a more critical tone when addressing reporters outside the prison before the hearing, saying the Steenkamps believed Pistorius could not be considered to be rehabilitated “unless he comes clean” over the killing.

“He’s the killer of their daughter. For them, it’s a life sentence,” Koen said before the hearing.

June Steenkamp had sat grim-faced in the back seat of a car nearby while Koen spoke to reporters outside the prison gates ahead of the hearing. June Steenkamp and Koen were then driven into the prison in a Department of Corrections vehicle. June Steenkamp made her submission to the parole board in a separate room to Pistorius and did not come face-to-face with her daughter’s killer, Koen said.

Barry Steenkamp did not travel for the hearing because of poor health but a family friend read out a statement to the parole board on his behalf, the parents’ lawyer said.

Pistorius was once hailed as an inspirational figure for overcoming the adversity of his disability, before his murder trial and sensational downfall captivated the world.

Pistorius’s lower legs were amputated when he was a baby because of a congenital condition and he walks with prosthetics. He went on to become a double-amputee runner and multiple Paralympic champion who made history by competing against able-bodied athletes at the 2012 London Olympics, running on specially designed carbon-fiber blades.

Pistorius’ conviction eventually led to him being sent to the Kgosi Mampuru II maximum security prison, one of South Africa’s most notorious. He was moved to the Atteridgeville prison in 2016 because that facility is better suited to disabled prisoners.

There have only been glimpses of his life in prison, with reports claiming he had at one point grown a beard, gained weight and taken up smoking and was unrecognizable from the elite athlete he once was.

He has spent much of his time working in an area of the prison grounds where vegetables are grown, sometimes driving a tractor, and has reportedly been running bible classes for other inmates.

Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, told the Pretoria News newspaper before the hearing that his family hoped he would be home soon.

“Deep down, we believe he will be home soon,” Henke Pistorius said, “but until the parole board has spoken the word, I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

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