French Open Womens Title
We begin with tennis from Paris as the final for the Women was played in gorgeous conditions on Saturday June 7 between Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep. The match began as many had suspected with the two players blistering shots at each other. There was not much between them with long rallies leading to and even start but at 3-2 on serve Sharapova broke Halep and held again to take the 5-2 lead which looked like the set was a cruise for Maria. This was not to be the case as Halep held to love and broke Maria back to make the set 5-4. Simona had all the momentum and the set was believed to be headed to a close end but it wasn't to be as Maria found the inner strength to break Halep back and win the first set 6-4.
The second set began much as the first ended with Maria taking an early break from Halep but quickly gave it back to the Romanian. The set became a slugfest much like the first until 4-4 when Halep broke Sharapova in a game that should have been handled by the Russian but points were not put away. The match looked to be made even with Halep's serve but the previous game would turn out to be the beginning of a break Fest. The four last game before the tie break were won by the returner and even the tie break was a situation of who would hold their serve best. This turned out to be Simona as she won the last four points of the tie break to even the match and push it past the two hour mark.
The third set much like the previous two was a slugfest the entire way. Each player traded breaks and hold of serves until 4-4 when Sharapova broke the Halep serve and would serve for the match. It seemed we may be heading to more fun to end the match with players trading breaks but Sharapova was not to be denied and held her serve at love. Maria fell to the clay on winning match point in disbelief having won her fifth Grand Slam title.
French open Men's final
In yet another installment of the Novak v Rafa battle it seemed Novak would finally get the better of Rafa on the clay courts of Roland Garros. However, after looking very good in the first set it was obvious near the end Novak begins showing cracks. The cracks were FULLY exploited by Rafa the rest of the way and after losing the first set he rolled to victory over his nemesis in four. This is the fifth title at Roland Garros in a row for the clay court wizard from Spain.
NHL and NBA Playoffs
Due to my team going out in the last round of the NHL Playoffs and not caring one bit about NBA basketball this will be short.
The battle in the NHL would have been thought to be a battle of goalies but neither of the first two have proven to be so. Both were high scoring affairs and ended in overtime with the home team Kings winning. This series to me has long been headed for an easy LA victory and it wouldn't shock me it ends in four or five.
As for the NBA, of course it figures the two team everyone knew would be here (only one other team had legit shot in OKC) so this is why I loathe the NBA....NO PARITY!! Game one was held just prior to the weekend in San Antonio on Thursday in a sweltering stadium which saw the best player in the game cramp up for the umpteenth time in his career. Lebron really needs to figure out his body and get this thing corrected. Of course some people have been complaining that the game should have been halted when the AC broke in San Antonio but for goodness sake every player had to play in it and the fans had to deal with it as well. Only one player seemed to struggle with the conditions so why should this game have been stopped? San Antonio went on a big run to end the game with Lebron out and take a game 1 victory by 15.
NBA game 2 to come.
Motorsports
Of course we have to go general on this topic as there was so many event this weekend.
We start with Indycar...in what is one of their high profile races and one of their longest of the season the open wheelers were in for night of fun in Texas. When NASCAR meets these cookie cutter tracks it is a bore of epic proportions but somehow the open wheelers have figured out how to have epic races. Many side by side battles and changes for the lead happened all race so that the lack of caution laps didn't cause a problem. Seeing these cars run lap after lap at over 200 mph at this place is epic and the end didn't disappoint. Will Power who had been leading for much of the race was nailed for speeding on Pit road with little of the race to remain but was able to stay on lead lap after serving his penalty so he got a break when the late caution was waved for a smoking Takuma Sato. He came in to take new tires and started fifth on the grid. There were only two laps left but he made them count and nearly made it to the lead. He finished second to Ed Carpenter, the oval ace, with the final order being Carpenter, Power, and Montoya.
What more could you expect from Montreal! A phenomenal F1 race came for those who watched it rather than the drab race in Pocono (more to come on that). What seemed like another march to victory for the AMG Mercedes Petronas team became a debacle as Lewis Hamilton lost his brakes and in the closing laps team leader Nico Rosberg lost the lead to Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull Renault. Nico had the same issue as Lewis with bad brakes but limped home in second followed by world champion Sebastien Vettel in third. The race was marred by a last lap wreck which saw fourth and fifth at the time Sergio Perez for Force India and Felipe Massa of Williams involved. The wreck happened near the middle of the track going into a turn with Perez seeming to take a bad line which blocked Massa and caused the wreck.
As for NASCAR it was once again a trip to Pocono and the track that means so much to be out front. A race dominated by Brad Keselowski saw him lose the lead on the last five laps when he was trying to get garbage off his grill. Folks please stop losing control of your damn trash! His water temps were increasing forcing him to do whatever he could to get it off. He attempted to get behind the lapped car of Danica Patrick but to no avail so he lost the lead to Dale Jr who ended up winning his second of the season pretty much cementing himself in the Chase.
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