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Novak Djokovic confirms the defeat of his team in the Dubai League
Novak Djokovic confirms the defeat of his team in the Dubai League.
The match between Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev in the World Tennis League was meant to be a formality for the Serbian considering Sascha’s downtime and the image he left behind in the Diriyah Tennis Cup, which was not bad, but showed that he still had a long way to go to return to his best level. For his part, Nole arrived in Dubai as one of the fittest players on the circuit and with a golden opportunity to gain rhythm for the new season. On the other hand, tennis always surprises, and Zverev, whom practically no one trusted at the start of the match, won 6-3, 6-4.
Despite how the final result was, it would not take long for Djokovic to confirm his favoritism, since as soon as the game began he managed to break ‘Sascha’s’ serve and then confirm the break and get 2-0. Everything indicated at this moment that the duel would go on the fast track since Zverev was trapped with his service, committing double faults and not feeling comfortable in the long-range exchanges.
Novak Djokovic confirms the defeat of his team in the Dubai League.
However, the German did not lose face in the set and would manage to recover service in the fourth game to later achieve a new break in the eighth and score the set 6-3. What at first, were mistakes were now winners and his service began to work and gave him free points.
The second set would start the same as it had ended, with the German being aggressive and finding the break at the first change, at this time Zverev was flying over the court, and Nole was somewhat lost. However, showing the kind of winner that he is, Djokovic would re-engage in the match by returning the break in the next game. 1-1 but with the feeling that the owner of the duel at this moment was still ‘Sascha’. Despite this, in the first break of the sleeve, Nole would go 2-1 in favor, although the advantage would not last long.
HIT ON ZVEREV’S TABLE
Zverev put one more gear and showed that despite not having competed for a long time, he is more driven than Djokovic at the moment since Alexander has been preparing for 2023 for some time and Nole has just started. With 2-2 in the set, the man born in Hamburg signed a magnificent game achieving two passings to the line that placed him with a breakup. He suffered to confirm his serve since he had to raise a 0-30, but later with great serves, he managed to maintain an advantage that he was not going to let go.
From this moment on, the services continued without there being any opportunity to break and Zverev’s pulse did not tremble, so supported by his serve and his great backhand shots, he won a game that will be vital for his confidence. In this way, Sascha is already presenting his candidacy to return through the front door and it seems that these pre-season games have been the best way to get back into a competitive rhythm.
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For his part, Djokovic leaves some doubts, although they are not too worrying either. It was his first game after more than a month and the Serbian knows very well what he has to do to reach his main goal at the start of the season in top form, to reign supreme in Australia again after not being able to be there for the season passed for well-known reasons.
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Max Verstappen has once again claimed that he is the target of ‘British bias’ in the media after watching the fallout from his battle with Lando Norris. The three-time world champion’s defending was criticised by a number of drivers, including Lewis Hamilton.
Verstappen and Norris shared a titanic battle at the Circuit of the Americas last weekend, but the flashpoint came at Turn 12 as the Dutchman deployed a signature tactic, lunging deep into the corner to get to the apex first before running both himself and his title rival off the road.
Norris opted to keep his foot in and overtook the Red Bull driver around the outside, although this decision landed him a five-second time penalty that dropped him back behind Verstappen in the general classification. This sparked a major debate with other drivers – Hamilton included – calling for the FIA to take action and outlaw this style of defending.
Verstappen has been frustrated by this debate. Quizzed by Viaplay in Mexico on whether he’d like to see the rules changed, he replied: “No, not really. But I have the wrong passport.” Asked if he was referring to a British passport, he confirmed as much.
“Yeah, it’s the wrong country, on that aspect… with complaining” he replied. “I love my passport but on that aspect, I should have had a different passport, actually.” The Dutchman also complained of ‘British bias’ earlier this season following comments made by Adrian Newey.
When asked about the debate surrounding Verstappen’s on-track conduct, former title rival Hamilton was quick to point out that the Dutchman has been employing these tactics for some time, dating back to their no-punches-pulled fight in 2021.
“It’s always been a grey area, that’s why he’s got away with it for so long,” Hamilton explained ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix. “They probably need to make some adjustments for sure.
“Also, we do have inconsistencies through rulings, weekend in, weekend out, obviously depending on which years it is. I mean, as a sport, we do need to level up on all areas and if you look at other global sports, they have full-time refs, for example, and I’m sure that wouldn’t be a bad thing for our sport.
“I experienced it many times with Max, you shouldn’t be able to just launch the car on the inside and be ahead and then you go off and still hold your position. So, they need to definitely work on this.”
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$200M Jeff Gordon teams up with Chase Elliott and Co. to decode the HMS driver behind the “Don’t judge me” old tweet
Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman Jeff Gordon teamed up with Chase Elliott and other HMS drivers in a lighthearted fun exercise for fans where they attempted to solve the mystery behind an old tweet from their current driver.
The anonymous tweet reads, “Don’t judge me, but I can’t wait to see the new twilight movie haha,” and it’s believed to belong to one of the HMS’s driver lineups, which includes Elliott, Kyle Larson, William Byron and Alex Bowman.
Jeff Gordan, who has a net worth of $200 million (according to Celebrity Net Worth), and HMS drivers tried to guess, but none of them were correct. Bowman and Elliott named Byron, while Byron went with Elliott, but it was Larson. He accepted that it was his tweet in 2011 and revealed that he likes Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight movie.
HMS shared the video of the fun investigative activity on Instagram with a caption:
“Hold on tight, spider monkey”
Watch the Jeff Gordon and HMS’s guesses below:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBjQ7EzP3A7/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=e5182e01-3688-440a-ae00-0bf669973e15&ig_mid=01331E07-1F15-4C86-B3DB-7587302F0125
Three out of four HMS drivers are still in contention for the 2024 NASCAR Cup championship. Larson and Byron are in good position in the playoffs points table, with 35 and 27 points above the cutline.
However, 2020 Cup champion Elliott is in danger of getting eliminated from title contention, as he’s 53 points behind the cutline heading to this weekend’s Homestead-Miami race.
In an interview with NBC Sports earlier this season, Jeff Gordon spoke about the competition between their two best drivers, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, for the regular season championship. Gordan wanted to see both top drivers perform well and race aggressively against each other while maintaining sportsmanship in their chase for the regular season title.
However, neither Larson nor Elliott won the championship; it was Tyler Reddick who clinched the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series regular season championship. Speaking to NBC Sports, the four-time NASCAR Cup champion Jeff Gordon said:
“I think it’s pretty clear at Hendrick how we expect teams and drivers to race against one another and how they’ve got to go and compete not only against their competitors but against one another.
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“Kyle Busch is an a**”: Brad Keselowski publicly chastised his fierce NASCAR rival in front of over 150,000 spectators
Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski birthed one of the fiercest rivalries in NASCAR. The duo had multiple run-ins throughout their careers, but the seed of their feud was sown at the 2010 Xfinity Series race hosted by the Bristol Motor Speedway. In the aftermath, Keselowski publicly castigated Busch in front of over 150,000 fans during driver introductions.
Busch kicked off his Food City 250 from third place in his #18 Toyota while Keselowski began in 13th. However, as the 250-lap battle inched closer to its conclusion, the then-Penske Racing driver held the domination while the former #18 Joe Gibbs Racing driver fought hard for the lead.
After struggling to overtake for nearly a dozen laps, Busch, with 31 laps until the checkered flag dropped, lunged ahead of Keselowski, only to be wrecked from behind and lose the spot again.
However, the JGR driver quickly retaliated and spun out Keselowski’s #22 Dodge. The move propelled the #18 Toyota to the victory lane while the Penske driver fell from a potential win to settling in 14th place.
The bitter feeling inside Brad Keselowski surfaced during the Bristol Cup Series race driver introductions the following day. After Kyle Busch introduced himself, his fierce rival took the mic and blasted Busch with his “a**’ comment.
“Brad Keselowski, driver of the Penske Racing Dodge. Kyle Busch is an a**,” he said.
However, when asked why he slammed Busch, Keselowski said that Juan Pablo Montoya challenged that he can’t call the JGR driver an “a**”. It’s worth mentioning that the crowd’s roar on the Penske driver’s introduction notched 104.2 decibels.
“Sometimes you just don’t like a guy”: Kyle Busch publicly slams Brad Keselowski during their 2017 title fight
The bitter rivalry between Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski was such that both made unapologetic comments about the other from time to time. Despite the latter publicly extending an olive branch to the former in 2015, their relationship remained sour.
Max Verstappen addresses ‘British bias’ at Mexican GP after Lewis Hamilton put-down
$200M Jeff Gordon teams up with Chase Elliott and Co. to decode the HMS driver behind the “Don’t judge me” old tweet
