Sports

At U.S. Open, Coco Gauff, Ben Shelton, Brandon Nakashima take care of business as New York expects

Published

1 year ago

August 28, 2024

At U.S. Open, Coco Gauff, Ben Shelton, Brandon Nakashima take care of business as New York expects

Follow live coverage of day two at the 2024 US Open

NEW YORK — A year ago, Ben Shelton started his U.S. Open on Court 10, in the quasi-hinterlands of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. To find it, walk over to the other side of the fountains, where a ball that flies over the back fence is basically gone forever.

First Monday a year later, he had a different assignment: opening up Arthur Ashe Stadium at high noon against Dominic Thiem, the 2020 champion and a player whom Shelton watched, jaw on the floor, through his teen years.

How much has Shelton’s life changed in a year?

“I just felt comfortable,” he said. “Used to it. Felt like I had been there before.”

He had indeed. The then-20-year-old played three matches in the biggest stadium in the sport last year, culminating in a semifinal duel with Novak Djokovic. That ended with the 24-time Grand Slam champion mocking Shelton’s hang-up-the-phone celebration, with Shelton staring Djokovic down during an icy handshake.

“After last year, the stage doesn’t get much bigger than that,” Shelton said.

Maybe. Or maybe it does.

For the first time since 1996, there are five men and five women from the U.S. in the top 20. Since none of the men is ranked higher than No. 12, it’s not exactly the glory years of Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang. No American man has won this event since Andy Roddick in 2003. But those top five women include Coco Gauff, the defending champion, and four others ranked no lower than Madison Keys at No. 14.

The hope is palpable. The grounds are teeming, with the metal bleachers and concrete gangways of the field courts packed with bodies, noise and expectation.

U.S. Open fans poured into the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with a sense of genuine hope. (Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)

Shelton was batting leadoff for the bigger names in the top half of the draw, with Gauff coming on after him. She couldn’t rely on the calm and comfort that Shelton experienced as the opening act before he eased through a fading Thiem 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

Ben Shelton is seeking to emulate his run to the semifinals in 2023. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)

The last time Gauff played a competitive match here, she finished it flat on her back, with tears streaming down her face and 24,000 delirious fans screaming for her and everything she meant.

The 20-year-old doesn’t like to wave to crowds, because then she sees how many people are watching her. It makes her nervous. But Shelton gave her a jokingly hard time about it during a charity match in Fan Week, so Monday, she waved. Here come the butterflies.

Warming up calmed her down, but then she very nearly lost her serve in her first two attempts. Then she settled down, plowing through an even shakier Varvara Gracheva of France, 6-2, 6-0.

“I feel like I’m finding my game,” Gauff said when it was over.

She’s been shaky since losing in the semifinals of the French Open in June. Earlier than expected losses. On-court spats with coaches over errors and with chair umpires over calls. Her wins this summer have mostly come against players outside the top 50.

She’s No. 2 in the world. She knows she’s supposed to be better than that.

She lost early in Cincinnati, too, but then had a good week of practice, she said. In that time, she flipped the scenario around in her mind, telling herself that the early loss in Ohio, where she was the defending champion, had been a blessing in disguise. It gave her extra time to train, some flat track after the hamster wheel of the Olympics, Canada and Cincinnati.

Coco Gauff says she is settling into her game after a rough patch. (Fatih Aktas / Anadolu via Getty Images)

She walked onto Arthur Ashe on Monday believing that regardless of the scoreline, she would be able to find her game.

“Obviously, getting through the first round like this is good,” she said. “I’ve learned that how you start a tournament doesn’t mean how you’re necessarily going to finish and vice versa.”

GO DEEPER

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True enough, but the first step is to survive the start. Taylor Fritz knows this better than just about anyone. Two years ago, he arrived in New York thinking he could actually win it.

Djokovic wasn’t playing because he refused to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Rafael Nadal was playing injured. Roger Federer was a month from retirement. Carlos Alcaraz was just a guy called Carlos Alcaraz, or about as close to that as he has ever been.

Fritz instead lost in the first round, to a qualifier named Brandon Holt. Holt is best known for being the son of Tracy Austin, a two-time champion a few generations back, and for beating Fritz at the U.S. Open in 2022 when Fritz thought he had a chance to actually win it.

Taylor Fritz used the momentum of a tight first set to ease past his opponent, Camilo Ugo Carabelli. (Fatih Aktas / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Fritz will think about that loss, and about the double-edge of a home Slam, at every U.S. Open and until he retires.

“It’s awesome to be playing at your home Slam with the crowd and just everything going on,” he said after a straight-sets win over Camilo Ugo Carabelli of Argentina.

Keys, the 2017 runner-up to another American, Sloane Stephens, joined the trio in taking care of business when she rolled through Czech doubles star Katerina Siniakova. Emma Navarro blasted Anna Blinkova, 6-1, 6-1.

Stephens was taking care of business, up 6-0, 3-0 on France’s Clara Burel, but then she faltered to lose 0-6, 7-5, 7-5.

There were some better American surprises. In her first main-draw match on the WTA Tour, 16-year-old wild card Iva Jovic beat Magda Linette of Poland, who is double her age and ranked 347 places higher.

Before the pandemic, Jovic played soccer and swam, an all-round athlete. But once COVID-19 arrived, tennis was the only sport she could pursue, since she didn’t have to be part of a team.

Now she’s the youngest American ever to win a main-draw match at the U.S. Open.

Iva Jovic defeated Magda Linette, who is ranked 347 places above her. (Robert Prange / Getty Images)

Linette figured to be a bit of a tall order, but Jovic had watched other juniors that she had beaten take out solid tour players in recent months. She convinced herself she had the level.

“I have nothing to compare it to, but it’s definitely nice for my first one to be in New York,” said Jovic, who played in front of a packed crowd on Court 15 that could have turned other teen knees to goo.

Then there was Taylor Townsend, the Wimbledon doubles champion, leaning into her status as a big-serving lefty nightmare on the singles court.

“This isn’t an all-of-a-sudden thing,” Townsend said after beating Martina Trevisan of Italy.

“The success that I had in doubles and the understanding of the self is translating now onto the singles court.”

Taylor Townsend’s best singles run in New York was a fourth-round appearance in 2019. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

Another surprise? Brandon Nakashima blasting Holger Rune, the No. 15 seed, 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in a tidy hour and 55 minutes. Throw in Rune’s recent form, and Nakashima’s propensity to lull opponents into errors, and it’s not exactly a big one.

Then came Frances Tiafoe, who had a night slot at Louis Armstrong Stadium. This is the tournament for which he spends 50 weeks each year counting the days, and he has said, with only the slightest bit of sarcasm, that it’s one of just two that he really cares about.

The Citi Open in Washington, D.C., is the other, but nothing compares to his home Grand Slam. That can be a double-edged sword, as for Fritz.

“I’m so amped up,” Tiafoe said last week. That too can have both advantages and disadvantages, and he knows it. New coach David Witt’s reputation as one of the more laid-back souls in the game is one of the reasons Tiafoe hired him.

“I can get really high and pretty low, and he keeps me even-keeled,” he said. “Not allowing moments to be bigger than they are, or to be as strenuous as I can sometimes make them.”

Frances Tiafoe is beginning to look more like himself after a difficult first six months of the year. (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)

Come showtime, Tiafoe was doing his thing, with plenty of the whippy forehands and touch volleys that can make him a human highlight reel when he is on. On is what he was for much of the night, which ended in a four-set win over another American, Alex Kovacevic.

Tiafoe wobbled a bit in the third set, failing to put away Kovacevic with the efficiency he will need if he wants to get back to the second week.

“Got pretty tough there at the end,” Tiafoe said.

On the always nervy opening night at the home Slam, it was enough to take care of business.

(Top photo of Brandon Nakashima: Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

Sports

US figure skating power couple makes history with record breaking seventh national championship

Published

9 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

US figure skating power couple makes history with record breaking seventh national championship

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U.S. figure skating stars Madison Chock and Evan Bates made history on Saturday with their record-setting seventh U.S. Figure Skating title in their final competition before the Milan Cortina Olympics.

The three-time reigning world champions, performing a flamenco-style dance to a version of the Rolling Stones hit “Paint It Black” from the dystopian sci-fi Western show “Westworld,” produced a season-best free skate and finished with 228.87 points.

“The feeling that we got from the audience today was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before,” Chock said.

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of United States perform during ISU World Figure Skating Championships – Boston, at TD Garden, on March 28, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Jurij Kodrun – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)

They’ll be the heavy favorites to win gold next month in Italy.

“I felt so much love and joy,” Chock continued, “and I’m so grateful for this moment.”

U.S. Figure Skating will announce its selections on Sunday.

Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik were second with 213.65 points and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko were third with 206.95, making those two pairs the likely choices to join Chock and Bates on the American squad for the upcoming Winter Games.

The men’s medals also were to be decided on Saturday, though two-time world champion Ilia Malinin had built such a lead after his short program that the self-styled “Quad God” would have to stumble mightily to miss out on a fourth consecutive title.

The U.S. also has qualified the maximum of three men’s spots for the Winter Games, and competition is tight between second-place Tomoko Hiwatashi, fan favorite Jason Brown, Andrew Torgashev and Maxim Naumov to round out the nationals podium.

The last time Chock and Bates competed in the Olympics in 2022 in Beijing, they watched their gold initially go to an opponent who was later disqualified for doping violations.

Chock and Bates initially had to settle for team silver with their American teammates on the podium at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Team Russia and Kamila Valieva, who was 15 at the time, stood above them with their gold medals.

It wasn’t until the end of January 2024, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found Valieva guilty of an anti-doping rule violation, when Chock, Bates and the U.S. were declared the rightful 2022 gold medalists.

UN URGES COUNTRIES TO HONOR TRUCE DURING WINTER OLYMPICS, NOT DENY VISAS TO ANY NATION’S ATHLETES

Madison Chock and Evan Bates compete in championship ice dance at the U.S. figure skating championships Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance, during an anti-doping test at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in December 2021. She was suspended for four years and stripped of all competitive results since that date.

Chock and Bates spoke about what their message to Valieva would be today during an interview at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee media summit in October.

“It’s hard to, I think, imagine what a 15-year-old has gone through and under that kind of situation,” Bates said. “And I know how stressful it is, being an elite athlete as an adult, as a 36-year-old. And I think that grace should be given to humans across the board. And we can never really know the full situation, at least from our point of view. … I genuinely don’t know what I would say to her.”

Chock added, “I would just wish her well like as I would. I think life is short. And, at the end of the day, we’re all human just going through our own human experience together. And regardless of what someone has or hasn’t done and how it has affected you, I think it’s important to remember we’re humans as a collective, and we’re all here for this, our one moment on earth, at the same time. And I just wish people to have healthy, happy lives, full of people that love them.”

Chock and Bates had to wait more than two years after the initial Olympics to get their rightful gold medals, and they were finally presented with them during a ceremony at the Paris Olympics last summer.

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Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the USA perform in the Gala Exhibition during the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final Nagoya at IG Arena on December 07, 2025 in Nagoya, Japan. (Atsushi Tomura – International Skating Union/International Skating Union via Getty Images)

Chock, Bates and teammates Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Zachary Donohue, Brandon Frazier, Madison Hubbell, Alexa Knierim and Vincent Zhou were given a specialized gold medal ceremony to receive the medals in front of more than 13,000 fans.

Chock and Bates became the first ice dancers to win three consecutive world championships in nearly three decades in March when they defeated Canadian rivals Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson’s reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to the enforcement of Title IX, and in legacy media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and ESPN.com.

Sports

Eric Dailey Jr. and Trent Perry power UCLA to victory over Maryland

Published

10 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Eric Dailey Jr. and Trent Perry power UCLA to victory over Maryland

Dave Roberts tossed T-shirts to fans. The students were back out in bunches. UCLA traded in its recent first-half troubles for a big lead.

It was sort of fun to be a Bruin again Saturday at Pauley Pavilion.

On an evening the team honored Roberts, the Dodgers manager and former Bruins outfielder who triumphantly hoisted the World Series trophy over his head during a timeout as fans roared, it was possible to forget about UCLA’s troubles for a few hours.

The Bruins’ 67-55 victory over Maryland was a needed reprieve for a team aching over its defense, not to mention a two-game losing streak that was comfortably snapped despite the Terrapins grabbing one offensive rebound after another.

Maryland (7-9, 0-5) finished with an absurd 20 offensive rebounds, leading to 24 second-chance points, and it still wasn’t enough to make the final minutes a worry for UCLA (11-5, 3-2) after a 6-0 push put the game away.

Forward Eric Dailey Jr. ensured that things didn’t go awry for the Bruins, nearly logging a double-double with 15 points and nine rebounds. Trent Perry (16 points, six rebounds) hit a clutch corner three-pointer with a little less than six minutes left after Maryland had closed to within five points.

Maryland’s inability to make baskets — the Terrapins shot 30.3% overall and 18.2% from three-point range — was forced in part by some active defense, notably from UCLA’s Steven Jamerson II. The backup center had perhaps his best across-the-board showing as a Bruin, finishing with eight points, five rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal in 22 minutes.

UCLA guard Trent Perry, left, collides with Maryland guard Andre Mills while battling for a defensive rebound in the first half Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

His top highlight came on an offensive rebound he snagged while falling out of bounds and saved by flinging a pass to Perry for a three-pointer. UCLA would have won with even greater ease had it not made just 18 of 27 free throws (67%).

There were moments it was easy to forget the Bruins were playing without guard Skyy Clark (hamstring) and forward Brandon Williams (lower-leg injury). Both players are considered day to day, meaning they could return soon.

Maryland could relate to being shorthanded. The Terrapins were missing star center Pharrel Payne, who remained sidelined because of a knee injury. Forward Elijah Saunders led Maryland with 17 points.

It wasn’t nearly enough given the Bruins looked a bit more like the team they need to be.

Sports

Falcons hire franchise legend Matt Ryan to major front office role

Published

21 hours ago

January 10, 2026

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Falcons hire franchise legend Matt Ryan to major front office role

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The Atlanta Falcons have added one of the team’s greatest players to its front office.

The Falcons announced on Saturday that former quarterback Matt Ryan, who spent the first 14 years of his 15-year NFL career with the team after being drafted third overall in 2008, will be president of football on Saturday. The 40-year-old Ryan, who holds team records for passing yards, touchdowns and wins, will assume the new role immediately.

Ryan will report directly to owner Arthur Blank and collaborate with president and CEO Greg Beadles to ensure the alignment of the business and football areas of the organization.

Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (2) on the sideline before he is inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at halftime of a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, on Oct. 3, 2024. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)

“Throughout his remarkable 14-year career in Atlanta, Matt’s leadership, attention to detail, knowledge of the game and unrelenting drive to win made him the most successful player in our franchise’s history,” Blank said in a statement.

“I am confident those same qualities will be a tremendous benefit to our organization as he steps into this new role. From his playing days to his time as an analyst at CBS, Matt has always been a student of the game, and he brings an astute understanding of today’s NFL, as well as unique knowledge of our organization and this market. I have full confidence and trust in Matt as we strive to deliver a championship caliber team for Atlanta and Falcons fans everywhere.”

The Falcons fired head coach Raheem Morris on Sunday after back-to-back 8-9 seasons. The Falcons had won their last four games, leading some to believe Morris might be afforded a third season, but Blank had other plans.

AARON RODGERS TAKES THINLY-VEILED SHOT AT JETS AHEAD OF STEELERS’ PLAYOFF GAME

CBS Sports broadcaster Matt Ryan before a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado, on Nov. 16, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)

The Falcons also fired general manager Terry Fontenot after five seasons on Sunday. Ryan will be fully involved in the team’s search for the Falcons’ next head coach and general manager.

“Arthur gave me the chance of a lifetime almost twenty years ago, and he’s done it again today,” Ryan said in a statement.

“While I appreciate the time I had with the Colts and with CBS, I’ve always been a Falcon. It feels great to be home. I could not be more excited, grateful, or humbled by this new opportunity. I began my career with a singular goal: to do right by the Blank family, the Falcons organization, the City of Atlanta, and especially our fans. My commitment to the success of this franchise has not changed. I’m beyond ready to help write a new chapter of excellence.”

Ryan has spent the last three seasons as a member of the CBS Sports team as an analyst.

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Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (2) passes the ball against the Buffalo Bills during the second half at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, on Jan. 2, 2022. (Rich Barnes/USA TODAY Sports)

“I want to thank the incredible team at CBS Sports. I loved my three years there and I am truly grateful for their support in pursuing this opportunity. The CBS Sports culture is amazing, and I have made teammates and friends for life,” Ryan said in a statement.

Ryan, who was drafted out of Boston College, played with the Falcons for 14 seasons and holds many franchise records, including passing yards (59,735), attempts (8,003), completions (5,242), passing touchdowns (367), passer rating (94.6), completion percentage (65.5) and 300-yard games (73).

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Ryan Canfield is a digital production assistant for Fox News Digital.