Francesco Bagnaia faced unexpected challenges during the 2024 British MotoGP at Silverstone, finishing third despite leading for more than half of the race. Initially setting a strong pace, Bagnaia’s performance waned due to tyre management issues, resulting in him being overtaken first by Jorge Martin and then by teammate Enea Bastianini.

In the early stages, Bagnaia seemed in control, but as the race progressed, his difficulties became apparent. As quoted by Crash.net, Bagnaia explained after the race:

“The first thing I want to do this afternoon and these days is to check everything on the data and know everything, because I want to know what I did wrong. 

“I was thinking that I was managing everything well in terms of pace and tyres but when Jorge overtook me I saw that he was in better shape than me and I started to struggle a lot. 

“I lost the front and Enea overtook me. I started to slow down and just finish the race because, today, it was more important than trying to fight for a better position. 

“And they were just faster than me. I tried to do the maximum, and that maximum was third place. 

“It’s not he first time this happened to me. Every time I’m not fully happy with the front tyre, like today we chose the medium, then I finish more the rear tyre because I can’t force the front to turn more. 

“More than this was impossible. Happy with the result but it was a pity that yesterday I crashed.”

Despite the setback, the race was not without its achievements for Ducati and Bagnaia. The podium finish marked Bagnaia’s 43rd, setting a record for the most in Ducati’s history. The Italian rider continued:

“43 podiums is for sure a good number. It’s starting to become quite huge in terms of numbers.

“And when you put the best riders with the best bikes you can have this kind of lockout. 

“We are eight [riders] with a bike that has the possibility to win and there are five or six riders on those eight bikes that are the top of the top. 

“I think it’s quite normal to have these types of results. We always check the data and it gives us motivation to improve. 

“It’s a great result for Ducati but it’s thanks to us that we are improving every time.” 

The next MotoGP race is set to take place at the Red Bull Ring in Austria on August 18.

PARIS — Matt Ebden’s 2024 Olympics started with his first singles match in more than two years — a 6-0, 6-1 loss to Novak Djokovic as a fill-in after other players pulled out of that event. A week later, back in his element as a doubles player, Ebden will leave France as a gold medalist with partner John Peers.

Ebden and Peers won Australia’s second tennis gold medal in Summer Games history on Saturday, beating Texas A&M product and Allen resident Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram of the United States 6-7 (6), 7-6 (1), 10-8 in a match tiebreaker in the men’s doubles final. Olympics doubles uses a first-to-10, win-by-two tiebreaker in place of a traditional third set.

“I knew this would come up,” Ebden said when asked about the way his Summer Games began. “Last night, I did think of it. I was actually dreaming of an Instagram post, like: ‘How it started; how it’s going.’ … Swipe right, and there’s a gold-medal photo.”

Ebden and Peers trailed by a set and 4-2 in the second before breaking Ram’s serve to begin the comeback. Their tennis gold follows the one won for Australia by Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde in men’s doubles at Atlanta in 1996.

“It’s trippy. It’s more than a dream. I didn’t even dream of winning a gold medal growing up or whatever,” Ebden said. “The last few years, I had great success on the doubles court. It gave a lot of belief and confidence coming in here.”

He is a 36-year-old doubles specialist who has been ranked No. 1 in that event and has won two Slam trophies in men’s doubles and one in mixed. In singles? Until facing Djokovic — “My main goal in that match was just not to get injured,” Ebden joked Saturday — he hadn’t competed in a tour-level, main-draw singles match since June 2022.

Djokovic said he thinks the rules should be changed so someone like Ebden does not wind up on the court in singles at the Summer Games.

Ebden hasn’t even had a singles ranking since he was No. 970 the week of May 29, 2023. But he already was in Paris to compete in men’s doubles and so that made him available for the singles competition when 16th-ranked Holger Rune of Denmark pulled out because of a wrist injury.

When Saturday’s match ended, the children of Peers and Ebden climbed out of the stands to hug their fathers. Ebden draped a replica gold medal around the neck of his son, whom he then tossed in the air and caught.

Peers, who won a bronze in mixed doubles with Ash Barty at the Tokyo Games three years ago, said his oldest daughter has been saying she wanted a gold. Now she can bring it to school for show-and-tell.

“They’re going to be talking about this one,” Peers said, “until we’re 100.”

Peers has been No. 2 in doubles and owns one Grand Slam title each in men’s doubles — which came by beating twins Bob and Mike Bryan in the final of the 2017 Australian Open — and mixed doubles.

The 40-year-old Ram, who is based in Indiana, was trying to become the oldest player to win an Olympics tennis gold — for men or women, in singles or doubles — since the sport returned to the Summer Games in 1988.

He and Krajicek, a 34-year-old who lives in Florida, also were trying to become the third U.S. duo to win a men’s doubles gold. The most recent had been the Bryans at London in 2012. The brothers were in the stands Saturday — Bob is the country’s men’s tennis coach in Paris, and Mike has been serving as a hitting partner and helping coach doubles.

Instead, Ram and Krajicek — who eliminated Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals — will head home with silvers.

Later Saturday, another American duo, Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, won the bronze with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek of the Czech Republic. Machac and Katerina Siniakova won the gold in mixed doubles on Friday night.

Find more Olympics coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

AUSTIN, Texas – If you’re looking for an apartment here in Central Texas, you may be pleasantly surprised to see that rent prices have actually gone down. 

Austin realtor Olivia Vale with Roots Residential Group joins FOX 7 Austin’s John Krinjak to discuss in this FOX 7 Focus. 

JOHN KRINJAK: So tell us about what we’re seeing here. How big of a drop are we actually seeing in the price to rent an apartment?

OLIVIA VALE: Yeah. So, on average, we’re seeing about a 10% decrease from last year. And keep in mind that over the pandemic, both rents and home prices skyrocketed. And that’s because of supply and demand and, of course, a number of economic factors. Right now we’re getting relief. And we’re at the lighter side of that bubble, which is great news. The caveat here is that not all rent prices are dropping in the same way, in the same locations. So the closer you are to downtown, you’ll see a more robust, healthy rental market when you get further out. Suburbs, new builds. We’re seeing those rent prices come down, whereas, you know, older homes in more established neighborhoods, those are more robust. And we’re seeing, you know, more of a flat level there. 

JOHN KRINJAK: So from what you’re seeing, what do you think is behind this drop in rent prices? 

OLIVIA VALE: Yeah. So a lot of it is supply and demand. We don’t have the tens of thousands of people moving here, ready to rent kind of anything that they see online before even seeing in person. So, you know, there’s a lot more available. And that goes for when you’re buying a home, too. There’s a lot of availability right now.

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JOHN KRINJAK: All right. So let’s set up two scenarios here. If you’re looking for a new apartment, you’re looking to leave where you are now, find a new apartment. Hopefully, take advantage of some of these savings. What advice would you have for people?

OLIVIA VALE: Yeah, I would say with any apartment hunting, of course, with home buying and selling, you can use a realtor. A lot of people don’t know that a realtor is available for you to use. You don’t have to pay them personally. We get a bit of commission from the landlord. A realtor has years of knowledge about the housing market they can advise you on. You know what a landlord may be looking for and an application fee.

JOHN KRINJAK: So on the other end of it, if you’re looking, you like your apartment, you’re looking to stay where you are, but you’re looking around and seeing the prices go down. But your landlord wants to keep your rent the same or raise it, and you don’t think that’s fair. What steps can you take there?

OLIVIA VALE: I think that almost unequivocally, across the board, no one should be raising their rent this year. We saw a huge jump in rents this year. You know, we’re actually at a level where rents were in 2021. So if your landlord is raising your rent levels past 2023, you know, that’s a sign to get in touch with the realtor, have them run rental comps on what rental places have closed in your neighborhood in the last six months or so, and then armed with that information, you can go to your landlord and say, look, you don’t have justifiable basis to raise my rent.

JOHN KRINJAK: And I guess the question everyone’s kind of afraid to ask, do you think this is going to continue?

OLIVIA VALE: I think we’ve kind of leveled off. We can see that rents did go up ever so slightly. Just May, April, May. So I think the adjustment is where we’re kind of over that hump now.

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JOHN KRINJAK: And so we talked a lot about renting, but if you’re looking to buy a home or a condo, are you seeing similar patterns with the real estate market as we are with rent prices? Are those prices coming down too?

OLIVIA VALE: Marginally. So definitely from the highs in 2022, we’ve come down a little bit. If you are a buyer right now, we’re seeing 30% more homes inventory wise than we were last year. So the world is your oyster. If you’re a buyer in Austin, you should be able to negotiate. You should be able to get, maybe points on your mortgage paid by the seller. You have a lot of leverage.

JOHN KRINJAK: What should you do if you’re a seller? Is it just a bad time to sell, or is it a little bit more nuanced than that?

OLIVIA VALE: It’s a little more nuanced. I mean, everything is so localized in this market, you see huge differences between neighborhoods. So when you’re a seller, you have to adjust your expectations, know that your home is going to be on the market for longer. Do those extra things to your home, spiff it up, make it look great. And then have an experienced realtor give you a fair, realistic idea of what you can actually sell your home for.

JOHN KRINJAK: All right. Olivia Vale, realtor here in Austin. Olivia, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate you.

OLIVIA VALE: You’re so welcome. Thank you for having me.