Sports
Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again
![Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the teen stars of 2021 who are starting all over again](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/01/16072909/GettyImages-1937003630-scaled-e1705408274251.jpg)
There may come a time when Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu are in the draw of a major tournament and one of their names does not immediately follow the other in the tennis consciousness.
Maybe, but not yet.
One of them has been grinding her way up and down and back up the ever-shifting ladder that is women’s professional tennis.
The other struggled for a year and a half to string wins together, then called it a season and had three surgeries — on each wrist and one of her ankles — on one grim day last spring. That was not long before the other one realized she needed to hit her own career restart button, too.
One is the daughter of finance executives, the product of a Chinese father and a Romanian mother, raised in Great Britain with plenty of advantages and the chance to choose among the finest universities had she gone down that path.
The other grew up in Canada and then on the hot hard courts of Florida, driven by desire and her father, a former Ecuadorian soccer player, to make a living with a tennis racket.
Other than being born in Canada nine weeks apart, Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez do not share much in common. They aren’t any more than professional acquaintances.
Inevitably, they will always be more than that and always be linked because of those magical two weeks a little more than two years ago, when they were still teenagers co-starring in the zaniest Grand Slam tennis tournament that will ever happen. When nearly three weeks of competition had ended, Raducanu, a relative unknown outside of Great Britain, had won 10 straight matches, including the qualifying tournament, and 20 straight sets, and defeated Fernandez, the world’s 73rd-ranked player but the second-most unlikely finalist that day, for the championship.
Raducanu celebrates her U.S. Open win, aged 18, in 2021 (Getty Images)
There has been plenty of frustration for both of them since. Hard losses and early-round exits, hard lessons about life in the spotlight, and strings of injuries that sometimes felt like they would never cease. Raducanu, especially, looked mostly miserable with each tournament and each loss, especially during the final months when she was playing in constant pain.
But here they are this week in Melbourne, into the second round on opposite sides of the draw, getting busy with the next phase of their tennis lives at an age when most players are still trying to get their teeth into the first one.
For Raducanu, 21, that meant a first-round win on Tuesday evening over the American veteran Shelby Rogers that was as solid as it needed to be. Rogers, 31, was searching for form after an injury-induced six-month layoff, but for long stretches, Raducanu showcased so much of the style that sent her to those lofty heights — the easy, deceptively fast movement, the low, whipping and curling power off the ground, even a feathery backhand drop shot and, most importantly, the ability to not beat herself with careless errors.
The final score was 6-3, 6-2 and it wasn’t really that close. More of that and Raducanu will be ranked much higher than 296th in the world before long.
“All aspects of my life are calming down and settled,” Raducanu said. “When you come back after eight months, have experienced three surgeries, you’re just really grateful to move freely.”
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/01/16072637/GettyImages-1937035491-scaled.jpg)
Raducanu is fit again after three surgeries (James D Morgan/Getty Images)
This all went down a couple of days after Fernandez won one of the first matches of the tournament, a straight-sets win over Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic. Sure, Bejlek was just a 17-year-old qualifier, but this was a different Fernandez who wasn’t just staying in points and chasing down balls in the corners like she always has, but also sprinting to the net to finish them off like she rarely has before.
“I can’t always be a grinder or just a returner,” Fernandez said as she sat in a soft chair in a Melbourne Park corridor a little while after her match. “Everybody on tour is a grinder. You see the top players, they run for every ball.”
For Fernandez, the restart began just after the French Open following her three-set loss in the second round, a winnable match against world No 127 Clara Tauson of Denmark. Even as Fernandez and Taylor Townsend cruised into the doubles final at Roland Garros, her father suggested they have a formal sit-down to discuss her future. Her singles ranking was about to drop to 95, her lowest since 2020.
He told her she could listen to 100 per cent of what he was going to say and finish the season in the top 20, or less than 100 per cent and maybe finish in the top 40.
“Of course, I didn’t listen to him 100 per cent,” she said. “That comes with maturity and I own up to it.”
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/01/16072922/GettyImages-1931056019-scaled.jpg)
Fernandez is back on the up (Kelly Defina/Getty Images)
But she did listen to a lot of what he told her and signed on to his plan to start from scratch with a mini-pre-season in the weeks leading up to Wimbledon, leaving the rackets on the side of the court at times and focusing on her fitness. She had been one of the quickest players in the game but had somehow become slower, or the game had got quicker, with women moving forward more or playing drop shots and taking time away from her.
She needed to be faster for longer and the only way to do that was to build endurance.
“You kind of see Novak Djokovic every single year, he’s trying to improve something,” Fernandez, who faces the American Alycia Parks in the second round, said. “He changed his whole diet. He started doing yoga. It’s very basic. The fundamentals of an athlete’s body. We wanted to see what can we improve in my fitness because if my fitness level is high and I’m confident with that, my game will follow afterwards.”
![go-deeper](https://cdn.theathletic.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto/app/uploads/2024/01/08075048/GettyImages-1246638809-scaled-e1704718277364-1024x512.jpg)
Her summer, which included another mini-pre-season after Wimbledon, was up and down, including a first-round loss in the U.S. Open. In September, she was playing qualifying matches, but in October, she won the Hong Kong Open, then made the semi-finals of the Jiangxi Open.
It’s taken a while, but Fernandez, 21, is finally beginning to experience all the attention and the crowds that have followed her since the 2021 U.S. Open as support rather than pressure.
“It just took time to understand what was happening,” she said, “to understand what I was feeling and work through that… just find ways to get back to the little girl who would just want to get on court and to hit and hit and have fun and put on a show for everybody.”
Raducanu wants to do that, too. She said she was shocked to see thousands of fans packing the cozy 1573 Arena when she walked onto the court. She tried not to focus on a potential result, which just three matches into her comeback could go either way, and that’s going to have to be her life for now.
“The difference between me losing first round or doing really well at a tournament is really, really slim,” she said. “It’s just in the way that I move, in the way I do things physically. Not being so drastic, I would say, because I know it’s not far away at all. The more I practice consistently, it will come up.”
She lingered long after the win, soaking in the adulation, signing autographs and posing for selfies all around the stadium, her restart officially now underway. Next up for Raducanu is a second round against China’s Yafan Wang.
“The time away made me very hungry,” Raducanu said. “I’m just happy to be healthy again and pain-free.”
(Top photo: James D Morgan/Getty Images)
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Sports
Booger McFarland points finger at Clemson's 'same stale offense' amid program's streak of disappointments
![Booger McFarland points finger at Clemson's 'same stale offense' amid program's streak of disappointments Booger McFarland points finger at Clemson's 'same stale offense' amid program's streak of disappointments](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2022/11/Booger-McFarland.jpg)
The Clemson Tigers faced a tough test in their season opener.
Head coach Dabo Swiney and the Tigers traveled to Atlanta for Saturday’s matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs — a team that’s won two of the past three College Football Playoff National Championships.
Clemson’s 34-3 loss to the Bulldogs was one of the most lopsided defeats of Swiney’s tenure. The loss sparked numerous questions about the direction of the program, but ESPN college football analyst Booger McFarland shared his thoughts on what he believed has contributed to the Tigers’ shortcomings in recent years.
Former NFL player and current NFL analyst Booger McFarland looks on before the game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders at Lincoln Financial Field on November 14, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
From McFarland’s point of view, a lack of creativity on the offensive side of the ball has held Clemson back. The Tigers only managed to produce 188 total yards of offense on Saturday.
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“I’m afraid to say it’s the same old thing,” McFarland during Saturday’s broadcast. “[There is] no creativity on offense. It’s been the same stale offense for four or five years. … If you’re a Clemson fan, you have to ask yourself, when are we going to change?”
Swiney’s approach to the transfer portal has been widely criticized. McFarland suggested that Swiney’s roster building philosophy would need to change in order for Clemson to have the most competitive roster possible.
![Dabo Swinney looks on field](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Dabo-Swinney-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney on the field before a game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)
“Dabo chooses not to [use the portal], therefore, you’re going to have those lulls in the program,” McFarland said. “And I’m afraid, right now, they have a little bit of a lull.”
![Cade Klubnik throws a pass](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Clemson-Tigers-football.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Aug 31, 2024; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Clemson Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik (2) throws a pass against the Georgia Bulldogs in the first quarter at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)
Swiney was asked about the transfer portal after the blowout loss.
“People are going to say whatever they want to say,” Swinney said, via ClemsonWire. “It doesn’t matter what I say. People are going to say whatever they’re going to say. And when you lose like this, they’ve got every right to say whatever they want to say. So, say whatever you want to say, write whatever you want to write. That comes with it. That’s just part of it.”
Swiney and the Tigers will have an opportunity to get back on the winning track on Sept. 7 when they host Appalachian State.
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Sports
San Francisco 49ers rookie receiver Ricky Pearsall shot during attempted robbery in Union Square
![San Francisco 49ers rookie receiver Ricky Pearsall shot during attempted robbery in Union Square San Francisco 49ers rookie receiver Ricky Pearsall shot during attempted robbery in Union Square](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ccdd74e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5472x2873+0+388/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb1%2Fc3%2F4cae24c54dfbb359c1907ed6e38d%2Fap24131766148697.jpg)
Ricky Pearsall, the San Francisco 49ers’ rookie wide receiver and first-round draft pick, was shot during an attempted robbery in the city’s Union Square on Saturday afternoon.
Pearsall was stable, according to Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office, which has been in communication with the San Francisco Police Department, and a suspect has been taken into custody. Peskin represents Union Square, a downtown district known for its high-end shopping, hotels and restaurants.
Mayor London Breed’s office said she was en route to San Francisco General Hospital, where Pearsall was taken for treatment.
“This afternoon, there was an attempted robbery in Union Square involving San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall and he was shot,” Breed wrote on social media. “SFPD was on scene immediately and an arrest of the shooter was made. My thoughts are with Ricky and his family at this time.”
San Francisco police officials issued a statement saying officers responded to a shooting at approximately 3:37 p.m. near the intersection of Geary Street and Grant Avenue, close to boutique shops such as Dolce & Gabbana and Saint Laurent.
“Upon arrival, officers located two male subjects suffering from injuries. Officers rendered aid and medics transported both subjects to a local hospital for further medical evaluation,” the statement said. “The suspect is in custody, and charges are pending at this time.”
Peskin said police told him the suspect tried to rob Pearsall of his Rolex watch, and that “Ricky wasn’t having any of it.”
A struggle ensued, Peskin said, and both Pearsall and the suspect “managed to get shot.”
Peskin said he was assured that Pearsall “does not have any life-threatening injuries.” He was shot in the chest, but the bullet did not hit any major organs.
The suspect was shot in the wrist, Peskin said.
Pearsall played for Arizona State and the University of Florida in college. The 49ers drafted him in the first round of the 2024 NFL draft. He was sidelined with a shoulder injury during much of the NFL preseason.
The 49ers are scheduled to open their season against the New York Jets on Sept. 9.
“He’s good,” 49ers teammate Deebo Samuel wrote on social media after the shooting. “Thank god!!!!”
This is a developing story.
Sports
White Sox might break record for losses. How should the 1962 Mets feel about it?
![White Sox might break record for losses. How should the 1962 Mets feel about it? White Sox might break record for losses. How should the 1962 Mets feel about it?](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29151239/AP620620023.jpg)
NEW YORK — Craig Anderson pauses the phone call. He’s got to get his notes.
He returns with a sheet of paper he’s had for 62 years — the day-by-day performance of the 1962 New York Mets.
“Somebody gave this to me at the end of the ’62 season,” he says. “I’ve kept it all these years.”
The ledger documents the misfortunes of the losingest team in baseball history — a team on the cusp of one more loss: its place in history.
While nine members of ’62 are still alive, Anderson and fellow pitcher Jay Hook are the only two who spent the entire season with the big-league club. Few people know the burden of history, the burden of ignominious history, like Anderson. The high point of the rookie reliever’s season came May 12, when he earned the win in both games of a doubleheader sweep.
Those would be the last wins he’d ever record in the major leagues, and he set a record by dropping his next 19 decisions. It stood for 29 years, until another Met, Anthony Young, broke it in 1993.
“I didn’t want him to break my record. I didn’t want to wish it on him or anyone,” Anderson says. “That’s the way I felt then and that’s the way I feel now.”
On the phone now, he is matching up the current date — “the Mets started a 13-game losing streak right now,” he notes — while comparing it to the current record for the White Sox.
“I don’t want them to break it,” he says. “I want them to win at least 12 more games. I hope they do, for their sake.”
The Mets visit the south side of Chicago this weekend in the midst of a playoff chase. The White Sox enter the series chasing something grander: history.
The 1962 Mets set the modern-era record for losses in a season with 120. With an even month left in the season, Chicago has lost 104 games, three losses ahead even of the ’62 Mets’ pace for the season. It is easily the most sustained challenge to that team’s record since the 2003 Detroit Tigers needed five wins in their last six games to avoid it.
The White Sox need to go 12-15 to avoid tying the record. They haven’t done that over a 27-game stretch since May. At the moment, they’ve lost 37 of their past 41 contests.
There are not many players who can relate to what that kind of season feels like. Anderson and Hook are two of them.
“It’s shattering when it’s happening to you,” Hook said, his matter-of-fact tone over the phone belying that choice of adjective, “and I’m sure the White Sox are feeling that right now. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. You don’t like to go through life thinking you were part of the worst team of whatever you did.”
To understand the ’62 Mets, you have to understand Marv Throneberry. Excuse me, Marvelous Marv Throneberry.
The Mets acquired Throneberry, a 28-year-old first baseman, from the Orioles in early May for a player to be named later. (A month later, that player was named as Hobie Landrith, who’d been New York’s first selection in the expansion draft. Landrith had played for the Mets between the trade and the announcement, meaning the two players traded for one another played together for a month.)
Throneberry acquired his ironic moniker with a penchant for misadventure. He mucked up rundowns. He faceplanted racing for the bag. He missed first base — and maybe second, too, the story goes — on a triple. He won a boat he didn’t want in a season-long contest — not much use for a boat in southwest Tennessee, he said — and had to declare it on his taxes.
“Things just sort of keep on happening to me,” he said at one point.
“Marvelous Marv does more than just play first base for the Mets,” wrote Jimmy Breslin in “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year.” “He is the Mets.”
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29151158/AP6201010474-e1724959104491.jpg)
Marv Throneberry made 17 errors in 97 games at first base for the Mets in 1962. (Associated Press)
Throneberry, who retained his sense of humor throughout that disastrous season, serves as the stand-in for the Mets’ status as lovable losers. They balked in runs. They misplayed fly balls. They allowed nearly one unearned run per game — to go along with more than five earned runs per contest. On average, their games took 15 minutes longer than everyone else’s, which caused one to be declared a tie because it went past curfew. (“Curfew” here was dictated by the Mets’ flight back to New York from Houston.)
Thing is, Anderson and Hook thought the team could be pretty good. A year earlier, the expansion Angels had won 70 games, and the Mets had brought in some big names — Gil Hodges and Roger Craig in the expansion draft, Richie Ashburn in a deal with the Cubs.
“I looked at the roster and thought, ‘Man, that’s a pretty dynamic list,’” said Hook, who was drafted away from the reigning pennant-winner in Cincinnati. “Casey Stengel is the manager and he’d had great success. I really looked at it optimistically. I thought we could be a decent team.”
“I thought we were going to at least be competitive,” Anderson said.
The nine-game losing streak to start the season quelled that optimism. When a 9-3 mark over two weeks in May threatened to restore it, the Mets responded by losing those 17 in a row.
“That was where I started to think that maybe we had some problems,” said Anderson.
One player after the season told Breslin, “Forty games is about all we could win. After all, we were playing against teams that had all major leaguers on them.”
The Mets were still beloved. They drew nearly a million fans to the Polo Grounds, finishing in the middle of the league in attendance — more than Red Sox and Phillies teams around .500.
“The New York fans are true baseball fans,” Anderson said. “I won’t say they forgave us, but they never gave up on us.”
“You see,” Breslin wrote of the city’s affection for the team, “the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn’t maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a T-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurance Rockefeller?”
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that a certain feeling gets expressed a lot by those invested in the Mets’ history.
The 2024 White Sox are not worthy of breaking the Mets’ record.
The Mets had no choice but to be bad. Stricter rules in the expansion draft — because the AL’s expansion teams had done better in 1961 — left New York with little to choose from. The amateur draft wasn’t around yet, let alone free agency. The Mets had to build through scouting and trading. The White Sox, on the other hand, are three years removed from consecutive playoff appearances that were supposed to herald a stretch of sustained contention. It’s all collapsed since.
Evan Roberts is the drivetime cohost for WFAN and author of “My Mets Bible: Scoring 30 Years of Baseball Fandom.”
“It’s not life and death, BUT I’d prefer they not break it,” he said via direct message. “I grew up with legendary stories about how bad and hilarious the 1962 Mets were, and I would ideally not want to see a team pass the 120 losses.”
Devin Gordon is the author of “So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazing True Story of the New York Mets — the Best Worst Team in Sports.”
“I suppose I should feel like it’s some kind of albatross around the franchise’s neck and that I should be relieved at the prospect of it finally getting lifted. But I don’t,” he wrote in an email. “That team was a storybook team in its own unique way, and I like that it’s enshrined in history. It’s also the perfect narrative bookend for what happened seven years later with the World Series win in 1969. It’s part of a much larger, more cinematic story for us in a way that one random catastrophic season by another team will never be.”
Indeed, the Mets’ championship in 1969 has retroactively uplifted that ’62 team as well.
“To have won a world championship seven years later provides the perfect bookend with the historic futility,” said Mets broadcaster Howie Rose, who was eight years old watching the Mets’ debut season. “It all ties together. It’s all part of the heritage. ’69 is sweeter because of ’62. It’s just a nice piece of perverse symmetry.”
“To never have finished above ninth place and then to win it all in 1969, that narrative is a very heroic and comforting one for Mets fans,” said Gary Cohen, New York’s television broadcaster. “The White Sox breaking that record wouldn’t change that. However, I don’t want to see anybody lose 121 games because that’s a horrible thing for their franchise.”
Dave Bagdade wrote “A Year in Mudville: The Full Story of Casey Stengel and the Original Mets” about the ’62 Mets. He also happens to be a lifelong White Sox fan.
“I don’t want to see their record eclipsed,” Bagdade wrote in an email. “I love the idea that they were the worst baseball team of the modern era, but that they lost with personality and humor and that they remain one of the most loved teams of any era despite (or possibly because of) their record. The ’24 Sox are just a steaming pile of baseball ineptitude. They don’t lose with personality and humor. They just lose. I don’t want anything about this Sox team to be enshrined in baseball immortality.”
In response to an informal poll on X, which obviously skews younger, about three in four Mets fans did want the White Sox to break the record. Younger fans feel little pride in 120 losses.
Looking ahead to this weekend, I’m curious: Do you as a Mets fan want the White Sox to break the ’62 team’s record for most losses in a season?
— Tim Britton (@TimBritton) August 28, 2024
Greg Prince, who pens the popular blog “Faith and Fear in Flushing” and has written four books about the Mets, ultimately agrees with the majority.
“I’ve been charmed by all that went into creating 40-120 my entire rooting life,” Prince wrote in an email. “The legend of the 1962 club will endure no matter who holds the record. All that being said, hell yes, let somebody else lose more than my team. Plus, you know, history. Somebody setting a mark like this while we’re here to witness it is worth a dozen Danny Jansens facing off against another dozen Danny Jansens.”
![](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/08/29151216/AP620602061-scaled-e1724958895822.jpg)
Jay Hook, shown here on June 2, 1962, recalls looking at the roster and thinking, “Man, that’s a pretty dynamic list.” (Harry Harris / Associated Press)
There’s one other reason Hook and Anderson don’t want the record to be broken. Playing for the 1962 Mets is a part — a significant part — of their personal legacies in baseball.
Hook recorded the first win in Mets history; there’s a ball displayed prominently at Citi Field with his name written on it in large letters. Anderson signs almost all his autographs with “Original Met.”
“If you’d asked me this back in the mid-60s, I would have said I was so happy to get it over with and get out of there,” Anderson said. “But after 62 years now …”
Hook thought back to the Old Timers’ Day the Mets held in 2022. The club had asked him if he wanted to pitch, and the then-85-year-old suggested a first pitch instead. He worked out for weeks to get himself in shape, and then, in front of more than two dozen members of his family, he fired it to Mike Piazza on the fly.
“They had the best weekend going to New York and being at Citi Field,” he said of his family. “I’ve had more publicity because I was on that team. That’s survived.”
It will survive even if the White Sox fail to win 12 games over the final month of the season. If the ’62 Mets cede their long-held pedestal in the sport, their legacy, one that’s grown in fondness with each passing year, is secure.
“With the passage of time, it has become increasingly difficult to accurately portray who and what those Mets were and what they represented,” Rose said. “For those not of age when the Mets came about, they could not possibly understand what their impact was not only on baseball fans in New York but around the country.”
(Top photo from the Polo Grounds on June 20, 1962: Associated Press file)
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