Surprise!
Ostapenko latest out-of-nowhere Slam finalist
The draft features eight rounds, plus each team receives two territorial selections. The Caps passed on their territorial picks and will receive an extra pick at the end of the second and third rounds as compensation.
“For the most part the 2001s can’t go to another province,” McIver said in explaining the decision. “They are too young, and I’d be shocked if some of the other teams came in and drafted our 2001s. They may, but as of right now they can’t invite them to camp, guys can’t play on their team (next season).
“The territorial pick at the end of the second round, which now will be 27th overall, and the other territorial pick at the end of the third round, we felt that as deep as this draft is it made more sense for us to pass on the territorial picks right now.
“There are some good players in our territory now, and hopefully we’ll be able to get those guys down the road, but we just didn’t have an abundance of picks to pass up on them picks at the end of the second and third rounds.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the Caps have eight picks, with their first coming late in the second round, 23rd overall.
“We feel with the picks we have we are going to be able to get good players, so it allowed us to move down in the draft and to get more picks, which we felt was important,” said McIver, referring to the Caps recently sending Amherst a first-round pick for third- and fifth-round selections.
One characteristic McIver focuses on is character when preparing for a draft.
“In an ideal world they are great skaters with good size and can shoot a puck,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in the guys being in the community, and we just want overall good kids.”
The general manager said the current price tag for trades is too high.
“I’m not sure if we will be active, but we are talking to some teams outside the league, hoping to get some rights to some players.”
The Ravens dropped a tough 17-0 decision to the Fawcetts Thursday at City Diamond with Mitch Hardy throwing a two-hit gem and contributing a couple of big hits.
Quinn said his Ravens are progressing and facing strong pitchers like Hardy will help prepare them for playing their peers throughout the summer.
“Our younger players are improving everyday with Alex Jabbour and Parker Day collecting hits recently versus the Marlins,” he said. “Our pitching staff, consisting of Jonathan Arsenault, Logan Gallant and Avery Arsenault, are getting much needed innings to build up their stamina and it has been fantastic training outdoors since we hosted our
Preferred lies and ideal conditions left Whistle Bear Golf Club in a prone position for Thursday’s opening round at the Manulife LPGA Classic. Canadians Alena Sharp and Brittany Marchand took full advantage.
Sharp eagled the par-5 12th hole en route to a 6-under 66 while Marchand opened with a 67. Both were within striking distance of Norway’s Suzann Pettersen and South Korea’s Mi Hyang Lee, who shared the lead at 8-under 64.
“I knew I needed to shoot a low round,” Sharp said. “But you tournament on the May 20th weekend.”
Avery Arsenault started Thursday and Jonathan Arsenault threw in relief.
With only seven weeks remaining until the softball team flies to Winnipeg, every training session and game is important, as they build towards the Games.
“As a team, coaching staff and players, we have discussed not don’t really want to think about a score in your mind. The way I’m hitting it I knew I was going to have a lot of chances and I took advantage of the par fives. I was 5 under on those so that really helped me out.”
South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim, Belgium’s Gonzalez Escall and China’s Shanshan Feng were one shot off the lead at 65.
Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., had an uneven performance in the warm, sunny conditions. She was visibly frustrated after missing a few short birdie putts around the turn and finished with a 71.
Henderson declined to speak with reporters after signing her scorecard. She eventually offered having any regrets at the end of this process,” Quinn said. “Players have been working hard outside of regular training times and the coaching staff has been supporting them.”
The Canada Games team plays three game on Saturday starting at 11:30 a.m. against Nova Scotia’s under-18 squad. Playoffs begin Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. with the final scheduled for 2 p.m. a few pithy post-round comments to an LPGA Tour official.
“I hit a lot of really great shots and the putts just didn’t drop today,” Henderson said. “But hopefully I can switch things around tomorrow and everything will be good.”
Pettersen, recently lost her yardage book for the course and had to write notes from scratch this week. She trusted her eye and it paid off with six birdies during an eight-hole stretch.
“We woke up this morning to perfect conditions,” she said. “You can fire at pins and get to par fives, which is fun. I think it’s the best way to set up a golf course and get low scores.”
If Jelena Ostapenko wins the French Open on Saturday, she would accomplish something no tennis player has managed to do since, coincidentally, the day she was born 20 years ago: earn a first tour-level title at a Grand Slam tournament.
The last to do it? Gustavo Kuerten, who won the men’s trophy at Roland Garros on June 8, 1997.
Unseeded, ranked only 47th and never before past the third round at any major tournament, Ostapenko is about as surprising a finalist as there can be on this stage.
That’s not to say there haven’t been others, of course, among men and women.
And the French Open, with its slow clay that can act as an equalizer – it dulls the impact of the biggest serves and strongest groundstrokes, and calls for different footwork from hard or grass courts – and its ever-changing weather conditions, tends to produce unexpected runs to the last weekend.
Kuerten, for example, was ranked only 66th in 1997. He would go on to collect two more French Open titles and was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
But 20 years ago, he said Thursday, he came to Roland Garros hoping “to win one match.”
“One match was enough,” Kuerten said. “I never had passed the second round in any Grand Slams. I had played three in all my life. So this was a kind of run you normally don’t see.”
In the two decades since his triumph, men such as Andrei Medvedev (1999), Martin Verkerk (2003) and Mariano Puerta (2005) have been runners-up at the French Open.
And Albert Costa (2002) and Gaston Gaudio (2004) actually won the whole thing in Paris.
Ahead of Ostapenko’s title match against Simona Halep in Paris, here a look at some other out-of-nowhere women’s finalists at Grand Slam tournaments:
FLAVIA PENNETTA AND ROBERTA VINCI, 2015 U.S. OPEN
That neither had been to a major final before was maybe the least remarkable thing about this matchup between two women from the southern heel of Italy’s boot who were childhood friends, then doubles partners and roommates as teenagers.
It was the first time since WTA computer rankings began in 1975 that both U.S. Open women’s finalists were from outside the top 20.
Pennetta, 33, became the oldest woman in the Open era, which dates to 1968, to become a Grand Slam champion for the first time – then announced her retirement to the world, right there on the court.
The most unbelievable part of Vinci’s participation in the final was she stunned Serena Williams in the semifinals, ending the American’s attempt to pull off a calendar-year Grand Slam.
ANASTASIA MYSKINA, 2004 FRENCH OPEN
Myskina was seeded sixth, but there was little reason to believe she would become the first Russian woman to win a Grand Slam title: Her career record at Roland Garros was 1-4 entering the 2004 tournament.
But she beat major champions Venus Williams and Jennifer Capriati and even saved a match point on the way to the final; it had been more than 40 years since a woman won the French Open after being one point from defeat.
Myskina’s opponent – Russian, Elena Dementieva – made it the first French Open final since 1981 with two participants making their debuts in a Grand Slam title match.