Keselowski triumphs at last with win at Darlington
Brad Keselowski took nearly the entire season to break through to victory lane. Kyle Larson will have to wait a little bit longer.
Keselowski overtook Larson’s dominant car by a few feet coming out of the pits on the final caution, then took off on the restart to win the Southern 500 — a satisfying moment in a season of struggles for the former NASCAR champion.
“That’s how this sport rolls,” said a smiling Keselowski. “That’s how life rolls. You’ve just got to keep pushing forward and make the most of the opportunities and know the breaks will come your way just as they fell against you previously. That’s part of the perseverance it takes to be successful.”
Larson knows all about perseverance.
He had the strongest car at Darlington on Sunday night, led a whopping 284 of 367 laps, yet left in third place behind Keselowski and his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano.
It was the eighth time this year — and 38th time in his five full-time Cup seasons — Larson finished in the top five without winning. Larson led 200 laps in Bristol’s spring race and wound up second after Kyle Busch’s textbook bump-and-run move five laps from the end last April.
Larson led 101 laps at Kansas a month later until eventual winner Kevin Harvick got him on a restart and Larson’s Chip Ganassi Racing machine tangled with Ryan Blaney, costing him a shot at the win.
“I mean, this is my fifth Cup season, and I’ve run second or third a lot,” said the 26-year-old Larson. “I guess you get used to the disappointment or whatever you want to call it.”
Larson sat for his late-night media session mostly without emotion, putting the best spin on his latest close call. He was happy to lead so many laps, to have a fast car, to know that his team may have the power to contend in the playoffs, where Larson has already clinched a spot in the 16-team field.
“I feel like we’ve kind of been stale up until this weekend,” Larson said. “We had a (recent) good test at Richmond. We learned some things with some different components, and I felt like it really helped our car there.”
Keselowski understands how difficult it is to run up front and not have the win to show for it. He believes his Penske Ford was good enough to win several times this year until critical errors on his part ruined the chance.
When drivers don’t capitalize on those opportunities, it can lead to doubts about when they’ll come around again, Keselowski said.
“You just never know when you’re going to get a winning race car again,” he said. “You hope it’s every week. You enter every weekend thinking that. But you get to the race track and it’s not there, you think, ‘What if I never get another car capable of winning?’”
Keselowski recalls his early days in the Cup series when the machines he had were not capable of keeping up. When that changed, Keselowski’s career and confidence took off. “There’s almost a point in time you take that for granted,” the 34-year-old driver said. “You start to see that slip away and you think to yourself, ‘Oh, my God, this could be it.’”
That’s why the win at Darlington, he said, was so important and in his words, “refreshing.”
A crowd gathered when Venus Williams practiced with Sachia Vickery at the U.S. Open. Kids waited by the fence for autographs.
The seven-time Grand Slam singles champion helped Vickery prepare for her first-round match. Vickery lost, but the thrill of hitting with her idol was a lasting memory.
“That was actually an experience of a lifetime for me, so I’m still in shock a little bit,” said Vickery, a 23-year-old African-American and former top-ranked junior player.
Venus and Serena Williams have been a nearly constant presence at the U.S. Open since the debut of Arthur Ashe Stadium 21 years ago. Their 30 combined Grand Slam singles titles have changed the tennis landscape.
Many American kids of color are taking part in youth programs, often citing the superstar sisters as the reason.
“There’s certainly more diverse activity from an ethnic standpoint since they came on the scene,” said D.A. Abrams, chief diversity and inclusion officer for the U.S. Tennis Association. “At junior tournaments at higher levels, they’re more diverse ethnically than they were in the past.”
Youth serving it up
The No. 1 junior is 14-yearold African-American Cori “Coco” Gauff. Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena’s coach, worked with Gauff at his academy in Paris and she recently won the French Open girls title.
“First of all, she’s a great competitor. Second of all, she has incredible abilities,” Mouratoglou said. “Everything else is just work. And she’s a hard worker.”
Several young black players were competing in the final major of the season at Flushing Meadows. Whitney Osuigwe recently won the USTA 18s Girls National title and earned a wild card into the main draw. Rising Canadian stars Felix Auger-Aliassime and Franciose Abanda went through qualifying, and Auger-Aliassime reached the main draw.
“I grew up watching the Williams sisters,” said the 21-year-old Abanda, who saw them play at the Rogers Cup in Toronto when she was 14. “I appreciate Venus, who is playing for so long and at a high level. They have really big power games and maximize it.”
Thousands of fans and tennis camp kids of varying ethnicities watched the free four-day qualifying tournament ahead of the U.S. Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
The sport was mostly white when King was a teen in the 1950s. American Althea Gibson became the first black player to win a Grand Slam title at the 1956 French Open, and Ashe won the U.S. Open in 1968. Both were forced to play in segregated tournaments early in their careers.
“When players take the court today, they do not look like each other,” King said in an email to The Associated Press. “They are more reflective of our global society. That is a big improvement from my day, and it is especially important for future generations because the children can see this change and they can aspire to be part of it.”
King said she’d like to see more diversity on the business side, plus more female coaches and coaches of color.
Ranks are growing
Of 15 Americans in the top 100 of the WTA year-end rankings in 1999, four women were African-American. Serena won the U.S. Open that year. The current top 100 has 13 Americans, including six African-Americans: reigning U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens at No. 3, followed by Madison Keys (No. 14), Venus (No. 16), Serena (No. 26), Taylor Townsend (No. 73) and Vickery (No. 78).
Japan’s Naomi Osaka (No. 19) is also of Haitian descent. Latina players Caroline Garcia, Garbine Muguruza, Carla Suarez Navarro and Monica Puig are joined by five Chinese competitors.
The men’s ATP top 100 has 21 people of color, including African-American Frances Tiafoe (No. 44) and Asian-American Mackenzie McDonald (No. 79) among the 11 top Americans. In 1999, eight of the nine American men in the top 100 were white.
Vickery signed autographs for several young black fans, who called out her name after practicing with Venus. She trained at age 8 with Richard Williams, practicing for nearly a year with Venus and Serena’s father in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Vickery wore a T-shirt after her first-round match with the words “black” and “white” crossed out, leaving the words “human being.”
“I know there’s not too many of us players on tour,” she said. “So it’s really, really great to see the young black kids.”
Several programs are trying to diversify tennis in the United States. The Williams sisters have an academy in Los Angeles and Kamau Murray, Stephens’ coach, recently opened a $16.9 million tennis village on Chicago’s South Side.
More than 200,000 kids in the 50 largest U.S. markets have access to free or lowcost tennis programs run by the National Junior Tennis and Learning network and the USTA Foundation.
USTA President Katrina Adams, the first African-American to hold that position, is looking forward to more growth at all levels from “the seeds Venus and Serena have planted.”
“The ability to watch a player whom you can identify with, competing and succeeding in the very same sport you love and play, speaks volumes,” she said.