Cavaliers’ Love withdraws from Olympics
Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has withdrawn from Team USA, and Denver Nuggets center JaVale McGee and San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson have taken the open spots on the 12-man roster for the Tokyo Olympics which will start next week.
Love spent 10 days with Team USA in Las Vegas preparing for the Games but will not travel to Tokyo.
Love is still returning to form from a right calf injury that kept him out of a significant part of the NBA season.
“I am incredibly disappointed to not be heading to Tokyo with Team USA,” Love said, “but you need to be at absolute peak performance to compete at the Olympic level and I am just not there yet.”
The Americans canceled their exhibition against Australia scheduled for Friday night because of health and safety concerns.
More Olympics
Breanna Stewart and her U.S. Olympic teammates aren’t panicking, even though they’ve lost consecutive games for the first time in a decade. Two days after losing to a team of WNBA All-Stars, the Americans fell to Australia, 70-67, in a preOlympic exhibition game in Las Vegas. “There’s a standard and the standard is winning and we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” said Stewart, who scored 17 points for the U.S. The U.S. struggled from the outside, missing 16 of its 18 3-point attempts.
• After weeks of feeling so anxious she could hardly sleep or eat, WNBA star Liz Cambage decided the best way to ensure she maintained her mental and physical health was to pull out of Australia’s Olympic team. The two-time Olympian has been worried about life inside the so-called bubble at the Tokyo Games.
Baseball
Washington (20-23) took advantage of drawing 11 walks and 12 total free passes and got hits in some key spots to win the series opener, 7-6, against the New Jersey Jackals (21-21) Friday. In the win, Zach Strecker picked up his eighth save of the year and the 60th of his career, which puts him alone in second place on the Frontier League career saves leaderboard, breaking a tie with former Wild Thing and Frontier League Hall of Famer Jonathan
Kountis.
Hockey
The New York Rangers have agreed to terms with restricted free agent forward Julien Gauthier on a oneyear contract. Gauthier played in 30 games with the Rangers this past season, collecting two goals and six assists.
• Dennis Murphy, a sports entrepreneur who cofounded professional leagues in basketball, hockey, tennis and roller hockey that featured innovations in marketing, rules and playing style, died Thursday. He was 94. Murphy co-founded the American Basketball Association, World Hockey Association, World Team Tennis and Roller Hockey International.
Tennis
French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova eased past doubles partner Katerina
Siniakova, winning an all-Czech quarterfinal, 63, 6-0, at the Prague Open. The second-seeded Krejcikova next faces China’s Xinyu Wang, who beat Grace Min of the United States, 6-3, 6-3. The eighthseeded Tereza Martincova beat Viktoria Kuzmova of Slovakia, 6-2, 6-2. In the other quarterfinal, ninth-seeded Greet Minnen of Belgium beat Australia’s Storm Sanders, 6-2, 6-1.
Auto racing
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell thrilled their home crowd as the British drivers dazzled in Formula One’s first attempt at a new sprint qualifying format. Hamilton was fastest at Silverstone, England, in a qualifying session that set the grid for F1′s historic debut of a sprint race to determine the starting lineup of the British Grand Prix.
Colleges
• The Seton Hill University Athletic Department announced the five individuals who will make up the tenth class in the Seton Hill Athletic Hall of Fame. The 2021 Seton Hill Hall of Fame Class includes Emily Fagan ‘15 (Women’s Lacrosse), Chris Fawcett ‘07 and ‘10 (Men’s Soccer), Mallory Sanner ‘14 (Track and Field & Women’s Basketball), Nick Sell ‘16 (Baseball) and Tyler Zimmer ‘15 (Football).
• Waynesburg University football coach Chris Smithley announced the addition of Joshua Francis to his staff for the 2021 season. Francis will work with the Yellow Jacket defensive line.