🎾 The Demon Goes Down

Time flies, it's Wednesday, 25 May

🔊 Sport Today Podcast

This morning, Martin Gabor and Lucy Watkin are at the mic.

Today's listen time: 9.40 minutes.

Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

📺 What we're watching

🏀 11.00am - NBA Western Conference Finals - Mavericks v Warriors - American Airlines Centre, Dallas - Foxtel, Kayo

⚽ 8.05pm - Football Friendly - A-League All Stars v Barcelona - Accor Stadium, Sydney - 10 Bold, Paramount+

🏏 12.00am (Thu) - IPL Playoffs - Lucknow Super Giants v Royal Challengers Bangalore - Eden Gardens, Kolkata - Foxtel, Kayo

All times are in AEST

🎾 Last man standing 

Jason Kubler, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can.

Golden points: No pressure, young man. But you’re our only hope in the men’s singles at the French Open. That’s after a tough day at the office for some of our biggest names.

• If you got up nice and early then you would have seen 19th seed Alex de Minaur lose to Hugo Gaston in a 5th set tiebreak and he wasn't happy with the crowd. John Millman also lost in straight sets.

• The news is much better for our female players. Daria Saville and Ajla Tomljanović are into the 2nd round and both play tonight.

• The big talking point in Paris is the decision by the ATP and WTA to get rid of ranking points in Wimbledon after tournament organisers banned Russian and Belarussian athletes from competing. A lot of big players have weighed in on the issue.

They said it: “Anything that you decide, it's unfortunately going to create a lot of conflict, a lot of separation instead of unification.” - World #1 Novak Djokovic will lose the 2000 ranking points he won at Wimbledon last year.

Watch it: Back to the actual tennis, and you can catch all 3 Aussies on 9Gem and Stan Sport tonight. Kubler is first up against Cam Norrie and that match is scheduled to start at 8.15pm (AEST).

🏏 McDonald locks in his sidekicks

As PM Anthony Albanese works on his ministry, Australia’s other powerful leader has unveiled his assistants after also recently stepping into the role.

Golden points: That’s full-time men’s cricket coach Andrew McDonald, who has locked in a couple of assistants to help him lead the team.

• Cricket fans will know all about Daniel Vettori. But if you’ve never heard of him, he was a spin bowler who played more than 400 games for New Zealand.

• He’s coached in England and in India and also helped out during Australia’s recent tour of Pakistan.

• The other guy isn’t as famous. Andre Borovec is his name and unlike most coaches, he never played international or domestic cricket.

• But that doesn’t matter. He’s got heaps of experience coaching in Victoria, and he’ll coach the Australia 'A' team which plays in Sri Lanka next month.

What’s next: The Aussie team is also playing, and that tour is getting really close. It starts on 7 June with the first of 3 T20 matches. Here’s the full schedule.

⚽ Rotten luck for champion Matilda

Scans have confirmed what a lot of people feared, and it means Ellie Carpenter faces a long road to recovery ahead of next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Golden points: The 22yo went down untouched while playing for Lyon in the Champions League final and we now know she’s torn her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

• Those are the words no athlete ever wants to hear because the injury usually takes at least 6 months to recover from, and can be much longer than that.

• It means Carpenter is definitely going to miss next month’s friendlies for the Matildas against Spain and Portugal.

• The big one is next year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. She’s been one of Australia’s most important players since she debuted as a 15yo because she creates so many attacking opportunities from fullback.

What’s next: The Matildas play Spain on 26 June. That team will feature plenty of Barcelona’s players from the team that Carpenter’s Lyon beat last week.

🏉 Riewoldt wants smoother transition for players

St Kilda great Nick Riewoldt wants the AFL to do more to help players transition away from the sport to ensure cases like Sam Fisher’s aren’t repeated.

Golden points: Fisher was arrested last week and charged with trafficking commercial quantities of illicit substances across state borders. It’s a serious charge and he faces up to 25 years in jail.

• Riewoldt was his captain at the Saints and says some of Fisher’s teammates knew what was going on, but not to that extent.

• Riewoldt has made a successful move from AFL to the media, but he says the transition out of the game is the biggest issue for players.

• He wants the AFL and the players union to do more in that area to protect players once they retire. But AFL Players Association boss Paul Marsh says it’s a collective effort and not solely on the AFLPA.

They said it: “Transition doesn‘t start when a player leaves the game. Transition starts when the player starts in the game.” - Marsh says clubs and players need to do more.

Watch it: If you missed it, here is Riewoldt talking about Fisher on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.

🏀 Heat is on Miami's starters

Victor Oladipo came off the bench and scored 23 points for Miami yesterday. Ooh, that’s good. But Miami’s 5 starters combined for 18 points. Oh, that’s not so good.

The score: Boston Celtics defeated Miami Heat 102-82. 

Golden points: The Heat were on the wrong side of history in the NBA playoffs yesterday.

• Their starters managed 18 points in total, and 2 of them didn’t score. That’s the fewest in a playoff game since 1976/77.

• The stats don’t get any prettier. Oladipo came on and outscored them. That hasn’t happened in a playoff game since they started tracking that stat more than 50 years ago.

• But Miami fans don’t need to stress. The Eastern Conference Finals are locked at 2-2 and the Heat still have 2 games at home.

Watch it: The action shifts to the Western Conference today when the Mavericks host the Warriors. It’s 3-0 to the Warriors and no team has ever lost a playoff series from that position. Tune in to Foxtel or Kayo from 11.00am (AEST) to see if the Mavericks can stay alive.

👀 Quick singles

🏏 The Gujarat Titans are through to the IPL final thanks to some big hitting by David Miller and Hardik Pandya. Aussie Matthew Wade chipped in with 35 to help them chase down Rajasthan’s 188 with 3 balls to go.

🚴‍♂️ Aussie cyclist Jai Hindley is still 2nd after stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia. He’s now only 3 seconds behind the leader after he finished 3rd overnight.

🏉 The Dockers will be without forward Sam Switkowski for the next 2 games. He was banned by the AFL tribunal for a chicken wing tackle on Collingwood’s Jack Ginnivan.

🎾 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s tennis career has come to an end on his home court. The French star retired from the sport after his loss to Casper Ruud in 4 sets.

🏉 The Kangaroos will head into next week’s mid-season draft without a couple of key personnel. National recruiting manager Mark Finnigan and head of player personnel Glenn Luff both quit the AFL club yesterday.

🏉 The Western Force can still make the Super Rugby Pacific finals after an important win last night. They beat Moana Pasifika and picked up a bonus point to move within 3 points of the 8th-placed Highlanders with a game to go.

🙃 Left of field...

Yet again, The Simpsons have predicted the future. Well, kinda. Long story short, not everyone likes cold drinks.

Golden points: That includes Stan Wawrinka, who lost his first-round match at the French Open in 4 sets yesterday.

• The match itself has been overshadowed by his outburst towards the chair umpire because the water he was given was too cold.

• He really wasn’t happy and seemed quite shocked that he was being forced to drink cold water.

• It does seem odd, but he has an ally in Novak Djokovic. The world #1 wrote in his book Serve to Win that cold water slows digestion and stops the body from performing at its best.

Watch it: Someone get the man some tepid water.

📽 The highlight reel

There are few things better in baseball than seeing a walk-off grand slam to win the game. Paul Goldschmidt helped us out with a 4-run homer to help his Cardinals beat the Blue Jays yesterday.

📸 Photo finish

South Sydney fullback Latrell Mitchell has been busy getting specialist treatment on his hamstring in the States. But he's had some spare time to check out some major monuments.

🏃‍♀️ The finish line

🏆 Today's trivia answer

Djokovic has won Wimbledon 6 times (2011, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021).