Page 24 - Florida Sentinel 7-26-19

Sports
Venus Williams Surprises Atlanta Kids With Visit To Tennis Center
U. S. Open Officials To ‘Bend The Rules’ For 15-Year-Old Tennis Star Cori Gauff
Some future Wimbledon contenders at the South Ful- ton Tennis Center in Atlanta got to size up their future competition when Venus Williams surprised them at summer camp.
Williams, who hit At- lanta to compete in the BB&T Atlanta Open, paid it forward to a group of young tennis hopefuls on Monday at the tennis center which needs help restoring at least 24 of their courts.
“I love to be out here with the kids and the kids enjoy it too. It keeps me motivated. Hopefully we see some fu- ture stars come out of this,” Williams told WSB-TV.
The experience of meet- ing the tennis star was sim- ply, “the best thing ever,” said camper Ranan Givhan to WSB-TV.
“I want to get a college
VENUS WILLIAMS
degree, playing tennis, so my parents don’t have to pay and I can make it easier for their lives,” Givhan said.
Williams also was on deck to help shed a light on the need for funding to fix the tennis courts. So far the city estimates that $600,000 is needed to renovate the 24 courts.
Tennis champ Roger Federer previously called for the Women’s Tennis As- sociation to loosen the rules surrounding its age-eligibil- ity after 15-year-old Cori Gauff’s sensational Wim- bledon run.
WTA implemented a rule in 1994 that 15-year-olds can only play 10 tournaments per year. This was established to protect young players from burnout. Gauff became the darling of Wimbledon when she defeated Venus Williams and made it to the fourth round — making her the youngest woman to win a Wimbledon match since 1991.
Now, US Open officials
CORI GAUFF
are planning to “bend the rules” in order to get Gauff a spot in the final grand slam of the year.
According to the New York Post, officials may give a wildcard to Gauff, but the budding tennis star has al- ready accepted the three wildcards allotted for the year, using them at the Miami Open, French Open qualifiers and Wimbledon qualifiers.
“We would expect to see Coco in the main draw of the US Open,’’ USTA director of communications Chris Widmaier told The Post.
“She certainly won the hearts of tennis fans in our country with her Wimbledon performance.
“It’s not every day an ath- lete of her age becomes water-cooler talk.”
Are Floyd Mayweather And
Manny Pacquiao Building
Toward A Rematch?
Manny Pacquiao
proved he is still capable of holding his own in the ring when he defeated Keith Thurman over the week- end, and that has resulted in a lot of talk about a potential rematch between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. With the way the two fighters have been going back and forth on social media, it’s fair to wonder if they are open to it.
In a lengthy post on In- stagram Tuesday, May- weather criticized people for bringing up his name every time something hap- pens with Pacquiao. He said Pacquiao’s “entire legacy and career has been built off its association with my name” and that it is time for people to stop using his name as “clickbait” for Pac- Man.
Not surprisingly, Pac-
MANNY PACQUIAO AND FLOYD MAYWEATHER
quiao disagrees. He fired back at Mayweather on so- cial media, pointing out that Floyd attended his fight against Thurman and es- sentially saying he should give him a rematch if he’s so desperate to be relevant again.
Mayweather had a re- sponse for that, of course. He
took to Instagram again and said he only attended the fight because Pacquiao is his “employee” and he had to supervise. He also mocked Pac-Man for making the same amount of money against Thurman that Mayweather made recently for a meaningless exhibition fight.
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