Sports betting roundup: Wimbledon favorite Iga Swiatek delivers for bettors in women's final
Swiatek won her first title at the All England Club on Saturday by beating Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0 in the women's final.
In the men's final on Sunday, Jannik Sinner defeated Carlos Alcaraz 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. Trends of the Week
At the BetMGM online sportsbook , Swiatek (-275) was a big favorite in the final. She took in 37% of the bets and 57% of the money. Going into the tournament, Swiatek was +700. She was +350 before the quarterfinals and +190 before the semifinals.
In the men's field, both Sinner and Alcaraz were -110. But 56% of bets and 58% of money came in on Alcaraz. In the futures market, 51% of the money was on Alcaraz.
In the WNBA, Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever routed the Dallas Wings 102-83 . Indiana was a 10.5-point favorite and took in 70% of the money. Clark's over 17.5 points prop was the most bet of the day. She finished with 14 points. Upsets of the Week
Going into Sunday, the Pittsburgh Pirates had lost eight games in a row, and the Minnesota Twins were -190 on the moneyline with 90% of the money coming in on them. Pittsburgh was able to snap its streak with a 2-1 win thanks to a run in the top of the ninth.
Chris Gotterup (+10000) won the Scottish Open for his first career PGA Tour victory. He finished at 15 under, which was good for a two-shot win over two players, including Rory McIlroy. He took in only 0.1% of the money in pre-tournament outright winner betting. Coming Up
Monday night is the MLB Home Run Derby . As of Monday morning, Cal Raleigh has the best odds to win at +275.
Behind him are Oneil Cruz (+350), James Wood (+400), Matt Olson (+800), Brent Rooker (+850), Byron Buxton (+900), Junior Caminero (+1000) and Jazz Chisholm Jr. (+1400).
The most money (26%) is on Wood.
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This column was provided to The Associated Press by BetMGM online sportsbook.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports
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New York Times
36 minutes ago
- New York Times
Padraig Harrington: ‘U.S. golfers will feel differently but, for the rest of us, the Open is No 1'
'The British Open has always been the major that Americans — some, not all — whine about the most,' wrote John Feinstein in his book The Majors. The great American author, who sadly passed away this year, practically invented the 'embedded' genre of sportswriting, so us Brits should overlook the 'British Open' faux pas and not indulge in any 'US Masters' tit-for-tat nonsense. Advertisement 'Without question it is the most difficult to get to, not just because of the long flight, but because all the Open sites are a good-sized hike from any major airport and a lot of the drive from airport to golf course inevitably involves narrow two-lane roads and dozens of Great Britain's infamous roundabouts that leave you either dizzy or lost or both,' he continued, before adding half a dozen other reasons why some Americans do not enjoy the tournament, ranging from food to newspapers to the lack of showers in hotels. The latter is no longer true, by the way. But having laid out the case for the prosecution, he responds with the following defence. 'In return for their trouble, they get to play in the place where the game was invented, in front of the world's most knowledgeable and appreciative fans, and have a chance to win the oldest and, many would say, the most prestigious title in golf.' The book was published in 1999 but it was based on his inside-the-ropes access at all four majors in 1998. That was the year Mark O'Meara added the Open to the Masters title he won three months earlier. The American beat compatriot Brian Watts in a play-off at Royal Birkdale, with his friend Tiger Woods a shot back in third and a fresh-faced amateur called Justin Rose tied for fourth. Padraig Harrington came into that tournament with high hopes, having finished tied 18th at his first Open in 1996 and then tied fifth in 1997. But like most of the field that week, he struggled with Birkdale's bad bounces, thick rough and high winds. But the Irishman, who is now 53, would not have it any other way and will be teeing it up at Royal Portrush, the Northern Irish venue for the 153rd edition of the Open. Harrington has played in 27 of the last 28, winning in 2007 at Carnoustie and retaining the title at Birkdale a year on. Advertisement 'The Open means different things to different people but it's fair to say that, for any golfer not from the United States, it's always been their Open,' Harrington tells The Athletic. 'American golfers will feel differently but, for the rest of us, the Open is No 1. It's the original, isn't it?' Indeed it is. First played in 1860, only the absence of a trophy to hand out in 1871 (Young Tom Morris had claimed the winner's belt in 1870 thanks to his third straight victory), the two World Wars and Covid-19 have interrupted the Open's 165-year history. For the first 25 years of that run, the Open was the only major, although nobody used that term at the time. The U.S. Open was the next of the quartet to get going in 1895, the same year that the U.S. Amateur started and 10 years after the (British) Amateur began. These four tournaments, the two transatlantic Opens and their amateur equivalents, made up golf's grand slam for the first half of the 20th century and only one man, the incomparable Bobby Jones, ever achieved it. A lawyer by profession, Jones pulled it off in 1930 and promptly retired from competition, but that was not the end of his impact on the sport. Far from it, because in 1931 he bought a plant nursery in Georgia and, with the help of English course designer Alister MacKenzie, turned it into the Augusta National Golf Club. In 1934, he invited his golf buddies to a tournament and the Masters was born. By that point, the Professional Golfers' Association of America — the guys and gals who teach people to play and run pro shops, not the millionaires of the offshoot PGA Tour — had created their own tournament, the PGA Championship, or what the rest of the world calls the USPGA, in 1916. So, the Masters was the last of what would become the majors to get started. Advertisement But even then, it was not until 1960, when another American phenomenon came along and started talking about a modern 'grand slam' to emulate Jones' 1930 feat, that the term 'majors' entered common usage. That was Arnold Palmer and he finished second in his first crack at the Open in 1960 but won it in 1961 and 1962, which made him a lifelong favourite with British fans. Therefore, the Open was 100 years old before anyone started to think about it being one of the four events that define professional golf careers now. And each of the quartet has a distinct character. The Masters is the only one played at the same course every year. It is prim, proper and very pretty, with the smallest field, cheapest sandwiches and strangest prize. The USPGA used to be hot and sweaty when it was held in August but has been played in May since 2019, making it less of a physical ordeal. Dominated by American golfers for decades, it is the only major exclusively for professionals. The U.S. Open is next in the calendar and is best known for being long, narrow and very hard. If you enjoy watching the world's best golfers getting annoyed, this is the major for you. And then there is the Open, the one played in front of huge crowds on old courses carved out of the sandy scrubland that links the sea with the interior. While American courses have trees and lakes to go around or over, links courses have bumps, scratchy grass and the wind. 'Most pros love order,' says Harrington, who won the 2008 USPGA during a 13-month purple patch that took him to third in the world rankings. 'They would like to play in domes, with no wind and no divots or spike marks. But golf was never meant to be fair. It's supposed to be a test of skill and fortitude, and fortitude is a lot harder to coach. 'What I like about the Open over the last 15 to 20 years is that it's gone in the opposite direction of the rest of the game by saying it's not going to manipulate the course — you're going to get what the weather gives you. And it's not just the weather during the tournament that matters — the weather in the weeks before has a huge impact on the course. Advertisement 'The Open has just decided to say, 'This is links golf, if the conditions are kind, you're going to need to shoot 20 under to win, if they're not, four over might be enough, we're not going to interfere with the set-up at all'. Some pros don't like that but for traditionalists like me, that's awesome.' The youngest of five boys, Harrington grew up in a southern suburb of Dublin. His dad, Paddy, was a policeman who also played Gaelic football to a high standard and loved golf. Like most golf fans of a certain age from these islands, young Padraig remembers watching the BBC's coverage of the Open for 12 hours or more each day, and has vivid memories of tournaments that could be sun-kissed in the morning and played in sideways winds in the afternoon. You can still watch the tournament all day if you want to but, like most of the good stuff, it is behind a paywall on Sky Sports in the UK. But that move has helped the tournament's organisers, the competitions subsidiary of the St Andrew's-based R&A, to keep up. 'If you look at the Open today compared to where it was even when I won mine, it's twice the footprint because of the extra facilities they've put in for players,' says Harrington. 'That's been the biggest change. The lounges, locker rooms, restaurants, practice areas at all the majors have massively improved and they are second to none at the Open. There are three or four places you can eat or get a coffee, a great gym, lots of space for your family and friends. 'It's a first-class experience — we're very lucky. But they've had to do that because the Masters did and then the U.S. Open and USPGA did it, too. The Open wants to be the best, so it had to respond and it has. 'There is a huge amount of competition between the majors and it's been great for us golfers. And I don't just mean in terms of the prize money, although I'm not going to pretend that's not been great, too. But when we're talking about the majors, most players would turn up for free and what we really want at the big tournaments is a great experience.' Advertisement For the record, the Open's total prize pot is $17million (£12.5million), which is the smallest of the four majors. The U.S. Open leads the way at $21.5million (£15.8million), which is presumably the United States Golf Association's way of saying sorry for trying to humiliate the field every year. 'Most Europeans, Australians, South Africans, Japanese, would choose the Open as their favourite major,' says Harrington, who was speaking to The Athletic only two days after winning his second U.S. Senior Open, in Colorado Springs. 'Don't get me wrong, the Masters is great, too, and it has the advantage of always being at the same venue, so it has top facilities. And the U.S. Open and USPGA have massively improved. They're all really good now. 'But I can't tell you how much the experience has changed at the Masters for players. I remember when I first went, you were always on edge about doing the wrong thing. You wouldn't dare be caught with your phone out. But it's become a lot more relaxed and player-centric now. The Open is the world's major, though. It's like cricket and Lord's, isn't it?' Harrington's hunch that the Open is the non-American golfer's top major is hard to verify without conducting a survey but it is the most cosmopolitan in terms of who plays in it. Golfers from 25 different countries competed in the Masters and USPGA this year, with 27 countries represented at the U.S. Open. There will be 31 nations at Portrush. American golfers have won 72 per cent of the 89 Masters staged, 83 per cent of the 107 USPGAs, 71 per cent of the 125 editions of the U.S. Open but only 31 per cent of the 152 Opens. And those wins have been shared between 13 nationalities at the Masters, 10 at the USPGA, 11 at the U.S. Open and 15 at the Open. Clearly, the huge difference in America's share of victories at the Open compared to the three U.S.-based majors is partly to do with the cost and difficulty of transatlantic travel before jet airliners became widely used in the 1960s, but it is also because the R&A, which organises the Open, is the game's governing body outside the U.S. and Mexico, so it has always tried to grow the game in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and South America. In recent years, the Open has taken its qualifying tournaments on the road, with events in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, Italy and the U.S., as well as the traditional regional and final qualifying tournaments in the UK. Harrington believes this is another example of the Open 'upping its game' and learning from the other majors. The U.S. Open's final round of qualifying takes place at 10 different courses around the U.S. and is known as 'the longest day'. The scramble for places at the main event creates great drama and storylines, something the R&A's social media team appears to have noticed in recent years. Advertisement Speaking of games being upped, if you were wondering what Harrington has been doing since his major-winning, Ryder Cup-competing heyday, you may be surprised to hear that he has become one of the most popular golf coaches on the internet, with almost 200,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel and followings of 150,000-plus on Facebook and Instagram, and more than 230,000 on X. 'I just love doing it,' he says. 'I was feeling a bit burned out around 2016, 2017, so I started to think about what I would do next. I did some TV work and it seemed to go well. But I could see that it's a tougher gig when it's your full-time job, and you're not just a player who's adding a bit of colour. 'It was during Covid that I started doing the coaching videos. Almost one a day. Everyone was cooped up at home so I thought I'd use the time to pass on some tips. I didn't really think much about how many people would watch them — I wasn't sure anyone would watch them — but the feedback was good. 'What I really like about the videos, is that you can just keep coming back to parts of the game again and again, because the sport evolves. And I'm always thinking of new ways to explain things.' Harrington came to the pro ranks relatively late and had started training as an accountant by the time he decided he might just be good enough to make the sums add up as a golfer. Could those early doubts about his own golf be the reason he is so interested now in making the rest of us better? 'It's absolutely because of who I am,' he says. 'I have always thought of myself as a raw amateur who learned how to play golf. Other sports came much easier to me. I played soccer and Gaelic (football), I was a goalie. My last game of football was at (the home of Gaelic football) Croke Park. 'But we are all the product of our circumstances. I know that I became the golfer I am because I was the youngest of five competitive boys and we grew up 15 minutes from a golf course where my dad, a policeman, probably spent too much time. Advertisement 'Stackstown Golf Club was our playground and the fact that it has six greens you can't reach in regulation undoubtedly taught me a lot about the importance of fortitude and having a good short game. 'The club was full of hustlers — not in a bad way but just that there was something on every game, could be a fiver or a pound, it didn't matter. But what was important was that it taught me how to play the game, not just hit the shots. I was always trying to figure out how those guys got around the course — I became obsessed with it and have been ever since. 'If I was to play a round with you, I bet I could work out a lot about your game before you even hit your first tee shot. I would be looking at how you carry the bag, tee it up, whether you waggle the club behind the ball and wiggle in your shoes. That would tell me you've been playing a while, as it's something that has gone from the game in recent years. 'If you're an amateur golfer and you catch my eye on the range, I'm sorry, but you're going to get a lesson from me!' So, if the chance to compete in the oldest, most prestigious, most international tournament on the planet is not enticing enough for American golfers who prefer lush fairways, air-conditioning and all-way stops, surely the prospect of a chipping clinic from a short-game guru on Portrush's first-class range will tip the balance. After all, a tip from a two-time winner might be all you need to win the thing and receive the greatest title in golf, the champion golfer of the year. No caveats, prefixes or sponsors' names, win the Open, become the champion, it is that simple.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jovic on Getafe's radar
Cruz Azul failed to score in their opening match of the Apertura 2025, drawing 0-0 with Mazatlán, which increases the urgency to finalize the signing of Luka Jovic. The lack of offensive decisiveness made it clear that the team needs a reinforcement in the attack. Advertisement Although the club has been in talks with Jovic, the official announcement has not arrived, and now Getafe from Spain has also shown interest in the Serbian forward. 'The Azulón team wants to strengthen its forward line with Jovic,' reported journalist Carlos Córdova. Jovic, former player of Real Madrid and Milan, is currently free after leaving the Italian club. For now, there is a verbal agreement between the player and Cruz Azul, but without a definitive closure, the risk of Getafe getting ahead is real. The Celeste board has publicly acknowledged their interest in the attacker, whom they consider key to the project. Advertisement However, the lack of definition could cost them a signing that has generated high expectations. This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here. 📸 Paolo Bruno - 2025 Getty Images
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Gianni Infantino has won
On the jetty of the Gritti Palace in Venice, the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger tried to step down into a water taxi. He miscalculated and almost fell in a lagoon as green as his velvet dinner jacket. Behind him, Tom Brady appeared to compliment one of the boat's captains on the catch he made. Hilfiger didn't get wet, in the end, and after making light of his near-fall, took his seat in the vaporetto for the ride to Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's wedding on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Advertisement As an event, the only thing that attracted nearly the same opprobrium this summer was the Club World Cup. Brady was in attendance for that, too, amid a similar crowd of powerful and influential VIPs to see another show of excess, not to mention a Hilfiger-like slip by Paris Saint-Germain, who were still relatively unblemished by their 3-0 defeat by Chelsea having won the Champions League only six weeks ago. Sunday's final, in many respects, resembled a rite of extravagant matrimony. It started (eight minutes) late. The acts were prestigious but dated (more for the parents and their illustrious friends than the real players), and there were some Tiffany rings at the end of it. The issues with the Club World Cup were similar to those experienced by Venice during the Bezos wedding and in general. There is no off-season. Every day on the calendar has a red ring around it. It is more and more crowded. Its foundations are subsiding. Climate change is causing disruption. It is ever more expensive. A cornetto and a cappuccino on St Mark's Square costs double figures — inflated, as in other cities, by mass tourism and the post-Covid resurgence in travel. The 'No Space for Bezos' and 'Tourist Go Home' protests evoke a sentiment familiar to football watchers. Think of the locals as legacy fans seeking to protect tradition, and the tourists as sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East and American private equity firms gracelessly trampling over it, pronouncing bruschetta 'bru-she-tta'. The island of San Giorgio Maggiore is, as the art critic Jacopo Veneziani recalled during the Bezos nuptials, where Paolo Veronese painted The Wedding Feast at Cana, a work Napoleon had cut into seven pieces and carted off for exhibition at the Louvre in Paris. Its positioning, opposite Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, means that, irrespective of its status as the museum's largest painting, it is arguably the most ignored masterpiece in the world. Advertisement Some thought it an apt metaphor for the Bezos wedding — that it wasn't worth paying attention to. The same was said of the Club World Cup. And yet the show went on, even amid the threat of inflatable alligators being strewn across the lagoon to stop guests from reaching the original wedding venue. The bride and groom smiled on their big day just as FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump did at MetLife, regardless of the boos from sections of the crowd. It was pure Honey Badger. They didn't care. No one was going to spoil it for them — and that has been their attitude throughout. You don't have to salute Infantino for pulling off the Club World Cup, but it wasn't cancelled. Nor did it fail. When FIFA first tried to do something similar in Brazil in 2000, launching an eight-team tournament that Manchester United sacrilegiously abandoned the FA Cup to participate in, a repeat never happened because ISL, FIFA's marketing partner, collapsed. They went back to playing the Intercontinental Trophy instead. Organising competitions like this isn't easy. When the FIFA Council voted for a revamped 24-team Club World Cup in 2019 (21 were in favour, nine against), Covid-19 got in the way of a 2021 pilot edition. It was then announced at the end of the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 that the Club World Cup would go ahead anyway in 2025 and the tournament would be even bigger, featuring 32 teams in total. It looked, again, like Infantino had bitten off more than he could chew. This time last year, Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti told Il Giornale: 'FIFA can forget it. The players and clubs won't participate in that tournament. A single Real Madrid game is worth €20million (£17.4m; $23.3m), and FIFA wants to give us that amount for the entire cup. No way.' Within hours, Madrid issued a statement of denial, saying that 'at no point… has its participation been in doubt'. Advertisement The reporter in question, who has known Ancelotti since his time at Milan, stood by the interview and insisted his words had been accurately reported. Around the same time, the players' union, FIFPro, in Europe announced it had submitted a legal claim against FIFA 'challenging the legality of FIFA's decision to unilaterally set the International Match Calendar and, in particular, the decision to create and schedule the FIFA Club World Cup'. Then there were the issues of confirming venues and finding a global broadcast partner, which only happened in the winter when SURJ Sports Investment, an investment vehicle from 2034 World Cup hosts Saudi Arabia, bought a 10 per cent stake in the platform DAZN for $1bn — a figure that just so happened to be the prize money to bring the big clubs fully on board. A Club World Cup in doubt went ahead, nonetheless, and while the perception of it as a vanity project remain — a kind of Infantino Bowl or Copa Gianni — it wasn't rescheduled again, it wasn't cancelled. For better or worse, it did happen and Infantino emerged from it emboldened and perhaps further empowered. This son of a railwayman from Brig, Switzerland, has Trump's ear more than many of the world's most high-profile political leaders and the Club World Cup appears to have been designed to appeal to his sensibilities. The symbolism of this Club World Cup — gold and gaudy — is Trumpian. The language he has used, calling the 32 teams at the tournament the best in the world when everyone knows that not to be the case, is Trumpian. The replica of the trophy and the medal he gifted Trump were cringingly ingratiating, but hardly any different in statecraft from what the UK prime minister Keir Starmer did in presenting Trump with a letter from the King inviting him to a second state visit later this year. None of this guaranteed Trump would show up for the final. POTUS is a busy guy. During the Club World Cup alone, he has sent the National Guard into Los Angeles, held a military parade on his birthday — an event that clashed with the opening game between Inter Miami and Al Ahly — fallen out spectacularly with Elon Musk, bombed Iran and passed his Big Beautiful Bill. Advertisement In other words, finding time for the party Infantino was throwing was by no means a given. And yet Trump not only attended, but he endorsed and participated in a way that not only eclipsed the other sporting events of the day, such as the men's Wimbledon final, but almost all other news stories. Anyone who hadn't heard of the Club World Cup or had wilfully avoided it, couldn't disregard it anymore. For those quick to dismiss the competition, don't doubt its potential as a tectonic moment in the history of football. At Trump Tower in New York the day before the final, Infantino, in one of his rare media engagements, gave a speech in which he made claims that served as proof, to him, that his doubters were wrong: 2.5m spectators, average crowds of 40,000, revenues worth $2.1bn — which, Carlo, meant every match was worth $33m. Behind Infantino were his best men, a collection of legends and Ballon d'Or winners; football men, there to give him credibility. Earlier in the tournament, Madrid president Florentino Perez had backed him, too, telling DAZN: 'We have finally achieved something we have been fighting for for a long time.' A new competition. A new revenue driver. The closest thing to a Super League — only under the FIFA umbrella, one not limited to Europe, one that brings in the team Perez's Madrid were facing that day, Al Hilal; the Saudis. Chelsea, whose fans memorably protested the Super League, kind of came full circle in celebrating the conquest of a Super League in Club World Cup clothing; that's a FIFA jacket and white shoes. This must have been uncomfortable viewing for UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin, who conspicuously stayed away and has taken to calling the Club World Cup 'the so-called Club World Cup'. He appears to have been outflanked by Infantino. If this becomes a once-every-two-year tournament rather than a once-every-four-year one, UEFA have a problem because the Club World Cup will create useful confusion among the new generation of football fans who will begin to wonder with each new edition: What's the more prestigious competition? Advertisement A winner from arguably the most sceptical market, England, is probably helpful too because the Club World Cup and what lifting it really means is now going to be part of the conversation in the Premier League for years to come. As Bezos bobbed around Venice on a motorboat, he surveyed his surroundings and observed: 'It's an impossible city. It can't exist, and yet here it is.' The same could have been said of the Club World Cup. Nothing, in the end, could stop it. Standing on the side of the canal, waving a fist at it isn't enough. It's too late. The vaporetto has sailed.
