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Photo by Eric Taylor |
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With three races left on the IndyCar season 7 drivers have a chance to win the championship.
Will Power holds a slim 6pt lead over Scott Dixon at the top of the standings.
Dixon, fresh off a win at last weeks Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tenn won his 53rd race in an IndyCar breaking a tie with Mario Andretti.
That puts him second behind the great AJ Foyt. Scott is also seeking a 7th Indy Car title which would put him in a tie with Foyt. Dixon has a ways to go if he wants to equal or pass Foyt's 67 IndyCar wins.
The series heads to the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 presented by Axalta and Valvoline at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.
It is the last oval of the season before closing out the 2022 calendar with races on the road courses at the Portland International Speedway and Weathertech Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, Ca.
No less the seven drivers still have a mathematical chance of taking home the top prize.
Will Power is being chased by Dixon, Marcus Ericsson, Josef Newgarden, Alex Palou, Scott McLaughlin and Pato O'Ward.
If the title chase comes down to the final weekend in Monterey none of the drivers still alive for a championship has won a race in IndyCar at WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway.
San Jose, Ca |
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Daria Kasatkina lost the first set she played in the 2022 Mubadala SVC.
She went on to win that match 1-6, 6-2,6-0 and never looked back.
Her victory came on the heels of her losing last years final in San Jose. Kasatkina beat Selby Rogers who was playing in her first WTA final.
The finals match went kind of like Daria's first of the tourney. She lost the first set (7-6) but swept thru the final two sets (6-1, 6-2).
San Jose welcomed young stars Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka to the Mubadala SVC. It was Osaka's second time playing in San Jose but her first time back on the court since taking a break from the tour.
They played in the second round with Gauff coming away with the victory in front of a sold out crowd at San Jose St University.
Daria's first round foe was Elena Rybakina who was fresh of winning Wimbledon and looking the part with a easy 6-1 first set. Few know that Rybakina would only win 3 games the rest of the match.
Photo by Eric Taylor |
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The Mubadala SVC has a glorious history and is the longest running women's event spanning the past 51yrs.
Venus Williams won her fir pro event when Mubadala was still the Virginia Slims at the Oakland Arena in Oakland, Ca.
Greats such as Billie Jean King and Chris Evert have claimed victory at this event.
It moved to Stanford where is was known as the Bank of the West Classic before moving to San Jose, Ca.
Photo by Eric Taylor |
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You no longer have to make a professional team to get paid anymore if you are a talented high school basketball player.
Now you don't even have to go to college anymore to make the pro's in basketball.
High schoolers such as Oakland's Jaylen Lewis (#24) can fatten their pockets with contracts while still in high school.
Lewis (16) became the youngest basketball player to sign a professional contract in the US when he inked a multi year deal to play for the Overtime Elite, an Atlanta based team due to start play in 2021.
That's just two years older then Freddie Adu was when he signed to play soccer in the MLS.
College players are getting into the act as well.
No longer can universities control what an athlete can make while they command the billions generated by the sports industry.
Now kids can get paid above the table, not by the schools, but by any company looking to profit of the popularity of the athlete.
Will professionalism work with high school kids and college athletes. Time will tell. Paying kids at an early age has not broken soccer or tennis.
We are seeing the effect of why Europeans come over to the NBA and play so well and much of that is due to players signing pro deals at a young age and playing in the European leagues.
Something had to change. College sports were making too much money while sweating kids over tattoos and clothes.
STATE FARM AGENT SAMANTHA HARRIS
