I messed up my finger a little bit, but other than that my body felt fine. Just busted the bone through the skin. Nothing bad, just tape it up. | | | | Winning never gets old for Rafael Nadal.
(Jewel Samad/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I messed up my finger a little bit, but other than that my body felt fine. Just busted the bone through the skin. Nothing bad, just tape it up.”
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| | rantnrave:// The US OPEN produced such different champs. RAFAEL NADAL is a an all-time great, with 16 Grand Slam titles and a legacy as the best clay court player ever. His place in history is set. How will we remember SLOANE STEPHENS, though? She won her first slam with a dominant final. Her third set against VENUS WILLIAMS in the semifinal Thursday night was brilliant. Her win over MADISON KEYS was a coronation. Their post-match hug was emotional and might've been the best moment of the tournament. Stephens' win is prediction fodder. Is it a fluke? Or the beginning of something bigger? Venus and SERENA are great but at some point they'll stop playing (I think; I'm prepared to be wrong on this). The next generation of US tennis will emerge eventually. Has that time come? Stephens is talented, but it took a while for her to show how legit she is. Will this be a one-tournament surprise or can Stephens take the mantle from Serena and Venus as the face of women's tennis? SportsSET: "Is Sloane Stephens the Future of US Tennis?"... The NFL is back. After all the griping and rightful moralizing, admit it: you watched. Or caught the highlights. Or RED ZONE. Checked your fantasy team. Took a few glances at the game at the bar. Asked your buddy what the score was. It's an addiction you can't quit. Not yet, at least. We'll complain six days a week and watch on Sundays. OK, maybe LOS ANGELES won't. Probably didn't think they'd miss a RAMS blowout win. Bigger surprise than EZEKIEL ELLIOTT winning a temporary restraining order. The NFL is full of surprises... DON OHLMEYER was a star. He had a resume few sports TV execs could match. He was there from MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL's early days and came back to rejuvenate it in 2000. He ran NBC Sports -- he was described as part of TV's "glitterati" when he left in 1982 -- and returned 11 years later to help save the network in the '90s. Ohlmeyer influenced how we watch sports -- from small things like introducing in-game updates to his philosophy that sports was entertainment (hello DENNIS MILLER, sound effects and crowd shots). Ohlmeyer understood sports was storytelling and spectacle. That will live on, even as AL MICHAELS announced during SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL that Ohlmeyer died at 72. RIP... BAKER MAYFIELD planted the flag. Love this bravado. Beat the No. 2 team in the country at their stadium, you should celebrate... 3rd and 93... Which video games are on your resume? | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| Sloane Stephens rumbled to the 2017 US Open title, dominating Venus Williams and Madison Keys. Will this be a one-tournament surprise or can Stephens take the mantle from Serena and Venus as the face of women's tennis? | | |
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 | Polygon |
| Behind the scenes with the neuroscience of game design. | | |
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 | B/R Mag |
| The volatile mix of race, protest and presidential politics has made NFL locker rooms a cauldron of activism. Kaepernick was the spark, but since him, other circumstances in the country have forced players to look in the mirror. In turn, they have become more political. | | |
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 | Sports Illustrated |
| How did Rebecca Lobo go from a kid shooting midrange jumpers at her Massachusetts home to the hall of fame? | | |
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 | GQ |
| Two friends go on the ultimate football road trip. | | |
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 | Baseball Prospectus |
| Monuments are tricky things because they create a shared good, both in the tangible present and the intangible future. The Space Needle doesn’t really do anything, per se but it’s a permanent feature of the Seattle skyline, a source of civic individuality at a time when that’s difficult to find. But can they be justified when people are hungry and homeless? It’s not an easy question to answer, but there’s an easy follow-up while we mull: what about our modern cathedrals, the stadiums? | | |
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 | The Tennessean |
| "It's a business ... but for us, it's our lives," says Titans receiver Eric Decker on CTE. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| When Alex Honnold climbed El Capitan in Yosemite, solo and without ropes, many hailed it as his sport’s ultimate feat. Tom McCarthy talks to the world’s greatest ‘big wall climber’ and asks if we should glory in such extreme risks. | | |
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 | Victory Journal |
| David Roth on what the NFL has to offer and what it really stands for. | | |
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 | Japan Times |
| At the age of 46, with 29 years of bodybuilding experience under his belt, he has learned how to fine-tune his body for competition like a mechanic getting a Formula One car ready for a race. | | |
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 | Granta |
| Erika Krouse on her work as a private investigator: ‘An escort service solicited by the university was providing prostitutes for football recruits.’ | | |
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 | ESPN |
| It's a Clemson institution and a must when visiting on a Tigers game day. As is the case with any liberal combination of time and alcohol, stories from The Esso Club are a mixture of fact and mythology, and they are amazing. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Experiencing the best that the tournament has to offer, and examining what’s next for tennis beyond 2017. | | |
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 | The Independent |
| Is football so chaotic and random that it can only be enjoyed, but never understood? Or is it a problem that can be worked through and solved? Those are extreme positions but the debate itself is real, and is more contested than ever before. Other sports are increasingly understood, analysed and predicted through numbers. | | |
|
 | The Undefeated |
| He played both basketball and baseball before his long career in the ring. | | |
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 | Freakonomics |
| John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly retired. Here’s the inside story -- and a look at how we make decisions in the face of risk versus uncertainty. | | |
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 | IBWM |
| It was a fresh start. No longer would he simply be known as "The Heart Guy." Las Vegas, the city of reinvention, was his destination. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| National Football League Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith discusses a host of topics, including what he calls the league's mismanagement of player discipline for members like Tom Brady and Ezekiel Elliott. Smith also talks about the league's declining television audience, whether there's too much football on TV and, of course, the issue of head trauma and player safety. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| Growing up a Bills fan is hard, but it turns out dealing with the Bills as an adult is much harder. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| When the new ''Monday Night Football'' makes it regular-season debut, Ohlmeyer's innovations won't exactly leap out of the TV set. With great effort, he helped persuade the league to mount miniature cameras on the referees' caps and to allow more reporters to roam the sidelines and interview players coming on and off the field at halftime. The greatest change, however, will be the comedian in the broadcast booth, Dennis Miller, the first nonsports announcer ever to join a major sports telecast. | | |
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| | | | | Francis and the Lights ft. Chance the Rapper |
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