TeamUSATracker: April 26, 2022
Swimming Team Trials Begin and In Depth Look at French Open (and Paris 2024)
📺WHAT TO WATCH: AMERICANS BOOKING THEIR TICKET FOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Swimming Trials:
The Phillips 66 International Team Trials in Greensboro, NC started today.
Where to Watch:
Finals: 6 PMET on Olympic Channel. 6 PMET on CNBC Saturday (Need to stream via NBCSports.com with Cable Log-in)
Prelims: 9 AM ET - www.usaswimming.org/watch
The headline is that all 5 individual gold medalists from Tokyo (Dressel, Ledecky, Finke, Kaliz, Jacoby) plus 2016 Rio individual gold medalists & Tokyo medalists Lilly King and Ryan Murphy are competing this week but also also watch out for Shaine Casas, Nic Fink, Ryan Held, & Claire Curzan who combined have only swam one Olympic individual final but but all four had an incredible Short Course World Championships in Abu Dhabi in December with six medals each as USA Swimming figures to send another strong team to Swimming World Championships.
As with Olympic Trials in 2021 - Team USA can only bring a maximum of 26 swimmers per gender to World Championships (maximum of 12 relay specialists) to the World Championships in Budapest June 18 to July 3 so finishing 2nd in at the US Trials does not guarantee a swimmer a spot. There are also 3 more individual events & 1 team event (50M Breast, 50M Back, 50M Fly, 4x100 MX Freestyle Relay) competed at the World Aquatics Championships so that does make the math for the 26 roster spots more complicated.
UPDATE: On Night 1: 2020 Olympians: Caeleb Dressel, Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Torri Huske, Hali Flickinger, Brooks Curry, Claire Curzan. Erika Brown, Natalie Hinds all made the World Championship team. Luca Urlando won the 200M Fly to lock up a spot after finishing 3rd at Olympic trials last year and Ryan Held who just missed out on a relay spot in Tokyo due to a number crunch also made the World Championships team.
A good in-depth breakdown of the event and what to watch in each event can be found on Swim Swam here.
Bonus What to Watch 📺
Beach Handball: Team USA Men and Women need to finish in the Top 2 at NACHC Championships to qualify for Beach Handball World Championships. USA Men started 3-0 and won their pool so will if they win their semifinal game - Team USA Men’s Beach Handball will head to World Championships in Greece in June. USA Women’s Beach Handball team are looking to finish top two in the round robin play to head to World Championships. Follow all the results and streaming action here Games are live on Facebook and hopefully Beach Handball is added to the Olympics for LA 2028.
Update: Team USA Men’s Beach Handball qualified for World Championships by beating host Mexico in a shootout in the Semifinal. Team USA Women’s Beach Handball plays Mexico on Wednesday afternoon trying to lock in their spot for World Championships.
Curling: Mixed Doubles World Championships is this week on Peacock/Olympic Channel. Latest schedule is here for Team USA which is represented by two-time Olympians Matt and Becca Hamilton. Team USA is 4-2 (with 3 RR games left) and currently sitting in 3rd place (last playoff spot) in their pool.
🔎IN FOCUS: FRENCH OPEN PREVIEW AND WHAT IT MIGHT MEAN FOR PARIS 2024
At the Tokyo Olympics; Team USA went medal-less in Tennis for the first time ever (Tennis became an Olympic sport: 1988 Olympics)
With 822 Days and counting until Paris Opening Ceremonies it is never too early for a preview and since Roland Garros (home of the French Open) will be the tennis venue for the 2024 Paris Games it is never early too early to look at the Americans success at the French Open as a harbinger of things to come in Paris 2024.
The optimism is for US men's tennis is at an all time high as 6 of the 7 Americans inside the Top 50 are under the age of 25. Taylor Fritz started the European clay court season being the first American to make the Monte Carlo Masters 1000 since 2008 while picking up his 150th ATP victory . Fritz has been on fire on ATP Tour winning 33 matches since the US Open (becoming first American to win Indian Wells since Andre Agassi in 2001) and Fritz could possibly be looking at a Top 10 seed for Wimbledon and US Open.
13 US Men are guaranteed direct entry to French Open (more could qualify) and the good news is that 10 different US Men have won first round matches in the last two French Opens after the 2019 tournament when US men went 1-10 overall in 2019 (only Taylor Fritz won a match in 2019). Overall clay is still one of the historical worst surfaces for US Men and only 3 US men with direct entry into the draw have a winning record on clay (Fritz, John Isner, Sebastian Korda). 5 US men with direct entry have never won a match at Roland Garros including Frances Tiafoe (3 straight years- Tiafoe has lost a 5 setter in Round 1 at Roland Garros). Only one American man has made the French Open quarterfinals this century: Andre Agassi and zero American men have made the semifinals this century.
As we learned from Ted Lasso, “It is the Hope That Kills You” but there has been some recent success for American men on clay that has American men tennis fans really excited….
Sebastian Korda won his only ATP tournament last year in Parma (on clay) and beat young upstart Carlos Alcaraz in Monte Carlo this season.
Reilly Opelka won his first ever clay court title in Houston earlier this year over John Isner to follow up on Opelka’s run to Masters 1000 SF in Rome last year
Taylor Fritz success in Monte Carlo - can Fritz continue his breakthrough year with a
Bottom Line for French Open and Paris 2024:
French Open: If American Men make the QFS at Roland Garros it will end the biggest grand slam drought left for American men at a Grand Slam since it has been 18 years since an American man made the French Open QFS (Andre Agassi: 2004). Multiple US men have made the QFs at all the other three Grand Slams in the last five years.
A Way too Early look ahead to Paris: It will be interesting to see how many American men skip the Olympics in 2024 since red clay of Europe is not the best surface for a lot of the top American tennis players.
As was the case in Tokyo the Olympics will be just over one month before the US Open right in the middle of summer hard court swing in North America and as of now the ATP Tour has not given any ranking points for Olympics since London 2012 . Remember for Tokyo: 6 of the top 9 American men did not participate in Olympics to focus on US hardcourt season and the US Open.
Depending on how well they do at the next few French Opens - could be a factor if Sebastian Korda (25% of Korda’s ATP wins have come on clay) or currently top ranked American Taylor Fritz decide to compete in the Olympics or skip the Olympics like they both did in Tokyo.
On the flip side, nearly half of the US Women in the field (7) have made the French Open QFS in the last 6 years. (most recently Coco Gauff in 2021). The last American woman to win a French Open in title was Serena Williams in 2015 but in the last 6 years- American women have made the French Open finals 3 times and finished as runner-up (Williams 2016, Sloane Stephens 2018 and Sofia Kenin 2020).
Given previous results at French Open and other major European clay tournaments - I would not be surprised if 8 different US women have a shot to make the QFS at 2022 French Open. .
The top Americans to watch: should be Danielle Collins (Australian Open Runner-Up) and Coco Gauff who both won titles in Europe (on clay) in 2021. Madison Keys and Amanda Anisimova who both played well in 2022 could easily make a return to the Roland Garros semifinals depending on draw. Speaking of a tough draw, this week at the Madrid WTA 1000 tournament this week: first round opponents for Keys and Anisimova are top 5 seeds. (Keys vs #4 Sakkari, Anismova vs #3 Sabalenka). Sloane Stephens has the most wins at Roland Garros of any US women in the field and made the Round of 16 last year by upsetting two seeded players.
A Way too Early look ahead to Paris: Given the great depth by the American women- the US women could have a medal contender in Paris and few of the top Americans could be an Olympic story of comeback and perseverance.
Coco Gauff and Sloane Stephens could be comeback stories as Olympic hard luck (COVID and injuries) have had Stephens’ first round loss at Rio be the only Olympic match for both of them. Plus Danielle Collins and Amanda Anisimova are both great on clay and have both overcome difficult off-court setbacks (Collins: endometriosis surgery, Anismova: sudden death of her father) in the past few years to play some top tennis in 2022.
JUST IN: TEAM USA OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC ATHLETES FROM BEIJING AND TOKYO SCHEDULE TO VISIT WHITE HOUSE ON MAY 4 per Christine Brennan