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MALAGA, Spain (AP) — Two-time Grand Slam finalist Jasmine Paolini capped a breakthrough season by leading Italy to its first Billie Jean King Cup title since 2013 on Wednesday, defeating Rebecca Sramkova 6-2, 6-1 to seal a 2-0 victory over Slovakia in the final of the women’s team competition.
When Paolini's win ended, she was joined on court by her teammates, and they embraced each other, then danced and sang along as the Gypsy Kings' version of “Volare” blared on the loudspeakers.
The No. 4-ranked Paolini was the runner-up at the French Open in June and at Wimbledon in July, making her the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to get to the title matches at Roland Garros and the All England Club in the same season. Before this year, Paolini, who is 28, had lost in the first or second round in all 16 career appearances at majors.
“Unbelievable year. Unbelievable. A crazy year. To finish like this, with a title … it’s amazing. I don’t have words to describe it. I’m trying just to enjoy every moment,” Paolini said. “I feel lucky to be in the position. I feel lucky to be part of this team.”
She also teamed with Sara Errani to win a doubles gold medal at the Paris Olympics in August. They were lined up to play in the concluding match against Slovakia, but it wasn't needed because Italy clinched the best-of-three series by sweeping the two singles matches.
“Jasmine raised her level really high this year. ... She’s an example for all of us,” said her teammate, 78th-ranked Lucia Bronzetti, who took Wednesday’s opener by a 6-2, 6-4 score against Viktoria Hruncakova before a crowd that included International Tennis Hall of Famer and equal rights pioneer Billie Jean King herself.
Bronzetti called it an “honor” to compete in front of the woman for whom the event is named, saying, “She is a great person, a great legend.”
Italy, which eliminated Iga Swiatek and Poland in the semifinals, earned its fifth championship a year after finishing as the runner-up to Canada.
“I’m so proud of them. They fight every day,” Italian captain Tathiana Garbin said. “This journey was incredible.”
The triumph adds to what’s been quite a recent run for Italy in tennis, including two Grand Slam trophies in 2024 and the No. 1 men’s ranking for Jannik Sinner, who helped his country claim last year’s Davis Cup. Sinner and Italy meet Argentina in the men’s quarterfinals Thursday.
This is the first time the two premier International Tennis Federation team events are being held at the same site, although the women’s matches are being played in a much smaller venue. They are using a temporary court set up under a white tent, with a capacity of 4,000; the men are playing in a permanent arena with 9,200 seats that were full Tuesday for Rafael Nadal’s last match before retirement in Spain’s loss to the Netherlands.
Bronzetti never had played a BJK Cup singles match until this week. She said she didn’t find out until Tuesday night that she would be in the lineup against Slovakia.
“I didn’t sleep very well,” Bronzetti said.
“You’re not playing just for yourself,” she said. “You’re playing for your team and your country.”
Serenaded by chants of her first name — “Loo-Chee-Ah! Loo-Chee-Ah!” — that mingled with the sounds of a drum and red plastic horn played in the cheering section behind Slovakia’s bench, Bronzetti claimed the last three games of the first set and the last four of the match.
She trailed 4-2, 40-15 in the second set but turned it around.
“I was a little worried I was going to a third,” Bronzetti said.
Slovakia, which won the BJK Cup in 2002, eliminated the United States, Australia and Britain to get to the final this time.
Cameron Dunkerley was just trying to offset the rising cost of gas for his new truck. He didn’t intend to start a successful business – it just happened.In addition to his goaltending duties for the Ottawa Black Bears, Dunkerley is the owner of Dunk Disposal, a waste management and junk removal company located in Orangeville.When I spoke with Dunkerley last week, he revealed that the company is in the middle of moving to an expanded office. Since the business has been so successful lately, they need more room for storage.“During Covid, junk removal really took off as an industry,” Dunkerley explained. “There were lots of people making content online about it and saying ‘It’s such an easy business model, pretty low overhead to get started.’ So competition has kind of increased a little bit.”But Dunk Disposal has been thriving even with increased competition. Dunkerley manages 12 employees, a fleet of three trucks, and will drive all over Ontario for jobs.He said it’s because of the company’s commitment to their clients as well as their commitment to their employees.
“Our staff are the best out there. They’re super passionate about what they do. They get treated well, and we have a great culture. I take care of my employees and my employees take care of my customers. They know, every single time, we’re going to have a smiling crew there at the house getting the job done properly.“And then, reliability and affordability as well. So we can beat the newer guys by being super reliable. If we say we’re going to be there, we’re going to be there. We can beat the bigger franchises because we don’t have all the extra franchise fees so we’re able to stay a little bit more affordable than them.”Dunkerley began the company as a one-off delivery service in his senior year of high school.
“I had a pickup truck and it cost me a lot of money in gas between driving to lacrosse practice and driving to school,” he said. “So I started posting here and there on Kijiji and Facebook, just for little pickups and just to make enough money to pay for gas. I didn’t really plan on actually starting a business necessarily. But then, I found [there was] a need [for it] and then I started actually doing it. Gradually we got a trailer, got a couple more trucks. I started needing help, so I hired some employees. My brother and my dad were a huge help at the beginning, along with some other lacrosse players that I played with.”Dunk Disposal still counts former teammates of Dunkerley’s among its staff, including former and current NLLers.Dunkerley had no formal training, he just learned by doing, he said.“I just started doing it, started taking jobs, started advertising, started dealing with customers and doing sales, and just did it. And as I went, I just learned, made a lot of mistakes, and just kept going from there.”
One of those learning processes was in choosing a name. It seems like a given that the name could have been Dunk’s Junk, just for how easily the rhyme rolls off the tongue. But although that name didn’t make the cut, it is part of their slogan: “Have junk? Call Dunk!” “The original name was actually Dunk Delivery because when I first started, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Dunkerley admitted. “I thought we were going to be doing deliveries and moving and that kind of thing. And then, I found that the need wasn’t as much for that and it was more for people that needed stuff taken away. So the name was actually Dunk Delivery for a little while, but we quickly we changed into Dunk Delivery and Disposal… and then we scrapped the Delivery and just went with Dunk Disposal.” And Dunkerley said he’s disposed of almost everything you could name.
“Everything from a single couch to a 25-truckload house cleanout. We’ve had a lot of crazy jobs!” he laughed. “One that we recently did was a 24-foot boat that had been dumped in a commercial building parking lot. So there was a boat that had been tipped and just dumped in a parking lot, and we had to get that out of there. We do a lot of hoarder cleanouts, so a lot of houses that are 20, 25 truckloads to empty. And then bigger, cool, deconstruction projects: we’ve taken down some barns and big truck trailers.” Dunkerley said that of the more interesting things he’s hauled away, old war antiques top the list. Jewellery, sporting goods and coin collections are common. The most useful thing was a trailer that they were able to put back on the road and utilize in future jobs. If things can be donated or refurbished instead of being taken to the dump, Dunkerley said that’s preferred.
“We always do our best to sort, recycle, and donate everything,” he emphasized. “Anything that we can sort and donate, we do that. Anything that can be refurbished or put into somebody else’s hands, absolutely. And then, the same with recycling. We do a lot of recycling, have a lot of new programs that we are beginning. We’re moving to a shop that has a lot more area in it, which will allow us to sort and store a lot more stuff. So that’s one of the biggest reasons, so we can increase and improve our recycling game.” People want to know that their items are being taken care of, especially in estate cleanouts, when emotions are high after a loved one has passed. Dunkerley takes the responsibility of handling those items with care and respect. It’s not just junk removal – the service has a humanitarian element to it, and his employees like that aspect of the job.
“It’s a huge stress relief for a lot of people. So just kind of seeing that satisfaction, that definitely motivates the guys. They’re very compassionate people,” he said. “[When a family member passes], there are things that you have to deal with that you’ve never thought about that just got thrown on your plate. Cleaning out a house or getting rid of a storage unit that you didn’t even know your mom had before she passed, that’s not something you want to be dealing with. So they can just say, ‘Hey, we need this gone. Please take care of it.’ And that’s all they need to do, and then we take care of the rest.
“We always take the approach of understanding that when we’re removing stuff, it may just be junk and garbage to us, but people might have attachments to it. It could have been, for example, a piano that their great-grandfather came across from Germany, and it’s been in the family for three, four generations, but now they just need to get rid of it. To us, it’s just a piano. We do one of those every single day. But we make sure that every job we’re going into, we’re understanding that there could be a history behind it, so we need to take extra care.”
Dunkerley is only 23 years old and already shoulders a lot of responsibility, between running his company and holding down the starting goaltender position in Ottawa – not to mention that he’s splitting his time this summer between the business and playing goal for the WLA’s Victoria Shamrocks out on Vancouver Island – clear across the country! It would be a lot for anyone, but he can draw on his lacrosse experience to keep him grounded.
“You know what? If I sit here and think about it being overwhelming, it definitely can become overwhelming. But I try to do my best to manage my time as well as possible. I devote time where it needs to be devoted, whether it’s training staff, doing jobs, training for lacrosse, whatever it’s going to be,” he mused. “I definitely have a super packed schedule, but I make sure that I’m not wasting time, and every minute that I have, it’s going towards something that’s going to either better myself or the company.
“And I don’t worry about the overwhelming stuff. I think that has a huge tie-over to what I’ve learned from playing lacrosse. Obviously, as a goalie there’s a lot of stress on the shoulders. So rather than getting worked up when a goal goes in, you just kind of focus on the next one. So that’s kind of the same thing in business. I just think about what’s next and not all the stress and weight that’s on my shoulders.” The Shamrocks are currently leading the WLA with a 5-0 record. Dunkerley, who also played for the Jr. A Shamrocks, is sharing the net with Christopher Origlieri. Other NLLers on the team include Jesse and Marshal King, Patrick Dodds, Mathieu Gautier, Chris Wardle, Max Wilson, Clarke Petterson and Brad McCulley.
Dunkerley is enjoying his summer, but also looking forward to getting started in Ottawa when the 2024-25 NLL season rolls around. “I think there’s no better group of people to be going out [to Ottawa], because we have some big names on our team and because so many of them are from Ontario,” he said. “Almost our entire team is actually from Ontario, so I think we’re going to get a ton of local support. And especially the way that the game’s been growing in Ottawa, I think that they deserve the team, and the fan base is definitely going to get what they’re looking for.”
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Vancouver Whitecaps are officially into the Major League Soccer playoffs after posting an emphatic 5-0 victory over the Portland Timbers in a wild-card matchup Wednesday.
Vancouver's captain Ryan Gauld scored a hat trick and registered an assist, while Brian White and Stuart Armstrong each chipped in a single goal.
Yohei Takaoka made four saves for the clean sheet.
Portland's head coach Phil Neville opted to start 'keeper James Pantemis over usual starter Maxime Crepeau. Pantemis stopped three on-target shots.
The 'Caps came into the game sitting in eighth spot in the Western Conference after going winless in their last seven MLS matches and with losses in four straight. The Timbers finished the regular season in ninth.
Vancouver will now face top-seeded Los Angeles FC in a best-of-three first-round series starting Sunday.
The game was played at the Timbers' home stadium despite the Whitecaps being the higher seed. Vancouver ceded home field advantage due to a scheduling conflict at B.C. Place.
A hostile crowd didn't stop the 'Caps from pressuring the Timbers early on Wednesday.
Gauld opened the scoring in the 20th minute, moments after Armstrong swung a ball into the penalty area off a corner.
Vancouver striker Fafa Picault got a shot off and Pantemis punched it away, but Portland failed to clear. The ball bobbled around until it reached Gauld's foot and the attacking midfielder fired off a right-footed shot, pinging it in off Timbers defender Claudio Bravo on the goal line.
Four minutes later, Whitecaps defender Mattias Laborda chipped a pass across the top of the six-yard box to White. The American striker deftly picked it up and drove it in past Pantemis to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.
The 'Caps took a three-goal lead into the locker room after Armstrong dished off to Gauld at the right side of the box and the Scotsman unleashed an arching shot that sailing in over the Portland 'keeper in the 31st minute.
The home side had a pair of chances late in the opening half.
Evander blasted a shot on net in the 40th minute, only to see Takaoka get a hand on it to send the ball over the crossbar.
The Brazilian midfielder crafted a prime opportunity four minutes later off a free kick, sending a ball to David Ayala in the penalty area. Ayala went in for a header but the ball was sent over the net.
Each side registered six shots over the first half, but while all six of the Whitecaps' were on target, the Timbers only tested Takaoka twice.
Vancouver continued its offensive onslaught early in the second half.
The 51st minute saw Picault float a ball into the penalty area for Armstrong, who dived for a header, putting the ball just inside the post to give the 'Caps a 4-0 lead.
The Scottish midfielder blew a kiss to the crowd as he ran to celebrate with his teammates.
The Whitecaps' other Scot struck again in the 59th minute.
Armstrong tapped a pass to Gauld, who took a couple of steps and blasted yet another shot into the Portland net to complete his hat trick. He then held a finger to his lips to quiet the crowd.
The Timbers' frustrations appeared to boil over in the 85th minute when Kamal Miller picked up the ball after a whistle, resulting in some pushing and shoving with Vancouver's Ryan Raposo.
The brief melee resulted in a free kick for the 'Caps. Sebastian Berhalter swung a ball to Damir Kreilach near the six-yard box and the veteran midfielder put a header over the net.
Vancouver is the last remaining Canadian MLS club in this year's playoff race after CF Montreal dropped its wild-card game to Atlanta United on penalties Tuesday.
ntenmann comes into this weekend in the lower half of priced goalies in He will be playing the Utah Archers, who are coming off a loss to the Carolina Chaos in Baltimore. Utah ranks fourth in the league in total scores and has a shooting percentage hovering just below 30%.
As usual, I always state that there is no need to spend the salary coins on the most expensive goalie, and I will continue to stick with my claim, especially with Entenmann.
The rookie goalie has had just one game in which he started that he put up fewer than 15 fantasy points. In Entenmann’s other two starts, he averaged 49 fantasy points.
The veteran midfielder made quite the statement during Maryland’s Homecoming weekend when he averaged 23.5 fantasy points over the course of the team’s doubleheader.
With Tucker Dordevic placed on the injured reserve list, Maryland is going to need another initiator from the box, and Heacock proved he is more than capable of filling that role.
Though the Whipsnakes Philadelphia Waterdogs midfielder Ryan Conrad on Tuesday, I would expect the familiar faces of Maryland’s midfield to be the points of emphasis in head coach Jim Stagnitta’s offense.
For just eight coins, Heacock can fill your team’s second midfield slot if you have spent more coins in other areas of your lineup.
Bundy’s performance in Baltimore was outright electric. The rookie midfielder finished with 41 points against the California Redwoods and was lights-out from the two-point arc.
I believe Bundy’s success will carry on through Denver’s Homecoming weekend. Bundy is trailblazing a playstyle from the midfield that can change the blueprint lacrosse schematics have been built upon.
Similar to professional basketball’s idea of the three-point shot helping teams win games, that concept will slowly start to trickle into professional lacrosse, as well.
I think Bundy can be poised for another stellar week if he continues to produce from beyond the arc
With Philadelphia being officially knocked out of playoff contention, having a player like Currier being the third-highest-priced midfielder this week seems like a risky move for your lineup.
Even with Conrad and Currier set to gain more touches, that doesn’t necessarily mean his fantasy production can still increase.
Regardless of how talented some players on the Philadelphia roster are, I just think it’s too late in the season for them to see significant upticks in their fantasy totals.
What made me put O’Neill in my sit column for his second of two games this weekend was that his salary cap worth is the same price as his first game.
On top of that, he will be facing the top defense in the league in the Carolina Chaos, whose 11.1 scores against average is the best in the PLL.
I find it hard to believe O’Neill will still have the same value playing against the best defense in the league after playing a game 24 hours prior.
If you really want to pick O’Neill, it's a safer bet to take him in his first game against the Maryland Whipsnakes on Friday.
Dobson’s salary cap value is currently too high for the amount he has been producing. Over Dobson’s past two games, he failed to produce an ROI over 1.0 points per coin despite being the most expensive goalie in fantasy.
I expect the same output for Dobson this weekend as he still has a salary cap hit in the 40s. Utah will be going against the league’s best offense in the New York Atlas, who lead all teams in total scores.
Like I stated earlier in my Entenmann section, there’s no need to spend the highest amount of coins on your goalie. Not only will you get an ROI higher than 1.0, but you will generally get the most fantasy points out of a lower-priced goaltender.