Vorstellung » bar owners get that. One piece of news

NEW YORK -- After falling short at the Rio Olympics, Serena Williams?returns to the court at the US Open. The world No. 1 will be featured in Arthur Ashe Stadium in Tuesdays first night match (7 p.m. ET on ESPN). While Serena will headline Day 2, heres everything else you need to know:Watch every matchAt 11 a.m. ET, the first wave of matches will begin on ESPN3 for the entire day. Click to watch.?At 1 p.m. ET, ESPN2 and WatchESPN begin coverage. Click to watch.?To view starting times of upcoming days at the US Open, click here.?Live scoringOur real-time scoreboard, updated stats and social handles can be found on one spot, US Open CourtCast.?BracketsFind out whos moving on (and whos not) with our US Open mens and womens brackets. ?Tuesdays key matchesNo. 6 Venus Williams versus Kateryna Kozlova, third match in Arthur Ashe Stadium (Watch)Hard to imagine Venus, 36, would still be viable on tour 16 years after winning her first US Open -- never mind being the No. 6 seed. Its been a roller coaster of results for Venus, who reached the semifinals of Wimbledon last month but then fell in the opening round of Rio in singles and doubles with sister Serena. However, Venus teamed with Rajeev Ram and reached the mixed-doubles final. On Tuesday, Venus, who made the US Open quarterfinals last year, will meet Kozlova for the first time.Juan Martin del Potro versus Diego Schwartzman, third match in Louis Armstrong Stadium (Watch)Fresh off a magical Rio run, del Potro has to be the most dangerous unseeded player in the draw. The 6-foot-6 Argentine stunned Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the Olympics, only to lose a hair-raising four-set final against Andy Murray. Del Potro, who made it clear that his goal was nothing more than to be able to play pain-free in Rio, won the 2009 US Open. Since then, he has undergone four wrist surgeries and has missed more than two years worth of action. No question, del Potro will be a sentimental favorite here in New York.No. 1 Serena Williams versus Ekaterina Makarova, 7 p.m. ET in Arthur Ashe Stadium (Watch)All eyes will be on the world No. 1, who will be vying to break a tie with Steffi Graf as the Open era leader in Grand Slam titles. But there are concerns over Serenas level of play and health as she enters the final major of the season. She lost in the third round of the Olympics to Elina Svitolina and then pulled out of the Western & Southern Open with an ongoing shoulder injury. Serena is 4-1 lifetime against Makarova, including two wins against the Russian at the US Open.No. 2 Andy Murray versus Lukas Rosol, after Serena-Makarova (Watch)The red-hot Scot will be riding the momentum of his Wimbledon and Rio titles into New York. Murray won 24 straight matches, a streak that was stopped in the Cincinnati final by Marin Cilic. Still, Murray is rife with confidence, and many believe he, not defending champ Djokovic, will leave New York with the title. Murrays first opponent, however, wont be a pushover. It could also be contentious. Last season, Rosol bumped Murray on a changeover in Munich, to which Murray retorted: No one likes you on the tour. Everyone hates you. Murray is 2-0 in his career against Rosol.No. 14 Nick Kyrgios versus Aljaz Bedene, fourth match in old Grandstand (Watch)?Big things have been expected from Kyrgios, 21, since he stunned Nadal at Wimbledon two years ago. The Aussie is finally showing his game can be just as loud as his antics. Hes won two titles this season, including the Atlanta Open just a few weeks ago. But can he leverage his stellar play in New York? Last year, Kyrgios had the unfortunate luck of drawing Murray in the opening round. But this year, he takes the court ranked a career-high No. 16 (and seeded 14). The courts in New York suit his hard-hitting game well. 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Years ago, in my Baseball in American Narratives class at Northwestern, a student handed in a paper about Bernard Malamuds The Natural. His submission featured a spellcheck typo for the ages: My student wrote that the novel ended with Roy Hobbs at bat to clench the pennant for the New York Knights.Clench vs. clinch, one vowel and worlds apart. The Cubs are ahead 3-2 in the National League Championship Series, and as they close in on the World Series, can Section 416 feel confident in a clinching celebration, or are we clenching our jaws, and other body parts, in anxiety about yet another failure?Azz is utterly confident: Any Cubs fan who doesnt know were in the World Series is a liar. As a Cleveland native, perhaps Azz has absorbed some of the confidence Indians fans can flex as the Tribe await their National League opponent.Teach feels the opposite: I seriously cant handle this. How does [Cubs manager] Joe Maddon get anyone to buy into this pressure not exceeding the pleasure nonsense? Im in a constant state of clenching. I cant sleep, I cant take deep breaths, I cant eat. Well, OK, Im eating plenty. But my heart rate is up the whole time, and its unrelated to my sodium intake. Lets just say Im not looking forward to a Game 7. Ill go if it happens, but only because of my extreme fear of missing out. Even if they were to win, I would not enjoy any part of it until the very last out is recorded and reviewed in New York.Perhaps its both clinch and clench. Frank says, If you are asking how it will feel this weekend, the Dodgers have won some big games of their own against long odds, so I would expect some white-knuckle moments between now and Monday morning.If you are asking for a prediction, its clinch. The Cubs have scored 26 runs in five games. If they are going to average more than five runs per game, they are going to be very tough to beat.Franks statistical reasoning recalls, for me, the 1960 World Series between the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates. If total runs decided championships, the Yankees would have won 55-27. They blew out the Pirates three times: 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0. (For an image of how this felt to Bucs fans, see Wilfred Santiagos great graphic novel, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente.) But the Pirates won four close games: 6-4, 3-2, 5-2 and 10-9, this last on Bill Mazeroskis walk-off home run in the final contest. Sure, the Cubs just laid 10 and eight runs on the Dodgers, but they were shut out the previous two games. That sort of offensive disparity can cause some serious clenching.My own coping strategy: try to think of other things.For example, how much I hate replay. Any rhetoric from Major League Baseball about changing rules for defensive shifts or relief pitchers to speed up the pace is laughable when games are delayed by replay review after replay review after...Still ... I cant help but think about the next game. Can the Cubs beat Dodgers aceClayton Kershaw on Saturday in Game 6? Clinch: Kershaw has had his postseason meltdowns in the past. Clench: Word on the street is that these meltdowns were all against the allegedly sign-stealing Cardinals. Clench: Maybe his back injury earlier in the year has left him fresh for October. Clinch: At least were not facing him in a potential elimination game. He can keep the Dodgers alive, but he cannot kill the Cubs hopes.Maybe it will come down to Game 7, the one Cubs ticket I have ever had that I really hope I donnt get to use.ddddddddddddThink of other things. Nope ... cant.A modest proposal: If -- if -- the Cubs advance, Fox Sports and Major League Baseball should schedule a day game at Wrigley Field. The Cubs home park was long synonymous with baseball in the sunshine, and a 1:20 p.m. World Series first pitch would show some respect for that history. (Scary stat: the Cubs have never won a World Series night game! Also, they have never played one.) Somehow, I suspect that the ratings on Saturday afternoon would suffice for advertisers, and if TV executives are afraid of going up against college football, theyre cowards, fools or idiots. Will more people want to watch Idaho take on Appalachian State, or Rutgers at Minnesota? The historic nature of a World Series game at Wrigley will draw tens of millions of viewers, whenever its scheduled. Hell, make it Friday afternoon so corporate ticket holders have to skip work to sneak out to the ballyard, just like the good old days.Maybe I can try to think of other sports. How are the Bears doing this year? Never mind. Theyre 1-6, and the Cubs television audience was double theirs on Thursday night, an unheard of disparity in a town where everyone, whatever their baseball loyalties, roots for the Bears and against the Packers. Maybe the McCaskeys can sell their NFL franchise to the Ricketts clan.No use: I cant avoid thinking about the ramifications of a Cubs World Series. If -- if -- the Cubs do make it, what happens to the half of Chicago that roots for the White Sox? (Full disclosure: Though I am a born-and-bred North Sider, due to being lucky in love, I spend most weekends on the South Side, home turf to Sox fans, so I have studied their habits from a detached anthropological perspective for some time.) While it may gall them to hear it, Sox fans are divided into three parts: reasonable humans who love the Sox but are OK with the Cubs winning because they too are a Chicago team; those who love the Sox and dont care about the Cubs one way or the other; and the haters, who despise the Cubs even more than they like the Sox. There are bars on Western Avenue in Beverly, or Halsted in Bridgeport, where sporting a Cubs cap or jersey is not a fashion statement -- its an absolute affront.But just as there are North Side Sox fans, there are South Side Cubs fans, and smarter bar owners get that. One piece of news that helps me unclench comes from the owner of the Blue Island Beer Company, Bryan Shimkos. He tells me that his customers are roughly two-thirds Sox fans and one-third Cubs fans. Yet Shimkos and his crew are embracing the Cubs moment and a ballpark tradition started at Wrigley Field in 1941 -- organ music. If -- if -- the Cubs make it, Shimkos has hired an organist to play live during the first game of the World Series. Instead of listening to the network TV talking heads yammer on, BIBC customers can hear short ballpark classics and some contemporary songs during pitching changes and commercials.Not that the tension of clinch vs. clench is driving me to drink, but I do look forward to a six-pack of Blue Islands tasty Five Bridges ale this weekend.And heres hoping Azz is right, and Ill have a reason to head down their way Tuesday night when the World Series opens ... but until the Cubs clinch, I will remain in clench mode. ' ' '