Coco Gauff kicked off her 2024 U.S. Open with an easy victory over little-known Varvara Gracheva, but can the top-ranked American overcome a challenging summer to successfully defend her title? The third-seeded Gauff opened the tournament at +1000 by DraftKings to win the women's title. That's well behind top-ranked Iga Swiatek at +400 and No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka at +210. Sabalenka fell to Gauff in last year's final and is seeking to add a U.S. Open to her pair of Australian Open titles. The Belarusian star leads the draw with 19 percent of the total bets and 31 percent of the money backing her to claim the trophy at DraftKings. Swiatek is next with 16 and 24 percent of the action, respectively. The clay-court star did claim the U.S. Open title in 2022 and added a fourth F…

The MLB suspended Dodgers starter Trevor Bauer for two seasons over sexual assault allegations Friday. The allegedly terrible person is gone (for now), and baseball is better off without him, that’s for sure. The suspension comes after a legal case in which he was never charged criminally, but in it he was accused of punching and choking a woman into unconsciousness during two sexual encounters. He has repeatedly denied the claims, saying the rough sex was consensual. Bauer is appealing the suspension and, according to his tweet, he expects to win. “In the strongest possible terms, I deny committing any violation of the league’s domestic violence & sexual assault policy,” he posted to Twitter. “I am appealing this action and expect to prevail. As we have througho…

Today marks the first full day of baseball’s Winter Meetings, that wonderful annual gathering in which baseball executives text each other trade proposals in closer physical proximity to one another than is usually the case while baseball writers repeatedly get drunk at the same hotel bar. This special event comes with its own vocabulary. Here, then, is a guide to all the terms one might need to know: Kicking the tires on: This term uses the popular baseball slang “tires,” which is another term for “knees.” In this scenario, the interested team is kicking the player in question in the knees repeatedly to analyze his capacity for pain. Making strong push for: The team demonstrates its strength to an attractive free agent by inviting him to watch the general manager move a foot…

This is the most sportswritery thing I’ll ever write, but all season long the Golden State Warriors won as a team. Sure, Stephen Curry was the MVP of the league, but he was far from a one man band. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Bogut all won league-wide awards. After two stagnant season, Harrison Barnes improved leaps and bounds. Andre Iguodala agreed to come off the bench. David Lee didn’t complain once about getting his minutes snatched. Shaun Livingston played every position from point guard to power forward. Marreese Speights carried the offense for surprisingly long periods of time. I still don’t know what Leandro Barbosa is doing most of the time, but it worked. The coaching staff was part of this team, too. Rookie head coach relied upon Alvin Gentry to guide his …

This handsome gentleman is Darius Johnson, a high school running back in Kansas. This season, he ran for more than 1,000 yards and is beloved by his teammates. He has had a difficult life, though; he has sickle cell anemia, his mother died of cancer when he was 10 and, oh yeah … he's legally blind. No, seriously: According to his uncle, he can only see two feet in front of him when he's on the field. That makes him a terrible driver, but it does still exceed the nearsightedness of Ron Dayne, so that's something. He says contacts, glasses, Lasik, nothing works, nothing helps, and that his site is supposed to get worse. He's a senior, and even though he hasn't been recruited by any major universities, we are pretty sure he's gonna get a call from Ron Zook…

After a 13-year run at Auburn that was equal parts success and scandal, Tigers athletic director Jay Jacobs made use of the Friday news dump to announce that he will retire either next June or whenever Auburn hires his replacement. In a note titled, “A Word From Jay Jacobs,” the former Auburn offensive lineman wrote that “the last several months have been a particularly difficult time,” adding that he “prayerfully decided” that the time for him to step down has come. Jacobs’s full letter can be read here. An excerpt: The last several months have been a particularly difficult time. Across several sports, a series of controversies have arisen. They have begun to take their toll and have raised questions about why Auburn must endure such problems. As I have always done, I ha…