Thanks Allen

TigerBlog has been watching a great deal of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. 

His favorite player now is Ben Shelton, who plays with an unmistakable joy that makes him impossible to root against, at least for TB. His post-match on-court interviews have been pure gold, like the one the other day about how he needs someone at Goldman Sachs to give his sister Emma an additional week off so she could stay and watch him.

Emma was still there yesterday as her brother rolled into the quarterfinals. His opponent will be the top seed, Jannik Sinner, who advanced despite being down two sets to none and tied 2-2 in the third when his opponent, Grigor Sinner, couldn't continue due to a pectoral injury. Sinner showed great sportsmanship in the moment and in his on-court interview, and it was clearly not the way the No. 1 seed wanted to move on. 

Also, it was over the weekend that Chris Evert said that the women's No. 1 seed, Aryna Sabalenka, plays better when she's "pissed off."

TigerBlog took that as a validation of something he said on the radio during a Princeton men's basketball game many years ago, like 35 or so years ago. He's told you this before, but here goes again: 

Back in the early 1990s, TB was often part of a three-man radio crew with David Brody and Rich Simkus. One night, as halftime came, TigerBlog said that Pete Carril looked "pissed off" as he left the court.

Brody and Simkus then looked at him without speaking, at which TB said "what, you can't say 'pissed off' on the radio?"

At that point, Brody said: "I guess you can, because you just did. Twice." 

If it's good enough for Chris Evert, it's good enough for TigerBlog, no? 

Meanwhile, Wimbledon sits about an hour down the M25 from Henley-on-Thames, which is where the recently concluded regatta for 2025 took place. If you recall, TB yesterday wrote about the representatives of the Princeton heavyweight men's program who had competed there this past week so successfully. 

And thanks to a heads up from loyal reader Allen Scheuch, Class of 1976, TB has learned there is more to be told from Henley. 

Claire Collins, the 2019 von Kienbusch Award winner as the top Princeton female senior athlete, has had quite a post-Princeton career in rowing. She was especially impressive at this year's Henley.

First of all, she is a two-time U.S. Olympian, having finished seventh in the women's fours in Tokyo in 2021 and then fifth in the women's eights in Paris last summer. She also won a bronze medal at the 2022 World Rowing Championships in women's pairs. 

She has also been rowing at Cambridge University and was part of this year's winning crew in the famed Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford. 

This past week at Henley she rowed in not one but two separate events. 

First, she was with the Cambridge boat that lost to Oxford Brookes in the semifinals of the highly competitive Island Challenge Cup. As TB learned when he was at Henley a few years ago, "Oxford University" and "Oxford Brookes" are not the same institutions. 

Collins also teamed with Wisconsin alum Maddie Wanamaker, a fellow 2024 Olympian, to win the Hambleden Pairs Challenge Cup. The two Americans covered the 2,112 meters in 7:53, winning the final by more than four lengths. 

Rowing in one event at Henley is tough. Rowing in two? The physical drain has to be ridiculous. 

Each day brings another race. If you win, you advance. If you don't, you're done. Collins put in a lot of effort at this year's Henley.  

In addition to Collins, the Princeton women's lightweight boat also rowed in the Island Challenge Cup, getting a first-round bye, winning its second race against Bristol and then falling to Durham. 

There are no separate divisions for lightweights, so the Tigers were racing against the open weight boats of both of the English powerhouses.