Christiaan Steenekamp
A moment of silence to all students who have not tuned into any sports channel this past recess.
Punches were thrown and a new era in men’s tennis has begun. In a movie-like atmosphere South Africa’s own, Dricus ‘Stillknocks’ du Plessis, won his fight against Robert Whittaker during Ultimate Fighting Championship 290. This victory was claimed via a technical knockout in the second round to set up a fight against the middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya. Before this fight, Cameron ‘MSP’ Saaiman also won making it 2-0 for South Africa.
Another battle occurred, but this time outside of the octagon. The experienced Novak Djokovic came face-to-face with the next generational talent, Carlos Alcaraz, in the recent Wimbledon final. It was a final for the ages going the full five sets with Alcaraz taking the final set by 6-4. This was Djokovic’s first Centre Court loss in over 10 years! In the women’s final we saw complete dominance from Marketa Vondrousova beating Ons Jabeur to become the first unseeded ladies champion at Wimbledon!
South Africa hosted the World Rugby u/20 Championship this year in which our junior Boks finished third after a slow start in the tournament. Something to still look out for is the Netball World Cup, which will also be hosted on South African soil from the 28 July. On the Formula 1 circuit we saw dominance from the Red Bull team with Verstappen still miles ahead on the leaderboard. Finally, our South African ladies football team will also compete in the women’s football World Cup, which will kick off on 20 July.
I hope you are up to date with what happened during the recess, and also keep your eyes out for the upcoming events.
