☀️ Good morning and welcome back to The Nosebleeds.

😴 Aside from the U.S. Open tennis and the return of NFL football last night (which we’ll discuss in full in our weekly NFL edition every Tuesday), it has been a quiet week in sports.

😨 But don’t worry, we’ll still keep you entertained and informed on this beautiful Friday morning.

🎾 U.S. Open semifinals

Thursday: women’s semifinal

• [6] Coco Gauff defeated [10] Karolina Muchova (6-4, 7-5)

• [2] Aryna Sabalenka defeated [17] Madison Keys (0-6, 7-6[1], 7-6[5])

Friday: the men’s side

• [2] Novak Djokovic vs. [47] Ben Shelton

• [1] Carlos Alcaraz vs. [3] Daniil Medvedev

American Coco Gauff will face Aryna Sabalenka in the U.S. Open women’s final. Sabalenka had an insane comeback against Keys—she lost the first set 6-0 and was down 5-3 with Keys serving in the second set, but gutted out the victory by dominating the second and third set tiebreaks. Should be a great final with an electric crowd behind Gauff.

We are oh so close to another battle between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic in the final. But no matter who comes out of the semifinals, we will have a great matchup in the championship. Novak Djokovic going for his record 24th grand slam title, Carlos Alcaraz looking for his second straight grand slam victory following his win at Wimbledon, Daniil Medvedev trying to prove to everyone that Djokovic and Alcaraz aren’t too far ahead of the pack after all, and 2022 NCAA singles champion Ben Shelton is making his first major semifinal appearance.

So many storylines—we sure have a wonderful weekend of tennis ahead of us.

🤠 The Texas Rangers are falling apart

• 13-6

• 14-1

• 12-3

The Texas Rangers are imploding.

These were the scores between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers this weekend in the team’s biggest series of the year.

The Rangers are 5-15 in their last 20 games, and have quickly gone from leading the AL West and looking like a lock to make the playoffs, to being on the outside looking in, as they are now 0.5 games back of the Toronto Blue Jays for the final postseason birth in the AL.

If the Rangers don’t figure it out soon, they can kiss the playoffs goodbye.

🤔 Tennis Trivia

With wins on Friday, we could see Djokovic and Alcaraz facing off in their second consecutive grand slam final.

• Question: who were the last two men to play in consecutive major championship finals?

Answer at the bottom.

📰 NFL News

Joe Burrow and Nick Bosa got paid this week.

• On Wednesday, Nick Bosa became the NFL’s highest paid defensive player after signing a 5-year, $170M contract with the 49ers.

• A day later, Joe Burrow became the highest paid NFL player in history—re-signing with the Bengals on a 5-year, $275M deal.

We’ll discuss these massive contract extensions in more detail in our NFL edition next Tuesday.

🩸 Bloody Good Play of the Week

While this may just look like your average everyday home run, Ronald Acuna Jr. absolutely pumped this baseball.

The hardest-hit HR of the year from the likely NL MVP.

🍿 Weekly Watchlist

🎾 Final weekend of the U.S. Open. Tune in.

• Friday: men’s semifinals

• Saturday: women’s final

• Sunday: men’s final

⚾️ Biggest regular season series of the year in the MLB: Texas Rangers @ Toronto Blue Jays

• A four-game series with massive postseason implications begins on Monday night—rekindling one of the biggest rivalries of the mid-2010s

⚾️ Potential NLCS Preview: Atlanta Braves @ Philadelphia Phillies

• Another four-game series between two NL East rivals begins with a Monday night doubleheader.

👨‍🎓 If you love college football, you’ll love this matchup: [11] Texas Longhorns @ [3] Alabama Crimson Tide

• Two of the NCAA’s most prominent programs will duel it out on Saturday night.

🫡 Hope your weekend is filled with NFL football!

• Trivia answer: Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray in the 2016 Australian and French Open (both matchups were won by Djokovic)

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