The BulleTin • Sunday, June 13, 2021 B3
NHL PLAYOFFS
Barbora Krejcikova wins women’s French Open title
Semifinals feature 4 teams that have
not faced each other all season
BY STEPHEN WHYNO
AP Hockey Writer
If the teams left in the NHL play-
offs are sick and tired of facing the
same opponents over and over, they
are in luck in the semifinals.
After exclusively divisional play
this season and through the first
two rounds, the hockey playoffs are
down to a final four of teams that ha-
ven’t played each other all year. The
New York Islanders face the Tampa
Bay Lightning in one semifinal that’s
a rematch of the 2020 Eastern Con-
ference final, while the Vegas Golden
Knights play the Montreal Cana-
diens in a playoff series for the first
time.
After so much familiarity from
seeing the same teams over and over,
the final two rounds with the Stanley
Cup on the line bring every element
of the unknown.
“It’s such a different series in terms
of the preparation,” Vegas general
manager Kelly McCrimmon said.
“Now with the Islanders and Tampa
Bay, our own series with Montreal,
it’s brand new. Starting from scratch.”
The league that has emphasized
rivalries for decades limited play
within four remade divisions for
one season only because of the pan-
demic. It allowed all 31 teams to
complete a condensed, 56-game
schedule with 16 making the play-
offs.
New York emerged from the East,
Tampa Bay the Central, Vegas the
West and Montreal the North. Play-
ers and coaches from these teams ha-
ven’t thought much about each other
all season, let alone scout or prepare
for them.
“Different season for every-
one,” Canadiens coach Dominique
Ducharme said. “Different style of
play or different teams that you play
often, but that’s part of the challenge
for everyone right now.”
If Montreal-Vegas, which begins
Monday night, goes the distance, the
teams will face off more times during
one playoff series than they have all-
time in the regular season, because
the Golden Knights began playing
in 2017.
The Lightning and Islanders
grinded out a six-game series nine
months ago in the postseason bubble
— Associated Press
Gerry Broome/AP
Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov (86) passes during Game 5 of a
second-round playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh, North Car-
olina, on Tuesday. Kucherov, the 2019 MVP who missed this year’s regular season
while recovering from hip surgery, is leading all scorers with 18 points so far in the
playoffs as the Lightning attempt to defend their Stanley Cup title.
“Maybe you wish you had played
them a little more recently, but
at the end of the day, this is the
situation we’ve been dealt. We
knew if we got to this point we
were going to have to face a team
that we hadn’t played in the
regular season.”
— Ryan McDonagh, Tampa Bay
Lightning defenseman
in Edmonton, Alberta, so there will
be some familiarity when the puck
drops Sunday afternoon in Tampa.
“It helps a little bit,” Islanders
coach Barry Trotz said. “Most of our
players played in that series, so they
understand when we’re talking about
certain trends or the way they play.”
Tampa Bay won that series last
fall before beating Dallas and hoist-
ing the Stanley Cup. With the Light-
ning, Islanders and Golden Knights
in the semifinals again, the NHL has
three of the same teams in the final
four for the first time since 1991 and
1992.
Vegas center Mattias Janmark
John Locher/AP
Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, right, scores a goal against
Colorado Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer (31) during Game 6 of a sec-
ond-round playoff series on Thursday in Las Vegas.
Boswell
Continued from B1
“I went into it with the desire to do
well, but more to have just a good run
at it, rather than going there to try to
win the thing,” Boswell said. “Obvi-
ously winning it is awesome, but it
wasn’t really an expectation that I had
of myself.”
Boswell said he did not think he was
going to win until he actually crossed
the finish line.
“Just because there’s just so many
unknown factors in gravel racing, with
mechanicals, and (body) fueling, and
flat tires and all that,” he said. “There’s
a lot of unknowns, and it’s all kind
of new to me with a different format
of bike racing. But I was fortunate to
have a clean run at it, no mechanicals,
and was able to eat and drink enough.
I really just had a perfect day out there
mechanically and physically. Every-
thing had to just align to put myself
in the position to sprint for the win
against ten Dam.”
After an 11-year road career, Boswell
announced in late 2019 that he was re-
tiring from the WorldTour to pursue
gravel racing and to be a full-time rider
liaison for Atlanta-based technology
brand Wahoo Fitness, which makes in-
door trainers and bike computers and
sponsors five WorldTour teams.
Boswell was born in Bend with a
marathon-running mother and a tri-
athlete father who encouraged his
love of cycling. A graduate of Bend’s
Summit High School, Boswell, at
21, moved to Nice, France, to join
PARIS — Thinking of her late coach the whole time, Barbora Krejcikova went from
unseeded player to Grand Slam champion at a French Open full of surprises.
Krejcikova beat 31st-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 in the final at Ro-
land Garros on Saturday to win the title in just her fifth major tournament as a singles
player.
“It’s big achievement that nobody really expected,” said Krejickova, a 25-year-old
from the Czech Republic. who never won a WTA title of any sort until last month. “Not
even me.”
When it ended with Pavlyuchenkova’s backhand landing long on Krejcikova’s fourth
match point, they met at the net for a hug. Then Krejcikova blew kisses, her eyes
squeezed shut, in tribute to her former coach, Jana Novotna, the 1998 Wimbledon
champion who died of cancer at age 49 in 2017.
“Pretty much her last words were just enjoy and just try to win a Grand Slam. And, I
mean, I know that, from somewhere, she’s looking after me,” Krejcikova told the crowd
at Court Philippe Chatrier, limited to 5,000 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“All of this that just happened, these two weeks, is pretty much because she is just
looking after me from up there,” Krejcikova said, lifting her left hand toward the sky. “It
was amazing that I had a chance to meet her and that she was such an inspiration for
me. I just really miss her. But I hope she’s happy right now. I’m extremely happy.”
Krejcikova is the third unseeded women’s champion since 2017 at Roland Garros.
There were zero from 1968 through 2016.
She now will try to become the first woman since Mary Pierce in 2000 to win the
French Open singles and doubles titles in the same year. Krejcikova and partner Katerina
Siniakova already own two Grand Slam doubles titles and reached Sunday’s final of that
event.
and Montreal winger Corey Perry
are back in the third round after go-
ing on a run to the final with Dallas.
Perry said watching games in other
divisions helps get past the uncer-
tainty.
“I think you look at our two teams
and there’s four lines on both sides,
six D, and two great world-class
goalies are going to go battle head-
to-head,” Perry said. “It’s going to be
fun.”
The Lightning are having fun with
2019 MVP Nikita Kucherov back
after missing the regular season re-
covering from hip surgery. Kucherov
leads all scorers with 18 points
through two rounds of the playoffs.
“He’s a tremendous hockey player,”
Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello said.
The Islanders remember how
tremendous Kucherov can be, and
Tampa Bay now has captain Steven
Stamkos playing too. But each team
also knows there are some differ-
ences masked by not being on the ice
together since September.
“Maybe you wish you had played
them a little more recently, but at the
end of the day, this is the situation
we’ve been dealt,” Lightning defen-
seman Ryan McDonagh said. “We
knew if we got to this point we were
going to have to face a team that we
hadn’t played in the regular season.”
Vegas goes into the semis as the
favorite. The Golden Knights are the
No. 1 seed by virtue of finishing with
the most points and are battle-tested
after needing seven games to knock
off Minnesota and gutting through
a tough second-round series against
Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colo-
rado.
Now to see if the franchise in its
fourth year of existence can hold off
a challenge from an organization
with 24 Stanley Cup titles to get to
the final.
“I’ve always believed that to win
in the playoffs as you go along, you
have to keep getting better,” Mc-
Crimmon said. “It’s hard to win.
Nothing has been easy for us in ei-
ther series that we’ve played. It’s only
going to get tougher as we move on
here to the semifinals.”
Thibault Camus/AP
Stefanos Tsitsipas plays a return to Pablo Carreno Busta during their fourth-round
match of the French Open in Paris on June 6.
French Open
Continued from B1
There’s also this milestone within
reach for Djokovic, something Fed-
erer and Nadal haven’t done: He can
join Rod Laver and Roy Emerson as
the only men in tennis history to win
each of the four major tournaments at
least twice.
There were two first-time Grand
Slam finalists in the women’s title
match Saturday afternoon in Paris,
and unseeded Barbora Krejcikova
beat No. 31 Anastasia Pavlychenkova
6-1, 2-6, 6-4 for the trophy.
Speaking at around midnight as
Friday turned to Saturday after his
3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 triumph dropped
Nadal’s record at Roland Garros to
105-3 — two of those defeats were
against Djokovic — the No. 1 seed
in the men’s draw said he would take
some time to catch his breath before
thinking about what to do against
Tsitsipas.
“I’m not the freshest guy right
now, obviously. But (the) good thing
is that I have a day and a half to reju-
venate and try to regroup,” Djokovic
said.
“Right now, it’s all about resting and
hopefully being able to be fit to com-
pete in the best-of-five with a guy who
is in a great shape.”
Djokovic has won five of their pre-
vious seven encounters, although Tsit-
sipas did push him to five sets before
losing in the semifinals of the 2020
French Open.
“I went into (the Unbound Gravel
200 race) with the desire to do
well, but more to have just a good
run at it, rather than going
there to try to win the thing.
Obviously winning it is awesome,
but it wasn’t really an
expectation that I had of myself.”
— Ian Boswell
world-renowned Team Sky.
He raced seven years on the World-
Tour, including five with Team Sky.
In 2017 he finished fifth overall in the
Tour of California. He competed four
times in Grand Tour events, racing the
Vuelta a Espana in 2015 and 2016 and
the Giro d’Italia in 2016. In his first and
only Tour de France, in 2018, he placed
79th overall in a field of 145 finishers.
Boswell suffered a concussion —
the sixth of his career — in a violent
crash at the Tirreno-Adriatico in Italy
in March 2019 while racing with Team
Katusha-Alpecin, and he underwent a
long recovery process, sitting out the
rest of the season while dealing with vi-
sion problems and constant headaches.
Part of the reason Boswell has
turned to gravel racing is because he
believes it to be safer than road racing.
He did not want to face the prospect
of another crash, another concussion.
Sure, gravel racing is dangerous as
well, but in his new career his income
does not hinge on his results.
Andy Chastain/Wahoo Fitness
Former Bend resident Ian Boswell races in the Unbound Gravel 200 in Kansas on June 5.
Gravel riding and racing are surg-
ing in popularity in the United States.
Unbound, the most high-profile race
and formerly called the Dirty Kanza,
is staged every spring near Emporia,
Kansas, and was started in 2006 with
34 racers. This year, it hosted nearly
3,000 riders, including top cyclists
from throughout the country.
Courses in gravel races vary from
hard-packed dirt to softball-sized
rocks, and distances usually range
from 50 to 150 miles but can be even
longer.
Boswell said he has lots of dirt and
gravel roads to ride near his house in
Peacham, where he lives with his wife,
Kaija.
He has a much different approach
to gravel racing, because racing is not
his career anymore.
“I’m working a full-time job with
Wahoo, so my time to ride and train,
and my approach to these types of
events is very different than what I did
when I was racing on the WorldTour
and had the opportunity to train all
day and focus exclusively on my per-
formance and my body,” Boswell said.
“There’s a lot more happening in my
life now. So I still make time to ride,
just not as much as I used to.
“I do have a level of base, residual
fitness from my time on the World-
“I know it’s going to be another
tough one,” Djokovic said. “I’m hop-
ing I can recharge my batteries as
much as I can because I’m going to
need some power and energy for that
one.”
He’s the fourth-oldest finalist at Ro-
land Garros in the Open era, which
dates to 1968; the 22-year-old Tsitsi-
pas is the youngest since Nadal won
the title in 2008.
The age gap between Djokovic
and Tsitsipas is the largest for a
French Open men’s final since Mats
Wilander, 17, defeated Guillermo
Vilas, 29, in 1982.
“I’m looking forward (to) leaving
my entire body on the court,” Tsitsi-
pas said.
There has been steady progress to-
ward this moment by Tsitsipas, who
leads the men’s tour in total match
wins (39) and clay-court victories (22)
this season.
His 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 victory
over Alexander Zverev at Court
Philippe Chatrier on Friday repre-
sented the Greek’s first win in four ca-
reer major semifinals, including three
appearances in a row in that round.
The result also left Tsitsipas chok-
ing back tears during the on-court in-
terview.
“I’m obviously just blessed to have
the opportunity to play against the
best and test myself, something that
I’ve always dreamed and wished to
happen one day,” Tsitsipas said. “I’m
able to be here and really going for it.
I love that.”
Tour, which is incredibly helpful. I also
don’t have the pressure and expecta-
tions of having to win because it’s my
job and career.”
As an athlete liaison for Wahoo,
Boswell hosts a popular bi-monthly
podcast called Breakfast with Boz and
he often gets pulled into other proj-
ects, such as videos for new product
launches.
“I use my prior experience as a pro-
fessional athlete to make things easier
and relatable to athletes,” Boswell said.
Boswell said he plans to race about
five or six gravel events per year. His
next race will be the Migration Gravel
Race, a four-day stage race in Kenya,
June 23-26. The race conflicts with the
Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder, set for
June 23-27 on dirt and gravel roads
throughout Central Oregon, so Bo-
swell will not be returning to Bend to
race on his old home roads. But he
said he could not pass up a chance to
race in Africa.
“The level and depth of the field in
gravel races is rising,” Boswell said.
“There’s so many people out there.
There’s people who are racing to win,
and there’s other people out there rid-
ing for the experience, having as many
tough moments and struggles as the
people at the front. Their stories are
just as compelling, which is the cool
thing about these events. You’re on the
start line with so many people of so
many different abilities but everyone
is riding the same course at the same
time.”
e
Reporter: 541-383-0318,
mmorical@bendbulletin.com