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on and, with luck, courtesy - the story

SYDNEY -- Royal Sydney was there for the taking on Thursday morning, yet star international attraction Jordan Spieth was more than content with his three-under round and place in the Australian Open field. Nike Air Max Invigor Hombre .Sunny skies and next to no wind made for a perfect scoring environment early on at Royal Sydney -- located just five minutes drive from the famed Bondi Beach -- with Australian amateur Curtis Luck taking advantage of the benign conditions to grab a share of the lead at five-under after the morning wave.Playing his first competitive round at Royal Sydney after winning at The Australian in 2014 and finishing runner-up to Matt Jones at The Lakes last year, Spieth struggled off the tee at times but also showed touches of the class that has taken him to two major triumphs and a stretch as world No. 1.After putting in the deep greenside bunker on the par-three 17th, Spieth dug himself out of trouble in sensational style by stiffing it to a foot to save par, a feat he repeated on 18, before he began the front nine with back-to-back birdies.A birdie on the par-five seventh following a superb second shot saw him momentarily grab a share of the lead, but the good work was undone a hole later when he duffed a flop shot having driven through the green, which resulted in a bogey.Still, the American was more than content with his efforts on day one and predicted conditions to toughen into Friday and across the weekend.I think if I can shoot three-under each day, given the course is going to play harder the next three, shoot three-under each day, then Ill be in good shape, Spieth said.I would certainly like to have gotten off and made a few more putts, but at the same time I was in trouble off the tee a few times and salvaged par. So I feel like Im in good shape to contend at this event, just would like to post the same score three more times.Spieths next assignment will be to negotiate a sticky afternoon tee time on Friday with the temperature in Sydney set to climb to 30 degrees Celsius.The hot conditions are unlikely to serve as a deterrent to the crowds, with Spieths gallery growing throughout the opening round -- culminating on the ninth green where there was next to no viewing spots when the American finished up.Kids were out on course early to watch Spieth in action, some making their way to lessons after just a few holes while others took the opportunity to watch the world No.5 cut his way through all 18.Those a little older would have enjoyed the performance of young Aussie amateur Luck who took the marquee pairing in his stride -- Geoff Ogilvy rounding out the trio -- the 20-year-old west Australian earning high praise from former Masters champion Spieth.Really, really impressive player, Curtis, real simple golf swing, Spieth said of Luck.Just kind of understands where hes at and how to play different shots, and then around the greens he was spectacular, which is something you certainly need to take with you up to the next level. So hes certainly got all the tools.He could have shot even par for the day, instead he turned that into five-under in the middle of the roundSo thats the kind of stuff that is unteachable, and he has that.Spieth, too, has proven he has those unteachable qualities and armed with a few local lessons from Thursday, its little wonder he was happy with his opening-round return. Air Max 360 Negras . Dusautoir, the former World Player of the Year, sustained a torn bicep playing for Toulouse in the Heineken Cup on Saturday. The flanker, who has played 65 times for France, is expected to be out for up to four months. Nike Tn España . Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek defeated Nenad Zimonjic and Ilija Bozoljac 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (4) on the indoor hard-court at Belgrade Arena. The victory improved the Czech pairs impressive cup doubles record to 14-1. http://www.airmaxrebajas.es/air-max-360.html . -- Nathan Pancel scored twice as the Sudbury Wolves defeated the North Bay Battalion 4-2 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. At the Lords Test this week I will renew an annual ritual. Every year, before the start of play on the first morning, as the crowd swells and the players warm up, I walk to the middle of the pitch and look around.Before the story, consider the stage. Since 1814 people have paid to watch cricket here; they have chosen to spend their time and money to celebrate the pleasure of cricket, to observe but also to engage. A match, a spectacle, a social event: each benefiting from the other two.Last week I sat on Centre Court at Wimbledon watching ten glorious sets of tennis during the mens quarter-finals. First, Roger Federer recovered from two sets down to beat a sparkling Marin Cilic. Then Andy Murray warded off the ebullient Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. During breaks between games, I found myself naturally falling into conversation with my neighbours in the stands. Sport was the social glue that helped us find other common ground. We warmed into the experience collectively, and by the end of the Federer triumph, the sense of ecstatic communality was complete. It was like church without God.The parallel is intended to be serious rather than sacrilegious. Modern sport is really an extension of Renaissance humanism. Sport invites us to visit social spaces, and there we watch and celebrate what human beings can do. Thats why, as I drank in the mood on Centre Court, my mind returned to the most memorable birthday of my life, four years ago this week, when I sat drinking coffee in the piazza of the small Italian town Urbino, doing nothing in particular - a tourist, a stranger and yet totally at home.Allow your sportswriter a brief architectural detour. Urbino was built mostly in the late 15th century as a new urban experiment - more comfortable, efficient and refined than anything that had come before. Urbino was the high point of a new concept of the ideal city. That is also the title of my favourite painting, depicting city life as it ought to be - ordered and elegant but also progressive and practical - that still hangs in Urbinos Ducal Palace today.Sport was at the centre of this new way of life. Renaissance courtiers perfected sprezzatura (the art of excellence allied with apparent effortlessness) while playing palla da maglio - literally hammerball, but from old paintings it seems remarkably close to cricket.Baldassare Castigliones The Book of the Courtier (1528), which is set on four different evenings at the court of Urbino, portrayed sporting aptitude as a central aspect of a life well lived. Sport, by training movement and poise, was bound up with civilised existence, just like conversation and music. Lorenzo de Medici, who took breaks from ruling Florence to play ball in the streets, introduced six balls into his coat of arms to underline the significance of games. The whole mental attitude of the Renaissance was one of play, concluded the Dutch historiaan Johan Huizinga. Air Max 97 Silver Bullet. Play, we might add, allied to civility. A central departure from the Middle Ages was the beginnings of spectatorship, the enjoyment of watching sport as well as playing sport, the origins of recasting sport as a civic activity, a strand of civilised experience. And that is what I felt on Centre Court, watching Federer and Cilic. Weve built a handsome building as a stage for two protagonists to compete. Their behaviour, as friends and rivals, equalled their play; both were intensely engaged with their performance and yet open to the occasion. They let us in, and the crowd sensed it. For Cilic, this was especially admirable, as nearly everyone was supporting Federer. Instead of bridling at the injustice - for Cilic was equally superb - the Croatian embraced the atmosphere of celebration. He elevated the occasion but accepted its asymmetries.How can the mood be summarised? No one came to watch one player lose or suffer. It was sport without a villain, without hatred, without resentment. Everyone had a favourite but no one denied that virtue and virtuosity lay on both sides of the net. There was nothing tribal about the allegiances.The same description applies equally to the Test match I watched at Lords a year ago between England and New Zealand. Brendon McCullums team established the pattern of the series: bold, attacking cricket played with spirit but not rancour. Alastair Cooks men responded in kind, with expressiveness and openness, a habit they have retained ever since. An enduring Cook century underlined an established talent, a magical Ben Stokes hundred announced a new one. The game ended almost on the buzzer, so even time joined the chorus of cooperation. The crowd? Support was strong, appreciation stronger still.The stuff that surrounds sport - the occasion, its ambience - can seem trivial. It is easy to satirise and mock this as social pretension. But we should remember a wider meaning of sport: the coming together of people with shared interests, in safe places, to watch and celebrate virtuosity, competition and, with luck, courtesy - the story of the ascent of man told in brief.We are so used to it, so privileged in our access to sport, that we risk taking it for granted. Which takes me back to tennis and Italy for a final contrast. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Giorgio Bassanis fine novel set in the 1930s - and later an elegiac film by Vittorio di Sica - uses a tennis court inside a walled garden as a metaphor for lost freedoms in a time when fascism and religious intolerance swept across Italy. Play and sport, cosmopolitanism and free association, were shown to be all too fragile.Our generation shouldnt forget its - as yet - unbroken good fortune, to play and to watch. Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys China NFL Cheap Jerseys ' ' ' 
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  • Created: Jan 21 '18
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