#you robbed him of his date so your path at the tournaments is over

[in-spain-without-an-s]

defeating jannik sinner when your next opponent is carlos alcaraz is apparently a bad idea

[llendrinall]

I got a prompt idea. What if Severus was Harry's biological father? And he somehow finds out in Harry's first year and actually decided to do something about it and tells him and then they have this Gaint secret going for YEARS until the end of the war. Could you write them from 1st year to the end of the war where Harry is sitting at the bedside of Severus' bed and looks at his friends and goes "Because he's my Biological Father"?

There is a very obvious wat the story would go and it wouldn’t be nice. Severus finds out, he tells Harry, but somehow they are still locked in a cycle of trying to break away from Hogwarts and the Dursleys but never being able to. There is always something else more important and urgent that stops Severus from revealing the truth and claiming Harry’s guardianship. So things are pretty much the same. They learn to trust each other but they never get to really know each other, let alone like or love each other. At the end, when the time of the big battle comes, Severus sacrifices himself to give Harry a chance and Harry will mourn him briefly, because there is no time for tears during a battle; or maybe Severus will hang on to life long enough to see Harry alive and learn that Voldemort is dead before succumbing to his own wounds. He will have done his part, he will have saved Harry, but somehow Harry will be even more of an orphan by the end of the war.

This is how it should go. The easy way, the big obvious path for the story to take.

Except… How comes Severus is Harry’s father? How did that happen?

I don’t think he and Lily were having an affair or even a relationship. At most, it was the beginning of one. Seven good conversations, three dates that they didn’t call dates, two kisses and a one-night stand that served as a locking point. A night together that was a farewell for Snape, about to infiltrate the inner circle of the Dark Lord, and a promise that they would pick things up again after the war and see where they lead them.

They were so innocent, so stupid.

Snape was risking a lot acting as a spy, so he only made contact sporadically with Alice Longbottom and Albus Dumbledore. Lily was working together with James in muggle protection operations and neither of them bothered correcting people’s assumptions about them because their supposed marriage offered them a good cover story.

Lily wanted to tell Severus about the baby, but she had no way to contact him and wasn’t about to risk his cover. She thought she could wait. The war wouldn’t last, they would win, and she would tell Severus everything. In the meantime, James was happy to give Lily’s kid his surname to avoid unwanted questions. They couldn’t risk the Dark Lord suspecting he had a traitor near him and Lily was his friend.

And Severus… he heard about Lily marrying and having a baby and he was hurt and betrayed but he understood because James had always been a charmer and James was there when Severus was not. It was asking too much, to wait for someone who wasn’t there, wait for a may be.

The war ends. Harry is the Boy Who Lived. Severus spends the next decade grieving and not doing very well with all the trauma from the war and being undercover. He can’t believe how much time has passed when he sees Lily’s soon walk into Hogwarts. It feels as if it was just yesterday when Severus was a student.

Severus discovers the truth by accident and it takes three months for him to begin to understand. Harry has a slight reaction to fairy dust when he touches it during Potions class. Nothing too bad, Severus himself has a similar reaction and doesn’t usually bother using the pure silver alternative. It’s just a reddening of the skin, very common in northern wizarding families like the Childermass and the Princes. Lily didn’t have it and neither did Potter (or the Blacks or the Malfoys, but Severus has seen it in the Diggorys funnily enough). Harry has it and so does Severus and for the next three months Severus keep noticing an increasing number of odd similarities and funny coincidences and keeps dismissing them as such until a week before Christmas when Harry, absolutely apropos of nothing, looks at Draco Malfoy and says “the way you keep mentioning your father, I’m glad to be an orphan.” Severus knows then. He might take five points from Gryffindor and tell Harry he is an arrogant bully like his father, but what he means is “James Potter never got the hand of aggressive self-deprecating humor. I can’t deny it anymore, you are my son.”

Severus goes through a period of shock, acceptance, shock again, grief and, finally, worry which is the default state of parenthood.

He tells Harry the truth just before summer break. He does a pretty good job, all things considered. He is unnaturally stiff, accidentally implies that he doesn’t want Harry when he says that he, of course, will keep living with his family (Severus thought that’s what Harry would prefer! He lived with them from the age of one, he must love them! How was he to know?) and looks very pained by the whole ordeal.

Harry, being Harry, and just coming from a very unsatisfying conversation with Dumbledore, asks Severus why did Voldemort try to kill him when he was merely a baby and of course Severus tells him everything. He is new at this parenthood thing and didn’t know you are supposed to shield children from distasteful truths. He tells Harry all: the prophecy, the choice the Dark Lord made, Sirius’ betrayal. Everything. Harry cries and Severus has no idea what to do, but manages to do all right. There is a stiff hug and a handkerchief.

Harry’s second year of school is spent with Severus taking points from Gryffindor (“Even if you were the Heir of Slytherin, inbreeding is nothing to brag about, Malfoy” says Harry, costing Gryffidnor 20 points) and desperately trying to convince Harry that there is nothing wrong with him being a parselmouth or hearing voices in the walls. Harry is equally desperate to convince Severus to please take him from the Dursleys he will even apologize to Malfoy if he has to.

Harry wins and Severus goes to Dumbledore to reveal the truth and ask that Harry’s guardianship is transferred to him. Dumbledore gives and hour-long impromptu speech about how that’s a very bad idea and how Severus is most likely mistaken about Harry’s parentage and is being deceived by his affection towards Lily. However, just yesterday Severus was explaining in class that Longbottom’s current mistake was perfectly innocuous despite all the whistling and colourful sparks and Harry whispered “this is otherwise known as a Lockhart” so at this point Severus doesn’t care about blood. Harry is his.

(No, seriously, he lost control of the class for ten minutes and afterwards he didn’t even take points from Gryffindor).

Severus is resolved to go over Dumbledore and get Harry from the Dursleys. He realizes it will be difficult with his Death Eater past, but he will do it. The wizarding world is ridiculously biased towards blood relations, he has a good chance.

So of course that’s when freaking Sirius Black breaks out of Azkaban.  

They don’t have a close relationship, Harry and he. Severus doesn’t kid himself, Harry only asked him to take him in because life with Petunia is miserable. Harry doesn’t even like Severus. However, it seems that Severus has managed to earn Harry’s respect and even his trust. Not only Harry, but his little group of friends seem to be thawing towards Severus.

To be fair, it is not by any virtue or merit on Severus’ part, but rather the failings of everyone else. You see, no one, (Severus can’t stress this enough) no one has told Harry the truth about Sirius Black. Harry and his friends have even made a little game of it and by the time Harry returns to Hogwarts Severus is informed that only Arthur and Percival Weasley passed the test. Out of over thirty adults they have asked, only two told Harry something close to the truth. Severus is surprised that Percival talked, but apparently the poor boy has been very stressed with the incoming NEWTS and takes every opportunity to quiz his knowledge so it could be said he was tricked.

Still, Harry appreciates that Severus doesn’t lie or patronize him. The bar is abysmally low, but Severus will take it. He is already doing much better that his own father.

He spends the year tutoring Harry in everything that may be useful for his continuing survival and antagonizing Lupin. Unfortunately, Severus doesn’t have much time to prepare his case for Harry’s guardianship and he briefly considers offering the task to Granger or Weasley (Percival, not Ronald) for extra credit, but he thinks better of it.

The end of the year is…weird. There is relief, shock, fear and regret, quite a lot of regret. Severus should have ignored the threat and worked on asserting Harry’s parentage. There will always be another threat coming, he should just take Harry now.

He is proved right just a few months later when Harry is entered in the Triwizard tournament. To make things worse, the mark is itching in his forearm and Karkaroff is extremely tetchy.

And here it is, the moment where Severus Snape refuses to repeat the cycle, the moment when he avoids making the same mistake.

Severus goes to the cave in Hogsmeade and tells Sirius the truth. Never again he will assume that people know or that there will be time to talk. If only he had tried to contact Lily, if he had merely written to congratulate her about her marriage even if he said nothing else, Severus is sure she would have found the way to tell him. So, for her sake if nothing else, this time he is not keeping the truth to himself. He realizes that by telling Sirius he might be robbing Harry of an ally, but if Sirius decides he does not want anything to do with Harry because he is not James’ son, so be it. Severus would rather know now than a few months down the line when they inevitably have an emergency.

Sirius is surprised, retroactively hurt that James didn’t tell him anything and very offended at the idea that he would stop being Harry’s godfather simply because his biological dad is a git. If anything, it’s all the more reason to give the kid some positive influence. Plus, he is still Lily’s son and Lily was Sirius’ friend too.  

Severus and Sirius argue quite a bit over who exactly can be considered a good influence. They exchange insults, point each other’s flaws, and, in general, act worryingly immaturely. However, something good emerges from this fight, because during the many reproaches and accusations it becomes evident that Sirius believes that Severus refused to testify on Sirius’ behalf before the Minister, something that is untrue.

“I… what?” Severus says. “What did you say?”

���You heard me!”

“No, but, Black. If I didn’t speak it was because Dumbledore insisted that the Ministry wouldn’t listen to an ex-Death Eater. I was going to tell Fudge everything!”

“…Harry said you were mad you lost your Order of Merlin…”

“Wha-? I don’t care about the stupid order. You are innocent! Do you think me so petty that I would send an innocent man back to Azkaban?”

“I…”

Snape is so glad he decided to have this talk. They had been fighting for two hours, he is thirsty and has a tension headache, but the relief he feels in immense. The misunderstanding could have proved fatal. They spend the rest of the day airing everything: revealing Lupin’s lycanthropy to kickstart the curse on the DADA position rather than waiting for Lupin to have an accident, Sirius apologizing about the admittedly mental prank, promising that they will both disappoint Harry but they won’t spare Pettigrew’s life. It takes a lot of time, but it’s good. There is so much to discuss they don’t even talk about how exactly the misunderstanding about Severus testifying for Sirius came to be. Not until their third meeting at least.  

Harry enters the maze for the third trial at the end of the year and between one dark corner and a blind spot, he vanishes. Although maybe he wasn’t Harry at all. Maybe it was a Polyjuiced Sirius who then proceeded to transform into a dog and pretend he was one of the monsters in the maze. Maybe Harry had quietly left under Polyjuice a few hours earlier and is currently boarding the train in Hogsmeade with Lupin.

Of course, as soon as they realize that one of the Champions is missing they stop everything to look for him. Karkaroff complains, Diggory threatens to withdraw that instant, Delacour casts a surreptitious hex or two because she is still very angry about the second task and using her little sister, and in the ensuing chaos Professor Moody’s Polyjuice wears off and he is revealed as Barty Crouch Jr, formed Death Eater presumed deceased, so Severus feels pretty well with his plan to just take Harry away and worry about legal guardianship later.

Also, since the press is there he takes the opportunity to openly declare that Sirius Black is an innocent man, perfectly innocent, Pettigrew is the one to look for.

Merely eight weeks later the mark on Severus’ arm burns. Voldemort is back and looking pretty well considering he was dead. Severus is asked about his arduous defense of Sirius’ innocence in the newspapers, and he quite reasonably explains that he couldn’t risk any loyalist mistakenly helping Sirius and there was no other way to let people know Pettigrew needed help instead. It is flawless logic and Voldemort approves, so Pettigrew doesn’t dare say anything about the absolutely murderous glint he had seen in Severus’ eye back when everything was revealed. Pettigrew understand that if says anything about it, Severus will make sure to kill him gruesomely before Voldemort can do anything else about Severus being a spy.

The Ministry of course refuses to believe Voldemort is back. He also refuses to believe in Sirius’ innocence and is convinced that it is some weird ploy on Dumbledore’s part. The press attacks Severus non-stop, it’s sickening. Umbridge comes to Hogwarts and is absolutely horrid, as expected, and the moment she has enough power she fires Snape. Not even Malfoy can do anything to avoid it.

Snape disappears. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that maybe he was waiting for the opportunity to leave Hogwarts without arising immediate suspicion. He is nowhere to be found and now that they think about it neither is professor Lupin.

And they are never seen again.

People know they must be around because it’s very obvious they intervene in the war. Sirius kills Voldemort in a very public way. But, other than that, they are not officially seen which drives many people crazy.

Harry keeps in touch with his friends, he is Ron’s best man in his wedding, he is there to clap and support Neville when he gets a doctorate in Herbology, helps build Luna’s cottage, and yet he is never seen by a Ministry official or a proper adult ever again. (Never mind that Harry and his friends are all adults now, they are not adults like real Moody or professor McGonagall are). It is most infuriating, which is the reason why Harry keeps doing it well into his thirties, when he is elected to the House of Wands and becomes an Honorable MP, so he has to let himself be seen then.

They (the wizarding society) realise their mistake about a week later. The Honourable Member Harry James Potter (never bothered to change his surname) is very much Severus Snape’ son and has spent a lot of time around Sirius Black. He is an absolute nightmare for the chamber: witty and insulting and all around absolutely brilliant and exasperating. The press loves him. A year in, there is already a small book published with “The Best MP Potter’s quotes”.

[very-grownup]

Can you believe a kraken STILL hasn’t eaten Nitori over summer vacation?

I'm going to talk about Free! Dive to the Future now that three episodes have aired.

I have not seen any of the films produced between the end of Eternal Summer and the start of this third series. They are not available on English streaming services and I'm going to be real with you: in 2018 there is so much media to consume that is legally and easily available, I'm disinclined to figure out how to obtain fansubbed anime in this the year of our lord 2018.

I loved Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer. They were well done, tight, self-contained coming of age series, one about a character overcoming an angry and isolating adolescence, one about a character learning to overcome the inertia of fear that often grips young adults when they're confronted with the inevitable change of going from adolescence to adulthood, of having to make a choice. The first two series were masterfully directed by Hiroko Utsumi and a breath of fresh air: a show helmed by a woman, for young women, and not based on an otome game or another property centered on the relationship between the male characters and a female avatar.

Hiroko Utsumi did not direct any of the film entries in the series and is not directing Dive to the Future (she's directing the incredible Banana Fish anime) and I admit, when I read Utsumi was no longer involve the series, I became skeptical about its direction and quality.

Now that I can actually watch an entry in the series made without Utsumi, I don't have to be skeptical. The kindest thing I can say about Dive to the Future is that it's obviously floundering for direction. But this is the internet, so I can also go into a far more thorough and much less kind discussion of missteps, questionable choices, and things that are actually not good.

There's one problem that stands out for me, because a lot of the others can be bracketed with expectations of what sort of show Dive to the Future is trying to be, but this one part, a small fraction of the runtime of the three episodes, undoes, or at least undermines, something the first two series did in the characterization of one of the only girls in the series. Gou, the younger sister of protagonist Rin and manager of Iwatobi High School's swim club. Gou has no romantic interest in any of the boys on the team, unlike the female manager in (shounen) sports series. Gou isn't interested in swimming, either; this isn't a substitute or displacement because there is no girls' swim team. Gou initially becomes involved in Nagisa's desire to start a swim club in their high school as a tool to reconnect with and help her distant, unhappy brother.

Gou continues managing the swim club because she unabashedly enjoys looking at muscular dudes. Again, she isn't interested in dating any of these boys. She just enjoys being able to look at these living swimsuit pinup boys. She's a teenage girl vocalizing an aspect of her sexuality and keeping it for herself. She loves muscles. They're hot. While the narrative is about the boys, Gou's presence acknowledges that a lot of girls in the audience are watching this for very simple, non-narrative reasons.

And that's okay.

In media targeted at women, especially young women, the acknowledgement of sexual desires as a component of a romantic relationship is still relatively new after centuries of women's feelings being portrayed as chaste. In a post-Twilight world, media is starting to allow that maybe girls are as sexually attracted to that boy they're crushing on as it's given that boys are to girls.

Gou's characterization says: it's normal to be attracted to boys, even if you aren't interested in dating right now. It's a quite, understated bit of characterization and representation, but it's appreciated. Gou's presence really cements the sense in the first two series that this is something being made by a woman for other young women.

Dive to the Future introduces a Japan-obsessed Russian swim coach who is fixated on Rin and wants to work with him, and only him, in Sydney, Australia. He's an authority figure who is overly focused on an eighteen-year-old boy who is in a foreign country, away from his friends and family. Although this may, understandably, raise some concern and discomfort, Free! is not the kind of series that is going to be dealing with something as serious as authority figures taking advantage of young athletes sexually. This character is just a joke, a goofy, out-of-touch adult who thinks he's cool and is also slightly camp. He's very obsessed with muscles.

In episode three this is brought up again, as Kirishima, a wandering swimming hobo, tries to bribe the coach, Mikhail, into taking him on, offering up various sexually exciting photobooks and magazines featuring muscular young men. Cut to Gou back in Japan, trying to convince her new kouhai of the importance of the same photobook. An equivalency is drawn. Coach Mikhail and Gou are the same, their interests are the same, they provoke the same reaction. A comical obsession, a gag, an out-of-touch character who can't read the room. A teenage girl's interest in the bodies of teenage boys is the same as a grown man's interest in those same bodies.

It's gross.

The most charitable reading still sees Gou's healthy, normalized if quirkily expressed attraction being reduced to a gag, robbing the character of the understated, positivie representation of adolescent sexuality she offered originally. It's unneccessary and unkind to girls in the audience like Gou.

The idea of the carnivorous woman who knows what she wants, sexually, is not equivalent to an older man in a position of authority viewing the vulnerable individuals around him as a source of voyeuristic pleasure.

After unburdening myself of the surprising level of anger resulting from a single scene, nearly blink-and-you'll-miss-it length, the other problems with Dive in to Future seem less important, but they all concern larger elements of the program. It's just that they're problems of something not being done very well, not the problem of the reveal of a potential hostile or contemptuous attitude toward a part of the audience.

Nevertheless.

Dive in to Future doesn't know what it wants to be. I stand by my assertion that Iwatobi Swim Club and Eternal Summer were never sports anime. They were coming of age journeys for two different characters who had different problems to work through. They were, quite simply, never structured to be a series like Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis, Kuroko's Basketball, Haikyuu, insert-your-preferred-shounen-sports-series-here. The focus isn't on a team, it's on a group of characters, four of whom are going to the same school and are in the same club. At the end of Eternal Summer, Haru, Rin, and Makoto, three of the five core characters, are going to be graduating, moving on to the next stage of their life, Rin in Australia, Haru and Makoto in Tokyo. That transition, those three characters growing up and away from their younger friends, is a major component of the story told in Eternal Summer, culminating in a teary happiness. It's sad they won't be friends in the same way, but it's natural, inevitable, and full of potential excitement for the new things these changes will bring.

There are a lot of directions that could have been chosen in doing a third season. Staying in Iwatobi, focusing on the changing, growing swim club. Going to Tokyo with Haru and Makoto, building upon those themes of change and growth as two codependent childhood friends find their own, separate paths. Going to Sydney with Rin, a protagonist returning with new eyes and confidence to a place where the festering anger and unhappiness that burdened him in Iwatobi Swim Club originated. You could follow any of those threads and double down, focusing on one of them, on turning the series into an actual sports series with a large cast and rival teams and tournaments and competitions. You could continue telling the story of these specific friendships, five boys in three different places, figuring out how their friendship can evolve and continue in some form.

Dive to the Future seems to be trying to do all of those simultaneously, not wanting to commit to a particular focus because it would mean sidelining some of the characters. It's about Rin in Australia but it's also about Haru and Makoto in university and also Haru's university swim team and maybe actual swimming competitions for that university swim team with maybe a rival university of evil swimmers but also the club back in Iwatobi and after three episodes I couldn't tell you which of all those the series is actually going to be about. Maybe Haru's university swimming life will more clearly come forward. But it could easily go on like this, a jumbled series of characters and incidents without any underlying thematic glue bringing things together. There are solid individual scenes scattered through these episodes (Rin's morning routine in Sydney from the third episode stands out for me) but as someone who loved the first two series, the overall impression is ... that it's fine.

Dive to the Future also sees the introduction of characters from the films, specifically the prequel film made after Eternal Summer. The first episode of Dive to the Future feels like they dumped all these new characters into the mix at once, a sensation I'm sure is exacerbated by my not having seen the movies. There are also new characters in Iwatobi so the swim club can continue. There are boys swimming with Rin in Australia who have names, probably. More characters on Haru's university swim team. The previously mentioned evil university. All the characters from the first two series.

It's so many characters, all at once, with little regard for their significance.

For comparison, Rei is introduced in the third episode of the first series, after we've had a chance to become familiar with the characters who have a history together.

The unfocused narrative and the glut of characters go hand-in-hand, an ouroboros of problems.

Finally, another disappointing undercutting of what's come before: in this mess of characters and plot threads, a lot of screen time does seem to be devoted to characters being concerned about childhood friendships that were lost as kids moved to other parts of Japan and other countries. There's an obsession and guilt over it, instead of recognizing it as a natural thing that happens. The desire to reconnect with those people is also guilt propelled and it feels like a retread of the attempt to reconnect with the angry, distant Rin from the first series and a complete memory wipe of the lessons of growing up Makoto and Haru specifically learned in Eternal Summer. There's a worrying sense that with Dive to the Future, despite the name, is going to see characters who aren't allowed to grow and learn and move forward and change, but instead just go through variations on the same beats in an increasingly bland animated purgatory.

The final product is fine, I suppose, but fine may as well be failure when the previous product managed to achieve excellence.

[netunleashed-blog]

Peter Wright and Simon Whitlock collide in the World Matchplay quarter-finals | Darts News

http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=21379 Peter Wright and Simon Whitlock collide in the World Matchplay quarter-finals | Darts News - http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=21379 Wright: "I've got to play like I did against Kim to beat him otherwise I'll be going off stage losing." By Josh Gorton Last Updated: 26/07/18 10:30pm Peter Wright and Simon Whitlock will battle it out for a place in the World Matchplay semi-finals on Friday night Last year's finalist Peter Wright takes on seventh seed Simon Whitlock on Friday night at the Winter Gardens, as the semi-final line-up nears its completion. Gary Anderson and Jeffrey de Zwaan saw off the challenges of Joe Cullen and Dave Chisnall respectively to book their semi-final spots in a pulsating session of darts on Thursday evening, but the drama continues in Blackpool with two more quarter-finals on Friday night.Peter Wright is the highest-ranked player left in the field, and the 2017 runner-up will continue his bid to reach a second consecutive World Matchplay final when he takes on two-time Winter Gardens semi-finalist Simon Whitlock. Live World Matchplay Darts July 27, 2018, 7:00pm Live on 'Snakebite' produced the performance of the tournament so far in his second-round victory over Kim Huybrechts - averaging 105.60 to ease past 'The Hurricane' 11-5.Wright fired in 20 140s and converted three ton-plus checkouts en route to victory, and is the only player remaining in the tournament to have appeared in a World Matchplay final, but he is expecting a tough test against 'The Wizard'."In my next game it will be tough because Simon is a good friend but when we get up on stage I will have to treat him as the enemy," said the second seed. "He is fantastic though and he's playing really good darts at the moment. Darts updates straight to your phone How to receive all the latest darts news straight to your mobile "I've got to play like I did against Kim to beat him otherwise I'll be going off stage losing. It's will be a tough game but I believe I have the game to beat him."However, the Scot admitted he was delighted to see Whitlock returning to form."I want to see Simon playing well and people want to see that as well," Wright said. "I'm not being horrible and arrogant, I want to play darts with him."Averages don't matter to me so long as you get the W. We don't know until we get on the stage and how I wake up on Friday morning. I could wake up feeling absolutely terrible and it doesn't happen for me." Whitlock saw off 2007 champion James Wade to reach the last eight Whitlock sealed a spot in his fifth Matchplay quarter-final after dumping out 2007 champion James Wade 11-7 in Wednesday's curtain-raiser.The pair missed 50 darts at double between them, but the Australian dominated the scoring stakes and completed the job to advance to the quarter-finals in Blackpool for the first time since 2014."I started well and then it became a scrap, I felt like I should've been further ahead at some points but I got the win and that's all that matters," Whitlock said. World Matchplay Darts - Friday July 27 (Best of 31 legs) Mensur Suljovic v Darren Webster Peter Wright v Simon Whitlock "I feel really relaxed on the Winter Gardens stage this year, I'm enjoying playing up there. The last time I got to the semis here was in 2014 and I actually feel like I'm playing better now than I was then," he added.In Friday's opening quarter-final, sixth seed Mensur Suljovic meets Darren Webster for a place in the last four.Suljovic fended off a valiant fightback from Ian White to prevail 11-8 and reach his third World Matchplay quarter-final in four years, but he admits there is room for improvement. Mensur Suljovic couldn't contain his delight after reaching the quarter-finals in Blackpool "My performance was not that good, but I am so happy that I won," Suljovic added. "It was a very hard game, Ian is a good player. There are lots of good players in this tournament who are favourites ahead of me but I will keep trying my best to win."However, 'The Gentle' claimed that a lack of sleep could derail his title bid."Last year my hotel was too hot and my hotel this year is also not good," revealed the Champions League of Darts winner."I'm here at the Winter Gardens to work, but my work is nothing because I'm struggling to sleep. It's a big problem so I need to have a good sleep. If I can sleep well, then I can play."Meanwhile, Webster secured a spot in his second straight Matchplay quarter-final after dumping out world champion Rob Cross in a dramatic clash. Darren Webster produced a terrific performance to dump out world champion Rob Cross on Wednesday night 'The Demolition Man' held his nerve to secure one of the biggest victories of his career and believes he has now got the 'chance of a lifetime' to secure a maiden televised title."I didn't used to like playing against Mensur but I enjoy it now so I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that game," he said."I've got the chance of a lifetime to push into the top 10 and now I want to keep winning and keep pushing my way up."When I'm up there I'm there for one reason and one reason only and that's to do my job. I will be ready for Mensur and he'll know it." Keep up to date with the latest on skysports.com/darts We will have news, previews, live blogs, reports and expert analysis from The World Matchplay in Blackpool. On the move? Head to our app for mobile devices and iPad, or follow our Twitter account @SkySportsDarts to join in the conversation. Join us for further coverage of the World Matchplay on Friday, July 27 at 7pm on Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Main Event from 9.30pm. The darts will run through to the final on Sunday, July 29.Stick with us for news, views and interviews and expert analysis. Get all the latest at www.skysports.com/darts and join in the conversation @SkySportsDarts - don't forget to use #LoveTheDarts. 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[junker-town]

U.S. Open longshots are exposing a scheduling problem at Erin Hills

One of the great aspects of the U.S. Open is that it’s truly “open.” But having a competing event on the second best American tour makes qualifying a tough choice for some of the top pros.

The biggest story at the start of U.S. Open week centered on the difficult choice that Phil Mickelson had to make between playing his national championship, the white whale of his career resume, and attending his daughter’s graduation. But there were many other difficult choices made by players no one knows about but may have had just as good a chance as Phil to compete at Erin Hills this week.

In a post-Tiger era, there’s a tendency for only five or six guys to get all the media oxygen. There’s a compulsion to cover, broadcast, follow, and write about those names that you know have a higher profile and, consequently, should draw the most attention to your work. Everyone does this. I do this when I’m at an event and when I’m home watching on TV. It’s a cycle that’s hard to break.

But the margins in professional golf are so small. All of professional golf — the PGA Tour, European Tour, Web.com Tour, etc. And this goes for the top of the amateur game, too. We’ve seen Web.com Tour players compete each and every week on the PGA Tour. We’ve seen Web.com Tour graduates move up to the PGA Tour and make an immediate impact. We’ve seen college players and mid-amateurs hang with the best in the world major after major.

More amateurs (5) are under par at Erin Hills than top-10 players in the world (1).

— Sean Martin (@PGATOURSMartin) June 15, 2017

Sure, the best in the world at the very top of the rankings are there for a reason and they are your best bets for consistency over an entire season or multi-year stretch. But these players, from the top tour to college, are all stupid good at golf and the margins between a Web.com player and a top ranked PGA Tour player can be nothing in any given week. Any one of these players in a non-Weir field can win at the start of the week.

So this begs the question: Why is there a Web.com Tour event in Wichita running opposite the U.S. Open this week?

Web.com Tour Players Are Competing at Erin Hills ... and actually hurting their chances for a PGA Tour card

Jack Maguire may be the most illuminating example of the narrow margin noted above. Maguire is an FSU product who turned pro in 2015. He’s loaded with talent, made the cut at the 2015 U.S. Open as an amateur, and currently playing on the Web.com Tour this year. He’s also 54th on the Web.com Tour money list — a fine spot, but not exactly lighting it up so far this season.

Maguire worked his way into the U.S. Open field, shooting 72-65 to finish 1st at the Jupiter sectional qualifying site. He made the cut at Erin Hills by two shots and is now inside the top 25 on Saturday of the national championship. This eagle at the first hole on Saturday helped:

Starting off your Saturday with an eagle ... #USOpen https://t.co/ql0GyRjulA

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 17, 2017

There’s a long way to go, but at absolute worst, Maguire is going to finish 68th (which would take a total implosion) in a major championship, the “toughest test in golf.” It’s more likely he’ll finish inside the top 30 or 40 in a 156-man field.

Maguire’s efforts this week, however, will not help him on the road to earning his PGA Tour card. That’s because there’s a Web.com Tour event also happening in Wichita this week and the money won in that event will improve those players’ status toward earning a card. You have to choose between the thrill of playing, and maybe contending in, a major championship, and earning money towards a PGA Tour card, often the ultimate goal in a cruel game that’s also a job.

Stephan Jaeger, another Web.Com Tour player, is No. 1 on that money list but he went ahead and tried to qualify for the U.S. Open too. He succeeded and now he’s playing on the weekend with Jordan Spieth, beating the 2015 U.S. Open champ two shots after 54 holes. Jaeger is going to get his PGA Tour card because of the money he’s already earned. But he’s also got two Web wins, meaning he’s a candidate for the “battlefield promotion” — a third Web.com Tour win would immediately move him up to the PGA Tour, mid-season. Jaeger could be trying to do that in Wichita this week and maybe earning an instant card to the top tour during what could be one of the hottest streaks of his pro career. Who knows what he could do with that at Congressional or the John Deere in a few weeks, given his form?

But like Maguire, Jaeger is actually losing ground on the path to his PGA Tour card by playing a major championship. If finishes 1st on the Web.com Tour money list, he also gets guaranteed status and a spot in The Players Championship. If he slips to second, he doesn’t.

We’re also missing out on top Web.com players potentially competing at Erin Hills

I know of a few Web.com players, who have competed in the U.S. Open in the past, who did not even try to qualify this year, instead locking in the Air Capital Classic in Wichita on their schedule to focus on working toward their PGA Tour card.

So not only are the Web guys competing in Wisconsin hurting themselves in the pursuit of their card, the U.S. Open field may also be weakened by some incredible story choosing to focus on the grind towards his card rather than try to qualify and play at Erin Hills. And while the USGA provides two sectional sites in the same city as that week’s PGA Tour event (Columbus and Memphis), a Web Tour player would have had to pick a site to play 36 deep into the day that Monday and the hustle to Northern Illinois for that week’s Web event. Columbus would have been the closest.

You may scoff at that and say this U.S. Open field is unaffected by some random peripheral player not even trying to qualify. But again, the margins! Who knows? Xander Schauffele was on the Web.com Tour this time last year. He’s a rookie this year struggling to get starts on a crowded PGA Tour. Schauffele has a tee time in one of the final five groups on the weekend of the U.S. Open, and was in solo second early on Thursday. The wider audience has no idea who he is, but he’s got an incredible back story and the championship is made better by having him involved.

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Xander Schauffele has been one of the great revelatory stories of this U.S. Open.

The leaderboard is dotted with stories like this. Maguire, Schauffele, amateurs like Cameron Champ, who annihilates the ball off the tee, and Texas star Scottie Scheffler, are all in contention at the U.S. Open. The championship and broadcast are more interesting because of it.

Fault and a Fix

There are a lot of golf tournaments out there competing for time, space, money, and scheduling. The U.S. Open, obviously, is one of the elite events in the game and always held on Father’s Day weekend. It’s the biggest tournament in the world that week and in the entire month of June.

The Web.com Tour has 26 events this year. Schedules get locked in years in advance and there are a lot of moving parts that make it a challenge to keep everyone happy. The Web tour plays every week during the summer, but there are still a lot of open dates on the calendar with just 26 events.

The PGA Tour doesn’t have some opposite field event this week with all the players who didn’t make the U.S. Open field. The Web.com Tour can take this week off too. They are currently in the middle of a 14-straight-week slog and a week break might have fit just perfect on the schedule. It might shine a light on some of the great talents and stories competing for a card down there and also not hurt their members who do make it to the USGA’s big show. We wouldn’t want some mid-major Division 1 conference scheduling a conference tournament that conflicts with the NCAA Tournament and robs us of a potential cinderella.

The primary narrative at the midpoint of this U.S. Open was all the big names going home early with a missed cut. It’s the first U.S. Open ever in which the top three in the world rankings — Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day -- all missed the weekend (other major champs like Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, and Henrik Stenson all left after two days). But the great thing about the U.S. Open is that it truly is “open” to anyone good enough (you need at least a 1.4 handicap). We’ve got all the best amateurs gunning for a spot in this championship, but some of the top players on the second best pro tour in the United States didn’t even attempt to qualify. And now that we’re at Erin Hills, we’re discovering elite amateurs crushing the ball, watching PGA Tour rookies carve things up, and pulling for PGA Tour hopefuls to play into contention on the weekend.

The best in the world are at the top of the rankings for a reason but at any given U.S. Open, Jack Maguire can whip Rory McIlroy. Of course we want stars, but this is what makes us love sports, too.