Reds manager asks veterans to pass on ABS challenges
Reds manager Terry Francona plans to opt out of elective participation in the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge trial during spring training, but is willing to let Cincinnati’s minor-league players accustomed to the procedure use challenges.
ABS affords pitchers, hitters and catchers an immediate objection to a ball-strike call. Major League Baseball is not fully adopting the system, which has been used in the minor leagues, this season but began a trial involving 13 total spring training ballparks on Thursday. Teams are allowed two challenges per game, which must come from on-field players and not the dugout or manager.
“I’m OK with seeing our younger kids do it because they’ve done it,” Francona said. “It’s not a strategy for (the MLB teams), so why work on it? I don’t want to make a farce of anything, but we’re here getting ready for a season and that’s not helping us get ready.”
ABS was used for the first time at Camelback Ranch in Thursday’s spring training opener between the Dodgers and Cubs.
–Field Level Media
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DOHA (Reuters) – Former winner Andrey Rublev reached the final of the Qatar Open on Friday with a 7-5 4-6 7-6(5) win over Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime, and will meet Jack Draper in the decider after the Briton beat Czech Jiri Lehecka.
Rublev, winner in 2020, took the opening set with a break in the final game, before Auger-Aliassime broke the Russian fifth seed’s serve early in the second set and hit three aces in the final game to serve out for the set.
Auger-Aliassime fired 21 aces over the course of the match, compared to Rublev’s eight, but the Canadian went out after the deciding set went to a tiebreak. The Russian gained an early mini-break to lead 2-1 and that proved to be decisive.
“It was super tough today. I felt like there was not much I can do if he is serving like that,” Rublev said.
“He was serving well and I was just saying, okay, I cannot do much, this is one of the best servers on Tour. I just need to try to guess and when I have a moment, just go for it.”
Draper will bid to win his third ATP title after his 3-6 7-6(2) 6-3 win over Lehecka, having triumphed in Stuttgart and Vienna last year.
The Czech, who beat top seed Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals, took the opening set but after they traded breaks of serve in the second, eighth seed Draper came out on top in the tiebreak.
Draper broke to take a 4-3 lead in the final set, and then broke again to wrap up the semi-final win and will now face Rublev for the fourth time. The Briton has lost all three of their previous meetings.
“I’m definitely a different player since I last played him,” said Draper, who last faced the Russian at the 2023 U.S. Open.
“Someone I respect massively. Someone who’s been top 10 for many years now. He’s going to come out and play incredibly well. I watched him play here this week. He’s there every ball. So I’ll be ready for that one.”
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
