England And Scotland To Play In Highly Anticipated Match
FOLBAUM: All right let's talk sport now and there are two major tournaments that are underway, both of them in France. We have the French Open men's final, the Women's World Cup. Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem, facing off right now on the clay. Nadal is vying for a record-extending 12th Roland Garros crown, and it's opening weekend for the Women's World Cup. Brazil just defeated Jamaica 3-0. And the second of three matches that will be played today. Don Riddell, joins us now with all the latest on this and there is a match underway, Nadal and Thiem, how is it going?</s>DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: It's a great match.</s>FOLBAUM: Yes.</s>RIDDELL: Not going so well for Dominic Thiem in the last few minutes. Nadal is 2-1 up. He's leading by two sets to one. And, of course, Rafa Nadal, he's been known as the king of clay for so long. And he's just, I mean, the guy is just almost impossible to beat on this particular surface. And nobody has ever beaten him in the French Open final. He's won 11 of them before. As you say, it would be a record-extending 12th. Dominic Thiem is one of those players with a good chance of doing it.</s>FOLBAUM: Yes.</s>RIDDELL: He knocked out Novak Djokovic in the semi-final. But crucially perhaps his semi-final was played only yesterday and Nadal has had an extra day to rest. This match is being played at very, very high intensity. The standard of the tennis is very, very high. Thiem took the second set by seven games to five, and you thought all this is good. Team is getting back into it. But the next set was all over in the blink of an eye. Nadal just thrashed him by six games to one. So, clearly, Nadal has the edge and the momentum at this point. Dominic Thiem may well win the French Open one day. But he might -- he might have -- might perhaps have to wait until Rafa Nadal gets out the way, but it's a great match.</s>FOLBAUM: It doesn't appear that it's going to be today. What is it -- what is it about Nadal's game that makes clay as the surface so effective for him?</s>RIDDELL: Well, he just knows it so well. I mean, he's played on it for his entire life. It's always been his favorite surface. And just the style of his play, the way he has the ball, the way he serves the ball, the way it comes back up off the court when he serves it. You know, Thiem has been trying to figure out today where exactly does he stand behind the baseline or on the baseline? It's very, very difficult for him and you can see him trying to figure it out as the match progresses. But yes, the king of clay was still reigning at this point.</s>FOLBAUM: All right. Let's talk about Ashleigh Barty, she has been crowned the women's champ and talked to us about her match.</s>RIDDELL: Yes. Well, her match, and her story, and her career. I mean, amazing. She won the Wimbledon junior championship at the age of 15. And, of course, when a player does that, you think they've got an amazing future ahead of them. But he actually got to a point where life came at her so fast, and tennis and the pressure of it was so much for her that she actually quit the sport. She went up to play cricket in Australia for a couple of years.</s>FOLBAUM: Wow.</s>RIDDELL: She came back in 2016, and has been steadily improving since then. And here she is now, the champion of the French Open, winning her first major title she easily beats Marketa Vondrousova in straight sets in the final on Saturday. Here she is celebrating an incredible story and one suspects that this won't be the last major championship for good for.</s>FOLBAUM: Well, good for her.</s>RIDDELL: Yes.</s>FOLBAUM: And she should stay off the cricket, that should be --</s>RIDDELL: I think she's done with cricket.</s>FOLBAUM: He's stick to the tennis court. All right, let's talk about Women's World Cup. I love that these two major events are taking place in the same city. All eyes on Paris.</s>RIDDELL: Yes.</s>FOLBAUM: A couple of matches here, Australia, Italy.</s>RIDDELL: Yes.</s>FOLBAUM: An upset.</s>RIDDELL: An upset sure. Italy won this game. Italy haven't even been in the World Cup since 1999. A 20-year hiatus for them. They came back, they beat Australia who ranked higher than them and they did it this way. This goal coming from Barbara Bonansea very, very late in injury time. She headed in at the 94th minute and the 39-second mark that is the latest winning goal in the history of the Women's Cup. You can see what it did frustrate has to withstand. Great scenes for Italy. What a return for the World Cup scene for them.</s>FOLBAUM: Wow. Down to the wire.</s>RIDDELL: Yes.</s>FOLBAUM: And, of course, there is a Brazil in Jamaica as well that has taken place, and Brazil won that match.</s>RIDDELL: Yes, 3-0, they beat the Jamaicans. Historic with that goal coming from Bonansea so late. History marked in a number of ways in this game. So, Formiga, as you can see there, she's holding up seven fingers. This is her seventh World Cup tournament. Can you believe that? She played her first one back in 1995, she's also at the age of 41 the oldest woman to play in the World Cup. No less than 150 players in this tournament weren't even born when she played her first World Cup in the '95. So, that is extraordinary. We also had history because that's Christiana completing her hat-trick in this game. She scored all three goals for Brazil today. She is 34 and now the oldest scorer of a hat-trick living this World Cup.</s>FOLBAUM: Wow.</s>RIDDELL: Great stuff for that.</s>FOLBAUM: Love it, love the history. Don Riddell, joining us. Nice to have you out here. Thanks very much for coming.</s>RIDDELL: All right. Good to see you.</s>FOLBAUM: OK. So, longtime rivals, England and Scotland, they too will face off in the football tournaments next match that starts in about 30 minutes. The highly anticipated contest has many excited including our own Amanda Davies.</s>AMANDA DAVIES, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: I vividly remember being here in Paris back in December. And England-Scotland was one of those matchups that brought groans from inside the auditorium when their names were drawn in the same group. People didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Scotland's first World Cup appearance. England looking at their best chance in a long time. Neighbors, such post rivals in the same group, and fighting against each other for a place in the last 16. As we got closer, excitement has only grown ahead of Sunday's matchup in Nice. England will be the favorites with a real mix of youth at experience in their squadron. Having won the invitational she believes cup, beating Japan and drawing with the USA earlier this year. Ellen White was one of the players that scored in that tournament and she scored against Scotland at Euro 2017.</s>ELLEN WHITE, ENGLISH FOOTBALLER: I went to Euro 2004 in Portugal with my family and we went to watch England play against Croatia. Rooney scored a screamer, and yes, I think that was, you know, exciting to be watching a major tournament and it involved in the crowd be a super, super like excitable fan, and seeing like England play a live game. And I think that was really exciting with my family, you know, ultimately you want to play a major tournaments. And I think that almost gave me the buzz of wanting to be on that pitch. So, yes that potentially did give me a little bit of push to be like go, go be a footballer. It's a huge transition obviously, a new manager, it's nearly been a year now. And I think, you know it takes a while to embed a philosophy, a game plan how he wants us to play. And we've had like a four year to develop that and gain an understanding as not only as a team squad but also as individuals as well. So, I think, you know, it's definitely bought in -- you know a different philosophy, you know, the standards, you know, the mentality, you know, I think that's really important. That we go into every game with so much humility for every team that we play. Not that we never did, but I think this more emphasis on it. And we want to play football, we want to win games. And so, you know, its exciting things to come. Obviously, I got to go out to the group. And then, we'll go from there. But ultimately, you know, we're going to have -- you know, six months to prep after Christmas. You got to put everything we have to win that World Cup. We came so close in Canada and yes, I think, we want to go one step further.</s>DAVIES: White and England teammates know that this is being talked about as their best chance yet. So, win a World Cup to improve on that third- place finish in Canada four years ago. They really need to lay down a marker in their tournament opener. But have no doubts there is no chance of Scotland playing nice in Nice. Amanda Davies, CNN, Paris.</s>FOLBAUM: Live from CNN's worldwide headquarters, you're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.