CBSSports.com: Venus, Serena again in Wimbledon class of their own

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- There's a new musical in London, Sister Act, based on the movie of the same name. There's an old tennis routine at Wimbledon, sister act, based on a history of similar results. No dancing in this one, just advancing.

Venus and Serena Williams are at it once more. In the semifinals once more. One win from the final once more.

"That would be fantastic," said Venus. "It's what Serena and I are hoping for, but we still would have to play well."

They hardly can play better than they have been. It was 90 degrees in the shade Tuesday, and there isn't much shade at the All England Club except for some of the seat holders on Centre Court and Court One.

No time to dawdle. The heat was on. So were Venus and Serena.

Venus needed a mere 68 minutes to squash Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-1, 6-2, in one of the quarterfinals. Serena took 73 minutes to gain revenge, 6-2, 6-3 against Victoria Azarenka, who had beaten Serena in Miami in the spring.

In the Thursday semis, Venus, trying for a sixth Wimbledon singles championship and third in a row, faces No. 1 seed Dinara Safina, a 6-7, 6-4, 6-1 winner over Sabine Lisicki, while Serena plays Olympic champion Elena Dementieva, who in the other quarter defeated Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-2.

This in an affirmation of those who arrange the seedings. The final four are the top four seeds, Safina (1), Serena (2), Venus (3) and Dementieva (4). If form didn't exactly follow function, there wasn't much deviation.

There hasn't been any deviation in Venus' purposeful march. She has won 19 straight matches at Wimbledon, 32 consecutive sets. "Her tennis is so powerful," Radwanska said of Venus, "She's playing so flat (with no spin and little bounce to the ball), and it's hard to do anything."

Azarenka was no less impressed with Serena: "She was striking the ball so hard and good, she really showed the unbeatable Serena today."

Sister act. One Williams or the other has won seven of the last nine Wimbledon women's titles, Venus in 2000, '01, '05, '07 and '08; Serena in '02 and '03. Last year Venus beat Serena in the final; in '02 and '03, Serena beat Venus in the final.

"Do I feel invincible?" 29-year-old Venus Williams asked rhetorically. "I'd like to say yes, but I really do work at it."

Someone wondered what it would be like for Venus to play Venus. "I have no idea," Serena answered, "but I guess the same way I feel when I have to face Venus. You can't give an inch. You have to be on your best game and hopefully she might not be on her best game."

Both the Williams ladies appear on their best game, a game no one else seems to possess.

"I don't know," Serena responded when asked what sets them apart. "We have a great game. We have strong serves. I think we have pretty good returns. Just solid all-around court players. I think we move pretty well. And honestly, I feel lucky and blessed to have had such a good coach in my dad, and my mom, to have taught us the game."

Some, perhaps out of jealousy, say the sisters simply were born great, tremendous athletes -- which they are -- but refuse to acknowledge the sweat and thought that has gone into making them successful.

"If it was that easy," said Venus, "we'd win everything. But it's not that easy. Still, I think we definitely are the front-runners as far as being some of the best players out there. ... I think the style of the game Serena and I play, we play better than the other women."

The Wimbledon style, matches before dark, changed Monday night when the new roof was closed, on the excuse of a brief shower, and Andy Murray took five sets to beat Stanislas Wawrinka, the final point coming at 10:38 p.m. local time.

Murray, the Scot, grumbled about the lack of notice he was given about playing indoors and the amount of humidity despite air conditioning. The BBC attracted 12.6 million viewers for the match, and there was a debate whether the broadcast network persuaded Wimbledon to close the roof and hold the Murray match last on the schedule, after many commuters had arrived home.

Venus, for her part, watched on TV long after finishing a fourth-round match. "It was exciting," she said. "The lighting, from the TV at least, it looked like daylight instead of playing under lights. But I haven't played under the roof, so I don't know what it's like."

What Wimbledon has been like is an old routine with new questions for the participants, such as the one to Serena, who has a total 10 Grand Slam victories, about whether she contemplates her achievements.

"Some of my trophies," she pointed out in denial, "I use for makeup brushes. Maybe I'll just take a step back and take all the brushes out and appreciate every title and every trophy."

But not after she tries to keep stepping forward at Wimbledon toward a probable rematch in the final against her sister.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11909419
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Is Melanie Oudin the Future of American Tennis?

By Art Spander

WIMBLEDON, England -- She offered a glimmer, a possibility. Melanie Oudin reminded us there still are kids in the United States who want to be the best.

Kids who will pick up a baseball glove or a basketball, or in her case a tennis racket, and work at their play, driven by their dreams or their demons, as did the youth of past generations.

Wimbledon, the oldest tournament in tennis, the most famous tournament in tennis. The tournament in which at the start of the second week on Monday, there were numerous Swedes and Serbs and Russians and Swiss in singles. And four Americans.

Before early afternoon, the number was reduced to three. Oudin (pronounced Ooh-DAHN), the 17-year-old from the suburbs of Atlanta, was beaten in the fourth round by Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, 6-4, 7-5.

The number was reduced, but America's hopes were not. Maybe after the great Venus and Serena Williams, now in their late 20s, somebody holding a U.S. passport will again be a women's champion. Maybe somebody after the retired Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi there will be a men's champion.

The major leagues have become the Caribbean league. "No rich kid will ever be a ballplayer," Joe DiMaggio was to have said half a century past. "You've got to be hungry."

Meaning you have to grind and sweat and practice. Meaning you have to give up the mall for the playgrounds. Or sandlots. Or clearings amongst the palm trees.

Baseball is the domain of the Dominicans and Venezuelans because they have earned their way.

Tennis belongs to the Eastern Europeans -- at the French Open, there were 25 women whose name ended in "-ova," the label of an unmarried female in those nations. "They want to succeed," a U.S. Tennis Association official made clear of the Serbs and Russians and Czechs.

So does Melanie Oudin, who although of French descent, calls herself "totally American." She's only wanted one thing as she aged: to become better than anyone else.

First you to have to make the commitment. Then you have to make progress. Oudin has done both.

"My goal," said Oudin, "has always been to be No. 1 in the world someday. But it's going to take a lot more work, and I'm going to have to get better and better. But I'm willing to work on it."

She began Wimbledon at 124 in the women's rankings. Now she's in the top 100. But is it only a temporary burst? Does she continue to move up, beat the Hantuchovas and Petrovas and Dementievas, or simply flame out and slip again into anonymity?

"I've always been mentally tough on court," said Oudin. That's a start. And she's quick. But at 5-foot-6, Oudin lacks a big serve and power strokes at the moment.

"She doesn't have weapons," said Jelena Jankovic, a former No. 1, after Oudin beat her.

She has the desire; as DiMaggio might have said, the hunger. She knew what she wanted from the time she was 12 and attending the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadow. "I always said I wanted to play in the pros there," was Oudin's recollection. No less significantly, she was playing in the pros here, at the 123rd Wimbledon.

"I didn't expect it coming into this tournament," said Oudin in reflection. She had to survive two match points the first round of qualifying. Then she beat three women ranked above her, two of them, Sybille Bammer and No. 6 Jankovic, seeded the first week of play.

"I'm happy with the way I fought here. I gave everything I have. I'm still the same person, but I think I've improved this week. I think I've gotten better as a player, but I'm looking forward to keep going."

So is the United States. So are ESPN, NBC and CBS, which televise the Grand Slam tournaments. So are tennis people around the globe because they know an American presence benefits the sport.

Oudin could be playing in the juniors. A year ago she was, but lost to Laura Robson of England. This time, Robson, in the main draw, was beaten in the first round while Oudin, the home-schooled munchkin from Georgia, made it into the fourth. And made it into the headlines.

"I'm, like, disappointed I lost today," said Oudin. One step more and she would have been in the quarter-finals. But already she has taken some very large steps.

"I'm very proud of myself, how I did here," said Oudin. "Now I can play with these girls, and this is what I want to do and what I want to be.

"If you really want this, I don't think anything will distract you. There are different things that I've wanted to do, but this is worth it to me. This is what I've always wanted."

What she wants is what America needs: a new face at the summit of tennis.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/29/is_melanie_oudin_the_future_of_american_tennis_96414.html
© RealClearSports 2009

CBSSports.com: Murray's marathon, roof closing mark historic day at Wimbledon

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- Andy Murray received his usual standing ovation, and the new roof at Centre Court got an unusual one. Overhead, under lights, with Britannia ruling and the Williams sisters rolling, this 123rd Wimbledon made history.

When Murray finally defeated Stanislas Wawrinka, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3, it was 10:38 p.m., more than an hour later than any tennis ever had been played at Wimbledon, where people once believed in the civilized idea of holding competition in daylight.

Until Monday, no match had gone beyond 9:35 p.m., which is when a women's doubles match ended in 1981. But now, with the roof and the lights below that roof, it's all changed. Play once started would continue until a winner was determined.

That took 3 hours, 57 minutes. The pubs were getting ready to close.

"It was pretty special," said Murray, who fell to his knees. "I thought Stan played a great match. I'm pretty sure this is the latest finish at Wimbledon."

He's got that right.

"Always when you play indoors, the atmosphere is great," he continued. "When you have 15,000 people cheering for you, it's fantastic."

Long before, Andy Roddick joined Serena and Venus as the U.S. entries in the quarterfinals. Although Roddick's match started at roughly the same time as Murray's, it finished two hours earlier.

If it didn't happen at Wimbledon on the long day's journey into night -- indoor tennis, tennis after dark, Ana Ivanovic injuring her thigh and tearfully pulling out against Venus, Amelie Mauresmo returning to her days of gagging leads, Lleyton Hewitt losing the first two sets and winning the match, the temperature getting up there in Miami territory -- it's probably never going to happen.

At last the roof, which costs 80 million pounds ($146 million), came into play, although truly it wasn't needed. But other than the glorious quest by Murray to become the first Brit in 73 years to win men's singles, the roof has been all anyone has talked or written about.

So as the thermometer climbed almost to 90 and the humidity grew more oppressive, it was a given rain was coming. The first drops fell around 4:35 p.m., and after the tarps -- or, as they're called here, the covers -- were rolled out on Centre Court, the sellout crowd began staring upward.

It didn't matter that it wasn't raining hard enough to delay play on some of the outside courts. The Mauresmo-Dinara Safina match on Centre Court was halted in the second set. Suddenly, the two sides of the translucent roof began moving toward each other. The sellout crowd stood and cheered, as it would later for Murray's comeback.

Radio Wimbledon even gave an account -- dare it be described as play-by-play -- of the roof being employed.

"The roof is moving!" the announcer declared. "It's a privilege to be here on Centre Court at this moment! It's almost shut now! It's agonizingly close to being shut!"

After it was shut and the announcer shut up, at least about the roof, Safina ripped a passing shot for the first point under Wimbledon's temporary dome.

Safina, No. 1 in rankings and seedings, came back from the loss of a first set and being down 3-1 in the third to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The precipitation, slight as it was, had stopped. Would the roof be opened again for Murray's match against Wawrinka?

Not at all, and that choice allowed play to continue into the dead of night, because of the lights, and allowed Murray, the No. 3 seed, to overtake Wawrinka, the player from Switzerland who isn't named Roger Federer.

Just to prove the lunacy of the process, while Murray and Wawrinka went at it indoors, 100 yards away, Roddick was beating Tomas Berdych, 7-6, 6-4, 6-3, in the sunlight falling upon Court 1.

Not that he had any control over the situation, or that it affected him, Roddick was asked whether he thought they pulled the trigger too early on closing the roof. Tournament officials have decreed that, once a shot is hit while the roof is in place, then it stays in place through a match, even if there's no rain.

"Here is what I think about it," Roddick said. "If it's raining, they have a pretty good little weather system forecast thingy down in the magic little office there. ... I say if it is even sprinkling, at the time, and it looks ominous, if you have a roof, use it."

So it was used.

What Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champ, couldn't do after getting thumped by Venus in the first set was use her left leg. In the opening game of the second set, Ana apparently pulled a thigh muscle, began to cry and then retired with Williams winning, 6-1, 1-0.

"I felt like I wasn't given a fair chance to fight," Ivanovic said.

Venus has won 18 straight matches and 31 straight sets at Wimbledon and seeks a third consecutive women's single title and sixth overall here.

The Sister Act still is proving newsworthy -- Serena Williams, on the other side of the draw, was a 6-3, 6-1 winner over Daniela Hantuchova.

"I was definitely out there not to stay too long," said Serena. "I'm a Florida girl, so I was totally fine with the heat."

As was Wimbledon with a match after dark.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11906045
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Second week, third round brings big tests, big answers

WIMBLEDON, England -- You could start with a pun, that with all the Russian women at Wimbledon, none of whom has won, it's over when it's "ova." You could start with the fact that Switzerland, famous for cheese and watches, has two men in the third round, while America, famous for who knows what, has only one.

Or you could start with the thought that the second week of the 123rd All England Lawn Tennis Championships has the potential to produce all sorts of tempting new stories but in the end undoubtedly will provide the same ones as in the past. With minor variations.

They're back Monday. Everybody who made it through the first week, made it to the fourth round, will be playing. After a day on which nobody played.

Which is why Wimbledon is Wimbledon. Or, more accurately, why the Borough of Merton, where the town and club are located, is what it is.

The residents need a break from the cars and crowds. The grass courts need a break from the players. The players need a break from each other, although they did practice, and from the media.

The other Grand Slams, the Australian, the French, the U.S. Open, go on through Sunday. Not Wimbledon, unless rain has tormented play earlier in the event.

That hasn't been the case, as you are aware. The new roof over Centre Court was closed only once, Saturday evening, but no one took the court.

In Sunday's Observer, Will Buckley, not the only one weary of tales of the roof, alluded to the television network and complained that the BBC "obsesses over a cover story that tells us nothing."

The third-round matches will tell us a great deal:

Whether Andy Murray, the No. 3 seed, the Scotsman, the great hope to end Britain's 73-year silence in men's singles (no champion since Fred Perry in 1936), can get past the other guy from Switzerland, Stanislas Wawrinka.

Whether Andy Roddick, the last U.S. male remaining in singles, has enough game to beat Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, whom Roddick said is streaky, "rarely middle of the road. He's either real good or not so good. Right now you expect to get the best of him."

Whether Melanie Oudin, the 17-year-old Munchkin from Marietta, Ga., outside Atlanta, can keep going on a miracle run that began three weeks ago when she survived two match points in the first round of qualifying and continued through a win over No. 5 Jelena Jankovic. Monday, the 5-foot-6 Oudin meets Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, out on Court 18, the quasi-big time.

The other results we take for granted, that Venus Williams, trying for a third straight Wimbledon title and sixth overall, will whip Ana Ivanovic, as in the 2007 semifinals. On a roll? Venus has won 17 straight matches here, 29 straight sets.

That Roger Federer of Switzerland will thump his pigeon, Robin Soderling of Sweden, whom he beat in the French final three weeks ago, improving his record against him to 10-0. That's perfect, if you were wondering.

Britain's in a dither. The national rugby team was beaten Saturday 28-25 in South Africa, a performance that earned the headline, "Brilliant Lions Succumb to Epic Defeat."

The Ashes, the historic cricket competition between England and Australia, resumes July 8 in Wales.

And Murray is looking very much as if he'll be around for the last day of Wimbledon.

"Ice-cool Murray a cert for final, say stars," was the back-pager in the Sunday Mail. That translates as John McEnroe, Boris Becker and John Lloyd, Chris Evert's ex, predicting Murray will be in the final against Federer.

"I'd obviously love to get to the final," said Murray, classically reticent, "but there is still a lot of tennis to be played." Substitute football for tennis, and it sounds like a sound bite on any given Sunday in the NFL.

Venus, too, was conversant in the cliches. "She's talented and she does everything well," Venus said of Ivanovic, who has slipped to No. 13 after briefly rising to first following her 2008 French Open win.

Federer insisted the second week of a Grand Slam is when the tournament gets interesting for him. "Not necessarily," Venus responded when asked her reaction. "We think different. I take it match by match and figure out whatever I need to figure out."

It was reported that Venus and sister Serena, also into the fourth round, have been e-mailing Melanie Oudin, although they are only acquaintances through the Fed Cup team.

"They say things like, 'You go girl,'" Cliff Klingbeil, a friend of the Oudin family, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "Melanie can't believe the Williams sisters even know who she is."

We all know what Wimbledon is, the tennis tournament that takes a day off and comes back with a vengeance.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11903142
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Roof closes just for show on day of surprises

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- It isn't a $146 million curiosity piece after all. The new roof over Wimbledon's Centre Court finally was closed Saturday, although for no good reason other than to prove it could be closed.

You have a new toy; you have to play with it.

Long after the last scheduled match, just about 8 p.m., when there still was plenty of light and not enough rain, the huge accordion-like structure was activated.

Andy Murray, the Scot, the guy who might give Great Britain its first men's singles champion in 73 years, had finished beating Victor Troicki, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. Andy Roddick had won his match. Venus Williams had won hers.

And it was long after 17-year-old Melanie Oudin, who was out there on Court 3, gave reason to believe America might have a female champion other than Venus or Serena Williams.

Maybe the people who run Wimbledon were weary of the complaints. Maybe they felt taunted by Mother Nature, a fickle lady who usually provides rain every year for the All England Championships but has failed miserably this time.

So, following the Murray-Troicki competition, with only a few hundred of the 14,000-plus fans still in their seats, the roof was closed and the announcement was made that, if needed, because of advancing darkness or actual rain, a match from Court 1 might be shifted to Centre Court.

Except the match on Court 1, between Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, the No. 10 seed, and Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain already was in the fourth set and headed for a fifth.

It would be like moving a game from Citi Field to Yankee Stadium in the seventh inning.

In the end, the match stayed where it was -- the fans over on Court 1 would have been unhappy, indeed -- and Ferrero surprised Gonzalez 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

Not as big a surprise as the 5-6 Oudin, playing her first Wimbledon. She beat a disoriented Jelena Jankovic, affected by the heat, 6-7 (8-10), 7-5, 6-2.

Jankovic had started the year as No. 1 in the rankings and had reached the finals of the 2008 U.S. Open. She's a world-class player. But Oudin, from the suburbs of Atlanta, literally ran her around the court.

"She's a short girl, and she runs a lot," Jankovic said of Oudin. "She doesn't have any weapons, but she doesn't make many mistakes. She made me hit a lot of balls, and I just couldn't do it. I didn't have enough power and strength to hit my shots."

Jankovic needed medical treatment after the first set. "I felt dizzy, and I thought I was going to end up in the hospital," she said. She also needed to get a toe taped after the second set.

But Oudin (pronounced Ooh-DAHN; she is of French descent "but totally American") didn't need to hear excuses -- only her own excited squeals after her biggest victory in 15 months as pro.

"I went out there and actually did well just thinking she was any other player," said Oudin, "and it was any other match, and I was at any other tournament."

As they say, anything that works.

Introduced to tennis along with twin sister Katherine by their grandmother, Melanie watched Venus and Serena from Wimbledon on TV when she was 7 years old and announced she would be there someday.

She made it through qualifying, saving two match points in her opening match a couple of weeks ago. And she has made it through three rounds despite her ranking (123rd).

"I've not played her," Venus Williams said, "but I was on the Fed Cup team with her. Just so enthusiastic about tennis. [For the United States] it's super good news."

Things weren't so super good for Svetlana Kuznetsova, the French Open winner, who was a loser. And then there was Jesse Levine, along with Roddick the only American male who made it to the third round but who, unlike Roddick, didn't make it out of the third round.

Everything seemed to work for Venus, a 6-0, 6-4 winner over Carla Suarez Navarro, Venus' 17th straight successful match as she tries for a third consecutive women's title at Wimbledon, but the talk later was that the roof had worked. As if Roddick cared about that.

"There's a roof," Roddick said. "If it rains, it closes. Beyond that, we might as well guess what color socks someone is wearing. I think the common joke is they haven't had to use it yet. All this money, and the weather's been nice."

It was fine when Roddick defeated Jurgen Melzer, 7-6, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 in their third-rounder. Clouds appeared and the temperature dropped as Murray and Troicki were about to move on, having received instructions about procedure dealing with the roof. Ten minutes are needed to close, 20 minutes to activate the air conditioning.

"I obviously wanted to finish the match as quickly as possible," said Murray, who did that, requiring only an hour and a half. "It would have been a nice bit of history, I guess, the first to play under the roof. I wasn't worried about it. I enjoy playing indoors."

There probably won't be any indoor tennis at Wimbledon until at least Wednesday, according to the forecast, but then there's a chance of rain every day through the end of the tournament. Maybe that roof will get used -- maybe a lot.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11900551
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: 'Murraymania' Takes Hold at Wimbledon

By Art Spander

He's from Scotland, but the English will accept him -- if he wins Wimbledon. Which no British male, English, Scottish, Welsh or whatever has done in 73 years.

Andy Murray is the third seed and the first story. The tabloids had dozens of pieces on Michael Jackson reading front to back. But back to front, which is how the sporting public treats tabs, it was Andy Murray, or as they call it here, "Murraymania.''

Sports news in England is reported subjectively and patriotically. Losers are "brave.'' Winners "fly the flag." There haven't been many flags flying at Wimbledon, and so Murray, who in lesser tournaments has beaten Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, is being touted, idolized and treated like the royalty he someday may meet.

Already, Murray has received congratulations from Queen Elizabeth for his win two weeks ago at Queen's, the warmup for Wimbledon, something he noted on his Twitter page.

"Got a nice letter from the Queen,'' he tweeted, "for doing well winning Queen's. Put it away from the bills.''

Murray lost a set in his opening match to Robert Kendrick, an American, which caused great distress among the journalists, who in England root as intensely for the locals as Americans root against theirs, with maybe the exception of Tiger Woods.

But Murray looked sharp in the second round and as he prepared to face a Serb named Viktor Troicki in the third, Murray had all England (and presumably Scotland) at his feet. Which is better than having them at one's neck, the usual fate of British athletes who sink to becoming brave losers.

"Murray in a hurry as the path to glory opens wide,'' was the headline in the Times, which limited itself to one gushing piece. As opposed to The Sun, which on the back page carried the headline, ‘YOU CAN KISS MY FEET,'' a tale of him losing wagers to his coach, one of the payments requiring pushups and a smack on the sneakers.

Murray very well might face Federer in the finals, which could even bring out the Queen, who hasn't been to Wimbledon since 1977, when Virginia Wade of England was champion. Her majesty has made no secret of her dislike of tennis, but she may feel compelled to be high-class royalty in the Royal Box.

On Friday, that area was occupied by such as Mr. and Mrs. Rajesh Batra, Lady and Sir Ian Miskin and the Rt. Honorable The Baroness Dean of Thorton-le-Fylde. Not bad, but hardly like Thursday when one of the guests was Dr. Iary Ravoarimanana of Madagascar, who has written a book on molecular phylogeny and taxonomic revision of the sporting lemurs.

What sport the lemurs play is unknown, but apparently it's not tennis. Otherwise they'd be entered at Wimbledon, perhaps as Murray, or multiple champions, Federer and Serena Williams. Each was a third-round winner Friday, when sun the continued to shine and the very expensive new roof over Centre Court remained unused.

Federer, saying he thought it was his best match of the tournament, even while losing a set, beat Philipp Kohlscriber, 6-3, 6-2, 6-7, 6-1. Serena was a 6-3, 6-4 winner over Roberta Vinci in a match that took just a bit more than an hour.

For Serena, the obligatory debriefing, in which she brought out one of those small, plastic Gatorade squeeze bottles and plunked it down just to her right, label carefully facing the front, was not so much about tennis as about Michael Jackson.

The British press needs angles, not to be confused with angles of volleys or drop shots. Wimbledon coverage alternates on two BBC channels from noon until darkness. Newspapers may not be flourishing here, but they're around in large numbers, and the competition among them is very real.

So, the very first question to Serena was: "What did Michael Jackson mean to you personally, and would you think about dedicating today's victory perhaps?''

Serena was both respectful and truthful. "No,'' she began, answering the second question first. "I mean he was great guy, a complete icon. Words just can't express my shock and horror . . . I think Michael Jackson, everyone listens to his music. It's like you think of the Beatles, you think of Elvis Presley, you think of Michael Jackson. Those are just lifetime icons that I've never forgotten.''

As far as the tennis? "I'm happy to have gotten my match over. I'm happy to have won.''

She'll win some more. As will her sister, Venus, trying for a third straight championship. But in Britain they really only care about Andy Murray. He's from Scotland. And, should he become champion, he also would be from heaven.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/26/murraymania_takes_hold_at_wimbledon_96411.html
© RealClearSports 2009

CBSSports.com: Serena's win secondary to remembering Michael Jackson

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- Serena Williams handled herself beautifully on the court and no less elegantly in the post-match interview Friday. On an afternoon when even at Wimbledon tennis seemed less important than a day earlier, her words were as impressive as her shots.

The news was unavoidable. In Britain, Michael Jackson was even larger than in the United States. He was to appear in a 50-show run at London's 02 Arena starting July 13, for which $85 million in tickets had been sold.

Nine of the first 11 pages in the Times of London dealt with Jackson's death. The headline in three-inch high letters in the 3.5-million circulation Sun proclaimed 'JACKO DEAD.' It was impossible not to know.

And Serena knew.

"I'm always online," she said."I'm always looking at the latest news until I fall asleep. So I saw it fairly early."

What we saw Friday on another warm, clear afternoon -- one that again mocked the idea of building a roof over Centre Court -- was Serena at her workmanlike best out on Court 2. She was a deliberate third-round winner over Roberta Vinci, 6-3, 6-4.

Then, hit by questions no one might have imagined at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, she provided answers both heartfelt and insightful.

Not that Serena, ever conscious of the commercial world and her endorsements, didn't take advantage of her presence. She sat down at the desk where the microphones sit and adroitly plunked down a squeeze bottle with a Gatorade label quite visible.

"What did Michael Jackson mean to you personally?" was the first query. Nothing about forehands or foresight. Only about a nearly mythic entertainer. "Would you think about dedicating today's victory, perhaps?"

Serena was prepared. She knows Wimbledon. She knows she's a celebrity, even if she tries to deny it.

"No," was her response, meaning the dedication. "I mean, he was a great guy, a complete icon. Words can't express my shock and horror. Just thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. It's just a terrible, terrible thing."

Williams met Jackson some time ago. She reacted the way others react to her, emotional, uncontrolled.

"I think he was the ultimate celebrity," she said. "I think any celebrity who met Michael Jackson was completely in awe. I know I was. I kept thinking, 'Oh my God, oh my God. It's him, it's him. So for me, he was the celebrity of all celebrities."

And then the silly stuff. Not from Serena, who has won this event twice and has been runner-up twice, including last year when she was beaten by older sister Venus. From the media, which was looking for any angle.

"Can you moonwalk?" someone wondered. Her quick answer was in the negative.

It was another walk that almost threw Serena. There's a new Court 2 at Wimbledon. This one is farther away from Centre Court grandstand and locker rooms. The other, nicknamed "The Graveyard of Champions," because of all the upsets, was noisy and cramped for the fans.

Serena was six minutes late for the scheduled 1 p.m. start. She was waiting for the normal escort, and it never arrived.

"Well, I thought someone was gonna come get me," was her explanation. "Then I figured, well, maybe I just have to report. I didn't know what to do. So I was waiting, warming up. Waiting and waiting.

"Finally, I said, I'm just going to go out. I'm used to someone coming and saying, 'OK, let's go.'"

Serena is the No. 2 seed, but there have been times when Roger Federer, a five-time champion, has had to play on Court 2. He didn't like it, felt it was beneath him. Serena, on the other hand, didn't care. Although she said, "I don't think I played great today," it took only 1 hour, 7 minutes to move to the second week.

"It's not a court for Roger," she said of Court 2, "but it's definitely a court for me. But I haven't won Wimbledon five times. I really enjoyed the court. It had the challenge system [an instant-replay camera]. It worked for me. I actually really liked it."

The atmosphere is different. Those are the fans who queue to enter, the ones who have only grounds passes. "It's a big difference," she affirmed. "The fans are more involved. It seems more verbal. And it's fun."

The fun ended with talk about Michael Jackson, a sobering dialogue.

"Well, I think everyone listens to his music," he said. "It's like you think of the Beatles, you think of Elvis Presley, you think of Michael Jackson. Those are lifetime icons that I've never forgotten.

"I've been following him. He's not been well, from what I read. He's been in and out of the hospital. So I wasn't super shocked. But it's Michael Jackson. He's the greatest entertainer, for me, of all time."

Spoken by surely one of the great women's tennis players of all time.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11896933
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Victorious Roddick posts up, beats the press

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- The challenge came after the match, which is often the case at Wimbledon. Andy Roddick had won, but now he was being asked what he thought of the Shaquille O'Neal trade.

At least by the Americans in the interview room.

The Brits only wanted to know where Andy might dine in London. They didn't have much of a chance.

Not with a hoops guy like Roddick. He likes to eat. He prefers to talk basketball. Or baseball.

Andy won his second-round match Thursday, defeating Russian Igor Kunitsyn 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. A stumble in the third set, a figurative one that is, but nothing that couldn't be and wasn't corrected.

"A win is a win," Roddick said. "The set I got broken, I had numerous break chances, and he got the one he had. I knew I was getting the better of him. Probably played my best set by far in the fourth set."

These are fine days for Andy. He was married in April to model Brooklyn Decker. The minor injuries that have affected him at times seem to have disappeared. Two others from his hometown, Boca Raton, Fla., Mardy Fish and Jesse Levine, still are in the Wimbledon draw. And the media continue to ask his opinions about the NBA.

The man knows his basketball.

"Well, Griffin is going one," he said of the draft, still several hours away, "and then it's going to be interesting to see what Minnesota does. I think they have, what, five, six, 18 and 28?"

It will be interesting to see what Andy Roddick does. He is two months from his 27th birthday. The years keep moving. Roddick for so long has been the one constant of American tennis, successor to the great ones, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Jim Courier.

Roddick has a Grand Slam title, the 2003 U.S. Open championship. He has two seconds, runner-up to Roger Federer here at Wimbledon in 2004 and '05. What he or American tennis doesn't have is a replacement.

"I'd love nothing more than for some 17- or 18-year-old to pop out and get in there, in the top 15 or top 10," Roddick said. "But you can't deal in hypotheticals."

Was it ironic or simply interesting that on another warm day at Wimbledon, Andy and 28-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, the Australian, standard bearers for their nations the past many years, each were winners?

It was expected of Roddick, seeded No. 6, but not of Hewitt -- a former Wimbledon champion -- who, having been idled by hip surgery the end of 2008, is No. 56 in the world rankings.

Hewitt upset No. 5 seed Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 7-5, 7-5, if you can describe as an upset a loss by a 6-foot-7 clay-court specialist to a player whose flat shots stay low on grass.

"I don't think it's surprising," was Roddick's observation. "He's certainly capable of playing very well on this surface."

Very well, indeed. Hewitt was the Wimbledon men's singles winner in 2002.

A post-match session with Roddick is as fascinating as watching him hit those 140 mph serves. He is quick-witted and aggressive, virtues that are advantageous on court and in the interview room. He can fire one at you in both places.

There's an English singer-songwriter named Rick Astley, who Roddick, according to his Twitter, had on his iPod.

"I busted my wife on some of her crappy music," Andy said, "and she brought up Rick Astley. I can't deny it. It's in my iPod. And I'll bet it's in your iPod, too, so shut up."

When a Brit told Roddick, "You can get arrested in this country for having Rick Astley on your iPod," Andy responded, "You can get arrested in my country for lying under oath, so ..."

So what does he think of the Phoenix Suns sending Shaq to the Cleveland Cavaliers?

"Well," Roddick insisted, "it works both ways. I mean, Phoenix cuts dollars, and the Cavs have a big man. I mean, it was pretty apparent in the playoffs with Dwight Howard [from Orlando] that that was the part missing. Keep him healthy. I think he and [Zydrunas] Ilgauskas will be able to spell each other.

"There's going to an adjustment period with a 7-3, 350-pounder in the middle ... but it's only going to make the team better."

What will make Andy Roddick better? Where might he be had Roger Federer not arrived at virtually the same time, Federer twice at Wimbledon and once in the U.S. Open beating him in finals?

It's one of those intriguing questions that can be debated forever. But you can't deal in the hypothetical. Andy told us that. And a lot more.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11892894
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Wimbledon Is In a 'Grass' by Itself

WIMBLEDON, England -- It's different here, even if the language is the same. Forget that idea the Brits are charming, diplomatic if you will. This is the original place where people tell it like it is, and no apologies to Howard Cosell -- or at least, how they think it is.

It was the third day of Wimbledon, the oldest of sporting competitions, going back to the 1870s, and the sun was shining -- that new roof over Centre Court still is unused -- and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club grounds were chock-a-block with fans, more than 40,000 of them.

Roger Federer and Serena Williams, as expected, won their second-round matches on this fine Wednesday and Maria Sharapova, still working her way back from that shoulder injury, lost hers.

Tennis on grass courts. A festival more than a sporting event.

The desire is to get tickets for the semifinals or finals, still more than a week away, but the best of Wimbledon is found in the early rounds, when the weather is fine and matches literally are taking place at every one of the 19 courts. It's a show worthy of anything on the stages of the West End theaters.

It's different here. The ad for Sure deodorant on the car of the District Line train shows a woman with an upraised arm, clutching a pole with the words, "...twice the protection against sweat." Not perspiration. Not wetness. Sweat.

They don't sweat the use of prepositions. The sign at an intersection near the tennis complex tells motorists there is "No waiting in Bathgate Road," while another nearby warns "No alcohol on the stands.''

If baseball were popular here, would a walk would mean putting a runner "in" first base?

What we call an ATM, they call a cash machine, not to be confused with Pat Cash, who was a machine of sorts when he won men's singles in 1987. What we describe as a cell phone, they list as mobile phone. A seafood market remains a fishmonger.

And what would some states' beverage control units think of giving away small cups of beer, "Honey Dew, the United Kingdom's organic beer," to people walking the mile from the Southfields station to the Wimbledon grounds?

Serena Williams drinks something else. At least in public. Gatorade, or as promoted in those new commercials, "G." When Serena, the No. 2 seed, sat down for an interview after an easy, 6-2, 6-1, triumph over Jarmila Groth, she was wearing an orange T-shirt with a Nike swoosh logo large enough to cover Texas.

Then from her gym bag she lifted a bottle of "G" and placed it near the microphone, as to be better seen on television.

The sports drink is distributed in Britain, but not as widely as, say, Twinings tea.

At age 27, winner of 10 Grand Slam championships, Serena is creating a television script of her life. "I call it 'my treatment,' so I'm working on my treatment now," she said. "I was going to do it Tuesday, but I started watching 'Dexter' and got sidetracked."

She's missed a few forehands in her life, now Serena has to worry about missing deadlines?

What Wimbledon has been missing early on is compelling stories. The roof has been a non-issue. Except for Sharapova, the favorites won. Maybe that's why in this country of legalized gambling an unfounded report a match may have been fixed took on a life of its own.

An Austrian named Jurgen Melzer defeated Wayne Odesnik, an American, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, which, since Melzer is seeded, if at No. 26, and Odesnik is not, shouldn't have been terribly surprising.

But just before the match began, the bookmaker Betfair said it received more than six times as many wagers as it normally would, and Betfair spokesman Mark Davies said the odds on Melzer "shortened significantly."

There was a simple explanation. One of the television commentators, apparently for the BBC, pointed out before the first shot that Odesnik had a thigh injury. You can just picture the gamblers in the pubs or at home rubbing their hands today and greedily laying down a few quid on Melzer.

Betfair received about $980,000 in wagers on the match, Davies said; the average for a first-round match at Wimbledon is less than $163,000.

"It's being reported as potential corruption, but I don't see it that way at all," Davies told The Associated Press. "I doubt that there was any wrongdoing."

But there was plenty of hyperventilating, worry if you will. Or as it's described in England, people getting a twist in their knickers. Maybe Serena could work it into her script.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/24/wimbledon_is_in_a_grass_by_itself_96408.html
© RealClearSports 2009

CBSSports.com: Sharapova stumbles but optimistically looks toward future

By Art Spander
Special to CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- She was the star of the show three years back in New York.

Maria Sharapova won the U.S. Open and the timing was perfect -- Nike was running a commercial that featured her as a woman of means, with accompaniment by the song I Feel Pretty from Westside Story.

Yep, Sharapova is going home early again but her passion to improve is as strong as ever. (Getty Images)   These days the only music that fits Sharapova is the blues. She has learned the hard way about an athlete's vulnerability, that at any moment she can be betrayed by her body.

That, as we've heard so many times, you're only one injury away from the end of a career.

Sharapova's career is still going, but her stay at this year's Wimbledon is over. In what accurately can be described as a comeback, Sharapova hasn't come back far enough.

Given a gift seed of 24 because of her presence rather than her recent record, Sharapova was beaten Wednesday in the second round, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, by Gisela Dulko of Argentina.

Tennis is a tough sport on young women. Virtually all the great ones of late -- Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Serena Williams, all except the remarkable Martina Navratilova -- have been hurt. For Sharapova, who won this tournament, who won the Australian, who won the U.S., it was a rotator cuff tear in her right shoulder -- disaster for a right-hander.

She missed the Beijing Olympics. She missed the U.S. Open a couple of weeks later. She kept hoping the shoulder would heal, but it did not, and in October, like so many major league pitchers who have incurred the same injury, Sharapova underwent surgery.

Now she's undergoing the process of re-establishing herself, a complex process when you've been away for months, as was Sharapova. Now she not only needs to find the forehand, she needs to find the confidence.

"You just move forward," was Sharapova's philosophical comment about the loss. "This is not an overnight process. It's going to take time, as much time as it needs, as much time as I need on court to get everything together."

Time, that precious element. Football and basketball are governed by a clock. Teams run out of time. Athletes run out of time. Sharapova is only 24, but she has been playing for years. She used to look behind her at all the new faces entering the game. Now she must peer ahead, toward the players in front of her, toward the possible decline of her game.

This was only Sharapova's fourth event since rejoining the tour. Missing so many tournaments, she had fallen to 60th in the rankings but received a seeding because of her history.

Dulko, ranked 45th, had won just three games in two matches against Sharapova. But in this match, Dulko kept Sharapova off balance with drop shots, while Maria -- as would be natural for someone unable to play for a while -- struggled with the two essentials, the serve and the forehand.

Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004, but that seems a lifetime ago rather than five years. If understandably arrogant when she was on top of the sport, not only because of what she did on court but with the Canon and Nike promotions off the court, Sharapova seems humbled and chastened by her fall.

There was purity in her observations. She wasn't trying to fool the media. Or herself.

"I had so many easy balls, and I just made unforced errors from those," a candid Sharapova conceded. "I don't know if that's because I haven't played. You know, I've had those situations before, and those balls would be pieces of cake, but today they weren't. But it's OK."

Pieces of cake. An American idiom, presented by a Russian. Who in effect is an American. She's lived in Florida for 17 years and speaks flawless English, flawless in pronunciation, without any hint of an accent.

The injury, the recovery, the agonizing work of rebuilding have given Sharapova a new appreciation of many things, from trying to find perspective to finding joy in just hitting a tennis ball again.

"First of all, you think of injuries as basically preventing you from playing your sport," was her reflection. "But if you look at the bigger picture, there are so many things that can happen that can limit you to doing things in life or even having a life.

"If you put things in perspective when you get injured, yes, my career is a huge part of my life, and that's what I do on a daily basis. So is it frustrating when that goes away for a while? Absolutely. But if you have a good head on your shoulders, you know that there's a life to live."

Just being at Wimbledon, reminded Sharapova, is an accomplishment. When you can't compete for months and then are given the opportunity to appear in the most famous of tournaments, there is a certain satisfaction.

"I had the pleasure of playing on Centre Court again," she said. "I didn't play on it last year. Losses are tough, more here than any other tournament. But it's all right. I have many more years ahead of me."

The shoulder is fine now. It sounds as if the head is, too.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11889066
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

SF Examiner: When Wimbledon gets a roof, the rain stays away

WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND — Manny Ramirez has nothing on this country, where one arrives to find a headline in the Times of London reading “Henderson guilty of doping ...”

He is the trainer of the Queen’s racehorse Moonlit Path.

What goes on out there? Manny? A-Rod? And now Moonlit Path, who failed a drug test in February?

Does the mare get a 50-day suspension?

A strange world sports has become. The U.S. Open in New York turns into a rainy mess and then offers up a surprise winner when Lucas Glover holds off Phil Mickelson and David Duval.

Over here, where there’s a new retractable roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court to keep out the rain, it’s warm and sunny.

“The roof looks really nice,” said Venus Williams, who Tuesday looked very good herself, with an opening-match win over Stephanie Voegele of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-2.

“The sun’s been shining,” Venus affirmed. “We haven’t had to use the roof yet. It’s kind of ironic. But I’m sure it will get some use.”

Undoubtedly. They’ve had some notoriously bad weather at Wimbledon in the roughly 130 years the tournament has been held, occasionally consecutive days without tennis or afternoons when only one match was finished.

Andy Roddick followed Venus onto Centre Court and needed four sets to get by Jeremy Chardy, 6-3, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. He said he barely was aware of the roof, which was pushed together like a closed accordion at one end of the superstructure.

“You don’t notice that much,” Roddick said. “I hadn’t seen it before I walked out. They did a good job. It’s not this big, imposing thing.”

As is television, at least figuratively. Television, the networks, in effect forced Wimbledon to construct the roof. The decision came painfully.

They don’t like a lot of change in Britain. Hey, if it was good enough for Henry VIII, then why tinker with success?

Unless, TV figuratively raises another roof because it has to show that 1980 Borg-McEnroe 18-16 fourth-set tiebreaker a 42nd time because there’s no live tennis. So, Wimbledon has its roof.

What Venus has is five women’s singles championships, the last three in succession. It was 15 years ago at what then was called Oakland Coliseum Arena, Williams, a teenager from Compton with white beads in her hair, made her professional entrance.

“I remember,” Venus said. “I was so excited. Just growing up, my parents always told us we’d be winning Wimbledon. ... It was something I was preparing for. I think they were geniuses to put that in our heads.”

Roddick hasn’t won it. He twice reached the finals but had the misfortune to meet Roger Federer, in tennis, a genius in his own right. Maybe, now at age 26, Roddick, once trained by Brad Gilbert of Marin, makes it to the summit. When someone asked him to sum up his chances, Andy said, “Better now that I got through the first one.”

Venus, too, is through the first one.

“It was pretty straight forward,” she said of the victory.

Venus turned 29 last week. Wimbledon is her great stage. “I obviously feel very good here,” she said with no real explanation, “and I take advantage of that feeling.”

I wonder how Moonlit Path is feeling these days? Probably thought she was given flaxseed oil.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-When-Wimbledon-gets-a-roof-the-rain-stays-away-48967921.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

CBSSports.com: Murphy's Law for Wimbledon: New roof keeps rain away

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- The Championship is an outdoor daytime event. That's the gospel according to the people in charge of Wimbledon. That's why the new toy has gone unused.

That's why the roof they didn't want to build remains open.

What's Wimbledon but grass courts, strawberries and cream and rain? Except the first two days of Wimbledon 2009, the skies have been cloudless. Of course. They spend $170 million, give or take a brass farthing, to raise the roof, a translucent, accordion-like device, and it stays open.

The roof sits there. "But," said Venus Williams, "I'm sure it will get some use."

We're all mixed up. The U.S. Open golf tournament last weekend in New York was hit by so many storms, the Bethpage Black course looked like Long Island Sound. Meanwhile here, at the place nicknamed "Wimbleduck" and "Swimbledon," people are hoping for a few drops just to see the roof.

They had to settle for watching tennis on Tuesday, and for America it was successful tennis, Venus and Andy Roddick taking their opening matches.

Venus, trying for her sixth singles championship and third in a row, easily defeated Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland in straight sets. Roddick, seeking his first, beat Jeremy Chardy of France in four sets.

There's a sense of history all over England. If it was done one way for, say, 300 years, then why change? Wimbledon's been around for a little less than half that, but the philosophy isn't much different.

One appallingly bad afternoon, when the guys who pull the tarps -- or, as they're called here, "the covers" -- spent more time on Centre Court than Pete Sampras, the question was put forth why, in this technological age, a roof couldn't be built.

The answer had as much to do with condensation of moisture on the grass, when a roof was closed after the beginning of a storm, as the price and design. "Do you know how greasy a court would be?" was the summarizing phrase.

Well, the TV networks knew what a waste of time, and money, rain delays would be and had been. So, finally, after years of discussion and almost as many of construction, The Roof is in place. But not in use.

"Yeah," said Venus, "it looks really nice, the roof does, actually. But the sun's been shining. We haven't had to use it yet. It's kind of ironic."

Roddick, smartly, paid more attention to what was going on in front of him than what wasn't going on above him.

"To be honest, you don't notice it at all," he said of the roof. Maybe he didn't, but most others did. The roof, like the axiom of the weather, was something everybody talked about but couldn't do anything about.

"I hadn't seen [the roof] before I walked out," said Roddick, who is two months from his 27th birthday and has one Grand Slam championship, a U.S. Open, and has been to two Wimbledon finals. "It's not a big, imposing thing. I think they did a good job of kind of blending it in with the original surroundings.

"Not much has changed from a player's perspective. I'm sure it will be different once it's closed."

It will be different because instead of players in the feature matches sitting around in the locker room and ESPN and NBC executives chewing on their cuticles and fans who paid big money telling themselves they should have gone to a movie -- er, a cinema -- people will be playing tennis.

As they were Tuesday, when the temperature was in the 70s and Wimbledon was a circus of sights and sounds, matches under way on all 19 courts.

Venus called her victory over Voegele, who ranks 97th, "pretty straightforward. In other words, no problems. Venus is seeded No. 3, behind sister Serena, who's No. 2, and Dinara Safina, No. 1 even without a Grand Slam title.

"It's a special moment when you walk out as defending champion on that court and throw those balls at that first point," Venus said. "It's a really great feeling."

The other defending champion, Rafael Nadal, is out of the tournament because of bad knees, which meant Roger Federer, the man he beat in the 2008 final that seemingly lasted forever because of recurring rain, had that special moment on Monday.

After the win, Federer, hardly the adventurous type, conceded, "I guess the moment will come that I'll play indoors here. But you don't really hope for it during the match."

Why not? He could become Wimbledon's first indoor champ.

Andy Murray, the Scot attempting to be the first Brit to win the men's title since 1936, won his first-round match in four sets over American Robert Kendrick.

A few days ago when Wimbledon brought in the media to see the roof open and closed, Murray also was in attendance. Naturally, he was asked his opinion.

"It looks really nice," he said, "compared to most roofs."

Especially compared to all the roofs they previously had at Centre Court, a total of none.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11885351
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: For Tiger, the Hardest Major of the Year

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- He liked his chances, as did the rest of us, a following that included the man he someday should supplant as the game's standard.

"I suspect,'' Jack Nicklaus had mused, alluding to Tiger Woods' 14 major championships, "that No. 15 will come in two weeks.''

Jack was speaking after Tiger won Nicklaus' own tournament, the Memorial. After Tiger never missed a fairway the last round. After Tiger seemingly verified he was ready to take this calamitous U.S. Open at Bethpage.

And even Tiger, properly favoring himself, told us, "I like my chances in any major.''

Yet as the 109th Open, a tournament with more suspensions than suspense, slogged through to a merciless conclusion at the course nicknamed "Wetpage,'' Tiger's chances were gone.

With the Open spilling over into Monday, it wasn't clear who would win: maybe Ricky Barnes, whose huge lead of Sunday afternoon had disappeared; maybe Lucas Glover, who had come from six shots back to tie Barnes; maybe even David Duval.

It was clear who wouldn't win, Tiger Woods.

Once again, a year after taking the championship, he took a figurative punch to the jaw. He couldn't repeat in 2001 or 2003. He couldn't repeat in 2009.

Even though we thought he would. Even though he thought he could, if with a caveat.

Not for 20 years has anyone won Opens back-to-back.

Not Nicklaus, not Payne Stewart, Lee Janzen or Andy North, although along with Tiger and Jack they did win more than one Open.

Since Ben Hogan, in 1950-51, a stretch of 58 years, only Curtis Strange in 1988-89 has taken Opens consecutively, an achievement he not so humbly embellished with the pronouncement, "Move over, Ben.''

Tiger was in the wrong place, the early starting wave on Thursday, at the wrong time, when the first of several storms powered in and, with Woods and playing partners Padraig Harrington on the seventh green, halted play until Friday.

The golfers who didn't get on course until the second day and then got in most of two rounds were those who got the good break.

Rub of the green, it's called in golf. And the green rubbed Woods very much the wrong way.

He got shafted by Mother Nature. Then he got in trouble. When Tiger returned on Friday, he was even par with four holes to play. And four-over par after those four holes. Balls dropped into the rough. Putts slid by the cup.

It was a precursor. And a reminder.

"This is the hardest major we face,'' said Woods, "year in, year out. Narrowest fairways, highest rough. You have to have every facet of your game going.''

Nicklaus played more than 40 Opens. He won four. Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson won one apiece. Greg Norman never won any. The hardest major they face.

Heading into the final round, Tiger was at 1-over par 211 for 54 holes. Nine shots behind Ricky Barnes. Tiger's game wasn't going anywhere, although by the time play stopped, Woods having completed seven holes of the last round, he was even par. And seven shots back of Barnes and Glover.

"All week,'' said Woods on Sunday, "I hit it better than my scoring indicates. My finish the first day put me so far back, I had to try and make up shots the entire time. I finished that day playing poorly.''

No one finished anything Sunday, when play was called because of darkness. This is the pain of sport. This is the wonder of sport. We never know.

Rafael Nadal didn't win the French Open, even though we believed he would. Tiger Woods won't win the U.S. Open, even though we believed he would. You've heard it so many times, and you'll hear it again: That's why they play the game.

There's something reassuring in all this, not that Tiger was unable to meet expectations, but that sitting around and forecasting winners doesn't mean a great deal. The people on the courses and courts and diamonds are the ones who have the real say.

Tiger and Phil Mickelson and Ricky Barnes come back next week, and the probability is that everything is different. But they're not coming back. They had their chances. Barnes was making the best of his. Tiger couldn't do the same.

When after the third round somebody, dreaming, asked in effect if Tiger could overtake the leaders.

"Bethpage,'' said Woods who won here in 2002, "is one of those courses where you have to play a great round and get some help.''

Throughout this Open, Tiger had neither.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/21/for_tiger_the_hardest_major_of_the_year_96403.html
© RealClearSports 2009

Scotland Sunday Herald: Barnes surfaces after years of expectation

GOLF: Former amateur prodigy profits as washout engulfs rivals, writes Art Spander

PUTTS WERE falling, and again so were raindrops. The wettest, messiest and most confusing of US Opens kept splashing on yesterday towards an ending that would be neither expected nor timely.

A kid named Ricky Barnes, from whom greatness was predicted but hasn't been achieved, was the leader after a second round not completed until a third day. If you're mixed up, so is everyone.

Round two of a tourn-ament that began of a sort on Thursday was only headed to a finish yesterday. But when this 109th Open, being played at Bethpage's Black Course on Long Island some 30 miles east of Manhattan, actually ends is anyone's guess. The plan was to get those who made the cut back on the course to begin the third round before the thunderstorms or darkness, whichever came first, and then with luck complete it today.

Officials insisted, meanwhile, that a champion wouldn't be determined until a full 72 holes -- and maybe an 18-hole play-off were there a tie -- had been played "even if we have to go to Tuesday."

The good thing for the basic, boisterous New York crowd, was that Tiger Woods would go the full tournament. He arrived yesterday morning 12 shots behind Barnes, at four-over, and in danger of missing the cut in a Major for only the second time as a pro.

But Tiger, whose opening round consisted of six holes on Thursday, and another 12 on Friday, shot a one-under 69 yesterday for a three-over total of 143 to stay in the tournament, if not in contention. As a point of reference, the greatest halfway deficit overcome by a winner was Lou Graham, who was down by 11 in 1975 and then won in a play-off over John Mahaffey.

Woods, trying to be the first repeat US Open winner since Curtis Strange in 1988-89, was in the group with Open and PGA champion Padraig Harrington and Masters winner Angel Cabrera. Harrington, who had three double bogeys in his first round, shot 76 for 152 to miss the cut, while Cabrera posted a 69 in his second round for 143, the same as Tiger.

Barnes, with a US Open 36-hole record score of 132, after a second round of 65, leads Lucas Glover, who shot 64 for 133 and third-placed Mike Weir, whose 70 left him a shot further back.

Phil Mickelson, performing admirably as he attempts to deal with the news of his wife Amy's illness, shot a level-par 70 to finish on 139. It could be said, though, that all the leaders got the luck of the draw, having played their entire first rounds and much of the second in sunshine on Friday, and then finished the second in benign conditions yesterday morning.

It was the rub of the green -- Tiger's threesome was in the other wave, the one that did get pounded by rain on Thursday before play was abandoned for the day. Barnes, 28, won the US Amateur Championship in 2002 and in 2003 was, at the University of Arizona, college player of the year and also finished 21st in the Masters. But he couldn't qualify for the PGA Tour, playing the secondary Nationwide Tour where last year he did well enough finally to get elevated to the big time.

"It got me ready to play,'' said Barnes, from Stockton, California. "And it humbled me over the last four years. I've grown up. I always thought after college I'd be out here right away."

Barnes, who had seven holes remaining in his second round when he arrived yesterday, hit 31 of 36 greens. His eight-under 132 was a shot better than the mark set in 2003 at Olympia Fields in Chicago by Jim Furyk, who went on to win.

"Obviously, at the start of the week,'' said Barnes, "you don't think that score is out there. But my ball-striking was outstanding. But if you would have told me I'd be eight under and only have a one-shot lead I'd have said you're crazy.'' Mickelson is the favourite son of these New Yorkers, who cheer him on like a football crowd. That his wife Amy has been stricken by breast cancer has only endeared Phil even more to the fans. "I love it here," he said. "If I can get my putter going the last two rounds I like my chances."

David Duval, who won the 2001 Open championship at Royal Lytham, sits on 137. In 13 tournaments this year he hasn't finished better than a tie for 55th.

Sergio Garcia, who played well at Bethpage in 2002, added a second consecutive 70 and Todd Hamilton, who suddenly has found his game after doing nothing since winning the Open at Royal Troon in 2004, is on 138 after a 71.

Scotland's Martin Laird just missed the cut after posting a 71 for 145.

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http://www.sundayherald.com/sport/nationalsport/display.var.2515582.0.barnes_surfaces_after_years_of_expectation.php
©2009 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved

David Duval back for his second act

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- There are no second acts in American lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it, a generalization, hyperbole. David Duval is on stage once more, the script edited, the character unchanged. Raise the curtain.

Call it a comeback. That’s a more sporting term than second act. Call it a return. A renaissance, although in a way it’s been going for a while.

It’s just that on days such as Saturday, when Duval becomes a presence in a U.S. Open that has become beholden to the weather officials, we realize the man still is a great golfer. Still can play.

When the second round of this 109th Open ended Saturday, with officials hustling those who made the cut to start the third, trying to end the tournament on Sunday as scheduled, there was Duval tied for fourth place at 3-under par 137.

There was Duval, at age 37, saying, “I love playing the game. I love competing. But more than that, I’d really like for my wife and family to see how I can actually play the game. They haven’t seen me at my best, and I want them to.’’

We saw him. Saw him shoot a 59. Saw him ascend to the top of the world rankings. That was 10 years ago, when the part of golf that didn’t belong to Tiger Woods belonged to David Duval.

We saw Duval come close to winning the Masters a couple of times and heard him spill out his heart about the beauty of being in the hunt and then missing the prize.

We saw Duval at last conquer his demons and win a major, the British Open in 2001 at Royal Lytham St. & St. Annes, standing at the summit for which he had reached.

And then we saw Duval, the perfectionist, the intellectual, step away and literally move away, from the golfing mecca of Florida where he grew up to Denver and marry a woman who already had children to establish a life where the challenges had nothing to do with carrying a tee shot over a fairway bunker.

For various reasons that included back ailments and vertigo and a loss of interest, Duval and his game tumbled faster and farther than perhaps any top player. The golfer once No. 1 by last summer was ranked No. 1,087.

Then the climb back. He was only three shots out of the lead halfway into last year’s British Open before the wind and his errors created an 83. Painful, but not fatal. In fact, reassuring. He knew he still had it.

Now we know, too. “Patience is crucial in this game,’’ Duval reminded, “and I feel I have been patient for many years and continue to work hard. If anything, my patience is most tested over the last six, eight, 10 months, when I really felt like everything was falling together but nothing good was happening to me.’’

Duval’s formative years were difficult. At 9, he was the bone-marrow donor for his brother Brent, 12, who within weeks of the procedure died of aplastic anemia. David, it was said, blamed himself and grew even more inverted than he had been.

The death contributed to marital strife between David’s parents, who eventually divorced. By high school, Duval was a loner who, having been taught golf by his father, a pro, escaped into the game. He practiced by himself at the end of the range and once said his fondest memories as an adolescent golfer were of playing alone in heavy fog.

While Duval was a four-time All-American at Georgia Tech, he was known as Rock, both for his solid game and rough-edged personality. His intelligence -- David is one of the few people to understand the difference between “implied’’ and “inferred’’ -- manifests itself in arrogance, especially when pestered by journalists.

A sports psychologist contended that once Duval won the British, he was confronted with a vacuum with which it was hard to deal. It was as if Peggy Lee were singing, “Is that all there is?’’ That’s all there was, so David sought another life and found it.

He showed up at the 2004 U.S. Open, at Shinnecock, not having played a competitive round in seven months, the decision to use his exemption coming shortly before the Open as he sat in a golf cart at a course in Denver.

The exemption no longer exists. For the first time in 14 years, Duval had to qualify, which obviously he did successfully, a week and a half ago in Columbus, Ohio. Some golfers who had won major championships wouldn’t subject themselves to the pressure and, you could say, the ignominy.

David Duval was determined. He intends to get someplace close to where he used to be. He wants to perform that second act.

Tiger botches up a good round

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- The day was less than enthralling. Tiger Woods made a mess of things. Not as much of a mess as one of his playing partners, Padraig Harrington, but that might not be a good way of measuring a bad round.

There he was Friday morning, Tiger even par with four holes remaining. Even par in the U.S. Open, a tournament where par makes you a contender and sometimes makes you a champion.

That’s the sort of competition Tiger likes, where every shot is precious, and you have to work and grind and struggle -- and think.

But what Tiger was thinking when he finished on Friday what he started on Thursday probably was X-rated stuff. He played the final four holes double-bogey, bogey, par and bogey, coming in with a 4-over 74.

Harrington, with three doubles, shot 76, while the third member of the group, Angel Cabrera, like the other two players a multiple major champion, had 74.

It was only late morning and, because of a schedule revised by the rain, Tiger was done for the day.

“As of the way I feel now, no, I don’t want to go back out there right now,’’ Tiger said when some wondered if at the early hour, before 11 a.m. EDT, he wished he could get to a second round already shoved to Saturday.

“Probably would be a few clubs light,’’ he added, the implication being that Woods might have busted a couple of them in anger.

Done for the day, but hardly for the tournament. Even 10 shots behind.

What we’ve learned is you never quit on Tiger Woods because he never quits on himself. Remember when he overcame that seven-shot deficit on the back nine at Pebble Beach in the 2000 AT&T, catching a bewildered Matt Gogel? Remember when he was three down with five to play the first round of the 2008 Accenture match play and beat J.B. Holmes, 1 up?

So to declare Tiger Woods finished after he played only 18 holes in a major championship that, because of the weather forecast, might never finish is premature at best and presumptive at worst.

And yet there he was, back to even par in the 109th U.S. Open at Bethpage’s Black Course after a birdie on 15. There he was, a gallery of rowdy New Yorkers shouting their encouragement.

And then, whoops, there he was, losing four shots the last four holes.

“Well,’’ he said, “I wasn’t playing poorly. You know, that’s the thing. I was even par with four to go, and I was right there where I needed to be, and then two bad shots and a mud ball later, I’m four-over par.’’

Already there had been a double-bogey, but that was Thursday, in the deluge, before play mercifully was halted with Woods, Harrington and Cabrera on the seventh green. Tiger bogeyed seven when play resumed under clear skies at 7:40 Friday morning, but birdies at 11 and 14 had brought him back to even.

“That was kind of a goal,’’ Woods explained. The goal evaporated.

He hit a bad tee shot on the 459-yard 15th, described by one and all as the most difficult hole on the course. “But I had a great lie and went for it. Plugged it in the face, took a drop (a free one, because the ball was ruled as embedded), hit a decent pitch -- but I didn’t think it would come all the way back to my feet like that -- blocked the first putt and hit a bad second putt.’’

Woods is defending champion. He is trying to become the first repeat winner in 20 years, since Curtis Strange in 1988-89. Woods is the favorite. But after the first round, Woods is a good distance behind. Then again...

More rain is coming. More pressure will be building. More double-bogeys will be recorded.

Nothing is certain. The USGA, which announced Thursday it wouldn’t honor Thursday’s tickets, even though play was halted and didn’t resume, on Friday said it would allow those tickets to be used Monday. If there is play Monday. And it appears there will be play Monday. And maybe Tuesday.

“Overall,’’ said Woods, “the golf course is playing difficult. I’m just going to continue to do what I’m doing and hopefully clean up the round a little bit, drive the ball in the fairway and get a couple of breaks and not catch a mud ball. But if it dries out more, it will get worse.’’

Presumably Tiger Woods will get better. Presumably he won’t ruin a decent round by losing four shots to par in four holes.

He’s not giving up, not after one round of a major. He made a mess of things. He had two awful holes. Fifty hour holes remain. That’s more than enough for atonement. And victory.

RealClearSports: Open But Not Shut Case for Jeff Brehaut

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- It was golf's version of Waterworld, the non-Olympic 18-hole breast-beater stroke. No Michael Phelps. No Dara Torres. And if you were looking at the top of the leader board, no Tiger Woods, who told us in what wasn't breaking news, "It was pretty wet and windy.''

But there was a Jeff Brehaut, unexpected Jeff Brehaut, persistent Jeff Brehaut, upbeat Jeff Brehaut and, as anybody else who managed to get on the course Thursday during the first round of the splish-splash-I-ain't-taking-a-bath U.S. Open, a very damp Jeff Brehaut.

Jeff Brehaut, in only his second major in 27 years as a pro, in front of Tiger Woods and everyone else. If only temporarily.

"But it's still totally cool,'' said Brehaut, pronounced as the French would, "Bray-Oh.''

Asked if he'd ever been ahead of Tiger in a tournament before this one, Brehaut -- 46 and from Los Altos, Calif., down the road from San Francisco -- responded, "Yes, but not in a major.''

Particularly a major that virtually floated away to Long Island Sound. Especially a major in which nobody played more than 11 holes before the Bethpage Black course in places literally was underwater.

Tiger and his playing partners, Masters champion Angel Cabrera and PGA and British Open champion Padraig Harrington, made it six holes. Brehaut, in the first group off the 10th tee, got in 11, and he was 1-under par, while Tiger was 1-over.

When Brehaut, Greg Kraft and J.P.Hayes made it to their 11th hole, or the second at Bethpage, it was 10:15 a.m. EDT. It was also the end of the round. "It,'' Brehaut explained about Bethpage, "couldn't handle it any more.''

That Jeff Brehaut, a graduate of the University of the Pacific, 12-time failure at the PGA Tour qualifying school, has been able to handle it, meaning the struggle, is the real issue.

"Not everyone is a college All-American,'' he said, "and gets on Tour their first or second crack. And I'm living proof. I went to Q-School 13 times before I got through when I was 35. I played mini-tour golf the first four, five, six years. I played the Nike Tour, now the Nationwide Tour, for six straight years in the '90s. When I finally got on Tour it was a big deal.''

As big a deal as leading the Open, if it's not quite a full round of leading. As big a deal as holing a couple of shots from a bunker at the 9th hole back-to-back in Wednesday's practice round while fans waiting for Phil Mickelson applaud and scream.

"I was jumping up and down like Bob Tway when he beat Greg Norman," said Brehaut, referring to Tway's holing a shot off a bunker in the 1986 PGA. "I pumped my fist. I signed half an hour worth of autographs. Afterwards, I felt like I had just won the tournament.''

And a day later he was leading the tournament, if only through 11 holes.

Twenty-five years he was a professional golfer before qualifying for a major, the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont. By a shot, he missed gaining exemption to last year's Open at Torrey Pines, the one Tiger Woods won on a bad leg.

Now Brehaut has returned.

"My journey is different from that of most guys,'' he conceded. Jeff has a family. Jeff has had some decent payoffs, his earnings now past $3.7 million, but there were months of driving with his family from one event to another with little progress.

"But it's been worth it. What kept me going? Desire. I love golf. This is what I always love to do. I like the competition. I like the camaraderie.''

Gene Brehaut, 76, Jeff's father, was out there slogging through the rough and rain, proud, delighted. "He was jumping out of his skin,'' said the son.

Jeff Brehaut rarely gets the spotlight. He stays back in the chorus, a necessity instead of a star. "A lot of us,'' he said without rancor, "have to be the guys everybody else beats up on.''

He almost left golf. Almost. An option was to flip houses, buy one cheap, fix it up, and sell it at a higher price. That was before all the foreclosures. That was before he regained his confidence in the early'90s.

That was before he played in his first U.S. Open.

The third round at Oakmont in 2007, as he was about to hole out for birdie at 18, Brehaut paused to watch Tiger drive from the adjacent 12th tee.

"I wasn't going to miss that opportunity," Brehaut said.

Two years later he had an opportunity to lead in another U.S. Open. He didn't miss that opportunity either.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/18/open_but_not_shut_case_for_jeff_brehaut_96397.html
© RealClearSports 2009

RealClearSports: Phil and His Not-So-Private Struggle

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- We are taking part in Phil Mickelson’s private life made public. We are listening to his words, feeling his pain, understanding his fears, wishing him and Amy only the best.

It is never easy for any family when cancer strikes. It must be worse for someone famous, a movie star, an athletic hero, a face we know, a golfer we respect.

Always there is another good wish, always another tear, always another request for an interview.

The 109th U.S. Open starts today at Bethpage muni’s Black Course, where Mickelson, who played so well in the Open seven years ago, hopes to find success. And perhaps relief.

The country was made aware a few weeks ago. Amy Mickelson had breast cancer. Pink ribbons fluttered. Phil dropped off the Tour.

A week ago, at Memphis, the tournament named for St. Jude, ironically the patron saint of desperate causes, Phil returned. His game did not.

Mickelson closed with a 75, a tie for 59th. And now it is the most difficult tournament of any year, America’s national championship, the event with the high rough and slick greens where any mistake is magnified.

Phil says he is ready. Ready for the competition. Ready for what lies ahead. The family, Amy, the three children, normally at every tournament, is home in southern California. Where Phil’s thoughts will be is the question.

This is Mickelson country. Tiger remains the attraction, as well as the favorite, but here on Long Island, where both Bethpage and Shinnecock Hills are located, and across the Hudson River in New Jersey, Phil is idolized.

At the ’02 Open at Bethpage, the ’04 Open at Shinnecock, the ’06 PGA Championship at Baltusrol in Jersey, the support and the shouts were overwhelming.

It was a Yankees crowd. A Mets crowd. A crowd boisterous and partisan. A crowd that called Phil Mickelson “The Mick.” A crowd that may be exactly what he needs this week, along with an accurate game off the tee.

“It could be that support helps carry me through on emotionally when I’m on the course,” Mickelson said Wednesday. “I’m certainly hoping for that.”

So are many others. Phil has won two Masters and one PGA. He’s never won an Open. He lost one, as we recall, not far away from here, in 2006 at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck up the road from Manhattan, when he blew a final-round lead with a double bogey on the 72nd hole.

It was agony. “I am such an idiot,” he said that fateful Sunday. This is agony of another sort. This is trying to keep one’s mind on a game where any slip could mean failure while 2,500 miles away a wife waits with her doubts.

There are expressions of sympathy. There are comments of understanding. Darren Clarke went through this torture a few years back. For Tiger Woods it was a similar ordeal as his father was dying from cancer.

“Is it easy?” Tiger asked rhetorically when discussing Mickelson’s situation -- and his own. “No, it’s not easy.

“Everywhere you go, people are reminding you of it, and you can’t get away from it. And you think that the golf course would be your escape, but it’s not. You’re surrounded by people wishing you well . . . but then again they keep reminding you of the circumstance you’re dealing with on a daily basis, and you can’t get away from it.”

Mickelson, whose 39th birthday was Tuesday, said the timing for the Open could not have been better. Amy is awaiting treatment and probably surgery. The future is a blur. So Phil will grasp the present.

“It will be a fun week,” he said of the Open. In 2002 he finished second at Bethpage, three strokes behind Tiger.

“I'm putting everything I have into this week, because I don’t anticipate being able to play for a while.”

A vacation is planned. Then comes the treatment.

“You’d never know what she was going through,” Mickelson said of his wife. “When we get started it will be different, but she’s an amazing person . . . how she treats people, how she interacts . . . and I think it’s hard for me to see somebody who is such good person go through something so difficult.”

Mickelson insisted despite his finish at Memphis he hit the ball well, attempting to replicate shots he would need at Bethpage. He has mapped out a game plan, when to be bold, if ever on an Open layout, when to be prudent.

Amy Mickelson offered her advice. “She’s left me a number of little notes, texts, cards, hints,” said Phil, “that she would like to have a silver trophy in her hospital room. So I’m going to try and accommodate that.”

The rest of us, invading Phil’s world, can only say good luck.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/18/phil_and_his_not-so_private_struggle.html
© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: It's Tiger's U.S. Open to lose

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Kobe one week, Tiger the next. From a large leather ball to a small dimpled one. From a hardwood court to soft fairways. From one champion to another.

The NBA playoffs, Kobe Bryant’s showcase, are done. The U.S. Open, Tiger Woods’ stage, is here, starting Thursday. What we got from Kobe — excellence, success — we’re expecting to get from Tiger.

“I like my chances in any major,” Tiger said Tuesday. We all like his chances.

The national championship, that’s what the Open is for golfers, a test of skill and will, an event of thick rough and high pressure where brains count no less than brawn.

“I just enjoy having to think your way around a golf course,” Tiger said.

This is the damp greenness of Long Island, 30 miles from Manhattan. This is where the Open went public for the first time when the 2002 Open was held at a muni, if you can call Bethpage Black a muni when it has a sign warning it is “An extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers.”

This is where Tiger, or as crowds here pronounce it, “Ti-guh,” won and very likely could win again.

Some asked him, “In your opinion, who do you think at this point is the best golfer of all-time and why?”

“Jack,” responded Woods. He didn’t feel obligated to add, “Nicklaus.”

And Tiger? “He’s got 18. I’m at 14.”

Meaning major pro championships. Kobe is at four, meaning NBA championships, and Tiger, the Lakers fan, who grew up in Southern California, identifies with Bryant.

“His work ethic is phenomenal,” Tiger said of Kobe, as certainly Kobe could have said about Tiger.

“The hours he puts in, from just shooting on his own,” Woods pointed out, “to all the film study. Look at how he guides his team.

“That’s steady. That’s knowing the offenses, the defense you’re going against, basically all the chess pieces.”

That’s preparation, something of which Tiger prides himself.

Woods could become the first person ever with 10 U.S. Golf Association championships. He has three junior amateurs, three amateurs and three Opens, a total of nine.

Woods also could become the first to win back-to-back Opens in 20 years, since Curtis Strange in 1988-89 and the second in 70 years, Ben Hogan finishing first in 1950-51.

“Generally,” Tiger said of why the repeat is so rare, “this is the hardest major we face all year.”

Tiger took the 2008 Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego, also a muni, on a left knee so painful he winced after every shot. Surgery on the anterior-cruciate ligament a few days later kept him out of the game eight months and there were struggles after his return in February.

But he won the Memorial, Jack’s tournament, a week and a half ago, hitting every fairway from the tee in the final round, and Nicklaus not-so-boldly predicted Woods would win this Open.

Next year, the Open returns to Pebble Beach. In 2012, it’s at San Francisco’s Olympic Club. Every Open is different. Every Open is the same.

“You’ve got to grind it out and make pars,” Tiger said. “How you do is up to you.”

Tiger will find a way. As in another sport, Kobe found a way.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Its-Tigers-US-Open-to-lose-48214222.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company

Twenty years later, Giants of ’89 recall the Earthquake Series

SAN FRANCISCO -- It was great to come back. Ol’ Humm-Baby said it. And everybody else thought it. Great to come back, to memories both sweet and painful.

Twenty years it had been since Roger Craig, Humm-Baby, managed the Giants to a pennant. Since Kevin Mitchell won that National League MVP. Since the Loma Prieta earthquake tore into the World Series and left us, the Bay Area, reeling and damaged and baseball in limbo.

The Athletics and the Giants on Friday night at AT&T. As on Tuesday evening, October 17, 1989 at Candlestick Park. The third game of the World Series. A region was enthralled with itself.

So much excitement. So much attention. And then, in a matter of seconds, a 6.9 earthquake, a section of the Bay Bridge pulling free, the Cypress Freeway down in Oakland, dozens of fatalities and attention for a reason that moments earlier seemed unimaginable.

It was great to come back. The ’89 Giants, at least a large number of them from owner Bob Lurie to general manager Al Rosen to Craig to players such as Mitchell and Will Clark and Rick Reuschel, had returned for a reunion.

There was needling. There was laughter. There was pensive recollection of the disaster that transformed what major league baseball labeled the Battle of the Bay but locally was known as the Bay Bridge Series into what forever will be known as the Earthquake Series.

A few minutes after 5 p.m., a few minutes before Game 3 of the Series was to start, the A’s having won the first two games in Oakland.

“Jeff Brantley and I were running down the tunnel to the dugout,’’ remembered pitcher Mike LaCoss, “when the lights started flickering.’’ LaCoss, who would have started Game 4, is a Californian, from the Central Valley. He knew what was happening.

“I told Brantley, ‘It’s an earthquake. Keep running,’ ’’ LaCoss said.

I also knew what was happening. After a time. I was in the upper deck of the ’Stick, in the auxiliary press box, a section where jerry-built tables had been installed to accommodate a media horde too large for the normal facility.

It sounded as if a freight train were running down the concourse. And felt like it too. Rob Matwick, then the public relations director for the Houston Astros and one of the many people working the Series, was in the next seat.

“What is it?’’ he shouted. “An earthquake,’’ I yelled. “Is it bad?’’ The shaking seemed endless, although later it was timed at 15 seconds. “Yeah,’’ I gasped.

Atlee Hammaker was in the clubhouse with fellow pitchers Dave Dravecky, who also is here for the reunion, and Bob Knepper. “When it hit,’’ Hammaker, now a father of five who lives with his family in Nashville, said Friday, “I wondered, ‘What’s that?’ Knepper knew. He said to get outside. We ran to the player parking lot, and the ground was rippling like a carpet. Then we went to our families.’’

There are photos of A’s and Giants on the field with wives and children. Candlestick had withstood the temblor, albeit with a few cracks in the cement, but the safest place in a quake of course is away from any structure. So that’s where players and their entourage were evacuated, whether the action normally would be.

Kevin Mitchell was already in the outfield, talking to the A’s Tony Phillips. “I didn’t know what was going on,’’ Mitchell recalled. “When they told us it was an earthquake, I was looking for my grandparents, but at first I couldn’t find them.’’

Mitchell is back in San Diego, where he grew up. The MVP plaque hangs on a wall at his home. “Everything is fine,’’ he said, that familiar gold tooth gleaming when he smiled. “Baseball was good, but life goes on.’’

The Earthquake Series did not go on. It came to a halt, for 10 days while the Bay Area recovered and mourned and tried to find its priorities.

Art Agnos, San Francisco mayor at the time, wanted a month delay, but baseball commissioner Fay Vincent insisted on a resumption as soon as possible, which wasn’t that soon at all.

Games 3 and 4 weren’t much different than Games 1 and 2. The A’s won both and a World Series was swept for the first time in 13 years. Giants fans contended the quake affected the outcome. Craig, now a hearty 79, and splitting time between residences in the desert town of Borrego Springs and San Diego, disagrees.

“You can’t blame it on the earthquake,’’ said Craig, “The A’s had the better ball club.’’

That they did, proving it in a World Series that will live in infamy.