Newsday: Watson falters, loses British Open playoff to Cink

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- It could have been the sports story of many a year, the golf story of the century. Tom Watson, who will turn 60 in September, was going to win the British Open. He had a putter in his hand and the tournament in his grasp.

It was wonderful, fantastic. And then like that, it was gone.

Then like that, late Sunday afternoon, Stewart Cink -- mentioned so often as a probable major tournament winner -- was raising his arms in triumph and reaching for the historic silver claret jug on which his name, as is tradition, already had been engraved.

Watson was a shot ahead after 71 holes of the 138th Open, but he bogeyed the 72nd and came apart in a brutally sad four-hole playoff in which he looked like the 59-year-old man he is, getting beaten by six shots.

Cink, playing five groups ahead of Watson, birdied the 18th hole for a 1-under-par 69 and a total of 2-under 278. It didn't seem to mean much until Watson's 8-iron approach to 18 was long. Using the putter, he took three from just off the green, shot 72 and also finished with 278.

Cink went par-par-birdie-birdie in the playoff, Watson bogey-par-double bogey-bogey.

Tied for third at 1-under 279 were two Englishmen -- Lee Westwood, who held the lead before bogeying 15, 16 and 18, and Chris Wood.

"It would have been a hell of a story," said Watson, who had at least part of the lead in all four rounds at Turnberry, where 32 years earlier he won the second of his five Open titles.

Indeed. Not that the 36-year-old Cink didn't like the story that came to be. He grew up watching Watson's World Golf Hall of Fame career, and to face him in a playoff for a major, Cink said, in a bit of awkward prose, "would be beyond even my mind's imagination capabilities."

The presumption was that holding up the last day was beyond Watson's capabilities. He had hip surgery in October. He plays the Champions Tour, where the courses are not as severe. He had not won a major since the 1983 British Open.

But with a hole to play, Watson was a shot ahead and seemed destined to become by 11 years the oldest man ever to win a major. Unfortunately, he hit an 8-iron when he said he should have used a 9, and the ball rolled off the back edge of the 18th green, Watson made a bad putt, then missed an 8-footer for the par and the win.

"Yes," Watson said, "it's a great disappointment. It tears at your gut, as it always has torn at my gut. It's not easy to take. The playoff was just one bad shot after another and Stewart did what he had to do."

Which was make one good shot after another.

Cink had won other tournaments. He had been on Ryder Cup teams. He just didn't have that finishing touch, a major. He does now.

"How much I needed it, I don't know," Cink said. "I'm not sure I ever thought about whether I was good enough to win a major or not. I knew I'd been close a few times, but I never heard my name tossed in there with the group of best ones not to win.

"So maybe I was starting to believe that, that I wasn't one of the best ones to never win a major."

Watson opened his post-round interview with the admonition, "This ain't a funeral, you know."

It was a golf tournament that gave Watson and others a huge jolt and then, excluding Cink, a massive letdown.

"It was almost," Watson said. "Almost. The dream almost came true."

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CBSSports.com: Easygoing Cink gives fans fairy tale -- just not one they want

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- It wasn't as if he shot Santa Claus. All Stewart Cink did was shoot under par. That he beat Tom Watson, whose age and reputation made him everybody's favorite, couldn't be held against Cink.

Finally Cink had won a major, the oldest one on the planet, the British Open.

Did it by sinking a 15-foot birdie putt on the final hole of regulation Sunday, and then after the 59-year-old Watson bogeyed the same hole, Cink crushed him in their four-hole playoff.

"It's a surreal experience for me," said Cink. "Not only did I play one of my favorite courses, but playing against Tom Watson. I grew up watching Tom Watson play on TV and hoping I could follow in his footsteps at the Open Championship.

"I feel so happy just to be part of all this."

As he should. As Watson felt so devastated.

After the 36-year-old Cink and Watson tied with 72-hole scores of 2-under 278, Watson, coming unglued, went 4 over par in the four extra holes -- the fifth, sixth, 17th and 18th -- while Cink went 2 under.

A onetime star at Georgia Tech, Cink twice finished third in majors, including the 2001 U.S. Open, when -- despite a reputation for being a great putter -- he missed a short one on the final green that kept him from a playoff. Cink is maybe the best unknown star on the PGA Tour.

He understood the compassion for Watson, a five-time Open winner who by 11 years could have become the oldest champion in a major.

Stewart was the unintended villain, the guy who ruined arguably the best golf story ever.

"Playing against Tom, it was with mixed feelings, because I watched him with such admiration all week," Cink said.

The admiration was universal. Virtually everyone in the boisterous gallery wanted Watson to make history.

"It's not the first time I've been under the radar," said Cink. "I've played a lot of times with Tiger [Woods] and hearing the Tiger roars, and with Mickelson. I'm usually the guy the crowd appreciates, but they're not behind me 100 percent. Maybe this will change it."

Or maybe not. For some, this 138th British Open at Turnberry on the Firth of Clyde will always be the one Watson lost rather than the one Stewart Cink one. The one that might have been.

Cink came in with a 1-under-par 69 Sunday, holing that 15-footer on 18, although at the time, with Watson several holes behind and battling Englishman Lee Westwood, the putt didn't seem that big. As we learned, it would become huge.

An easy-going individual -- and in this world of shouting and waving, that may have kept him in the figurative shadows -- Cink was mentioned by the golfing cognoscenti as one of the game's top players.

He had won other tournaments. He had been on Ryder Cup teams. He just didn't have that finishing touch, a major. He does now.

"How much I needed it, I don't know," Cink allowed. "I'm not sure I ever thought about whether I was good enough to win a major or not. I knew I'd been close a few times, but I never heard my name tossed in there with the group of best ones not to win.

"So maybe I was starting to believe that, that I wasn't one of the best ones to never win a major."

He can stop believing. The way he went through that playoff late on a windy afternoon, going par-par-birdie-birdie, was the stuff of excellence. He talked about Tiger, but Woods rarely has put on so emphatic a performance.

Someone wondered if Cink, who was embraced by his wife and family just off the 18th green, felt he had come in at the end of a syrupy Hollywood film and stolen the girl just before the final scene.

"Well, just as long as I get the girl," said Cink, "I'm OK with that. No, I don't feel that way. I feel like whether Tom was 59 or 29, he was one in the field. I had to play against everybody in the field and, of course, come out on top.

"I don't think anything can be taken away. Somebody may disagree with that, but it's going to be hard to convince me."

Understandably. Cink did what he was supposed to do, win the tournament, although admittedly it was not what many people wanted him to do. The Tom Watson Tale was one that never may come along again.

"I never would have dreamed that I would go up against Tom Watson head-to-head in a playoff for a major championship," Cink said. "That would be beyond even my mind's imagination capabilities."

That's an awkward way of saying that even if the ending wasn't all fuzzy and magical for the world of golf, the story was as good as it gets for Stewart Cink.

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Newsday: Watson holds on to lead at British Open

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- This can't keep going, can it? Tom Watson can't continue rolling back the years and rolling in the putts, remaining on top of a British Open which may be lacking Tiger Woods but in no way is lacking in subplots, drama and emotion.

For a second straight year, someone out of the past has taken control of the present, making us wonder if anything we know about golf or sports makes sense and whether Watson for one final round is able to keep waking the echoes.

Greg Norman was 53 when he led after 54 holes of the 2008 Open at Royal Birkdale and then, not unexpectedly, tumbled under the weight of the pressure, ending up tied for third behind Padraig Harrington.

Now we wait to see what 59-year-old Tom Watson, leading this 138th Open by a shot, is able to accomplish, not that what he's already accomplished at Turnberry so far hasn't been remarkable.

Watson was 27 when he won the Open at Turnberry in '77, the second of his five Open titles, defeating Jack Nicklaus by a stroke. Jack was 10 years older than Tom. Now Watson's closest competitors are in their 20s and 30s.

Of course, as the saying goes, the golf ball doesn't know how old you are.

Watson began the third round Saturday tied for first with Steve Marino at 5 under par. Marino destructed, a 76 with three 6s, one on a par 3. Watson wobbled, but after he dropped into second by a shot, he birdied 16 and 17 to walk off as the leader.

He is at 4-under 206 after a 1-over 71. Mathew Goggin, an Australian who plays the PGA Tour, and Ross Fisher, an Englishman who plays the European Tour - and tied for fifth in last month's U.S. Open at Bethpage - are at 207. Goggin shot 69, Fisher 70.

Tied for fourth at 2-under 208 are Lee Westwood of England and Retief Goosen of South Africa, a two-time U.S. Open winner.

To make things more interesting, Fisher's wife, Jo, is in London expecting the couple's first child, and he has said he would leave the tournament to be at her side if she went into labor. He has a jet standing by at nearby Prestwick.

Watson has two grown children. And, as he said, a sense of serenity. His poignant story involves memories of his longtime caddie Bruce Edwards, who died in April 2004 of ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.

"It's kind of emotional out there,'' Watson conceded. "I looked at Ox [his caddie Neil Oxman, a friend and political consultant], after I hit my shot on the green at 18, handed him the club and said, 'Bruce is with us today.' He said, 'Don't make me cry.' So he started crying and I started crying.''

Watson insisted he's not thinking of the magnitude of what has been happening as he tries to become the oldest by 11 years to win a major tournament. Julius Boros was 48 when he took the 1968 PGA Championship.

"First day here,'' Watson said, "yeah, let the old geezer have his day in the sun, a 65. The second day you said, well, that's OK. And then now today, you perk up your ears and say this old geezer might have a chance to win the tournament. It's kind of like Greg Norman last year.

"I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know I feel good about what I did today. I feel good about my game plan. And who knows, it might happen.''

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CBSSports.com: Fisher hopes he, and wife, can hold on for one more day

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- Oh, baby.

This is a matter of, well, golf and life, if not necessarily in that order. Ross Fisher is doing what he can to win his country's golfing championship. His wife is doing what she can not to give birth to their first child.

Until her husband plays his final shot Sunday, which of course both hope will be for a victory in the British Open.

This 138th Open lost Tiger Woods after 36 holes, but it doesn't lack for drama or human interest. Or subplots.

Not when 59-year-old Tom Watson has the 54-hole lead. Not when an Englishman, Ross Fisher, is shot behind, tied for second. Not when Jo Fisher is in the maternity ward down in a London hospital.

Not when her husband has said if she goes into labor he will leave the links to join her.

A couple of days ago, the 28-year-old Fisher said if he were notified the baby was coming, he would be going to catch a plane. But now that three rounds are history and he has a chance to make history, Fisher has begun to vacillate.

Asked what he would do if before he teed off for the final 18 holes a text message arrived of the impending birth, Fisher responded, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Then later he said, "If Jo goes into labor, I'll be supporting her 100 percent, and I won't be here. I'll be with her, because it's something that I don't want to miss.

"It's been an intriguing week. ... I've got through three days, and she's got through three days. Who knows? To win and then get back home and see the birth of our first child would be obviously a dream come true."

Watson finished at 4-under-par 206 on Saturday at windblown Turnberry, on Scotland's western coast. Fisher, with an even-par 70, is at 207, as is Australian Mathew Goggin. Another shot back are Lee Westwood, another Englishman, and South Africa's Retief Goosen.

Fisher mostly plays the European Tour, but a month ago he came in fifth in the U.S. Open at Bethpage, the best finish by someone from this side of the Atlantic. The result was uplifting. The challenge is fascinating.

Only five Brits have won the British Open in the past 60 years, the last one Paul Lawrie of Scotland in 1999. The others are Nick Faldo, the Englishman, in 1992, '90 and '87; Sandy Lyle of Scotland in 1985; Tony Jacklin of England in 1969 and Max Faulkner of England in 1951.

Fisher understands what a victory would mean. But it doesn't mean as much as his child.

"No news is good news," he said of the next few hours. "Hopefully she'll be able to hang on another day, and hopefully I can hang on another day."

In his gallery was a man wearing a billed baseball-type hat with a hand-painted message: "Hold on Mrs. Fisher."

Mr. Fisher has figured out the closing holes of this course hard by the Firth of Clyde. He birdied 16-17-18 on Thursday, 16 on Friday and then 16 and 17 on Saturday.

"Not bad," mused Fisher, a classic English understatement.

Then, egged on, he continued.

"I don't know what it is," he said, "but 16 [a 455-yard par-4 with an approach shot over a burn, or stream] I birdied every day. Seventeen [a downwind par-5] is probably one of the easier holes, and if you don't make birdie, you feel like you've slipped a shot."

Fisher said he likes links courses, having competed on them as an amateur, but in his only two British Opens, he missed the cut at Carnoustie in 2007 and finished 39th a year ago at Royal Birkdale.

And his European Tour record this year isn't terribly impressive. In 19 events, he has missed 10 cuts, including six in succession at one stretch.

Yet he is 21st in the world rankings, having won last year's European Open and this year making the semifinals of the Accenture World Match Play in Marana, Ariz.

"I feel quite prepared to play," Fisher said. "I probably haven't got the experience as to the likes of Tom [Watson], you know. He's been playing this golf for quite a few years."

Another understatement. Watson has been playing links golf since before Ross Fisher was born and has won the Open five times, going back to 1975.

Whether Watson or Fisher is a bigger surprise is anyone's guess. One is two months from his 60th birthday. The other is only in his third year as a touring pro.

"Tom is similar to my story," Fisher said. "It's a bit of a Cinderella story. To be playing as well as he is at age 59, I mean, it's incredible. He won here, what, 32 years ago? So I'm sure there will be a lot of followers out there rooting for Tom.

"But I had my fair share today. It was wonderful to hear the reception, up to every tee, up to every green. Hopefully I can play good [Sunday] and it will be for a win. If not, to push Tom and just put in a good performance."

While Jo Fisher waits a few hours longer for her own special performance.

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Newsday: Watson, 59, shares British Open lead; Woods misses cut

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- The haunting unpredictability of golf jolted the British Open on a windy afternoon that sent the world's No. 1 player out of the tournament and surprising Tom Watson and Steve Marino into a share of the halfway lead.

Tiger Woods, the overwhelming favorite -- in the betting parlors as well as in casual conversations -- missed the cut. That was more stunning than the 59-year-old Watson -- the oldest player to lead a major championship -- and the winless Marino moving into a first-place tie.

Marino, 29, a graduate of the University of Virginia who had never even seen a links course until this week, shot a 2-under-par 68 Friday at Turnberry. Watson, a five-time Open champion, was at 70. Each had a 36-hole total of 5-under 135.

A shot back at 136 was another of the near-geriatric set, 49-year-old Mark Calcavecchia. Ross Fisher, Retief Goosen, Kenichi Kuboya, Vijay Singh and first-day leader Miguel Angel Jimenez were tied for fourth at 137.

Only once in 48 previous majors as a pro -- the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot a few weeks after his father, Earl, died of cancer -- had Woods missed a cut.

Unable to control his tee shots, even though he mostly used irons and his 3-wood instead of a driver, Woods lost seven shots to par in a torturous stretch of six holes on the famed course, eight through 13.

He had bogeys at eight, nine and 12 and double bogeys at 10 and 13. Even a birdie at 17 was of little help as Woods shot a 74. Added to Thursday's 71, it left him at 145, a shot over the 144 cut line.

"I was 1 under par for seven holes,'' Woods said, attempting to mask his disappointment, "and just right there in the championship and had a few tough holes right in a row and couldn't get it back.

"I hit a couple of bad shots, but other than that, I made a double bogey at 13 from 150 yards. It was just problem after problem. I kept compounding my problems out there. I just made mistakes, and obviously, you can't make mistakes not only to make the cut but to try and win a championship. You have to play clean rounds of golf, and I didn't.''

This is the third straight major of 2009 in which Woods came in two weeks after a victory and didn't win, although in the other two - the Masters and U.S. Open at Bethpage Black - a pair of sixth-place finishes were hardly as crushing.

The double bogey at 10, a 446-yard par 4, came after a lost ball. Using a 3-wood, Woods smashed his tee ball into the deep rough.

Woods, who had been the 2-1 choice in this nation where gambling is legal - The Racing Post called the action on Woods a "feeding frenzy'' - won three previous Opens. But he never had played Turnberry, on the west coast of Scotland along the Firth of Clyde, until a practice round Sunday. He did not take to the course.

"I was playing well coming in,'' said Woods, who when asked what was next on the agenda answered, "Head home.''

The great drama now is whether Watson -- who won at Turnberry in 1977, edging Jack Nicklaus in their renowned "Duel in the Sun'' -- is headed for a miracle win.

The oldest major winner was 48-year-old Julius Boros in the 1968 PGA Championship. Greg Norman was 53 when he challenged in last year's Open at Royal Birkdale before slipping back the final day. This time Norman missed the cut at 77-75-152.

"The spirits are with me,'' Watson said. "And I've holed some long putts.''

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CBSSports.com: For Calc, a chance to help promise be a bit less unfulfilled

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.comTURNBERRY, Scotland -- There's a painful humor in the words of Mark Calcavecchia, who likes to talk about the way he has downed pints as compared to the way he has holed putts.

"I'm working on St. Mungo this week," he cracked about a lager brewed in Glasgow. "It's pretty good stuff."

So too is Calcavecchia, a bit overweight, a bit unappreciated. He's good stuff. He should have been better.

He definitely doesn't take himself seriously but deep down knows how successful he could have been if indeed he had done just that a little more often.

It isn't as if the career has been a bust. There is that major championship, a British Open at Troon, about 20 miles and exactly 20 years from the testy one now going on at Turnberry. Yet Calc, as he's always called, when requested to look back, does it with more than a twinge of regret.

Calcavecchia shot a 1-under 69 Friday in the second round of the 138th Open, giving him a 36-hole total of 4-under 136, one shot behind co-leaders Steve Marino and Tom Watson. And so Calc faced the unavoidable questions of whether he could win and whether during his 27 years on tour he should have won more.

There was a hesitant yes to the first question, because Calc's quite acceptable controlled ego wouldn't allow him anything more, and a less hesitant yes to the second.

Golf tempers a person's outlook. A botched bunker shot is never far away, even for a pro. But it doesn't change intent. Or actuality.

Some may wonder what Calc is doing up there in third of the same major in which Tiger Woods -- Calcavecchia's frequent practice-round partner -- was going to miss the cut. A more legitimate query is why Calc never placed himself up there in Hall of Fame consideration, even though he insists that sort of acknowledgment is unimportant.

Asked point blank whether he indeed could win the Open, Calc hemmed and hawed, talking of his downs and ups throughout the seasons and then agreed, "Yeah, I think I can win. If not this week, then maybe somewhere later on this year down the road."

Then came the more poignant query, one that from some people might have brought an angry growl: Does Mark Calcavecchia believe that through the years he has underachieved?

"Yeah," he said. "There's no question I should have won at least 20 tournaments." He's won 13.

"I've had, what, 27 seconds, and another 25 thirds or something. [It's 17 thirds]. I think only [Greg] Norman has more seconds. I probably gave 10 of those away, and the rest I made good rallies to finish second.

"But I could have won a Masters. Sandy Lyle [in 1988] hit the shot of his life out a fairway bunker, but who knows, maybe I wouldn't have won this tournament the next year. But I would have thought I would have won a Masters at some point, and that's clearly not going to happen. But that's OK."

A fascinating leaderboard halfway through the Open: Marino, 29, who not only never had won on tour but never had played a links course or, obviously, the Open, until this week; 59-year-old Tom Watson; and 49-year-old Mark Calcavecchia.

"I watched TV this morning," said Calc, who had an 11:41 a.m. British time start, "so I kind of knew what some of the holes were playing like on the front nine. And I saw the wind -- there was no wind [Thursday] -- was going in the opposite direction it had been on Tuesday."

After a quiet, almost embracing opening round 24 hours earlier, when the air was still, the sun shining and 50 players broke par, Friday came up wet and wild, genuine British Open weather.

"At any rate, I knew the front nine was going to play hard," said Calc, confirming many of the opening holes would be into the teeth of the north wind. "I saw the scores, and I just wanted to stay away from big numbers, which a lot of guys were making out there, doubles, triples and quads and whatever. A few bogeys here and there weren't going to kill me."

He did bogey the second and fifth holes, which parallel the coastline of the Firth of Clyde, but then he birdied seven, 10, 12 and 14, stumbling only with a bogey on the 206-yard par-3 15th.

"When we turned around on the back nine, I thought I could probably shoot a decent score," said Calc, cognizant Turnberry, as so many links courses, goes out in one direction and then turns toward home, with a diversion or two. "I'm real happy with the way things have gone. I've been getting some good bounces, getting lucky on occasion, which always helps."

Some of the younger American players described Calcavecchia as some sort of unofficial team leader because of his many years playing golf in general and the Open specifically. He sloughed it off with the expected self-deprecation.

"I would never think I'm the type of guy anybody could learn anything from, to tell the truth," Calc remarked. "I think experience is way overrated. All that means is I've hit more bad shots than all the guys that are 20 years old, and they're lingering in my brain."

Along with the good pints. "I'm allowing myself four," he smirked. "Seems to be a good, round figure."

That from a man with a good, round figure.

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Newsday: Jimenez passes Watson for British Open lead

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- He had stepped from the past, which in this land of legends and lore, kings and kilts, shouldn't have been a surprise.

Tom Watson seems as much a part of Scotland, of the British Open, as the heather in the rough and the bunkers in the fairways.

He is 59 and yesterday, when the 138th Open started at Turnberry -- where Watson won an Open 32 years ago -- he shot a 5-under-par 65 to come in a shot behind Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez. Watson shares second place with American Ben Curtis, the 2003 Open winner, and Japanese Tour regular Kenichi Kuboya.

"I think there was some spirituality out there today," Watson said. "Just the serenity of it was pretty neat."

Spirituality and fantasy merge here to create reality. It is here along the Firth of Clyde where Robert the Bruce, an eventual king of Scotland was born in the 13th Century. It is here where weathered castles and abbeys dot the countryside, telling of another age.

Over the hill in Ayr runs the River Doon and across it the Bridge of Doon, or as it's called here, the Brig o'Doon. "Brigadoon" became a Broadway musical set in a mythical Scottish town where the residents never age.

Like Tom Watson.

"Not bad for an almost 60-year-old," Watson, who reaches that number in two months, mused of his round. Not bad for anyone no matter how old. Or young.

And how's this for fantasy morphing into reality. Watson, once the dominant player of his day, mashed the dominant player of this day, Tiger Woods. Woods shot a 1-over 71. At 33, he gave Watson 26 years and six shots. Woods is seven shots out of the lead after a sloppy round.

Watson simply gave everyone a reminder greatness can still have its day. He has won the Open five times. He has won the Senior British Open three times, one of those at Turnberry.

The Open is golf on the links land, that sandy soil from which the sea receded thousands of years past, golf where balls bounce and sometimes the wind howls and the rain falls. It's the weather which gives a links course its character and difficulty, but yesterday the sun was shining and the air was still.

"She was defenseless," said Watson. Reminiscent of those beautiful days the last two rounds of the '77 Open at Turnberry when, in the so-called "Duel in the Sun," Watson shot 65-65 to edge Jack Nicklaus, who had 65-66.

Nicklaus stopped playing the British after St. Andrews in 2005, but in a sense he was at Turnberry yesterday. Jack's wife, Barbara, texted Tom on Wednesday evening wishing him luck.

"I texted her back," Watson explained, "and said, 'You know we really miss you over here.' And I really meant it. It's not the same without Jack playing in this tournament."

Open champions have exemptions now, after a new regulation, only until they are 60. Nicklaus is 69.

Watson, looking at a leader board which included former winners Mark O'Meara, age 52, and Mark Calcavecchia, 49, said knowledge of links golf, which is more on the ground than in the air, is a large part of the equation.

"We have an advantage," Watson insisted. "The older guys have an advantage. We've played under these conditions, and we kind of get a feel for it. And that feel is worth its weight in gold when you're playing."

A year ago, at Royal Birkdale, Greg Norman, then 53, made a run at the title until the final holes. (He shot 77 yesterday).

Watson wouldn't guess what lies ahead.

"Sixty-five is the way to start," he said. "Will I be able to handle the pressure? I don't know. Whether I'm in the hunt, who knows? The pressure may be too much too handle. But I've been there before."

Many, many times.

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CBSSports.com: Woods shoots 71, odds triple in rough first day at Open

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- The money couldn't be turned over fast enough. The pounds, each of them worth $1.77, were being wagered on Tiger Woods with such eagerness that Britain's betting paper, the Racing Post, headlined it as "a feeding frenzy."

Tiger was a virtual 2-1 favorite when he stepped to the first tee Thursday to hit first shot of the 138th British Open, and nobody else, not Sergio Garcia, not Steve Stricker, not two-time defending champion Padraig Harrington, was better than 20-1.

The odds changed dramatically by the time Tiger made it to the rolling 18th green of Turnberry's enticing links. Woods not only wasn't leading the tournament, he wasn't even leading the other two players in his threesome, one of them 17-year-old Japanese prodigy Ryo Ishikawa, the other Englishman Lee Westwood.

The odds on that happening were rather large. Mr. Woods, who came in with a 1-over-par 71, which put him down below the top 60, was a 1-2 favorite to beat Ishikawa and Westwood.

Which he didn't do, both of them coming in with 2-under 68s. And which made El Tigre perhaps the most unhappy laddie on the west coast of Scotland, if not the entire country.

Tiger was his usual repetitious and non-committal self when asked exactly that happened on a day when the wind didn't blow, the rain never fell and the temperature at the real Turnberry -- this one -- might have been confused with that of the reasonable facsimile, Turnberry in Florida.

You not only could see the sun, you could see Ailsa Craig, that mammoth rock off 10 miles into the Firth of Clyde, and not even think about the local axiom: "If ye can't see Ailsa Craig, it's raining; if ye can see Ailsa Craig, it's going to rain."

It figuratively rained on Tiger's out-of-step parade. He had four bogeys, of which one actually was quite impressive.

Woods hit his approach on the 455-yard par-4 16th, named "Wee Burn," into the burn, or stream, which doesn't seem so "wee." After a penalty drop, he chipped close and one-putted. Otherwise he would have had a double bogey.

Tiger's post-round analysis consisted of a not-surprising litany, words we have heard more than once at majors since Woods returned from the left knee ACL surgery that kept him out from June 2008 to February 2009.

"Well," he said, "I certainly made a few mistakes out there. Realistically, I probably should have shot about 1 or 2 under par. But I made a few mistakes, and consequently I'm at 1 over."

Then he pointed out he would be going to the driving range to correct those mistakes.

There's a pattern here, and one Tiger needs to break. He won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in March two weeks before the Masters and finished sixth at Augusta. He won the Memorial two weeks before the U.S. Open and finished sixth at Bethpage. Two weeks before this Open Championship, he won the AT&T in Washington.

"On the range," Woods said of his warmup, "my misses were to the right. And I tried not to miss it to the right on 3. I didn't do that. Consequently I hit it left."

After the shot, he took a swipe at the teeing ground and mumbled something under his breath. By round's end, he had tossed away his clubs a few times. He expected more of himself. So did everyone, especially the guys making the odds.

"The misses I had were the same shots I was hitting on the range," Woods said. "So I need to go to work on that and get it squared away."

With 54 holes remaining, Woods isn't exactly finished, even if the bookmakers revised the numbers upward, placing him at 6-1. You only wish waiters over here could serve half as quickly as the odds are posted.

Before 2005, Tiger had not finished first in a major when he didn't shoot par or better the first round, but that stat has become irrelevant, sort of like those six-foot deep bunkers at Turnberry without any breeze to knock down shots.

Woods now has three major titles when he began over par, the '05 Masters and the last two of his total 14, the '07 PGA and the '08 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the one he took on a leg and half and a lot of courage.

The other day, after a practice round, Tiger said Turnberry is a course where "you can't fake it." There was no faking the first round of the 2009 Open, just enough bad shots to change the odds -- if not Tiger's continued place as the favorite.

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http://www.cbssports.com/golf/story/11960022
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RealClearSports: Tiger Takes on Turnberry

By Art Spander

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- It is a land of history and mystery, of kings and kilts, of whins -- the tall grass -- and whisky. A land where remnants of 700-year-old abbeys stand against time and the words of poet Bobby Burns carry in the wind.

It is the land where golf began, on the sandy soil next to the sea called links, and the land where the game once more returns with the oldest of championships, the British Open, being played for the 138th time.

This is Turnberry, hard by the Firth of Clyde, some 40 miles south of Glasgow, a course twice, during World War I and World War II, turned into a base for the Royal Air Force and now has again been turned into a test for the game's best players.

Along the road is Croy Brae, or The Electric Brae, where because of an optical illusion up looks down and down looks up. On the edge of a course is a lighthouse, built on the alleged birth site of Robert the Bruce, who led the Scots against the English in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

The River Doon flows in Ayr, the city some 18 miles north, and over it, near Burns' heritage museum, crosses the Bridge over the Doon, or Brig O'Doon.

The pros can cross that bridge when they come to it. Now the idea is to get past the bunkers, the huge pits five or six feet deep, and the long rough when play in the Open begins Thursday on Turnberry's Ailsa course..

"Just a fabulous golf course,'' said Tiger Woods. He is a three-time British Open winner, but like so many of the golfers in their early 30s, or younger, never had played even a practice round at Turnberry until this week.

Three Opens have been held here: 1977, won by Tom Watson; 1986, won by Greg Norman; and 1994, won by Nick Price. But 15 years is a long time. Fifteen years ago Tiger was 18 and one of his playing partners for the first two rounds, Ryo Ishikawa of Japan, was 2 years old.

So, in a way, for many in the field Turnberry is uncharted territory, even though they will have noted every swale and sand trap during the previous few days.

"We haven't had the big winds yet,'' said Tiger of how difficult it is to create a playing strategy. "We'll see how the weather holds out.''

Off the coast about 10 miles is Ailsa Craig, a huge rock, an extinct volcano, home to thousands of birds. The saying here is "If ye can't see Ailsa Craig it's raining; if ye can see it, it's going to rain.'' On Tuesday, you saw it, and then you saw storms smash in from the Firth.

Turnberry was renovated the past year, reopened only a month past. Tiger, in a sense, also went through his own renovation, surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee in June 2008.

That kept him out of last year's Open, a fact to which the British media kept referring - hey, at least they didn't ask about Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic - and out of any tournament until February.

Since his return, Tiger has won three times, which he conceded was not something anyone would have predicted, but none of those wins was in a major. He tied for sixth in both the Masters and U.S. Open.

The three who took championships at Turnberry, Watson, Norman and Price -- and a fourth, Jack Nicklaus, whom Watson beat by a single shot in '77 -- all are living members of the World Golf Hall of Fame. The connection was not lost on Tiger.

"You are looking at guys who were some of the best ball strikers,'' said Woods, who has been made the 7-to-4 favorite. "At this course you can understand why. You really have to hit your ball well here. And you have to drive the ball well, hit your irons well. You just can't fake it around this golf course.''

Experience helps on links courses, although because the weather is so changeable sometimes not that much. If you're hitting a driver with the wind because the ball is certain to carry a bunker, what happens when the wind reverses? Do you use a 3-wood or 3-iron and play short?

Tiger won the Open three years ago at Royal Liverpool, Hoylake, and hadn't played the course until the week of the tournament. Back in 1964, Tony Lema, who had never even been on a links course, won at St. Andrews, advising, "I don't build 'em, I play 'em.''

So does Tiger, and he said his introduction to links golf, some 14 years ago when he was at Stanford, was a revelation.

"I just fell in love with being able to use the ground as a friend, as an ally,'' said Tiger of golf on the hard-packed fairways. "We don't get to do that in the States. Everything is up in the air.''

At the moment, so is the winner of the 2009 British Open. Tiger is the choice, but everyone except Robert the Bruce has a chance.

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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© RealClearSports 2009

SF Examiner: Tiger anxious for first major win since surgery

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

TURNBERRY, SCOTLAND — And now into the land of Robert the Bruce, where castles stand and time seems endless, steps Woods the Tiger. Aye laddie, the British Open returns to Scotland, and Woods, after a missing year, returns to the Open.

“Haste ye back,” says the sign along A77 as it curves out of Kirkoswald toward the Firth of Forth and the links of Turnberry. Tiger is back. And naturally the heavy betting favorite, 7-to-4 at Ladbroke’s the bookmaker.

Every Open Championship, as it’s called here, offers a unique glance at an event which is as much about history as it is competition. Over the hill in Ayr is the actual Brig O’Doon, or bridge over the Doon River. Close by is the home of Bobby Burns, the poet hero who created Auld Lang Syne told us the best laid plans “o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.”

Tiger’s plan for this 138th Open, of course, is to finish first, to follow in the wake of Tom Watson, Greg Norman and Nick Price who won the three previous Opens at Turnberry.

“They were some of the best ball-strikers,” Woods reminded. “At this golf course you can understand why. You really have to hit the ball well here ... you just can’t fake it around this golf course.”

Nor on any links, which is where the Open always is played. Those are the courses on the rolling, sandy soil once under the sea, where the bunkers are huge, the fairways firm, and the advantage is in hitting the ball low, not high.

Those are courses such as Royal Birkdale, where Padraig Harrington won last year, and Carnoustie, where Harrington won in 2007, and Royal Liverpool, where in 2006 Tiger took his third Open.

There are no true linksland venues in the United States — Pebble Beach Golf Links is one in name only, not style — and not until they cross the sea do Americans get the opportunity to play them.

“I fell in love with it right away,” Woods said of links golf. “I fell in love with being [able] to use the ground as a friend, an ally. We don’t get to do that in the United States; everything is up in the air.”

Nor in the U.S. do they compete on a course built where, in 1274, Robert the Bruce was born. He would become King of Scotland and fight the English at the Battle of Bannockburn. Now a lighthouse, Turnberry’s symbol stands at Robert the Bruce’s alleged birth site.

The virtual king of golf is Tiger. But since the knee surgery which prevented him from playing in the ’08 Open, Woods has not won a major. He has three victories since returning five months ago but he couldn’t get to the top in either the Masters or U.S. Open, tying for sixth in both.

“To sit here and say I was going to have three wins halfway through the year probably would have been reaching a little bit,” Woods said. “Granted I haven’t won a major, but I’ve come close. I’ve done it before, and hopefully I’ll do it again.”

The oddsmakers believe he’ll do it this Open. They are not alone.

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

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OpenGolf: Art Spander on The Open

By Art Spander
Special to OpenGolf.com/R & A Championships Limited

Forty years ago I was caught under the spell, hooked by the magic of an event so old but yet so current. It was 1968, at Carnoustie, the grayness and gloom, my first Open, and gloriously not my last.

Americans can be chauvinistic, can look across the Atlantic and wonder why the Brits take their beer cool rather than cold or why a broken machine can’t be fixed in hours instead of days, but we remain enthralled with both The Open and Wimbledon, the best of Britain.

Tennis on grass courts, so special; golf on linksland, so different. The Open — and now, led by the perception of Tiger Woods who began calling it that, like the locals — is as much circus as sport, a mid-summer party.

“Aye, laddie,’’ asked the man at pub. “You here for the golf?’’ The Golf. What a beautiful way to describe a competition which started in the middle of the 19th Century. The Golf. The Open.

We all know the stories of American pros coming to the Open, Sam Snead the first time at St. Andrews describing the course as turnip patch. Where were the sculptured fairways lined by trees? But eventually they understood the charm and frustration of links golf.

Walter Hagen would come back. Arnold Palmer would come back. Jack Nicklaus would come back. Tiger has come back.

Open galleries are knowledgeable and proud. They want players to be challenged, whether by a bunker or by the wind, but no less they want players to succeed. A great shot brings both excitement and an ovation generated from history.

Always there is a reference. The plaque to Arnie on what now is the 16th at Royal Birkdale. The photo of Gary Player against the wall at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. Remember when Nicklaus hurled his putter in triumph at St. Andrews in 1970? As we go forward, time goes into reverse.

The game is international now, a world tour if you will, full of Brits and Aussies, Yankees and Swedes, South Africans and Japanese. They flit from continent to continent. But in July the best invariably are in the UK, at Hoylake or Birkdale or this year Turnberry.

Back home, back in the US of A, people will be up early — there’s a five-hour time change to New York, eight to California — and watching on television. Watching and wishing they could be here, walking through the tented village, hoisting a glass of lager and tramping along the dunes.

The Open has to be experienced as well as viewed, has to be put in context. “You going to the British Open, again?’’ a friend asked at the start of June. The question didn’t deserve an answer.

A few years back, another journalist, more envious than respectful, told me, “You’d swim to get to the British Open.’’ An exaggeration. But not much of one.

The Open is rain off the sea and a breeze in your face. The Open is a ball flying into the whin and grasses and fans pointing to where they thought it ought to be, but as was the case with Tiger the first shot in 2003 at Royal St. George’s, is not there at all.

The Open is a week of surprises, not all of them delightful. Back in 1970, at St. Andrews, the sun was shining and the sky blue. The warning was not to walk without an umbrella, but I ignored the advice. Drenched, I wandered back to the press tent. At the Open, there are lessons for us all.

Art Spander is a longtime sports and golf columnist from the San Francisco Bay Area, now with the San Francisco Examiner. He recently received the PGA of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in journalism, and previously was a winner of the McCann Award, gaining a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has won six first-place awards in Golf Writers Association of America writing competition. He has written for the Daily Telegraph and (Glasgow) Sunday Herald, and is attending his 137th major championship.
 

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Tiger and elements at the start of British Open week

TURNBERRY, Scotland –- A light rain had stopped, leaving only gloom and silence. The Open is coming, and the stage must be set. This is a golf resort, Turnberry, not a beach resort. The elements must come into play.

There is a myth about golf in this country where the game was created. “Nae wind, nae rain, nae golf,’’ is the axiom. But here they’ll tell you that’s a slogan more Madison Avenue than Glasgow High Street. The folks would prefer sunshine. They don’t usually have it.

When we think of the British Open, we think not only of links courses, those bold, rolling venues once under the sea, but of difficult weather -- as if any weather could be more difficult than that of our own Open, three weeks past at Bethpage, where the rain never stopped.

The famous Duel in the Sun, between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in 1977, was at Turnberry, on Scotland’s West Coast, along the Firth of Clyde, Watson winning after shooting 65-65 the last two days against Jack’s 65-66. There wasn’t a cashmere sweater within sight. Not many bogies to be seen, either.

But when in 1986 the Open returned to Turnberry, the weather the first day -- 25 mph winds, a steady downpour -- was particularly nasty. Only one player, Ian Woosnam, was as low as even par, or as the phrasing goes here, level par.

Turnberry is not a town but a Victorian hotel, constructed in 1906 above courses opened in 1901 and twice turned into Royal Air Force bases, for World War I and World War II. Even now, after the restoration, after three previous Opens, cement from the old airplane runways still is visible.

Also visible Sunday, in a manner of speaking, was Tiger Woods, who played a practice round on Turnberry’s Ailsa Course, which until two weeks ago had been closed for changes and, if you think harder is better, improvement.

It was Tiger’s introduction to Turnberry, where the men who won the three Opens here, Watson in ’77, Greg Norman in ’86 and Nick Price in ’94, all are living members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Not that Tiger can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he must have some magic. By the time he was into his back nine, the clouds rolled by and the sun appeared.

“We got the best of the weather today,’’ said Woods. “No wind. The course is in great shape.’’

Presumably so was Tiger, although he had arrived at Prestwick Airport, about 20 miles north, after an overnight flight, picked up a yardage  booklet in the pro shop -- as we might if we could afford the $375 greens fee -- went straight to the first tee, skipping the driving range, and fired away.

Peter Dawson, chairman of the Royal and Ancient, which runs the Open, caught up with Woods, first on foot, then after leaping into a golf cart, on wheels. Can’t let the prize entrant feel unwanted.

There is a small building, a halfway house, with a restroom between the ninth and 10th holes, but when Tiger tried the door he found it locked. A marshal quickly obtained a key. “My teeth were swimming in my head,’’ a grateful Tiger told the man.

That Woods never had played Turnberry until Sunday is of no particular consequence. Experience is advisory on links courses but hardly mandatory. Tiger never had seen Royal Liverpool until Open week in 2006. Of course he won. Tom Watson took his first shot at Carnoustie in 1975 the week of the tournament and won. And then there was the late Tony Lema of the Bay Area, San Leandro, in 1964.

Lema’s manager, the famed Fred Corcoran, told Tony to get in some practice rounds since he’d never seen a links course before. “Just let me tee it up,’’ was Lema’s response. “I don’t build courses, I play ’em.’’

He played historic St. Andrews better than Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, better than anyone, winning virtually sight unseen. When a British writer wondered of Tony, “How did you find the course?’’ his flip California answer was, “I just walked out of the clubhouse and there it was.’’

Whenever Tiger walks out of a clubhouse, he’s inevitably the favorite. Seven different bookmaking agencies in Britain, where betting is legal, all list Tiger as the choice, the odds varying slightly from 7-to-4 at Ladbroke’s to 9-to-4 at Paddypower. For what it’s worth, Sergio Garcia is next at 20-to-1.

Woods reportedly hit his tee shot into the rough on Turnberry’s second and never looked for the ball. The rough is long.

“They had a medal (stroke play event) for the members –- 150 starters -– and they left 480 balls on the course,’’ said Colin Montgomerie, who has a golf academy here.  “That’s three a player. Avoid the rough at all costs.’’

Easy to say but, as even Tiger learned, hard to do.

RealClearSports: An Unstable Sporting World

By Art Spander

Bill Bradley, the basketball great, "Dollar Bill'' with the Knicks and then U.S. Senator, said maybe more than once the great change in sports is change. Teams and players used to be as immobile as an oak. It was reassuring. We knew who was where.

Now it's near chaos. The LPGA is dumping its commissioner. The NBA has shrunk its salary cap. Ron Artest, for about the hundredth time -- or does it just seem that way -- is joining another club in the NBA, the Lakers.

The San Francisco 49ers are intent on becoming the Santa Clara 49ers, although no way they use that name. When you live or play in California, instability is a way of life.

The Sacramento Kings want to move. The San Diego Chargers want to move. The Oakland Raiders want to move. The Oakland A's want to move. Probably tied in with the San Andreas Fault.

But we crazies on the West Coast don't have a patent on this stuff. The Nets are trying to get out of Jersey and go to Brooklyn. The Dodgers, of course, got out of Brooklyn and went to L.A., but that was when Joe Torre still was a teenager. In Brooklyn.

Even Europe is in for a massive sporting overhaul. The great soccer teams are ready to give the back of the hand to the wusses. The thinking is why should Real Madrid and the guys who spent millions on players such as Cristiano Renaldo be unable to recoup their investment, being forced to play lesser clubs in their own country?

According to Matthew Syed of the Times of London, geography isn't going to mean much any more. What will count, as in the United States, is wealth. So Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and their global superstars, will be facing Manchester United or Bayern Munich or AC Milan.

As Syed asks, "Would Chelsea make more cash playing regularly against Wigan Athletic and Hull City, as at present, or Barcelona and Inter Milan in a Super League?''

The LPGA isn't making enough cash with Carolyn Bivens as commissioner. The tough economic times and her rigid policies -- not including the intolerance of trying to force the ladies to speak English or take a hike --have stripped the organization of numerous tournaments. There's a rebellion under way.

People who ought to be worrying about signing their scorecards have been signing a petition.

It's all about freedom, we're told. Freedom for golfers to speak their mind. Freedom for team players to leave when they choose. Freedom for franchises to look for some over-eager, misguided community to build them a new stadium or ballpark or arena.

The old reserve clause was a form of slavery. This is a form of confusion. Is Jason Kidd coming, going or staying? Is he on the Mavericks, the Knicks, the Nets or the Cal alumni?

Carolyn Bivens, you can be certain, is going. According to Golfweek magazine, "it's the latest blow to a tour which has lost seven tournaments since 2007,'' including three in Hawaii. That's real trouble, when people won't come to Hawaii to play golf.

The benchmark of this distress was that city on Lake Erie. Twenty years ago, the Indians and Browns played in Cleveland Municipal Stadium. To prove we know nothing, if someone asked which team might move the unanimous response would have been the Indians, who had pathetic crowds. The Browns sold out every game.

However, the Browns shifted to Baltimore, while the Indians stayed, were provided a new park and had years of sellouts. Now the Browns are back. Sort of sporting musical chairs. For hundreds of millions of dollars.

Candlestick Park opened in 1960 for the San Francisco Giants, then was expanded in 1970 and '71 to bring in the 49ers, who were playing in a dump, if a historic dump, called Kezar Stadium. Now Candlestick is a dump, or to be exact, "a pigsty,'' as designated by former team president Eddie DeBartolo.

The Niners, who won five Super Bowls, contend they deserve better. And they do. But 40 miles away in Santa Clara?

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom doesn't want to be remembered as the politico who couldn't hang on to the city's most famous, most successful and original hometown team, the one that didn't move from New York, as the Giants, or Philadelphia, as the Warriors.

But in this era when nothing is tied down, athletes, teams or golf commissioners, he doesn't want the place once known as the "city that knows how,'' to be put in the vise, squeezed during these times of foreclosures and declining tax collections.

Newsom, on a Comcast program called "Chronicle Live," said he wanted to "avoid being used as leverage'' in the Niners' negotiations with Santa Clara for that maybe-it-will-maybe-it-won't stadium.

That's all sports has become, Mr. Mayor, leverage. Real Madrid has it. Ron Artest has it. Carolyn Bivens doesn't. The next move is not very far off.

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/2009/07/09/an_unstable_sporting_world_96424.html
© RealClearSports 2009 

SF Examiner: In Britain, every contest overflows with emotion

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

LONDON — Maybe they have the right idea here. Sports are not merely fun and games, items to be covered dispassionately — Giants, win; Raiders sign tackle — but reflections of history.

In Britain, even the smallest of competitions invariably are “us against them.”

“Them” can be a sporting club in the next town. Or Tiger Woods. Or at the moment, with The Ashes at stake in a cricket competition which extends back to 1877, Australia — a nation which started as an English penal colony.

One of England’s stars, Kevin Pietersen, made the most banal of comments, alluding to the Aussies down a couple of stars from past teams which, of course, whupped the English. “Pietersen Expects Australia to Come Out Fighting,” said the headline in the Telegraph.

All sports news is reported subjectively and patriotically, reminding one of that line about the World War II general, Bernard Montgomery, of whom Winston Churchill said, “In defeat unbeatable; in victory unbearable.”

Nobody simply is beaten here, say as Randy Johnson when he was injured on Sunday. Losers are “brave” or “hopeless” or “worthless.” Or worse, were “cheated.” Somebody always is “accusing” an opponent of an impropriety.

We have our issues, certainly, the Tuck Play (it was a fumble), but not like the Brits. When South Africa beat the British Lions in rugby a few days ago it was because one of the South African players gouged the eye of a Brit.

“Question,” asked The Sun, “When can you gouge? Answer, when you turn out for South Africa.” The Sun went on to point out, “South Africa’s ruling body covered up Schalk Burger’s eye-gouging shame.” Burger was listed as “a thug.”

So, with a variation on that theme, we describe the Warriors as pathetic, the 49ers as clueless, the A’s as disgraceful, the Raiders as mortifying. We say the Giants warn the Dodgers about using Manny. That might get some attention.

And we take sides, as they do when Andy Murray, the tennis star, is at Wimbledon. “Hopes of a nation are with you, Andy.” Sure, “Hopes of a region are with you, Cal.” (Excepting those people at Stanford.)

The reverse was when on a single weekend a few years ago, England flops in World Cup soccer, cricket, track and who knows what else, “We’re Rubbish,” proclaimed the Daily Mail.

Imagine the English tabloid headlines on our flawed franchises. “Sell them Chris, if you know what’s good for you.” “Please don’t let the Sharks near the playoffs again.” “Why can’t Sabean find a slugger?”

Newspapers are in trouble in Britain, as the United States, but like the Aussie cricketers, they come out fighting, battling for readers the way the English did at Bunker Hill, or was it Henman Hill at Wimbledon?

Every contest is a matter of pride. Of good and evil. Of overflowing emotion. When Ana Ivanovic quit against Venus Williams at Wimbledon because of an injury, the Sun headline was “Venus sad for hurt Ana.” And about Andy Roddick’s upcoming quarter-final against Lleyton Hewitt, “Rod warns: Lleyt is great.”

But not as great as the people who write sports in England. Be warned, they are not rubbish.

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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CBSSports.com: Booming Roddick brings out best in great Federer

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- The match that seemed endless ended too soon for Andy Roddick. If the man who beat him in one of the greatest Wimbledon men's finals isn't the finest tennis player in history, he'll do for a long while.

Roger Federer proved he has courage and staying power, as well as some of the finest strokes ever, by hanging on to defeat Roddick 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5), 3-6, 16-14 on a Sunday when Centre Court couldn't take much more suspense.

The victory was Federer's 15th in a Grand Slam, the game's Big Four, separating him from Pete Sampras, with whom he had been tied and who, after an overnight flight from Los Angeles, was in the stands to watch his record fall.

"Thanks for coming, Pete," said Federer, the 27-year-old Swiss. "It's such a pleasure to do it in front of such great legends."

Besides Sampras, the famed royal box included Bjorn Borg, Manolo Santana, Ilie Nastase and Rod Laver, champions all who had come to see whether Federer could produce on demand.

And despite Roddick -- the American doomed to become the other man in these dramas, having now lost to Federer three times in a Wimbledon final -- Roger managed to do what was needed.

"My head is still spinning," Federer said after a match that, because there are no tiebreakers in the fifth set at Wimbledon, went 4 hours, 18 minutes.

The 16-14 set, which required 1 hour, 35 minutes, is said to be the longest fifth in a Slam, bypassing the 11-9 in the 1927 French Open, when Rene LaCoste defeated Bill Tilden. Talk about legends.

Roddick will not be spoken of with those two, or with Federer, who beat him for the 19th time in 21 meetings, eight of those in Slams, four at Wimbledon.

Rather, he will be discussed as the unfortunate individual who came along at the wrong time, the guy who did everything possible except overtake Federer.

It seemed he might in this third consecutive Wimbledon final to go five sets -- Rafael Nadal beat Federer last year -- Roddick let his chances get away. Or maybe Federer, as winners do, grabbed them.

Asked if he lost to the world's greatest tennis player, Roddick sighed, "Yeah."

In the second set, Roddick led Federer 6-2 in the tiebreak and at 6-5 had a volley to win the set. But the shot was wide, and Federer, with six consecutive points, went on to even the match at one set apiece.

"There was a pretty significant wind behind him," Roddick said of the shot, which went wide. "When he first hit it, I thought I wasn't going to play it. Last minute, it looked like it started dropping. I couldn't get my racket around on it."

Federer ended up winning the tiebreak 8-6 and in time he would win his sixth Wimbledon.

There was no falling on his knees this time. Rather, when Roddick shanked the final shot, Federer leaped like some NBA player about to hit a dunk shot.

"I'm sorry, Pete," Roddick said, addressing Sampras with his typical flippancy. "I tried to hold him off. But it was a pleasure playing here today. Pete, Manolo, I still hope someday my name will be up there with theirs as a winner of this tournament.

"But I just want to say congratulations to Roger. He is a true champion and deserves everything he gets."

In the great dream here, the men's final of the All England Lawn Tennis Championships would have been between Federer and the Scot, Andy Murray. In anticipation, some people paid $2,000 to $3,000 for tickets.

Maybe the Brits didn't get what they wanted, but you can get what you need, as the Rolling Stones sing -- and you can't get much more English than they are. What tennis always needs is a final full of drama, a final in which every point is critical.

That's what happened Sunday.

Roddick used more than his powerful serve -- his fastest was 143 mph -- to stay even with Federer. He wasn't broken once until the very last point of the match, holding serve the first 37 times. But Federer won the tiebreakers and eventually the match and the title.

In the fifth set, when the score got to 14-13, it seemed as if somebody had missed an extra point rather than a first serve.

In somewhat of a reversal of expectations, Roddick was strong in rallies, Federer on serves.

"He served great," Roddick said. "If he hadn't served as well, I'd probably be sitting here in a better mood." Federer had 50 aces, Roddick only 27.

When asked what makes Federer what he is, Roddick shrugged. "I don't know where to start," he said. "He makes it real tough. He was having trouble picking up my serve today for the first time ever. He just stayed the course.

"You didn't even get the sense he was really frustrated. He gets a lot of credit for a lot of things, but not how many matches he digs deep and toughs it out. He doesn't get a lot of credit for that because it looks easy for him a lot of times."

It wasn't easy. "This could have gone on two more hours," said Federer. He already was wearing a warmup jacket with a golden "15" on the back.

That puts him one ahead of Sampras, of course, and 14 ahead of Roddick, whose only Slam victory came in the 2003 U.S. Open. For a while, the way he played, the way he battled, there was a thought he could wrench away a second.

But when someone asked him to describe what he did, Roddick could only say, "I lost."

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11925724
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

Newsday.com: Serena beats Venus for her third Wimbledon title

BY ART SPANDER
Special to Newsday

WIMBLEDON, England - She's a tennis player again. The champion again. The Serena Williams who wanted to dabble in television and fashion is now back on the stage she knows best and back on top. Who said there are no second acts in American lives?

Serena won the battle of the Williams sisters, the battle of Wimbledon, defeating her older sibling, Venus, 7-6 (3), 6-2, Saturday in the women's final.

This was Serena's 11th major singles title and, starting with the U.S. Open last September, her third in the last four. She's missing only the French, where she made it to the quarterfinals.Not long ago, television commentator Mary Carillo reminded her audience that an athlete, in this case Serena, would regret not taking advantage of her peak years.

But now Serena is looking forward again. At 27, she is talking about competition for another three or four years. She's back where she was in 2003 and 2004. In fact, she's better than she was in '03 and '04.

"I've played a lot this year, and I've paid the price. I've really just wanted to focus on tennis, and I've really been doing that.''

What she did to Venus, who had won 20 straight matches, 34 straight sets, two straight Wimbledons and a total of five overall, was keep her moving, slugging forehands to the corners. Then Serena won the first-set tiebreak, reminiscent of the U.S. Open quarterfinals, where she beat Venus with two tiebreakers.

"When I went out on court, I felt this was one of the few times I didn't expect to come out with the win. I felt I had nothing to lose. Then when I won that first set, I was like, 'Wow, this is great.' No matter what, I'm a set away.''

Venus again had wads of tape on her left leg to protect a knee her father, Richard, said was a problem but which she refused to discuss. "I think I played well,'' Venus said, noticeably dispirited, "but she just seemed to play better. There's no easy way of losing, especially when it's so close to the crown.''

This was the fourth time Serena had beaten Venus in a major final and the 11th time Serena had beaten Venus of the 21 matches they have played overall.

"In the tiebreak,'' Venus said, "I would play a good shot, and she'd just hit a winner off of it or put me in a position where she could hit another winner.''

In other words, despite predictions, Serena controlled the match, not Venus, who conceded in the second set she began to rush her shots. "I think I lost it from the ground [strokes],'' was Venus' analysis.

There was a brief rain shower about an hour before the 2 p.m. (British summer time) start, but after tarps were placed on court, the sun came out, and there was no thought of utilizing the new roof.

What Venus could have utilized was that big serve, but as she mentioned a few days ago, against Serena her 127-mph serve often comes flying back.

"It feels so amazing," Serena said after being presented the trophy, called coincidentally the Venus Rosewater Dish. "I can't believe I'm holding it and Venus isn't in. She always wins.''

Serena has won three of the past four major singles titles, though when the world rankings come out tomorrow, she will be No. 2 to Dinara Safina, whom Venus destroyed in the semifinals.

"If you hold three Grand Slam titles, maybe you should be No. 1, but not on the WTA Tour, obviously," Serena said.

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http://www.newsday.com/sports/tennis/ny-spwimb0512943939jul04,0,2073030.story
Copyright © 2009, Newsday Inc.

CBSSports.com: In all-Williams final, little sister has all the answers

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- It was the little sister who came up big. It was Serena Williams who made the shots, made the comments and, with a T-shirt that offered both a laugh and a reference to her greatness, made everyone understand she has a sense of humor as well as a brilliant forehand.

Venus Williams was the defending champion. Venus Williams was going for her sixth Wimbledon singles title. Venus Williams was the favorite. Venus Williams, however, came in second in a two-sister battle at Centre Court.

In truth, it was less a battle than a romp. For Serena, that is, who defeated Venus 7-6 (3), 6-2 on a Saturday of great potential and disappointing outcome. Not in who won, since both the Williams are champions, but in how Serena won.

Venus was going for a third straight title. Venus had won 20 straight matches at Wimbledon, 34 straight sets. Then she lost two straight sets. In 1 hour, 28 minutes.

"She had an answer for everything," Venus said of Serena.

But we had no answers for what happened to Venus, who again wore tape to brace a left knee her absent father Richard -- he had flown home to Florida to avoid watching daughter against daughter -- said was a problem but of which Venus, stubbornly in denial, said, "I have no complaints."

She no longer has the trophy that carries her name, the Venus Rosewater Dish, given the champion. For the third time, but the first time in six years, that belongs to 27-year-old Serena, who came to the news conference in a T-shirt that read, "Are you looking at my titles?"

"Well," explained a particularly jovial Serena, in full commercial mode, "this shirt is available at Nike stores, if you guys want to go get one. I thought [Friday] night, when I was getting my stuff together, if I win, I'll wear this because I would have 11 titles and I wouldn't know if you were looking at my titles or my Gatorade bottle."

Hey, it's been a great few years. She's entitled to have some fun. Serena has won three of the last four Slams, the U.S. Open in September, Australian Open in February and now in July, Wimbledon, her 11th Slam overall.

After Thursday's semis, in which Serena saved match point against Elena Dementieva, she said, "Obviously, Venus is the favorite." And Serena conceded when she walked out on Centre Court, "This is one of the few times I didn't expect to come out with the win."

So she played a gambling style, using her big serve, ripping forehands into the corners. Never was broken. And then after winning the first set on a tiebreaker (she had beaten Venus in the U.S. Open quarters on two tiebreakers) took advantage of Venus' suddenly ineffective serve and lack of movement.

"I felt like I had nothing to lose," said Serena. "When I won that first set, I was like, 'Wow, this is great.' No matter what, I'm a set away."

They are siblings, but they are not alike. Serena shows her emotions, tells you what she's thinking. Venus is the mystery lady, revealing very little.

On the BBC telecast, Tracy Austin said Venus' second serve was "slower and predictable." In the interview room later, Venus said, "I don't agree on that; [Serena] had a hard time stepping into my second serve."

Venus did concede she played too far behind the baseline in the second set when she was broken twice, the second time on match point.

"I tried my best," said 29-year-old Venus. "She just played so well. She really lifted her game. There's no easy way of losing, especially when it's so close to the crown.

"She played great, especially in the tiebreak. I don't think I did too many things wrong in the tiebreak. Just, I would hit a good shot, and she would hit a winner off it or put me in position where she could hit another winner."

The sisters have played six times in Grand Slam finals. Serena has won four. The sisters have played 21 times overall. Serena has won 11.

Serena is No. 2 in the women's rankings, behind Dinara Safina, who was crushed 6-1, 6-0 by Venus in the Wimbledon semis. The points system is skewed, and confusing.

"I'd rather be No. 2 and hold three Grand Slams in the past year than be No. 1 and not have any," Serena insisted. Then with a bit of a needle she added, "I see myself as No. 2. That's where I am. I think Dinara did a great job to get to No. 1. She won Rome and Madrid."

A couple of years back, injuries and boredom had an effect on Serena, who didn't play a great deal and didn't do well when she was playing.

"I feel like I've played a lot this year and I've paid the price," said Serena. "For several years now, three or four years, I just really wanted to focus on tennis, and I've really been doing that. I feel like this is where I want to be, and this is my chance to capitalize on everything."

In the Wimbledon women's final of 2009, no question she certainly capitalized on her big sister.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11923402
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Roddick gains independence from doubt in banner Wimbledon for U.S.

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com 

WIMBLEDON, England -- He was overlooked and underestimated. Andy Roddick was considered of another generation. Time and tennis supposedly had passed him by. "Some people," he said, "were not giving me much of chance."

But it wasn't so much what anyone gave him. It was what Roddick took. He played tennis the way Pete Sampras and the Aussies like Rod Laver used to play it, going to the net, going for the jugular. And now, in a surprise, he's going to the Wimbledon final.

The Fourth of July, the celebration of America's independence from England. It's not a holiday over here. They had hoped to make it one, for another reason.

They had hoped Andy Murray would give them Britain's first men's singles finalist in 71 years and their first men's singles champion in 73 years. But it's not to be because of Roddick.

Wave the stars and stripes. Fly the flag, as they say here.

Roddick, the 26-year-old, the over-the-hill guy, beat Murray, the Scot -- "The Hero," as the tabloid Sun called him -- 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (5) Friday in what must be considered an upset.

So Roddick gets to the final for the third time but for the first time in four years where, for better or worse on Sunday, he'll face the great Roger Federer.

Federer will be playing in the Wimbledon final a seventh straight year, which never had been accomplished -- but they've only been playing here since 1877 -- and the final of a Grand Slam event a 15th time of the last 16 opportunities. He had the expected easy time against Tommy Haas, 7-6 (3), 7-5, 6-3.

Federer has five Wimbledon titles, all in a row, 2003-07, a streak stopped last year by Rafael Nadal. One more, at Wimbledon or at the U.S. Open, wherever, and Roger, the 27-year-old Swiss, breaks the tie with Sampras and wins his record 15th Grand Slam title.

"I'm very proud of all the records I've achieved," said Federer, "because I never thought I could be successful as a kid."

Not many people, Roddick included, thought Roddick could again be successful after last year. But he joins Serena and Venus Williams, who meet in Saturday's women's final, as poignant voices of American tennis.

Three of the four singles finalists are from the U.S., and Venus and Serena will team up in the women's doubles final, also Saturday. Maybe someone besides the Russians can play the game.

When Roddick, who won the 2003 U.S. Open and then eventually lost to Federer in the '04 and '05 Wimbledon finals, was stunned by Janko Tipsarevic in the second round at Wimbledon in 2008, he wasn't sure he could play it anymore.

"Oh yeah," he answered when someone asked Roddick if he doubted he again could get as far as a Grand Slam final. "That was a hard couple of weeks."

Referring to his bride of four months, Brooklyn, then his fiancée, Roddick explained, "Brook and I had a lot of talks if I thought I could still play and at least be toward the top of the game. I definitely questioned [that]. The rest of the year I was kind of hurt."

He connected with a new coach, Larry Stefanki, who played at Cal and is married to one of the daughters of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback John Brodie. Roddick made new commitments, to diet, to work, to getting to bed early.

"I gave myself every opportunity to succeed," he said.

Murray, 22, had every opportunity to succeed this week. And the pressure of a nation desperately wanting him to succeed. "Beam Us Up, Andy," was the headline in Friday's Sun. Another, in the Times, was, "Andy is fighting for his life and will not give up."

The front pages of the dailies were all on Michael Jackson, the back pages on Andy Murray. But in the battle of the Andys -- "Andymonium," someone called it -- Roddick survived, and on match point he fell to his knees and grabbed his head.

"I didn't know," Roddick would sigh, "if I'd ever get a chance of playing for another Grand Slam title. But make no mistake, I've been a much better player than I was last year."

Against Murray, Stefanki advised Roddick, normally a baseline player, went to the net, like grasscourt players of the past.

"He came up with some good volleys," Murray said of Roddick. "I mean, he makes volleys. He normally doesn't miss a lot. You have to make [passing shots], and I didn't make as many as I needed. But he serves so well, it makes it even more important for you to serve well. If you don't do that, he's going to create chances, because he came to the net a lot today."

Federer has an 18-2 record against Roddick and has beaten him in three Grand Slam finals -- '04 and '05 here, '06 in the U.S. Open.

"I think if he serves like he did, 130 miles an hour, [a percentage] in the high 70s, 80, regardless of whether it's Roger or me or anybody else, [Roddick's] got a good chance," Murray said.

At least he has a chance. He's in the final. Not a bad couple of days for the USA.
 
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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11920629
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Venus, Serena support for each other will take Saturday off

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- Still the big sister. Venus Williams made that clear. As before, she made clear how overwhelming she can be on the lawns of Wimbledon, her little Edens in the chaos of big-time tennis.

She's back, like the shark in Jaws. Venus is back, in the final once more, playing Serena Williams once more Saturday, the Fourth of July, perfect for two Americans.

Almost as perfect as Venus was in destroying the player seeded first, the player first in the women's rankings, dumbfounded Dinara Safina.

"I think," sighed Safina, "she's just too good on grass. She gave me a pretty good lesson today."

Venus needed only 51 minutes for what was less a match than a mismatch in one of Thursday's two semifinals.

Serena didn't have it quite as easy or swift. She was one shot away from losing to Elena Dementieva, who like Safina is Russian. But Dementieva couldn't make that shot, a cross-court backhand, in the 10th game of the third set, and Serena finished a 6-7, 7-5, 8-6 winner.

The shortest set in that one was only a minute less than Venus' entire match. In the end, Serena and Dementieva, who was more aggressive, hitting better forehands, but couldn't hang on, played 2 hours, 49 minutes, the longest women's semi in Wimbledon's records.

So it is Venus, trying for a sixth championship and third in a row, against Serena, who lost to her in the final last year but won a couple of Wimbledon titles herself in 2002 and 2003.

Sibling against sibling, Williams against Williams, for the fourth time in a Wimbledon final, the 21st time overall. Each has 10 victories. Each feels compassion toward the other. Each desperately wants the trophy, interestingly named the Venus Rosewater Dish.

"It is different," Venus said of playing Serena, "because I'm happy for her to be in the final, but I have to face her and defeat her. I don't necessarily want her to lose, but for sure I want me to win.

"Maybe that doesn't make sense, but when I'm playing someone else, I want them to lose. I don't like to ever see her disappointed in any way. But at the same time, I don't want to see myself disappointed."

Venus is 29 and more protective than 27-year-old Serena, who, with her Twitter and Facebook, is considerably more outspoken. Venus is cautious in her remarks. Serena can be outrageous.

"But, you know," a candid Venus said, "I need to get my titles, too. I'm still the big sister."

The first few times the Williamses met, in the U.S. Open at the beginning of the decade, at Wimbledon, there were suggestions their father Richard decided who would be the winner before they took the court.

Whether that was legitimate speculation or stupid contemplation, their early matches seemed to lack emotion.

But over the years any hesitancy has disappeared. They charge and slug and chase down balls against each other as they would against anyone else.

Venus wanted Serena to win Thursday. "It's like, if she didn't win, the dream doesn't come true that we're playing in the final."

Serena wanted Venus to win. "It was like, great going." Now they don't want the other to win.

Venus has to be favored, not only after her clubbing of Safina but because Venus has won 20 consecutive matches at Wimbledon, and 34 sets.

"I feel going into this final," said Serena, "I have nothing to lose. Obviously she's playing the best tennis at this tournament. Start with that and just keep positive."

Serena very well could have lost, maybe should have lost. She challenged a couple of calls that originally went Dementieva's way but that the instant-replay review, Hawk-Eye, verified were incorrect. By fractions of an inch.

But Serena refused to concede she was lucky. "I don't think there was too much luck involved," she said.

Not when Serena was serving. She had 20 aces.

"I definitely owe this one to my serve," she agreed.

Her usually strong forehand was nonexistent. "He didn't show up today," she cracked. "I think he went to Hawaii. But I've called him ... er, her, and asked her to come back for the final. Hopefully she'll come back."

No question Venus has come back. Someone whose English carried a strong Eastern Europe accent told Venus that the score of her match, Safina winning one pathetic game, "is very strange."

Not to Venus.

"I like the score," she said with a smile. "Be honest about that. I think the score just showed my level of play. I was just dictating every point. I felt like my performance has been building each round, better and better."

And only one person can stop her: little sister.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11917043
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Men's quarters day really does bring the heat -- literally

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- It was hotter than Bangkok, literally, according to the official temperatures, if at 89 degrees only a notch or two.

It was so hot, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress said firms should encourage employees to wear shorts "to prevent them from collapsing at their desks."

It was so hot, there were empty seats at Centre Court, some of which had been scalped for more than $1,000 when Britain's long-sought tennis hero appeared.

But that hero, Andy Murray, understood the reasoning.

"It was roasting outside," said Murray, "I wouldn't have recommended anyone sitting in that heat for hours."

Recommended or not, people did sit in that seat. And played tennis in that heat.

On this second Wednesday of Wimbledon 2009, more than mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the midday sun for men's quarterfinals won by Murray, five-time champion Roger Federer, surprising Tommy Haas and, finally, Andy Roddick.

The past month in England has been the hottest, driest and sunniest since 2006, which makes it all the more fascinating that for this Wimbledon the $140 million roof over Centre Court was finally put into operation.

But after another scorcher Thursday for the women's semifinals, the Met Office, the weather bureau here, said change is coming, meaning the men's semis on Friday, Murray against Roddick, Federer against Haas, indeed might be played under that roof if the predicted rains arrive.

In the quarters, Murray, trying to become the first Brit since 1936 to win the men's singles, defeated Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-5, 6-3, 6-2; Federer had a tidy 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 win over Ivo Karlovic; Haas upset No. 4 seed Novak Djokovic 7-5, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3; and Roddick, the American, offered a lot of sweat and even at the end some tears, if no blood, taking 3 hours, 50 minutes to beat Lleyton Hewitt, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 4-6, 6-4.

"I'm really happy," said Roddick, twice a finalist -- and twice a loser against Federer. "I haven't been in the Grand Slam picture very much the last two years. Now (with the Australian) I'm in my second semifinal of the year."

When he left the court at a bit after 8 p.m., Andy reached up and dried his eyes. Yes, he was crying. "It was a mixture of happiness and relief," Roddick said. "You know in your mind you're trying to stay the course for four hours, constantly figuring out what you're going to do. So it's relief, happiness and almost a kind of instant shutdown mode."

Immediately after walking to the locker room, Roddick said to the BBC, "I think there's a lot of respect there. We used to get into it a little bit when we were younger, but now we're just a couple of old married dudes."

So, too, finally, is Federer, at 27, second oldest of the four remaining men (Haas is 31, Roddick 26 and Murray 22). Remarkably, Roger has reached a 21st consecutive Grand Slam semifinal and is in position to break his tie with retired Pete Sampras at 14 Slam wins apiece. Not that Federer is getting ahead of himself.

"We all know it would be writing in the history books of tennis," he said. "But it's not there yet."

The roof has been there. Murray defeated Federer's fellow Swiss, Stanislas Wawrinka on Monday night in Wimbledon's first indoor match, and there's still a debate about whether the ball bounces the same indoors.

The All England Club said the temperature when the roof was closed was a steady 75 degrees, much cooler than the record heat outdoors, and humidity a stable 50 percent, lower than outside. Murray, however, said his shots were not the same.

A professor at Sheffield Hallam University told the Times of London that Andy had a point. "When you play outside," said Steve Haake, of the school's department of sports engineering, "there is a breeze. You don't get a carefully controlled environment where the air is not moving and sweat has nowhere to go."

On Wednesday, sweat was everywhere. Fans came to Wimbledon as they might to the Riviera, in shorts, halter tops, straw hats, floppy hats. Kids were splashing in a decorative water run. The line to the ice cream store under the rim of Court 1 stretched 50 yards.

"I like to play my points short," said Federer, the No. 2 seed. "I like short rallies. I think on grass my strength becomes even better, even more dangerous."

Roddick said this Wimbledon might be his best chance, if not his last chance, to add a second Slam to his 2003 U.S. Open championship.

"This one," Andy said of his win over Hewitt, "certainly wasn't short on drama."

Roddick had 43 service aces.

"Andy has been playing great," Roddick said of Murray. "He's certainly come into his own as a player. With my serve, I can give myself a chance in any match."

When you're hot, you're hot.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11913234
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.