CBSSports.com: The Joker is no joke on way to Open semifinals ... maybe more?

in
By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- There's a Joker in every deck. This one has a first name. And a slick game. Novak Djokovic isn't the villain out of Batman, although he's been treated that way.

More accurately, he's a Grand Slam champion, accused hypochondriac and, according to the ratings, the third-best tennis player in the world.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: This U.S. Open coming up short on Americans

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- One singular sensation. A song lyric from A Chorus Line. A fact of tennis from the not-so-U.S. Open. The last two Americans went back-to-back Tuesday on a court named for a historic American, Arthur Ashe, and only one managed to survive.

Out went Sam Querrey, if stubbornly, and after he disappeared from view, from the draw, on came Venus Williams, who wasn't going anywhere, except to the semifinals.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Now Tiger Must Prove He Belongs

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK -- Those who believe in cause and effect will find a connection between the New York Stock Exchange serving as the site for the announcement of the U.S. Ryder Cup wild cards on Tuesday and the Dow Jones average subsequently falling 107 points.

Tiger Woods futures? Sell short.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

CBSSports.com: Wozniacki is an ascending star -- who keeps shining brighter

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- She's not there yet, not holding the winner's trophy. There still are three more matches. "I feel like everything is possible," said Caroline Wozniacki. She is in full flight, an athlete in ascendancy, for whom nothing seems impossible.

This time the opponent wasn't one of those wild cards like Chelsey Gullickson or one of those players from the depths like Kai-Chen Chang, No. 84 in the rankings, or Yung-Jan Chan, No. 77, that Wozniacki was certain to beat.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Venus had Peer's back in Dubai, and Peer never forgot

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- One is an African-American. The other is an Israeli. They've faced each other across a net more than once, including Sunday in the U.S. Open, but more than rivals they are friends, linked by the discrimination they've faced.

Venus Williams you know. She's a Grand Slam champion, and she took a step toward another Slam by beating Shahar Peer, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3, in the third round of the U.S. Open.

Then again, maybe this is the Venus Williams you don't know.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Loving U.S. Open and New York City ... there's nothing like it

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- The hottest show in town? It isn't "A Little Night Music," as popular as that Sondheim hit may be. It's a little day and night tennis at the U.S. Open, off Broadway and off the charts.

This place, the Billie Jean King Center, is a swirl of forehands and backslapping, oversized tennis balls to get autographed and oversized Carnegie Deli sandwiches to get munched.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Marathon Man Isner keeps on chugging on last grand stage

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- For John Isner, the name and the event forever remain inextricably intertwined. As was Bobby Thomson with the "Shot heard 'round the world" ... as was Dwight Clark with "The Catch," which sent the San Francisco 49ers to their first Super Bowl ... as was Roger Bannister when he became the first man to run a mile in less than four minutes.

John Isner always will be the Marathon Man, the one who went three days, went 11 hours, 5 minutes, went 138 games in the final set of a first-round match at Wimbledon against Nicolas Mahut.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Wonderful Woz displays wizardry on and off the court

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com


NEW YORK -- She's the Wonderful Wizard of Woz, a beautiful blend of blonde hair and big backhands who has opponents running and paparazzi chasing.

Caroline Wozniacki has been taking no prisoners and very little time on what Thursday became her summer of love -- or double bagels, if you prefer.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports.com: Leinart, Roddick ... What Might Have Been

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK - Andy Roddick has departed, and apropos of nothing but pertinent to everything, Matt Leinart could be arriving, although the belief is he'll end up in another town.

Two young athletes, two different sports, two levels of frustration.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

CBSSports.com: Last year's darling Oudin out early -- can she fight back?

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- She seemed equal parts intensity and innocence, a teenager who was quintessentially American and, with a lot of hustle and enough of a forehand, worked her way into the quarterfinals and into our hearts.

Melanie Oudin was the shining star of last year's U.S. Open, the kid from next door -- actually, from the suburbs of Atlanta -- who wrote "BELIEVE" on her sneakers and wrote a new chapter in tennis, knocking off three seeded Russians before finally falling to the eventual runner-up, Caroline Wozniacki.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

SF Examiner: A's having a tough time in the Big Apple

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — ‘They crawl, they baffle, they bite,” was the headline in the New York Times. No, not the Yankees. Bed bugs, although to the A’s, it may be hard to distinguish.

New York has been hit by an infestation. The A’s merely are being eaten up by Yankee hitting.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

CBSSports.com: While heat rages, Day 2 at Flushing Meadows is about survival

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- The endless summer, tennis in the heat of the day and night, matches with athletes looking for shelter and service breaks, a U.S. Open that on the second day seemed destined never to close.

"Somebody in the stands over there kept saying, 'Hang on, hang in there,'" remembered Novak Djokovic. "So that's exactly what I did."

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Sweat and Panic Fill Big Apple Summer

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

NEW YORK -- Hot, baby. Maybe not enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, but plenty hot. Literally -- on-court temperature Tuesday afternoon during the U.S. Open was something like 110 degrees -- symbolically, as the headlines indicate.

This is always the best time of the year in, to modify that Snapple commercial a bit, the best sporting place on earth. There's sweat. And panic, the two staples of a New York sporting summer. There's variety.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

CBSSports.com: Venus lone woman to carry Stripes at U.S. Open

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By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- Not so very long ago, Venus Williams was a tennis ingenue, the kid with beads in her hair and fire in her serve. Now, as U.S. women's tennis sinks to levels once unimagined, she has become the savior.

It's hard to believe that with her younger sister Serena, the world's top player, missing because of an injury, Venus is the only American among the 32 seeded women in the U.S. Open.

Read the full story here.

© 2010 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Tiger Woods Is Anything But Finished

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

Tiger Woods is finished. That's not me talking, That's Drew Magary, who writes for several Internet sites, including Deadspin and according to one admirer, "possesses a keen insight into pro sports' unyielding loads of,'' well, we paraphrase and use "garbage."

Which one might consider Magary's prediction about Woods.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: New year, new message for Raiders

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

NAPA — Slogans they got. You’re familiar with “Commitment to Excellence,” the words if not the results. Now the Raiders are presenting players T-shirts that in effect sneer at the derision the team unfortunately has earned in recent years.

“The Affirmation, Champions,” one motto begins, on the front and then switches to the back. “We are going to win the AFC West and then after the Super Bowl.” My, my.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company

RealClearSports: Leaking Baseball's Worst-Kept Secret

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

You mean it took secret information to confirm the Pittsburgh Pirates haven't spent for talent? No one could figure that out when the Buccos are waddling through an 18th consecutive losing season?

We needed a leak from the inner sanctums about the financial statements of this team and other teams? Sure. And please put a video on YouTube.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: Favre-vs.-Childress Show Goes West

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

SAN FRANCISCO -- The star system is unbeatable. No "I'' in team, the coaches advise. But there is I in "ratings.'' And "interest.'' Roger Clemens virtually everywhere Thursday. Brett Favre almost everywhere else, including the front page of USA Today.

We felt rejected out here in the State of Confusion, a.k.a California. All the lunacy involving New York, Darrelle Revis, Clemens, Carmelo Anthony, K-Rod.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

RealClearSports: A Game of Quirky Rules and Personal Honor

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By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

So the cry has been raised: Let's rewrite the rules of golf. And then what, baseball? Football? If it's unfair a player can't ground his club in a bunker, it's also unfair that three strikes are out or that a fumble belongs to the last man who had possession.

Indeed, golf has a lot of quirky regulations. It also has a code of honor, which is why a golfer doesn't have to be watched by a referee or an umpire, not that anyone could follow the progress or regress of 150 people on a course.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010

SF Examiner: Thomson will live forever in Giants lore

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By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO — The hero passes, the moment lives. In photos on the club level of AT&T Park. In recordings played a thousand times.

“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!”

One swing of the bat, and ecstasy. And agony.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company