By Art Spander
Special to the Los Angeles Times
WIMBLEDON, England -- The match began under the blue sky of a humid English late afternoon. It ended in the Twilight Zone.
A kid from the Czech Republic who never even had qualified for Wimbledon before now, a kid who is ranked 100th, stunned the tennis world by defeating one of the game's all-time greats, Rafael Nadal.
Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times
By Art Spander
Special to Newsday
WIMBLEDON, England -- All Lukas Rosol wanted was to play respectably. "So I don't lose 3-0,'' he said. He played spectacularly. He played Rafael Nadal right out of Wimbledon in an upset of enormous proportions.
Rosol, 26, is ranked 100th in the world. Nadal, 26, an 11-time Grand Slam winner, is No. 2 and was trying for his third Wimbledon title.
Copyright © 2012 Newsday. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England — It always comes down to money, doesn't it? Whether you're A-Rod or some kid just drafted into the NBA or a relatively successful and - herein lies the issue - relatively unknown tennis player named Gilles Simon.
Fame usually brings wealth. Wealth often brings fame. Everybody wants more of both, which is the reason there are holdouts and lockouts and player strikes in team sports, and there is jealousy in individual sports, such as tennis.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
In only a few days, the season has improved dramatically for the Giants. Baseball joyfully provides for such rapid swings of success and emotion.
As opposed to the sport that matters most here in England, soccer, or as they call it, football.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England — There’s no DL, disabled list, in tennis. As Venus Williams said once, if you’re play you’re not hurt, if you’re hurt don’t play. But what if you want to play and you’re unable?
Any athlete is beholden to his or her body, and so always there are worries and fears. And pain.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
WIMBLEDON, England — The response was a fusion of philosophy and defiance. A champion never concedes, which is why she is a champion. For a decade, Venus Williams, a queen here in a land of royalty, unquestionably was a champion of grace and grandeur.
Now, in one of those awful twists of fate, Venus has been stricken by an autoimmune disease named Sjogren's Syndrome, which has sapped her strength and stolen her brilliance.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
OAKLAND, Calif. — He still needs a translator, which is our problem, not his. That so far Yoenis Cespedes is limited to Spanish in his conversations or interviews doesn't matter when he steps to the plate. The bat proves multilingual and very effective.
Cespedes is the Cuban defector whom the Oakland Athletics signed to a four-year, $36 million contract in February. He has had a strained hand muscle and a strained hamstring, which made some people wonder about his body. They don't have to worry about his baseball.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
It has to end sometime, doesn’t it, this Tim Lincecum agony? There have been pitchers who mysteriously lost their accuracy or their speed, Steve Blass back in the ’70s, Rick Ankiel not so long ago, but they didn’t win two Cy Young Awards. Then again ...
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
Maybe the federal government will figure it out now. Lawsuits are like sporting events. The team with the talent, the high-priced guys, invariably wins. Meaning in this situation, the opposition.
Author and onetime sports writer Paul Gallico told us long ago that while the battle isn't always to the strong and the race to the swift, it's still a good way to bet.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
SAN FRANCISCO -- When you get tired walking around San Francisco, someone said, you can always lean against it. Ah yes, the city of hills, thrills and three-put greens.
Copyright 2012 Global Golf Post
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
Tiger Woods didn’t have a chance. Either did Jim Furyk or Graeme McDowell. Or Ernie Els. Not at Olympic Club.
Not on the Lake Course. Not in a U.S. Open.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Oregonian
SAN FRANCISCO -- His round and tournament were over, so Casey Martin shifted from player to spectator.
An hour and a half after completing the second round of the U.S. Open, he walked to Olympic Club's first hole, the one atop the San Andreas Fault, and stood nearby as Tiger Woods began his round.
© 2012 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
SAN FRANCISCO — Phil and Bubba? Bit players in this drama. Cameo roles. The Magnificent Three was in truth a Majority of One. The first round of the 2012 U.S. Open on Thursday became the domain of Tiger Woods.
In three days the whole tournament may belong to Tiger Woods.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The guy with him, the Masters champ, the one who shot a — heh, heh — cool 8-over 78, said after getting up close, if not personal, “That was the old Tiger. That was beautiful to watch.”
Still an endorsement from Bubba Watson, while not unappreciated, didn’t have Tiger Woods enthralled.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Oregonian
SAN FRANCISCO -- The description from Casey Martin was "pretty loud." The reference was to the electric green golf shirt he wore Thursday in the first round of the U.S. Open. It could have applied to the gallery response at every hole.
"I thought the galleries were great in '98," he said of the previous Open at Olympic Club, when he made history by riding his golf cart through four rounds. "And they were really wonderful today. Really supportive. So it was a special day. I'm thankful I played decently, but man it's a stress out there."
© 2012 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
The U.S. Open is a movable feast, shifting from the old golf world to the new and then back again. It is a carnival of emotion and tradition that is both a national championship and regional reflection.
The Super Bowl and World Series are big-city spectaculars. The Masters never wanders from the red-clay country of southeast Georgia. But the Open has been played in the middle of Ohio and along the Gulf Coast of Texas, on the eastern edge of Long Island and now once more on the headlands above the Pacific, in the golden city by the Golden Gate.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Oregonian
SAN FRANCISCO -- It's different now, but it's very much the same. Casey Martin is back at the Olympic Club, back in the Open, back playing practice rounds with Tiger Woods. Fourteen years have passed, and yet it seems time has stood still.
Another U.S. Open at Olympic, the place known as the graveyard of legends, because it is where Ben Hogan lost to Jack Fleck and Arnold Palmer lost to Billy Casper.
© 2012 Oregon Live LLC. All rights reserved
By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com
SAN FRANCISCO – We’ve been waiting for this, waiting for the matchup of Tiger, Phil and Bubba, waiting for golf’s great examination coming once more to America’s favorite city, waiting for birdies and bogeys by the Golden Gate.
The U.S. Open, a magical tournament, to be played starting Thursday at a course, fascinating, Olympic Club, where magic is always in the air, wafting like the afternoon breeze, engulfing like the fog off the Pacific.
© RealClearSports 2012
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
He was the kid from The City, 19 years old and confident in his golf. But when the 1966 U.S. Open was set for his home course, the Olympic Club, he was so pessimistic about his chances of qualifying he didn’t even sign up a caddy.
In the end, the only bag Johnny Miller carried was his own, from the car to the rack outside the pro shop. A BYU student at the time, Miller managed to grab the last qualifying spot for the Open during an event in Utah. The legend had started.
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company
By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner
There’s always someone emphasizing the negative, someone reluctant to acknowledge success, someone who looks at what Rory McIlroy did in last year’s U.S. Open, lapping the field as it were, and suggests the course wasn’t that difficult or the other golfers went about things improperly.
Who cares? Maybe Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C., was too wet and too wide to provide a perfect Open test. Maybe the rest of the pros ...
Copyright 2012 SF Newspaper Company