By Art Spander
Special to CampusInsiders.com
This is what you must know about the University of Southern California, which could only score seven points against Washington State but allowed 62 against Arizona State: The football media guide admonishes journalists never to call it Southern Cal.
Nor of late, will it be referred to as Southern Comfort.
Copyright 2013, Campus Insiders
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — He’s a backup, and there’s a reason. Matt Flynn has been an NFL quarterback more than five seasons now — this is his sixth — and through a varying set of circumstances, he rarely has been first-string.
Maybe wrong team, wrong place. Green Bay behind Aaron Rodgers, Seattle behind Russell Wilson.
More likely an inability to take control, to win games.
Going from nowhere to stardom is fantasy. If you can do the job in the NFL, you’ll get the job. The GMs and managers know who can play the most important position in football, and if they don’t they learn quickly enough.
What we learned, or relearned, is that Flynn doesn’t have the right stuff, although Raiders management didn’t realize that until acquiring him in a trade from the Seahawks.
Flynn works hard. Flynn is cooperative in interviews, including painful ones such as the one he had to undergo Sunday when, given the opportunity to lead the Raiders to a win, he couldn’t.
It began so well for Flynn and Oakland, a quick 14-0 lead, in part because of a rare blocked punt, in part because of an 18-yard Flynn pass to Mychal Rivera. Then the jolt back to reality, an interception returned 45 yards for a touchdown — the sequence known euphemistically as a “pick six” — and the seven sacks.
Before Sunday was over at the O.co Coliseum, the Washington Redskins had beaten the Raiders, 24-14.
A day and a half earlier, Terrelle Pryor was listed as the Raiders quarterback. Sure, he had incurred a concussion Monday night at Denver. And sure, Flynn, who had started only two other games in five years, had been preparing himself just in case. But as the week progressed so, we were told, had Pryor progressed.
“Pryor will start . . . according to league sources,” said one printed report Sunday morning.
Pryor, whose mobility and speed give the Raiders another dimension, another weapon.
Pryor, who Oakland coach Dennis Allen called upon out of desperation in the last preseason game when it became apparent Flynn could not perform behind a less-than-effective offensive line.
But a man’s health is more important than the result of any game. Saturday night, the Raiders told Flynn he would start. “We didn’t feel good about letting (Pryor) play,” Allen explained. “We were ready to go with him, but the doctors saw him one more time. We felt it wasn’t the right thing to do. ”
Good for the Raiders. Take no chances with concussions. The Raiders’ diligence seemed to have been rewarded, when with fewer than five minutes gone Rashad Jennings blocked a Washington punt and Jeremy Stewart grabbed the ball in the end zone. Not long later, Flynn hit Rivera for another touchdown.
“We were executing,” said Flynn, “doing the things we needed to do. They made some adjustments on defense. After that we just weren’t converting on third downs, and that obviously was the big issue.”
So was the interception, which came in the second quarter with the Raiders in front, 14-3. Flynn fired to Denarius Moore, but David Amerson popped into view — if not Flynn’s view — and after the pick and 45-yard return, it was 14-10.
The Raiders were headed to a 1-3 record. So were the Redskins.
“I thought we had a good play,” Flynn would say later. “They were in man-to-man coverage. We have to clean up the execution of that, all 11 of us.”
It was Flynn who threw the ball.
Flynn didn’t have a great deal of help. Running back Darren McFadden, who’s always getting hurt, pulled a hamstring early on and never returned. Fullback Marcel Reece hurt his knee, also before the half. That meant, with Pryor missing, the entire backfield was substitutes.
“No question,” Flynn said afterward, “those two guys (Reece, McFadden) are the heart and soul of the offense.”
So, we now comprehend, is Terrelle Pryor.
“I don’t think (Flynn) saw the field very well,” said Allen, the coach. “I think he was obviously part of the sacks we gave up in the game. It was a tough situation for him to come into, and obviously with the loss of McFadden and Reece, that didn’t help. Offensively we didn’t get it done, and that’s the bottom line.”
In the fourth quarter, the Raiders gained 28 yards total. In the final three quarters, the Raiders scored zero points total.
“Really it’s about seeing the field,” said Allen when asked about Flynn’s pocket presence, “and what I talk about is seeing coverage and being able to deliver the ball. So some of those sacks are partly on him and partly on protection.”
And about that interception turned into a touchdown?
“We had the momentum in the game,” Allen insisted, “and they were able to snatch it from us a little bit.”
With Matt Flynn, perennial backup as quarterback, the Raiders unfortunately never could snatch it back.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — A sad September song at AT&T Park. An autumn with nothing but memories, an autumn of dreams as faded as the leaves.
Something new for the San Francisco Giants and their fans, a final week of a season that went so awkwardly wrong that on Tuesday night the Giants again had to face the pitcher who once was their savior.
Brian Wilson out there on the mound in a Dodger uniform, throwing against the Giants the crackling, snapping, unhittable balls he once threw for them. The Dodgers, the division-champion Dodgers, getting a couple of home runs and beating the Giants, 2-1. How mortifying. How depressing.
Two of Matt Cain’s pitches were driven halfway to Oakland, one by Yasiel Puig, a couple of innings after Cain presumably hit Puig intentionally, and another by Matt Kemp. And the way the Giants can’t hit — they scored only three runs in three runs against the Yankees over the weekend — that was enough.
They’re playing for pride now, and nostalgia. Barry Zito, for the last time, was to pitch Wednesday for San Francisco. A reward. A farewell. A what-the-heck, why not?
It was supposed to be Madison Bumgarner’s turn, but Giants manager Bruce Bochy was thinking of the future — and the past. MadBum will sit out the rest of this disappointing year, having pitched one inning short of 200, while Zito gets his final chance before heading into the sunset. Or onto the roster of another team.
A seven-year contract of $127 million, which became bigger than anything Zito did or couldn’t do with a baseball. A contract of hope and controversy. Boos and jibes, but through it all Zito stood tall, acted the gentleman until the end, and in 2012 helped pitched the Giants to their World Series win.
"There were a lot of things I would have liked to go better,” Zito told the San Francisco Chronicle, “but when it's all said and done, I'll always know I helped the team win a World Series. That's huge for me."
And it remains huge for Bochy and the front office. They’re bringing Zito on stage once more, a victory lap if you will in a year when victories have been rare, for Zito (4-11 record, 5.91 ERA) and the Giants (72-85 after Tuesday night).
“I wanted to see him have one more start,” said Bochy, who deals in sentiment as well as anyone in baseball. “This is the best time. He’s done a lot. We know what he did last year for us. He has done everything we asked.”
The days dwindle down to a precious few. Such poignant lyrics. It is up to the Oakland Athletics alone to play October baseball by the bay this year. The A’s came through. The Giants are through.
There was a sequence in the top of the eighth on Tuesday night that was perfectly representative of this imperfect year for the Giants. With Kemp on first for the Dodgers and two out, reliever Jean Machi struck out A.J. Ellis. Buster Posey, the MVP, dropped the ball, which happens, but his routine throw to first for the out was short of Brandon Belt, and Ellis was on first and Kemp on third with the error.
That rarely happens. Fortunately, for the Giants, Mark Ellis grounded out.
The Giants’ defense has been terrible this season, devastating for a team that has trouble scoring runs. The middle of the order, the big guns offensively, have failed with men on base. In the three games against the Yankees and one against L.A., the Giants got four runs total.
“We’re cold right now,” affirmed Bochy, talking as if San Francisco had a few months remaining rather than only a few games. “The series in New York, we didn’t swing the bats very well either.”
Zito will pitch then depart. That’s a given. What then happens to Tim Lincecum, who has been occasionally brilliant — the no-hitter — and frequently erratic. Do the Giants re-sign him?
What they must do is sign a power hitter, presumably to play left. What they must do is somehow persuade or order Pablo Sandoval to get into shape. He will be in his contract year in 2014. Pablo has only 13 home runs — and three were game in one game.
What they absolutely must do is pick up ground balls and throw them into a glove, not into right field or center field.
Bochy, not unexpectedly, insisted Cain pitched well, and Cain did pitch well. But the slightest mistakes, the two balls hit for home runs, are critical when a team can’t get runners home — and except for a solo homer by Tony Abreu in the fifth, the Giants couldn’t get runners home.
“We couldn’t get much going,” said Bochy.
When have they ever in this 2013 season?
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — Jed York gave the straightforward answer. Jed York, who doesn’t draw up game plans or carry the ball, but in effect as 49ers team president carries the responsibility of having everything done properly, explained what would be done about Aldon Smith.
Neither head coach Jim Harbaugh nor quarterback Colin Kaepernick could be, or would be, as forthright, about another problem: the way the Niners have been playing football.
San Francisco lost another on Sunday, this time at Candlestick Park, where the crowd of 69,732 appeared more bewildered than irate. Maybe the 29-3 defeat at Seattle a week ago could be understood. But not getting beat, 27-7, by the Indianapolis Colts at home.
Two losses in a row for the first time in Harbaugh’s two-plus seasons as the Niners' coach. Offensive ineffectiveness for a second consecutive week. An indication that defensive coordinators around the NFL have figured out how to stop the read-option and thus stop Kaepernick, who was sacked three times, fumbled once and was intercepted once.
It’s been a rotten few days for the Niners, who last season went to the Super Bowl. First the whipping by Seattle. Then, early Friday morning, around 7 a.m., the arrest of Smith, the defensive end, on charges of DUI and possession of marijuana. Management decided he would play Sunday — a doubtful decision — and he did play.
The defense was satisfactory, to a point, although it never really could stop second-year quarterback Andrew Luck, who Harbaugh coached at Stanford. The offense, outgained 336 yards to 254, was unsatisfactory, out of synch, worrisome.
Smith is headed to a rehab center after his fourth arrest and maybe a fine and suspension by the NFL. He won’t be in uniform Thursday when in this loony-tunes schedule, the Niners, 1-2, will play at St. Louis. Some thought he shouldn’t have been in uniform Sunday.
There was an apology from Smith after the game, with the comment, “I also wanted to let it be known that this is a problem, and it’s something that I will get fixed, and that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that this never happens again.”
York said Niners executives, realizing there could be outrage from beyond, still “decided that sitting someone down and paying him didn’t seem like appropriate punishment.” As if playing him and paying him is?
The Niners, players and coaches, contended that they were not distracted by the Smith situation. That wasn’t the reason they lost, said the chorus. This leaves only one accounting. They were outplayed once more.
Kaepernick was brilliant most of the time last year as a mid-season starter. The flaws, maybe a failure to call an audible, perhaps a pass flung too hard, were acceptable. He could run. He could throw, and opponents — with the exceptions of Seattle and, in the Super Bowl, Baltimore — didn’t know how to react.
Now, after months of scheming, they do. The serve-and-volley game evens out. First, the offense has the advantage. Then, given time, the defensive coaches create their own edge. So the offensive coaches go to the grease board and devise something else.
Athletes are only part of the equation, if the major part. When the defense swarms here or drops three men there, the offense may be stymied. The Niner offense certainly has been.
“I think they ran a couple of read-options,” said Colts coach Chuck Pagano, “and our guys did an unbelievable job on (those) . . . We talk about plastering so guys don’t come out free on the back end once he starts to scramble. The pass rush was just relentless.”
Kaepernick, never very informative, retreated behind the obligatory “it wasn’t them, it was us,” or in his words, “The fact is we didn’t execute.” Why doesn’t anyone ever admit he/they didn’t execute because the other team wouldn’t let them?
“They put a spy on me,” Kaepernick said about a defender who follows the quarterback, “so they have one more to account for me. I have to be able to make throws downfield.”
Not an easy task when under ferocious pressure.
Harbaugh said he didn’t believe there was something technically wrong with Kaepernick.
“We didn’t make the plays,” said Harbaugh, sticking to the format.
Then a bit of honesty snuck in: “There wasn’t enough opportunity to make plays.”
Because of the Indianapolis defense. Because perhaps the Niners were without their best receiver, Vernon Davis, and already had lost another receiving star, Michael Crabtree, on an injury before the season began. Still, every team has injuries. The best overcome them.
“We got to be real,” said Harbaugh, “got to look how we can improve. We have no choice but to find our way.”
No choice except losing games.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — The other team is awful. Really awful. That’s not the Raiders' fault. They’ve been there, been the foil, been the butt of jokes, the zingers by Jay Leno on national TV. There’s no sympathy, no apologies — just, for a few hours, satisfaction.
It’s not the Raiders’ fault the Jacksonville Jaguars are so bad. “We won a football game,” said Dennis Allen, the second-year head coach. “That’s all we can do week in and week out, and play the schedule.”
This week, this coming Sunday, it will be the Denver Broncos, who are the polar opposite of the Jaguars, the team the Raiders on Sunday figured to beat, and because of a defense that has improved and a kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, who doesn’t have to improve, defeated Jacksonville, 19-9.
Ninety percent of America didn’t see the Raiders’ first win of the season. At the same hour, starting at 1:25 p.m. Pacific or 4:25 p.m. Eastern, the Broncos were facing the New York Giants at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, Peyton Manning against younger brother Eli, the so-called Manning bowl.
CBS-TV is in business to draw viewers. You think anyone wanted to watch the 0-1 Raiders against the 0-1 Jags? Even in Orlando, that was an easy answer, “No,” but by regulations, contractual agreements, Orlando — with the local station begging for forgiveness — showed Jacksonville-Oakland.
Showed the so-called hometown team (140 miles away), which scored only 2 points a week ago and this game had just 3 points until the final 2 minutes 53 seconds. You think Dennis Allen cared? Not a chance.
Allen and the Raiders are a socially acceptable 1-1 for the next few days, which is the same as the Green Bay Packers and better than the Washington Redskins.
Nobody around the O.co Coliseum, where the crowd was announced as 49,400, is complaining about that. Or the competent performance of Oakland quarterback Terrelle Pryor.
“I’m excited and happy we won,” said Allen. “I thought we did some good things.”
One of them was controlling the football, 31 minutes 48 seconds out of 60. Another was holding Jacksonville to 34 yards net rushing, a total to which one can add the footnote, “Hey when you’re in a hole, you’re not climbing out on fullback plunge. You’re throwing.”
More touchdowns would have been acceptable for Oakland, which was limited to one. The man known as Seabass was obligated to end drives with field goals, and he hit on fielders of 46, 30, 29 and 29, while missing a 35-yarder. That’s usually not the way to win football games, unless you’re facing the Jaguars.
The Raiders, behind in last week’s opener at Indianapolis and in all the four preseason games, scored early, if not often against Jax. They were playing downhill, as the cliché goes. They were in front at the virtual start, less than five minutes after kickoff, and they stayed there.
“I thought it was huge,” said Allen, a man of few words, about Oakland scoring on its first possession. “I think our defense going out there and stepping up and forcing a three-and-out on the first series of the game, and then we come back and get the punt return (30 yards by Phillip Adams) that set us up in good position.”
The Raiders got the runs from Darren McFadden they hoped to get when they drafted him fourth overall six seasons ago, bursts that gave him a total of 129 yards on 19 carries, one of those runs good for 30 yards. Too often the man called DMC has been injured, but now he is healthy, and now the Raiders are beneficiaries.
McFadden fumbled — “That’s something that can’t happen,” insisted Allen, after it did happen — yet Allen and everyone else knew McFadden was excellent. So was Pryor, the kid at quarterback who in his second start grew into a man.
He didn’t look like a runner who passes. He was a passer, poised, patient, who can run. The coach said he would have to look at the tape to analyze Pryor’s decision making, but the assessment could be determined from the final score. When a team wins, the quarterback is successful.
“Every snap,” reminded Allen of Pryor, “is a learning experience for him.” As it is for every quarterback, whether, as Pryor, he was chosen in the supplementary draft of August 2011 after leaving (fleeing?) Ohio State following accusations of improper benefits.
The man is great athlete, who was as fine a basketball player in high school as a football player. That he has the skills and leadership qualities is understood.
“I feel like I did my job,” Pryor said after doing his job. He was 15 of 24 passing for 126 yards. He carried 9 times for 50 yards. He very well could be the next Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick or RGIII. He very well could be better.
“I got us a W,” he affirmed.
He, McFadden and the defense. Maybe these Raiders have a future.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — The manager felt exactly like the fans. Frustrated, disappointed, maybe if he would confide, defeated. The Giants, the World Series Champion Giants, had spent four hours Tuesday night “squandering a 6-0 lead,” as Bruce Bochy so accurately phrased it.
Now a bit before noon Wednesday, a weary Bochy was meeting his obligations and the media. “That,” he said to the journalists about the night before, “was one of our worst games.”
One of their worst games in one of their worst recent seasons. It’s one thing not to repeat. It’s another to plummet, to bumble in the field, to fail at the plate, to be embarrassed.
Baseball, it’s been said, is designed to test a man, to find how he can react when times are going poorly, because as we’ve seen from the celebrations and the acclaim, we know how he will react when everything’s going well.
How does he play the mental game, often the most difficult of all? Does he solider on? Does he start contemplating the end of the schedule?
What we found out a few hours after Bochy’s remarks was what Bochy said he already knew. The Giants still have their pride, and their professionalism.
The Giants loaded the bases in the seventh on three walks with nobody out. Only one of those runners scored. The Giants trailed, 3-2, and you surmised they would lose another. They didn’t, getting two runs in the bottom of the eighth to beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-3.
The feeling in the clubhouse was more of relief than elation. More of reassurance than satisfaction.
“If we had lost this game,” conceded Bochy, “after the way we did (Tuesday) night it would have been really bad, really frustrating. This would have been a hard game to take.”
Especially with a 10-game road trip against the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees starting Thursday. Especially with a home crowd, one of those empty-seat sellouts, the 240th in a row, screaming as if the Giants were in first place, not in last.
“The fans are still behind us,” said Brandon Belt.
The Giants on Wednesday at AT&T Park got what they had been missing, effective pitching and timely hitting in the same game. The mark of a lousy team is to lose a game 9-8 and then the next day lose one, say, 3-2. Which, after a seventh inning when they had the bases loaded and scored only one run — on a sacrifice fly — appeared likely.
But not only did San Francisco win, it also won a home stand (2-2 against Arizona, 2-1 against Colorado) for the first time since May. The Giants also received fine pitching again from Yusmeiro Petit. On Friday, he was one out from a perfect game. On Wednesday, he retired the first nine batters he faced in order — meaning only one base runner in 13 innings — but then he wobbled in the sixth and came out.
Still, three runs allowed in 14 2/3 innings is the stuff of a guy who might very well be a starter next season. He’s hoping as much, as he explained through a translator. So is management.
“He’s a really smart pitcher,” said Bochy.
Petit is 29, and it took him a long while to get to the bigs, but perhaps his time has come. In 5 2/3 innings Wednesday, Petit struck out seven.
“We’re playing hard,” said Bochy. “I never doubted that. We don’t have a choice. This is what we’re paid to do.”
They just haven’t done it very well much of the year. Only two statistics are truly important: runs scored and runs allowed. The Giants for weeks now haven’t been able to get people around the bases and across home plate. They did Wednesday because Marco Scutaro, six weeks from his 38th birthday, refused to rest, and because Belt drove a pitch to the opposite field, left.
With the bases loaded in the eighth — in part due to a perfect sacrifice bunt by pinch hitter Eire Adrianza — and one out, Scutaro singled home the run that tied the game, 3-3. Belt followed with a single that would prove to win the game.
“Marco doesn’t like days off,” said Bochy. “He wanted to win this game.”
And so he and Belt, along with Angel Pagan and Brandon Crawford, won it.
“This could take us into next year,” said Belt.
Where it takes them immediately is to Los Angeles, where the Dodgers, supplanting the Giants as the best team in National League West, are waiting.
“There will be a lot of people down there,” Bochy said, referring to expected sellout crowds. “It will be good for our young players to be on a stage like that. We’re going to go down there and try to win some ballgames.”
Something they haven’t done very often — Wednesday being a fine exception.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — It was everything it was supposed to be, the U.S. Open men’s final between the game’s two best players, shots that were chased down with sprinter’s speed, balls that were rammed inside lines, skill almost beyond description, willpower practically beyond belief.
At the end, after 3 hours and 21 minutes of momentum swings and missed chances, and of constant cheering by a capacity crowd whose favoritism seemed to swing with the fortunes of play, there was Rafael Nadal face down on the hard court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, weeping tears of joy.
He had beaten his rival, the man ranked No. 1, the only man ranked above him, Novak Djokovic, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, on a Monday evening that capped a comeback, elevated him to the top of tennis and elevated tennis with such artistic play.
“I didn’t think something like this could happen,” said Nadal, who missed this tournament and numerous others during a six-month recovery from a knee injury.
“I didn’t think about competing the way I have this year. For a few things, this season is probably the most emotional one in my career. I felt I did everything right to have my chance here.”
He has won 10 tournaments, including two majors, the French and this U.S Open.
It was the second Open title for the 27-year-old Nadal, who missed the tournament last year with a knee injury, and his 13th Grand Slam triumph overall, third on the all-time list behind Roger Federer’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14.
“He’s definitely one of the best tennis players ever,” said Djokovic of Nadal. Djokovic, with six Slams himself neatly fits into the same category.
“I mean,” added Djokovic, “looking at this achievement and his age, at this moment. He still has a lot of years to play, so that’s all I can say.”
When commentator Mary Carillo shoved the public address microphone in front of Djokovic at match’s end and asked, “What’s it like to be playing a guy like Rafa?” all Djokovic could say was, “Thanks for bringing that up.”
What it was like was constant pressure and repeated response. In the sixth game of the second set, the set that the top-seeded Djokovic won, there was a 54-shot rally — 54 balls smacked and pounded and finessed without a miss — until Djokovic got the point.
It was breathtaking. It was amazing.
Yet after this exhibition of talent and willpower, there was Djokovic musing about chances squandered — he had a 40-0 lead on Nadal’s serve in the third set, but Nadal won — and opportunities blown.
“But it’s my fault you know,” said Djokovic.
Three times he has faced Nadal in the Open final. Only one of those times has he won. Overall in the most extensive head-to-head meeting in tennis history, Nadal has beaten Djokovic 22 out of 37 matches.
“I made some unforced errors in the crucial moments with forehands and dropped the serve twice when I should not have,” said Djokovic, referring to what proved to be the pivotal third set.
“The next thing you know, all of a sudden, it’s two sets to one for him. Then he started playing much better. I obviously could not recover after that loss.”
Nadal, from Mallorca, Spain, was a clay-court specialist — he’s won the French, on that surface, eight times — who disliked hard courts, partially because it was tough on his knees, partially because the speed of the bounces took him out of his comfort zone.
But like any great athlete who wanted to improve, Nadal learned the nuances of the game on hard courts, as well as that on the grass at Wimbledon, hitting harder serves, playing ground strokes more to mid-court. Now he’s unstoppable, going through the hard-court schedule, Montreal, Cincinnati and the Open, without a loss.
“People think something changed,” said Nadal. “I changed nothing. I am playing with passion. Confidence (is the) only change.”
Djokovic said he wasn’t playing to the level he wanted the whole match because of Nadal.
“Credit my opponent,” said Djokovic. “He was making me run. You know I had my ups and downs, but this is all sport. There is a lot of tension, a lot of expectations, and it’s normal to have ups and downs.”
There is nothing normal about the way Nadal or Djokovic go after a tennis ball. They are magicians on demand, finding the most exact angle in the corners or just over the net.
“When you’re against Rafa you just feel this is the last drop of energy that you need to win the point,” said Djokovic. “Sometimes I was winning those points, sometimes him.
“It’s what we do when we play against each other, always pushing each other to the limit. That’s the beauty of our matches and our rivalry, in the end.”
The match they played Monday night indeed was beautiful, but surely more so to Rafael Nadal, again the U.S. Open champion.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — They battled nerves, wind and the oh-so-brilliant lady across the net. They went from day into night, from advantage to disadvantage. They produced one of the longest and most tense U.S. Open women’s tennis championship matches ever.
In the end, as expected — and for the enthralled, hollering capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, as hoped — it was Serena Williams, surviving both herself and the irrepressible Victoria Azarenka, winning 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1.
This was one of the best, if not once of the classics. This was a 2-hour 45-minute struggle both against a south wind that swirled viciously around the 24,000-seat bowl and great shots from the opponent.
Williams, No. 1 in the rankings and the seedings, seemed more flummoxed by the weather than Azarenka, who is one notch down in both categories, as tennis skirts flapped and serves took flight.
But at last, the veteran, the American, Serena, who will be 32 in two weeks, took the American title for a second straight year and a fifth time overall, and joyfully bounced about the court in triumph.
Serena seemed well on her way to the championship, her 17th Grand Slam, with a 4-1 lead and up two breaks in the second set. But suddenly her big serves started coming back at her on terrific returns by Azarenka, who was dashing from corner to corner and ripping balls in every unreturnable direction.
“Yeah, I think I got a little uptight, which probably wasn't the best thing at that moment,” confided Williams.
She also pointed out that her problems were caused in part by Azarenka.
“Vika is such a great fighter,” Williams said, using the nickname by which everyone calls the 24-year-old from Belarus.
“That’s why she was able to win multiple Grand Slams,” she added, in a bit of exaggeration, Azarenka having taken the Australian Open twice — including this January but no other majors.
For Serena, it was her second Slam of 2013, after a win in the French Open. Two days earlier, John McEnroe, commenting for television, called Williams the greatest women’s player ever, and surely this match did nothing to change his viewpoint. Or anyone else’s.
Indeed, although she had not lost a set until the final, the reality is that the farther one advances in a tournament the tougher it becomes. And especially in women’s tennis, beyond the top half-dozen players, there aren’t many who are in the class of Serena or Vika.
“Well, there's one word,” said Azarenka afterward. “She's a champion, and she knows how to repeat that. She knows what it takes to get there. I know that feeling, too. And when two people who want that feeling so bad meet, it's like a clash. That's what happens out there, those battles.
“And in the important moments is who is more brave, who is more consistent, or who takes more risk. And with somebody like Serena, you got to take risk. You can never play safe, because she will do that. She did that today really well.”
Just the edge. Serena had it, then Serena lost it, or more accurately Azarenka, who beat Williams a month ago at Cincinnati in three sets, wrenched it away. But not for long.
“I started to try to — I wasn't playing very smart tennis then,” Serena said of the second set, “so I just had to relax and not do that again. This was never over until match point.”
Technically, yes, although once she regained control by breaking serve in the fourth game of the third set, the result was inevitable.
“Vika, you played unbelievable,” said Serena, who at times can be self-centered. “It was an honor to play against you.”
The disappointment welled up in Azarenka when the chance for an upset, very real at the start of the third set, disappeared.
“It is a tough loss,” said Azarenka, doing her best to hold back her emotions, “but to be in final against best player, I showed heart.”
Then, in front of the microphone that carried her words over the public address system. Azarenka began to cry, trying to hide her tears behind an available towel.
“I think it was raising, you know, from the first point the tension, the battle, the determination, it was raising really, you know, kind of like boiling the water or something.
“She (Serena) really made it happen. In that particular moment she was tougher today. She was more consistent, and, you know, she deserved to win. I wish I could do something better today. You know, I felt like I had opportunities in the first set, as well. But, I mean, it's okay. It goes that way. I did everything I could."
Serena did everything she needed, as usually has been the case the past year. Since a first-round loss in the 2012 French Open. Williams is 98-5 with 14 tournament wins. This year, she is 67-4.
“I felt almost disappointed with my year, to be honest,” explained Williams when asked if she needed the win to a validate her domination.
“I felt like, yeah, I won the French Open, but I wasn't happy with my performances in the other two slams, and, you know, not even making it to the quarterfinals of one. So I definitely feel a lot better with at least a second Grand Slam under my belt this year."
Especially the way the wind blew and Azarenka played.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — Four hours and nine minutes — of agony and beauty, of courage and dexterity, of power and grace, of ballet with a racquet and a ball, of chances blown and greatness displayed, of a U.S. Open match that was matchless.
Saturday, when America’s game brought out the pompoms and the tailgaters, when someone tweeted that the television viewership for college football was much greater than it was for tennis, and that’s understandable. We love our alma maters. We love our violent sport.
But Saturday was also for a presentation of athletic skill in a game not always appreciated in the United States until put on display as it was when, for 4 hours and 9 minutes, Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka served and volleyed against each other until they were near exhaustion.
Djokovic, No. 1 in the men’s rankings, No. 1 in the seedings, ended up the winner, but barely, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. For a fourth straight year, he’s in the final. For a third year of the last four, he’s in the final after being down two sets to one in the semifinal.
“These matches are what we live for,” said Djokovic.
What sport lives for. Drama, tension, comebacks, survival.
A game, the third in the fifth set that lasted 21 minutes, that included Wawrinka holding off five break points to win, that had the capacity crowd of 24,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium screaming, that had the brilliant, lithe Djokovic even more determined.
"I was thinking, I guess everyone was thinking, that whoever wins this game is going to win the match," Djokovic said. "I thought to myself, I guess I have to fight against those odds."
He fought. He persevered, as No. 1 should over No. 9, which is where the 28-year-old Wawrinka of Switzerland is ranked. Maybe because Wawrinka incurred a strained groin tumbling in the fourth set on a cement court that seemed too slippery. Maybe because at age 26, and having won the Open and five other Grand Slam tournaments, Djokovic, of Serbia, is a better player, if marginally.
Wawrinka, who in his years had never been as far in any of the four majors as this spot in the semis, is a battler.
“I gave everything I had,” he said to the crowd, words affirming actions. “I was fighting to the end. It was an amazing experience.”
It was an experience so appreciated that the fans gave Wawrinka, in a shirt as red as his nation’s flag, a deafening round of applause and cheers, drowning out his remarks.
Djokovic, who won the Australian Open and lost Wimbledon, will be in his third Slam final of the year, although to his viewpoint somewhat apologetically.
“It’s obvious Stan played more aggressive, better tennis overall,” said the man known as Nole, accent on the e.
“I was just trying to hang in there. It was not an easy match for both of us. We had to run. I kept trying to find my rhythm. Give credit to him. I was fortunate to play my best tennis when I had to.”
Which in any sport is what champions do.
“He’s not No. 1 for nothing,” said Wawrinka, who also lost to Djokovic in five sets at the Australian Open in January.
“Unfortunately today,” said Wawrinka, “I was a little bit struggling physically. I think that is completely different match than the match we play in the Australian Open. In the Australian Open I had to play my best game to stay with him. Today, I had the feeling when I was still healthy I had the match in control. I was playing better than him, doing much more things than him.”
Djokovic said as much. Yet, the best ones, the winners, in whatever sport, manage to make it through when things go wrong and then produce the big shot or the big hit or the big basket when needed. Nobody plays well all the time. It’s how you finish when you’re not playing well.
The last two years plus, Djokovic has been finishing admirably and successfully, and each step makes the subsequent steps easier, although Djokovic did say he was nervous simply because of the situation, a semifinal in a Grand Slam against an opponent who had just knocked out the defending champion
“Maybe I have a physical edge over him,” Djokovic suggested, “and this kind of match, on a big stage, that experience is going to give me confidence.
“I was frustrated with my own mistakes. I had break-point chances and couldn’t take advantage (he converted only 4 of 19). But I managed to stay tough and play well when I needed to, and that definitely encourages me for the final.”
That, no surprise, will be against Rafael Nadal, who beat Richard Gasquet in the other semi, which followed.
When someone wondered if Djokovic would scout that match, he laughed. “I’m going to grab some popcorn,” he responded, “and watch it on TV.”
After 4 hours and 9 minutes, he was allowed.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — The tournament isn’t over yet for Serena Williams, or certainly, the woman she’ll again face in the finals of the U.S. Open. The way everyone’s talking, it might as well be.
Not that Serena is going to win, because even favorites — and certainly she’s the favorite — lose every now and then.
But Serena’s real competition is not the player across the net but the history of the game.
The lady Williams is to play in the Sunday final, the one nicknamed Vika, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, declared without reservation that Serena is the “greatest of all time.”
Strong words, which could be interpreted as a setup, but Vika isn’t one to be disingenuous.
Besides, the idea is shared by one of tennis’ greats, John McEnroe, who Friday, after Serena routed Li Na, 6-0, 6-3, in one semifinal, said, “I know she doesn’t have the amount of wins of Chris (Evert) or Martina (Navratilova) or Steffi (Graf), but I already think she’s the greatest.”
So far for Williams, this Open has been less about success than about verification. The question in any of her six matches hasn’t been whether Serena would win but how easily she would win. Again on a warm, breezy afternoon in Queens, we learned.
The afternoon began with Azarenka, the 24-year-old from Belarus, who’s got a wonderful forehand and a no-less impressive sense of humor. Seeded No. 2 — behind Williams, naturally — Azarenka defeated Flavia Pennetta of Italy, 6-4, 6-2.
That gave her time first to watch Williams, 31, extend her streak of consecutive game wins to 24, as Serena won the first seven games of the match, and contemplate what might be done to reverse last year’s final. In 2012, Vika, then the top seed, lost to Williams in three sets.
Serena has pitched shutouts in five of the 12 sets she played this Open, meaning 6-0 wins in those sets, and not only hasn’t lost a set but has lost only 16 points. The record for a full tournament for fewest points allowed is 19 by Navratilova in 1983.
The question is how to get the 31-year-old Williams out of the comfort zone she now occupies, and Azarenka had a ready answer. “You’ve got to fight,” she began. “You’ve got to run. You’ve got to grind, and you’ve got to bite with your teeth for whatever opportunity you have.”
That’s a figure of speech, of course, Azarenka not planning to emulate Mike Tyson with her bicuspids.
Azarenka has beaten Williams two out of the last three times they met, including a couple of weeks back in Cincinnati, but overall Serena has won 12 of 15 matches between the two. And with Williams overall 66-4 this year, it would be redundant to point out she’s on a roll.
Li Na is now 1-9 against Williams after Friday, and she appeared shellshocked for quite a while, finally regaining a bit of respectability.
“In the end, finally,” Li said, “I can play tennis.”
Not as well as Serena, who with the French Open among her eight tournament titles this year, has won 16 Grand Slams, including four U.S. Opens.
The 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium was maybe only two-thirds full on a languid Friday. Those in the stands had come to see, and to support, Williams, the only American still playing for the tennis championship of America.
“It’s great to hear, ‘Go Serena, Go Serena,’” said Williams in a post-match TV interview also carried on the public address system. That brought a few chants of “Go Serena.”
“It’s really a pleasure to be here. Older voices, young voices.”
Williams, after the first-set blitz, in 30 minutes, surprisingly was down 2 games to 1 and, with Li serving, 40-0 in the fourth game. But Serena rallied, broke serve and regained what little control that had been lost.
“It was tough at the end,” said Williams. “Li Na is such a great player. I got a little nervous, but I was able to close it out.”
Then after a break, she and older sister Venus played doubles.
Azarenka simply went out for dinner.
“It’s important to have self-belief and confidence in what you do and just be aware of what’s going on, what’s coming at you,” Azarenka explained about her strategy for Williams.
What’s coming at Vika will be some of Serena’s 115-mph serves.
“It’s always a new story,” said Azarenka, alluding to last year’s loss to Serena in the final. “I don’t think it’s even going to be close to the same as it was last year.”
When you’re about to face the player you’ve labeled the greatest of all time, that’s an interesting observation.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — Timing is everything, isn’t it? We pose the question to Simon Barnes, the excellent sports columnist from the Times of London who crossed the Atlantic solely to bring to his readers the progress of Andy Murray as he tried for a second straight U.S. Open tennis championship.
Murray, the Scot, not only took the Open a year ago but this summer became the first Brit in 77 years to win Wimbledon, a feat that earned front-page headlines in every publication from John O’Groats (as far north as one can go and still be on the British mainland) to Land’s End (as far south).
Barnes arrived in New York just in time for Murray on Thursday to play in the quarterfinals, which against the other guy from Switzerland — Stanislas Wawrinka, not Roger Federer, who was long gone — figured to be a Murray victory.
It was not, however. Wawrinka, with great ground strokes and big serves, upset Murray, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. He also upset Barnes, whose sole purpose was to write about his countryman.
“It never fails,” said Barnes. “I’ve never seen him win a match, except at Wimbledon.” Those are not to be dismissed, certainly, and Barnes did have the exhilaration of describing Murray’s historic triumph in July.
Still, now and then, Barnes would like his paper to be rewarded for sending him to the four corners of the globe. Twice he went all the way from London to Australia, a journey of nearly 24 hours, to watch and cover Murray, who inconveniently lost the two matches Barnes attended.
But as bad as Barnes feels, Murray, 26, must feel worse. Murray was a semifinalist in 2011 and, of course, a champion in 2012, winning a Slam for the first time. He was ranked and seeded third and had won his previous 11 matches here at Flushing Meadows.
“I would have liked to have played a little bit better,” said Murray, “but, you know, I had a good run the last couple of years. It’s a shame I had to play a bad match today.”
And that Wawrinka, 28 and making it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time in his career, had to play an excellent one.
“I thought he played great,” affirmed Murray. “He hit big shots. He passed extremely well. He hit a lot of lines on big points. He served well. That was it. He played a great match.”
A match that elevated Wawrinka into the semifinals.
“To beat him in three sets,” Wawrinka said in an understatement, “is quite good for me.”
Because in pressure situations, Wawrinka has been known to come apart like a cheap watch — not one made in Switzerland, however.
“Normally,” Wawrinka conceded, “I can be a little nervous and I can lose a few games because of that, but today I was just focused on my game. It was windy, was not easy conditions, but my plan was to push him to be aggressive, because I know Andy can be a little bit too defensive. I like it when he’s far back from the baseline, and today I did it well.”
Murray made no excuses, but he reached the summit of the mountain with victory at Wimbledon, where no British male had won singles since 1936. Surely everything else is Peoria. Even Flushing Meadows, where last year he knocked off Novak Djokovic in the final.
It’s hard for an American, a Spaniard, a Swiss to comprehend what winning Wimbledon means to a Brit, and to Britain, even if he’s a Scot, not an Englishman. Lawn tennis developed in Britain, where the Wimbledon tournament is as much a part of the nation as Buckingham Palace.
Over there it’s known simply as “The Championships.”
That would make Murray The Champion.
“It’s not about focus,” he said, responding to a question about competition after Wimbledon. “You know when you work so hard for something for a lot of years, it’s going to take some time to really fire yourself up and get yourself training 110 percent.
“I think it’s kind of natural after what happened at Wimbledon.”
Murray, one of the game’s big four for several years, was properly philosophical, and had the right to be, when asked about the last 12 months as he broke through with two major titles.
“I mean,” he said, “it’s been challenging both ways for different reasons. Physically, I played some extremely tough matches in that period. Mentally, it was very challenging for me to play — Wimbledon, the last few games at Wimbledon may not seem like much to you guys, but to me it was extremely challenging.
“I’ve played my best tennis in the Slams the past two, three years. I mean, I lose today in straight sets. I would have liked to have gone further. But I can’t complain. If someone told me before the U.S. Open last year I would have been here as defending champion, having won Wimbledon and Olympic gold, I could have taken that 100 percent.”
So could Simon Barnes, if he had not chased Andy Murray across the sea for the story.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — Perfection has a face and a wicked topspin forehand. It speaks English with a Spanish accent. It runs down lobs and runs opponents off the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Rafael Nadal is playing tennis with such passion, verve and brilliance that opponents are having trouble even winning points off him, much less games. Sets? Sorry. Matches? Get serious.
What the experts thought might be a mismatch Wednesday night in a U.S. Open quarterfinal indeed was just that, with Nadal taking the opening eight games and then crushing fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
“We could have been watching (Roger) Federer against Nadal,” John McEnroe moaned on national television. “I kept telling people not to miss it.”
But it was Federer, only a shadow of his former self, who missed it, beaten in straight sets Monday night by Robredo. And when that happened, the suspicion was that Nadal, who had won 19 straight matches on hard courts and nine tournaments since March, would make it another win.
What we didn’t suspect was that Robredo, 19th in the world, would be embarrassed. And he was.
“Do something,” McEnroe pleaded. “Change your tactics. Hit some inside-out forehands.”
It was like asking Rush Limbaugh to vote Democratic, like asking a New York restaurant to serve a steak for less than $35. It was impossible.
“Not much to say,” remarked a subdued Robredo. “I don’t know the way he felt, but obviously I felt that he was going pretty good out there. At the beginning it was a little different for me. I started a little bit tight, and he was up very quick. Then it was nothing else to do. He was too good.”
Robredo, now 0-7 against Nadal — he was 0-10 against Federer, but Roger is 32 and Rafa a relentless 27 — won the first point of the match. That was his highlight.
Nadal broke him, and in a half-hour it was 6-0, and Nadal had surrendered only five points in the entire set.
Talk about a deer in headlights. Robredo was a man who could barely get the ball over the net. The 24,000 fans or so filling Ashe cheered when he managed to return one of Nadal’s shots.
McEnroe, a champion of the 1980s, one of the top players in history, and as on target with his observations as he was with his graceful backhands, was awed by Nadal’s moves.
“I don’t know how he even got the ball, much less got it over the net,” said McEnroe when Nadal, as is typical of his game, raced after a ball that logic decreed he wouldn’t reach.
As if logic has a chance against Nadal, who after a 2012 of knee troubles is churning through 2013 without tape and without a worry.
“I am very happy,” Nadal told Brad Gilbert in a post-match TV interview broadcast on the public address system.
“I think I played my best match this year in the U.S. Open.”
His next match, in the semis, is against the Frenchman Richard Gasquet, who after winning the first two sets and losing the next two managed to get past yet another Spaniard, David Ferrer.
“Last time I beat him,” Gasquet joked about Nadal, “I think I was 13.”
Nadal, with a remarkable lack of arrogance, laughed about the comment. “I think it was 6-4 in the third set of a tournament when I was 14,” he added.
That was before Nadal developed a serve that blows people off the court. He always had the forehand — “Nobody comes close to his topspin,” insisted McEnroe, who was a master of that shot himself — and the intensity.
Knowing full well what the answer would be, Gilbert, the Bay Area guy who once was No. 8 in the world and then coached Andre Agassi to No. 1, asked Nadal whether he would relax after the rout.
“I think I’m going to play a little bit (Thursday),” Nadal said. “I like to play every day. I enjoy practice.”
Nadal has 12 Grand Slam wins all-time, tied for third with Roy Emerson behind Federer’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14. For someone who developed his game on clay (he’s won the French Open eight times), Rafa has learned the trick of playing on hard courts: charge everything possible and hit into corners.
“Not every day is the same,” said Nadal. “I don’t have the same feeling. I feel today I played much closer to the way I want to play, more aggressive with my backhand. With the forehand, I was able to change directions.
“In first set, I did all the things that you expect to do good in the first set … Is fantastic win.”
That’s one way of describing it. A perfect way for a perfect match.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — The contention is that tabloid newspapers make a great sports town. Sure, it is necessary to have teams, and New York has an abundance, many not very good, as well as three tabloids, the outrageous Post, the “hey, look at us” Daily News and the more restrained Newsday.
Front page news is either shocking or racy — or is that redundant? — with sex and gore where Syria might be in other dailies, such as the Times.
But here it’s the back page, the glory of a tabloid, that a fan reads first.
Papers are failing, we’re told, because either (a) kids have stopped reading or (b) the only thing they do read are the tiny words on their cell phones.
Beneath the surface, there may be chaos in the journalism biz, but in New York, contrary to situations in the hinterlands, it’s still the good old days, competition, scandals, entertainment.
Not that any of those can be separated.
They figured out the formula to stay in business here in Gotham City, according to an editor from the Daily News, as told to the author Frank Deford: “Boobs, Cops and the Yankees.”
He didn’t exactly say boobs, but he did say specifically what tempts the glorious readership, bless them.
Now, at the start of September, one might substitute the Jets or the New York Giants for the Yankees — as did both the News and Post — but at it’s heart and spleen New York is a baseball town, the place where the Babe hit homers and Gehrig became the “luckiest man on the face of the earth.”
Indeed, Newsday, noting a Yankee victory on Monday after a long rain delay, on Tuesday had the headline, “PERFECT STORM.” The other two tabs continued pounding on the Jets.
“CUTTING OUT,” said the Daily News about (if reports are to be believed) soon-to-be-former coach Rex Ryan, who on cut-down day traveled to see his son at Clemson.
The Post headline was “EXIT SAN MAN,” alluding both to the expected departure of QB Mark Sanchez and in wordplay to Yankee closer Mariano Rivera, known as “Sandman.”
The U.S. tennis championships go on night and day at Flushing Meadows, about 10 miles from Manhattan. More than 700,000 people attend the two-week tournament, and while an upset, such as Roger Federer’s defeat Monday, gets attention (“FED EX’D OUT” was a small headline in the Post), it’s tough to crack the big two, baseball and football, or if you choose, football and baseball.
Maybe when the Open reaches the semis, the editors will become more interested. Right now, it’s mostly favorite beating underdog (Federer excepted), dog-bites-man items — in other words, news that isn’t news.
Tuesday, Novak Djokovic, No. 1 in the world (and in the Open seeds, of course), needed only 1 hour, 19 minutes to club Marcel Granollers of Spain in a fourth-round match, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0.
A veteran pro tennis player who two sets out of three can’t win a single game? “Well, when you play against No. 1 in the world,” said Granollers, “is difficult match, no?” Yes.
Djokovic won the first 25 points on his serve. “I was trying my best,” said Granollers, “and I didn’t play my best tennis today. But I think he play very good.”
What doesn’t play well, figuratively, in New York is a mismatch. The people want something for their money. It’s permissible to underachieve in Peoria or St. Paul, but this is the big time. There’s a reason why musicals or dramas open in Baltimore or Philly before they hit Broadway. If they hit Broadway.
Sanchez, from USC, hit Broadway, hit New York, with a bang. He was the next great thing, the kid who would lead the Jets to the Super Bowl. Now, at the start of his fifth season he’s — no, not chopped liver because at the Stage Deli chopped liver is a famed dish — but practically unwanted.
That’s New York. You’re either, as the lyrics go, “king of the hill, top of the heap,” or you’re a fraud. There’s no in-between.
Sanchez was getting ripped for his misplays over the last two years, and then last week he was injured in the closing moments of a preseason game when sent back on the field. A dumb move by the head coach, the perceptive critics in the media insisted.
That brings on rookie Geno Smith to start until Sanchez is ready. And maybe after he is ready. “IN ROOKIE THEY TRUST — SORT OF” is the headline that covers the top of pages 46 and 47 in the Post.
According to Steve Serby’s column, “The Grim Reaper stands over Sanchez now as conspiracy theories gain new life about the inevitable death of his Jets career ... ”
What do you mean it’s only sports? In a city of tabloids, sports is the stuff that matters. Don’t you love it?
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — It isn’t as painful as the decline of others, of Joe Namath stumbling behind the line of scrimmage, of Willie Mays waving at fastballs he used to rip. No, Roger Federer still can make the shots he once made but, unlike the past, not when he needs to make them.
Roger is losing the battle to that most relentless of all individuals, Father Time, and so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he lost a match to Tommy Robredo, a man to whom he never had lost before.
Federer was 10-0 against Robredo. Now, after Robredo’s 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-4 win in the fourth round of the U.S. Open the record is 10-1. And Federer’s 2013 record in the four Grand Slams is a look into a grim future. Only a semifinal, a quarterfinal, a third-round and a second-round. The demons have settled.
John McEnroe wasn’t surprised.
“You start to question yourself,” McEnroe, who’s been there, said on television. “He’s feeling that.”
Federer’s feeling the frustration of growing old, because in tennis, 32, which he reached a month ago, is old. The skills have diminished. The doubts have increased.
From the very first game, when Federer’s serve was broken — two or three years ago, to make that statement would have a virtual impossibility — to the bitter end, the match belonged to Robredo, a Spaniard who couldn’t win the big one. Until Monday might.
Until a Labor Day beset by rain, schedule changes and what some would consider an upset. And some would not.
They were supposed to play in daylight at the 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, the jewel of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. But by the time the downpour eased and the courts were dried, the match had been shifted to nighttime at the adjacent, smaller Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“I was prepared,” said Federer, seeking no excuses. “I’ve been practicing on Armstrong. I’ve waited for so many matches in my career. I was even happy about Armstrong. I thought it was going to a great atmosphere, that I could take advantage of, the fact people were really going to get behind me.”
They were behind Federer. In tennis, as in golf, the favorites get the cheers. Fans want familiarity, a Pete Sampras or an Andre Agassi, an Arnold Palmer or a Tiger Woods. They come to support Federer, not Tommy Robredo, although he did get an appreciative roar from the crowd after the final point.
“Unfortunately,” said Federer, “I didn’t show the game they could really get into and get excited about.”
The game Federer had from 2003 through 2012, when he won a record 17 Grand Slams, including five U.S. Opens. The game he never will have again.
It’s no sin to grow old. We all do. But an athlete’s aging is more visible. He drops passes. He strikes out. Or in Federer’s situation, he sprays balls beyond the lines he used to pinpoint down the lines, shots that made us gasp, shots that now make us sigh.
“I struggled throughout,” conceded Federer, “which is not very satisfying. I mean, Tommy did a good job to keep the ball in play and make it difficult for me today. I missed so many opportunities. Rhythm was off. When those things happen, clearly, it’s always going to be difficult.”
This year, 2013, those things happened more often than not. At Wimbledon, in the second round, he was beaten by Sergiy Stakhovsky, from the Ukraine, ranked 116th in the world. At least Robredo is a respectable 19th.
“Confidence does all these things,” admitted Federer, who surely has lost more than a minimal amount of his — or as McEnroe put it, you start to question yourself.
“Confidence takes care of all the things you usually don’t think about.”
Deep down, Federer understands what he is, and what he was. The remarkable moves he once performed, taking a shot and with aggressive topspin placing it where it the other guy couldn’t reach it, are no longer in the repertoire.
Federer hit some fine ones on Monday. He didn’t hit enough of them.
“I kind of self-destructed, which is very disappointing, especially on a quick court," he said. “Your serve helps you out. You’re going to make the difference somewhere. I just couldn’t do it.”
Robredo, at last, could.
“If you play Roger,” said Robredo, 31, whose elation countered Federer’s disappointment, “we all know the way he plays, how easy he can do everything, no? The difference today was break-point conversions. (For Federer only 2 of 16 chances).
“But when I was with a chance, I was getting it, no? Sometimes it happens. And today I was the lucky one.”
Luck had nothing to do with it. Age — Roger Federer’s age — had a great deal to do with it.
By Art Spander
NEW YORK — Oh, the the things that took place after Sloane Stephens, the designated “heir apparent” to Serena Williams, beat a semi-injured Williams in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in January.
Stephens, 19 at the time — she’s now 20 — once had a poster of Serena in her room but allowed, in one of those moments when elation blurs logic, “I think I’ll put a poster of myself now.”
Then a month or so later, Stephens bemoaned the fallout, saying Serena unfollowed her on Twitter and that in truth Serena had in “the first 16 years of my life never said one word to me.”
What Serena said to Sloane Sunday, after their fourth-round match in the U.S, Open ended with Williams, having won the final five games and verifying her status with a 6-4, 6-1 victory, was “Good job.”
What Stephens said was, “I mean, obviously, she’s No. 1 in the world for a reason.” Obviously.
Serena will be 32 at the end of September, ancient for an athlete in a sport where there always seems to be another teenage phenom coming along. From Serbia or Spain or Russia.
Which is why so much — too much? — was made of Serena and Sloane, two women who, if not actually the rivals some journalists choose to call them, at least both are Americans.
You know, mom, apple pie and forehands. Also, alluding to that match eight months ago, revenge.
There was a misplaced assumption that, perhaps because they both are African-American, Serena had become Stephens’ mentor, as well as her bosom buddy. But tennis players, as golfers, do not become friendly with the people they are trying to pummel until retirement.
Arnie and Jack were competitors. Pete and Andre were competitors. Serena and Sloane are competitors.
“I think it was a high-quality match,” said Williams, and it was until it wasn’t.
Stephens isn’t in Serena’s class yet. She hung in for a while, which is what happens so often, but Williams won the big points in the first set and then won most of the points. Stephens was beaten mentally as well as physically.
“The second set got away from me a little bit,” confirmed Stephens. “I thought she did a lot of things well.”
Women’s tennis is dominated by very few, mainly Serena, Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska, and Radwanska has never won a Grand Slam tournament. Stephens is 15th in the rankings. “But I have a chance to break the top 10 at the end of the year,” she said.
She didn’t have much of a chance against Serena, even though it was 4-4 in the first set. The crowd, which didn’t quite fill 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, seemed to favor Williams if marginally at the start. What it wanted most was a close match, and for about 45 minutes that’s what it got. Then, wham.
“I think she had some bomb first serves,” Stephens said of Williams, who broke her in the fourth game of the second set. “I lose serve. That kind of threw me off. I think having Serena serve up 3-1 is not ideal. When you give her that opportunity, to take that step forward, she definitely takes it.”
Williams has won the Open four times and, with the win over Stephens, advanced to the quarters 11 times in 14 appearances. Overall, of course, she has 16 Grand Slam titles, the most recent at the French Open in the beginning of June.
“I just tried to do what I wanted to do,” said Williams. If that was confusing, her game was not. She pounded serves, chased down balls on the lines and never reduced the pressure.
“Maybe one day when she’s not playing,” said a hopeful Stephens when asked about being on the same side of the draw as Serena, “people maybe would say, ‘I wish I wasn’t on the same side as Sloane.’
“Things happen in their time. It’s an honor to play on the court with one of the greatest tennis players of all time.”
That player was relentless.
“I’ve been at this a long time,” answered Serena about a possible letdown in her next match, against Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain. “So for me, in my career, there are no letdowns.
“I don’t go out there thinking about being a star. I just want to play tennis, and I want to do really good at it. It’s not about the stage for me. It’s just about getting the ball in.”
She got it in against Sloane Stephens as much as needed.
By Art Spander
ALAMEDA, Calif. — The image survives, which is both a blessing and a curse. The Oakland Raiders were tough, evil but also wildly successful.
Al Davis said he relished playing on the road, in Kansas City or Denver, against division opponents the Raiders dominated, and, in his words sensing fear in the fans and the opponents. Pure Machiavellian joy.
But the new Raiders, the team unsure of its quarterback, the team down the list in defense, are feared by nobody. Memories don’t tackle. Recollections can’t block.
For defensive coordinator Jason Tarver, however, they do provide a link from past to present. “I grew up a Raider fan,” Tarver said Tuesday. “I’ve been watching. I sat in the Black Hole.
“It’s one of the reasons I took the job. I know what that black jersey means. Nasty. The Raiders, Ted Hendricks, played with stuff hanging from their arms. That’s my image of defense.”
Tarver, who turns 39 Wednesday, is from Pleasanton, Raider country indeed. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Santa Clara, a master’s in biochemistry and molecular biology from UCLA. No remarks that you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to stop the San Diego Chargers. What you do need are defensive linemen.
“You got to want to knock someone around,” said Tarver. “Nasty, swarming, getting the ball back on downs.”
The focus has been on the other side of the ball for a reason. The Raiders are starting Terrelle Pryor at quarterback against Seattle in their last preseason game. You don’t have a chance in the NFL without a quarterback.
Or without a defense, because if you can’t stop the other team, your quarterback rarely handles the ball. Either, in the case of Darren McFadden, does your prize running back.
“Let’s see McFadden run,” said Tarver, “not the other team.”
The Raiders were 4-12 in 2012, the first year in the reign of GM Reggie McKenzie and head coach Dennis Allen. No fear, but perhaps some progress. Perhaps.
Oakland was in a 27-3 hole Friday night against the Chicago Bears in the third preseason game before losing 34-26. “We’ve got to play better defense,” agreed Allen. But he also said the Raiders were holding back on tactics, not wishing to show what they could. “Vanilla,” he phrased it.
Across the Bay, the 49ers, who made it to the Super Bowl, are a known entity. They are set. The Raiders are still using figurative training wheels.
Does Pryor replace Matt Flynn and give Oakland the read-option QB that the Niners have in Colin Kaepernick? Does rookie cornerback D.J. Hayden reach the potential that so many say he has?
No less importantly, when will the Raiders once more be respectable?
They’re still Oakland’s team, San Leandro’s team, Contra Costa’s team, the team of the working man. That familiar black shield decal, with the player in the eye patch and the twin pirate cutlasses, is pasted on so many back windows of pickup trucks and vans. It’s a symbol of individual pride.
So many changes in the organization, the death of Davis, the departure of his longtime chief executive Amy Trask, the assumption of power by Al’s son, Mark. Where does the franchise go? How long does it take to get there?
Pro football is a sport of adaptation, in the front office and on the field. “It’s a copycat league,” said Greg Olson, the Raiders’ offensive coordinator. Absolutely. If something works, give it a try. If it doesn’t, give a new head coach a try.
The long-held belief in the NFL was that quarterbacks who run are quarterbacks who, because of injuries, have short careers. And Redskins rookie Robert Griffin III did undergo surgery after he incurred a serious knee injury late last season. But Olson said that the trend has begun.
“These collegiate quarterbacks are coming out ready to shoulder the load,” he explained. “I heard RGIII will be more careful this year. He’ll slide when he has to and choose when to take his hits.
“Terrelle’s got kind of a dual role: be an athletic quarterback as well as a passer. But for any quarterback, you’re always talking about lessening the free hits, the ones (when offensive linemen) get beat.”
Olson defended Matt Flynn, who had a mediocre game against the Bears, saying, “There were different reasons he struggled. Some of it was bad luck, an illegal formation, that took away a first down. Some of it was protection. Maybe his confidence got rattled.”
Pryor is not easily rattled nor easily tackled.
“Just his speed,” Olson said of Pryor. “He just looks faster. He has the ability to make plays, and right now we’re looking for playmakers.”
On defense and offense.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — The coach even smiled. That told you as much as his words. Jim Harbaugh knows what he has. And now we know he has a second-team quarterback. Just in case.
And in the NFL, you never can get too far away from “just in case.”
The 49ers are an excellent football team, a statement not formulated after watching San Francisco beat the Minnesota Vikings 34-14 Sunday night, but in no way negated, either.
Preseason football, in truth, is exhibition football. In international soccer, they call it a “friendly,” because the results don’t count. In the standings, that is.
They count in the way a coaching staff and management determines what it has.
The Niners, who made it to the Super Bowl last year, have plenty.
“I saw a lot of good things,” said Harbaugh, who handled the questions with the ease that, well, the Niner defense handled Minnesota. “I was pleased the way we worked.”
When Colin Kaepernick, getting his first significant playing time of the summer, was at quarterback, the Niner machine was efficient and effective. It was 2012 all over again, six straight completions at one point, and eventually 7 of 13 for a touchdown and 72 yards. Hardly a surprise.
Then on came Colt McCoy, and he was a surprise. A delightful one. A week that in the minds of many skeptics began with McCoy, the new kid in town, about to be traded ended with McCoy firmly set as No. 2. Or is that just a ploy to get rid of him? You never can be sure in the Byzantine world of the NFL, but it was hard to believe Harbaugh wasn’t telling the whole truth and nothing but.
The kicker in all this is that until Sunday night, when he was 11 of 15 for 109 yards, and directed a 91-yard touchdown drive — if also throwing an interception — McCoy had been, well, "a bust" may be too strong, so we will say "disappointing."
San Francisco picked up Seneca Wallace a few days ago, and with Scott Tolzien still around and B.J. Daniels seeming like the man of the future — the new Kaepernick, if you will — McCoy was a question mark. The Niners got McCoy before the April draft. He hadn’t shown much. If anything.
The problem, McCoy said as he stood in front his locker in the Niner locker room, was he hadn’t learned the system well enough to feel at ease. “I was staying up late,” he said. “It just took a while.”
McCoy said everything finally began to click a few days ago, and he and Harbaugh had conversations that reassured Colt he would not be sent packing up if something happened to Kaepernick but rather sent in move the team.
“I wasn’t ever scared or nervous,” said McCoy, a third-round pick by the Cleveland Browns in the 2010 draft. “I saw a lot of improvement this week. This was my best week with the 49ers. I’m glad everyone liked tonight, but give credit to the other guys on the offense.”
Reports are that McCoy restructured his contract, dropping the base salary to the minimum $630,000 — he had been owed $21.5 million. Both Harbaugh and McCoy refused to discuss money.
Candlestick was maybe only half full, the usual for preseason games, but the crowd was edgy. Two men wearing Niner jerseys ran onto the field, halting the game, and then after security hauled them away a third, in an Indianapolis Colts jersey, bounded out of the stands. Go figure.
Also go figure Lavelle Hawkins, a Niner rookie wide receiver and return man from Cal. He zoomed 105 yards for a touchdown with a kickoff in the second quarter, which was beautiful. However, he strutted the final 20 yards or so and then, in the ultimate showboat move, whipped off his helmet, drawing two penalties on the one play.
He wasn’t done, eventually picking up two more big penalties. Surely he didn’t learn this from former Cal coach Jeff Tedford. “He’s got to do a better job of not getting hijacked emotionally after doing something great,” Harbaugh said of Hawkins.
The job Kaepernick did was solid. “When you get out there,” said Kaepernick, who had played only briefly the first two games, “and you find your rhythm, that’s how you want to be playing.”
Someone wondered if Kaepernick, who started last year second team and then replaced Alex Smith, was paying close attention to the quarterbacks behind him, especially McCoy.
“I’m always watching the other guys,” said Kaepernick, “seeing what they’re doing, seeing what the defense is doing and how I can help them during the game.”
Colt McCoy didn’t need much help. Neither did Colin Kaepernick.
By Art Spander
SAN FRANCISCO — He deserved a better ending. Maybe not red-carpet, but not red-faced either.
Barry Zito should have been able to walk away with a smile, with the cheers of thousands ringing in his ears. That’s the way it happens in the movies. The way it happens in reality was played out on a depressing Wednesday at AT&T Park.
The guess is that the game Zito pitched against the Boston Red Sox, the game the Giants in this what-else-can-go-wrong season would lose 12-1, was his last start for San Francisco, his farewell in a year during which neither he nor his team fared well.
Zito wasn’t very effective, not that anyone expected him to be, and the Giants, who can’t field and can’t hit, were even less so. A franchise in search of itself, and reasons for the decline, surely will try someone, anyone, other than Zito from here on out — unless injury demands otherwise.
So it is time to acknowledge the man, as opposed to the player, because Barry Zito was always a man no matter how poorly he threw or how miserably he was treated by the media or the fans.
Good times — and he knew those — or bad times, Zito was mature and in control. If not always in control of a fastball or curve.
I’ve dealt with the best and the rudest in a half century of sports journalism, athletes whose response to even the most harmless of questions could be an obscenity or a quick rush to a hiding place.
Barry Zito took the blows. What he didn’t take was the criticism as personal. He accepted it as part of the job.
Sure he had the big salary, but that’s the nature of the beast. If you had won a Cy Young Award, as did Zito with the Athletics, and you were in demand in a seller’s market, the dollars would be there.
The Giants wanted this Barry to be a softer, more kindly face of the team than the other Barry, Bonds, so they spent and acquired him.
Zito didn’t pay off. Not until last season, 2012, when needed most.
In the playoffs, in the World Series, he pitched with guile and grace. The Giants don’t win a championship without Zito. Nothing could be more apparent.
Other than the fact his days with the Giants are numbered. They sent him to the bullpen briefly, then Wednesday, gave him the opportunity to start. “He could have come out better,” said Bruce Bochy, the San Francisco manager, who is marvelously protective. “He hung a slider...”
That was smacked into the left field seats in the second inning by Will Middlebrooks. Only 2-0 at that point, but the demons were hovering.
The night before, Tuesday, the Giants won their only game of the series from Boston, a game that in itself might not have meant much but could have been seen as a small step toward the respectability that had flown with the wind.
“The season hasn’t gone the way we hoped,” Bochy had said, as if the fact had to be verbalized. It hasn’t gone the way he hoped, the front office hoped and most of all the way the fans hoped.
“But we have some pride,” Bochy said.
And almost out of nowhere, they had a 3-2 victory over the Red Sox at AT&T Park, because Ryan Vogelsong became the pitcher he had been — and surely has a chance to be next season — and because Brayan Villarreal walked Marco Scutaro with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth on the only four pitches he threw.
Such a disaster, the defending World Series champion Giants, with a lousy defense, a pathetic offense and pitching that at best could be called erratic.
The way everything went right in 2012 is the way almost everything has gone wrong in 2013.
Except the attendance, the Giants now with 229 consecutive regular-season sellouts. The fans keep coming because the tickets were sold and — because, as on Tuesday — they may be rewarded.
“We have a huge fan base,” agreed Bochy. “I was disappointed in the way we played Monday night (losing 7-0).”
He was even more disappointed Wednesday. “We drifted mentally,” he said. “That shouldn’t happen playing a good team like Boston. We had played well the night before.”
So Zito will be gone in 2014. As will Tim Lincecum. Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, as now, continue to be the main men of a franchise built around pitching. Vogelsong’s work Tuesday night indicates he should be No. 3. And then?
Maybe the Giants obtain another starter — without Zito or Lincecum’s salaries on the ledger, there will be room financially. More likely they go after a left fielder, someone with power.
Yet whoever is on the mound or in left, the fielding must improve. There are 30 teams in the majors. The Giants rank 29th in defense.
“It’s hard to explain,” said Bochy.
He didn’t need to explain his choice of Zito, who a month earlier had been pulled from the rotation.
“I think (Zito) has earned this,” Bochy said Tuesday. “He’s a guy who has done a lot for us. I know it’s been an up-and-down year. He’s been waiting for his turn, so he gets to go first. My hope is he goes out and throws the ball great and stays in the rotation.”
He didn’t. He won’t.
By Art Spander
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The statue of James Fenimore Cooper sits in proper relaxation, maybe a pop fly away from the bronzes of Roy Campanella and Johnny Podres, who naturally as catcher and pitcher are located 60 feet, 6 inches apart.
This indeed is Cooper’s town. It was established more than 250 years ago by his father, in the rolling Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, where the subjects of Cooper’s novels, the Mohican Indians, lived.
This also is baseball’s town, the site of the most famous of American sporting halls of fame, a shrine to myth and reality, where a visitor quickly comes upon life-size figures of the Babe and the Kid, George Herman Ruth and Theodore Williams.
That baseball almost certainly wasn’t invented in Cooperstown by Abner Doubleday but more likely in Hoboken, N.J., by Alexander Cartwright is of no great issue here. Legends do not require confirmation, only recognition.
What Milan is to opera lovers and St. Andrews is to golfers — sites that if not quite holy are close — Cooperstown is to baseball. There’s an art museum here. There’s also a golf course — Leatherstocking, named for a Cooper book. They are insignificant.
Baseball is the lure, the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame, where kids in T-shirts and shorts reach up to touch the letters of plaques honoring a Babe or a Ty Cobb or a Willie Howard Mays, as if able to grasp some bit of history.
It’s been said that one of the virtues of baseball is that it enables the generations to talk to each other. Seven years old or 70, the link is the game, grandfathers recalling their youth, grandsons projecting the future.
A half-century ago, it still was three strikes you’re out, and yes, Sandy Koufax and Juan Marichal knew how to throw those strikes the way Justin Verlander knows these days.
Main Street — what else would the main street of Cooperstown be called? — is packed with memorabilia stories and ice cream parlors. Of course.
It was the late Leonard Koppett, a fine journalist and brilliant thinker, who insisted that one of the reasons kids grow to love baseball is that at the ballgame, parents — dads, mostly — unhesitatingly buy them anything, cotton candy, hot dogs, particularly ice cream. Who wouldn’t want to go?
Maybe 10 years ago, every other shop in Cooperstown was peddling something connected with Pete Rose, who, if he’ll never get in the Hall — silly when the guy with the most hits in history isn’t a Hall of Famer — was getting wealthy from the sale of autographs.
Pete’s presence has dimmed. He was at the induction ceremonies a couple of weeks back, which drew only a tiny percentage of the usual 10,000 fans because no living ballplayer was involved, but the various stores now focus on the Yankees and Mets. That’s understandable, because the Big Apple is only about a three-hour drive away.
As with other places in the country, really the world, Cooperstown has been hurt by the economy, although at the moment most of the bed-and-breakfast locales, places with names like “Baseball, Bed and Breakfast” or “Landmark Inn,” are filled.
In another few days, as a contrast, the county sheep dog trials will be held in Cooperstown. It would be neat if the dogs could be taught to steal second. You mean they already do, grabbing the bag in their jaws and running off?
If men are predominant here, women are not ignored. There’s a shop on Main calling itself “Line Drives and Lipstick,” which despite the allusion is more boutique than dugout store.
Several shops manufacture bespoke bats or at the least engrave any name you want on any previously milled bat. “Please don’t swing the bats,” admonishes a sign at Cooperstown Bat Company. That’s inside.
Outdoors, on Main Street, where boys are trying to duplicate Miguel Cabrera, or Lou Gehrig, it’s a wonder there aren’t more broken heads or broken windows.
For Red Sox fans, and they are easily identified by their attire, it’s more a question of broken hearts. On a wall in the Hall is an enlarged reproduction of the promissory note of $100,000 the Yankees gave Boston in 1919 for Ruth. The man then in charge of the Yanks, Jake Rupert, was one of the recent Hall inductees. No reference to the Curse of the Bambino, it must be noted.
In the Hall’s souvenir shop you can buy various jerseys, including one with Yankee pinstripes and the No. 3. All well and good, except above the number is “RUTH,” which is nonsense because not only were there no players’ names on uniforms when Ruth was active but the Yankees, home or away, never had them at any time.
“Never let fear of striking out get in your way,” is the quote from the Babe, who whiffed 1,330 times in his career. Never let fear of revising his uniform get in your way, either.
By Art Spander
For GlobalGolfPost.com
PITTSFORD, NEW YORK — This was the week we were supposed to learn something about Tiger Woods. Perhaps we did.
Woods came to the PGA Championship after a victory, after a tournament in which he shot 61 the second round. Surely we would see the old Tiger.
What we saw, however, was an older, perplexed Tiger.
Copyright 2013 Global Golf Post