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Last summer, nearly 23 years after he lost one of the most famous tennis matches in history to Jimmy Connors, Aaron Krickstein finally made the phone call he had always been too nervous to make. He and Connors hadn’t spoken since Labor Day 1991, when Connors beat Krickstein in five raucous sets at the U.S. Open. The match has lived longer than any other in tennis, with annual rain-delay reruns and a recent ESPN documentary. Krickstein decided the time had come for a rematch—and a new beginning to a friendship that went kaput when Connors won. On Tuesday here, Krickstein,...

Shamil Tarpischev, the head of the Russian Tennis Federation, is in trouble this morning, having received a one year suspension and a $25K fine for comments he made earlier in the week. While appearing on a talk show, Tarpischev dropped in some ill timed one liners about the highly ranked Williams sisters, Serena and Venus. Serena Williams says comments by the head of the Russian Tennis Federation referring to her and older sister Venus as “brothers” were bullying, sexist and racist, and that she supported the one-year suspension imposed by the WTA against the official.Shamil Tarpischev was also fined...

As Kei Nishikori has kept fighting through imposing obstacles at this United States Open, his coach Michael Chang has kept reminding him, “Great effort, but the tournament is not over yet.” It certainly is not. After fighting his way through consecutive five-set matches to earn a semifinal spot against No. 1-seeded Novak Djokovic, Nishikori extended his one-man show of resilience by upsetting Djokovic to reach the final. His remarkable 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory on Saturday made him the first man from Asia to reach a Grand Slam singles final. “It’s, I don’t know, 4 o’clock in the morning,”...

Posted By Roger L Simon On July 6, 2014 @ 9:24 pm In Uncategorized | 36 Comments Fans love to debate who’s the GOAT — greatest of all time — in their favorite sports. Mine are basketball and tennis and I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time surfing the ‘net reading posts evaluating the relative merits of Kobe, LeBron and Michael. I’m an L.A. guy and am naturally biased for Kobe, but I realize LeBron and Michael may have greater claims. Only Phil Jackson (aka Phil Jax) knows for sure. We’ll see next year. Nevertheless, basketball is a team game...

Last Thursday, an Obama-centric mainstream media trumpeted the creation of 288,000 jobs and the reduction in the unemployment rate from 6.3 percent to 6.1 percent. Lost in the manufactured euphoria are the sobering details: America is well on its way to becoming a nation where millions of workers can only find part-time, lower-paying jobs. On the surface, the numbers are impressive. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the aforementioned 288,000 jobs gain, while the household survey reported a gain of 407,000. Yet those numbers pale in comparison to the rise in the number of voluntary and involuntary part-time jobs,...

Twitter and Facebook users were outraged as the news of Maria Sharapova not knowing Indian cricket’s master blaster Sachin Tendulkar went viral. The Russian lawn tennis ace found herself in the eye of a social media storm over her saying she doesn't know who Tendulkar is to tennisworldusa.org website. The website after an interview with Sharapova said, “Sachin Tendulkar may be the greatest cricket batsman in history and one of the legends on the sporting world. But French Open champion Maria Sharapova admitted that she did not know who he was during her press conference at Wimbledon on Saturday.” Sharapova...

Rafael Nadal defeats Novak Djokovic 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 to win his ninth French Open title. What a disappointing end for Djokovic, who falls behind on his service game and double-faults on Championship Point. Nadal falls to his knees in celebration. Djokovic is sitting in his chair in disbelief, shaking his head and staring off into space.

PARIS — Maria Sharapova won her second French Open on Saturday with a 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory over Simona Halep. The 6-foot-2 Sharapova and the 5-6 Halep presented a tantalizing matchup of power versus guile, experience versus new blood, and they did not disappoint, giving Roland Garros its first three-set women’s final since 2001. But just as she has all tournament, Sharapova raised her game when she was down. She was down a break early in the first set but rallied to win it. Halep served for the second set twice but could not close Sharapova out until a...

The Talk Shows May 4th, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas; Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, California; Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Richard Williams, father of tennis players Serena and Venus Williams.THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.; former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabber; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.

<p>Tennis star Maria Sharapova led a group of six notable Russian athletes for the torch lighting at Friday's Opening Ceremony.</p> <p>Sharapova was joined by pole-vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, former gymnast Alina Kabaeva (who has been linked romantically to Vladimir Putin), figure-skating legend Irina Rodnina, wrestling star Alexander Karelin and former hockey goaltender Vladislav Tretiak.</p>

Li Na thanked her agent after winning her second tennis Grand Slam in Australia. "Max, agent, make me rich, thanks a lot" she said." Funny that proclaiming that you are rich is cool in China and Russia, but no longer in the good ole USA. Haven't communist countries heard about income inequality? Sharing the wealth? When is the last time one of our sport's stars proclaimed his or her wealth to the world ? Li Na ranks 85th in the world's highest paid athletes having won over $18 million dollars in her career. Li Na is anything but a communist,...

MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian Sauna Championships continued Friday, disguised as a Grand Slam tennis tournament. Advancement here depended on survival, on remaining upright, on shade and hydration and on the coolest accessory in sports, something called an ice vest. Much of the first week of the Australian Open had unfolded like an extreme sport. For four days, starting Tuesday, the temperature climbed over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). It was the longest heat wave in the Melbourne area in more than 100 years, according to the Herald Sun. The newspaper said 243 people had gone to the hospital for...

You can tell who the keepers of American culture are by, among other things, the anniversaries they mark. We're currently being invited to revel in memories of the "iconic" tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, the so-called "Battle of the Sexes". Robin Roberts of ABC News recalled King's "stunning triumph". ESPN explained to younger viewers that King "won for all women". The New York Times' Gail Collins gushed that King's victory 40 years ago was a message "for any woman who had ever worried about being laughed at if she stepped out of line." Really? One tennis...

<p>No. 2-ranked Rafael Nadal won his 13th Grand Slam title by edging No. 1 Novak Djokovic 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in a riveting U.S. Open final filled with lengthy points and fantastic shotmaking.</p> <p>Nadal's victory Monday gave him a second championship at Flushing Meadows, and came a year after he missed the tournament with a knee injury.</p>

Top-seeded Serena Williams won her fifth U.S. Open championship and 17th Grand Slam title overall by beating No. 2 Victoria Azarenka 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1 in a windy final. Sunday's match was the toughest test these two weeks for the No. 1-seeded Williams, who also beat Azarenka in three sets in last year's final.

A few months back, when I was swatting away the absolutely absurd notion that Brittney Griner could play in the NBA, I snarked, “Then again, Billie Jean King did beat a 55-year-old former pro that one time, so maybe Griner will totes fit into the NBA.” But even that bit of credit was unwarranted, apparently. Because it turns out the infamous battle of the sexes—in which the 30-year-old King routed the 55-year-old Bobby Riggs—wasn’t a legit match. Allegedly, the fix was in: The story is filled with fascinating nuggets. Like JVL, I hadn’t realized that Riggs trounced—just absolutely crushed, in...

Jean King, Bobby Riggs an 'elaborate mob setup' Tennis star Bobby Riggs, top, and Billie Jean King are shown in action during the "Battle of the Sexes" match in the Astrodome in Houston, on Sept. 20, 1973. The ultimate “Battle of the Sexes” — a 1973 match between the No. 2 -ranked woman tennis player and a retired male Wimbledon champion — was rigged so Mafia bosses could cash in on the betting, a new report claims. The incredible claims have been lobbed at the reputation of the late hard-court hustler Bobby Riggs, by one of his former country club...

"HELLO AGAIN EVERYONE, I'm Howard Cosell. We're delighted to be able to bring you this very, very quaint, unique event." On Thursday night, Sept. 20, 1973, 50 million Americans, fatigued by Vietnam and Watergate, tuned in to see whether a woman could defeat a man on a tennis court. Dubbed "The Battle of the Sexes," the match pitted Billie Jean King, the 29-year-old champion of that summer's Wimbledon and a crusader for the women's liberation movement, against Bobby Riggs, the 55-year-old gambler, hustler and long-ago tennis champ who had willingly become America's bespectacled caricature of male chauvinism. Before 30,472 at...

Tennis star Maria Sharapova has reportedly set in motion a plan to change her last name to Sugarpova for the duration of the U.S. Open. The Russian opened a candy company by that name and is said to have sunk half a million dollars into it. According to several reports, Sharapova has approached the Florida Supreme Court about the possibility of changing her name.

Network Says Full Court Needs to Weigh in on Whether Economic Loss is Required for Finding As expected, the Tennis Channel has filed a petition for full court (en banc) review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit of a three-judge panel decision May 28 that Comcast did not violate the FCC's program carriage rules. That panel concluded that the FCC and Tennis had failed to make the discrimination case against the cable operator. In its petition, filed Friday july 15, Tennis Channel says that the ruling "departed from well-settled anti-discrimination law' and "ignored congressional intent and...