Tennis Capsules: Sharapova comes back to avoid upset at U.S. Open
NEW YORK (AP) — Down a set in the first round of the U.S. Open, Maria Sharapova sat in her changeover chair, briefly closed her eyes, and took some deep breaths.
"I knew," she would say later, "that it wasn't over."
Whatever problems she encountered Tuesday, whatever the level of her game, all that mattered to Sharapova was the outcome. Overcoming a deficit and a big-hitting opponent to avoid a significant upset, the 2006 U.S. Open champion put together a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory over 60th-ranked Jarmila Groth of Australia.
"At the end of the day, even though I know I wasn't playing my best tennis, I know I came out with a win. And sometimes it's more important than anything, because you're giving yourself a chance to go out on the practice court tomorrow," the 14th-seeded Sharapova said. "You're giving yourself a chance to play another match and to get better, you know, maybe work on the things that today weren't working that well for you."
Groth hit 14 double-faults, including on the final point of the second set. She was by far the more aggressive of the two, taking risks that sometimes paid off and sometimes did not. She hit 24 winners to 19 for Sharapova, and made 48 unforced errors to 17 for Sharapova.
"She came out firing; didn't give me many opportunities," Sharapova said. "You just want to hang in there, get through it."
There was a lot of hanging in there on a steamy Day 2 at the U.S. Open, when the temperature rose into the mid-90s in the afternoon, prompting the tournament to invoke its "extreme weather policy" for women's singles matches, which allows players to request a 10-minute break after the second set. More than a dozen women's matches went three sets, and seven men's matches lasted the full five sets, including 2007 runner-up Novak Djokovic's 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory over his friend and Serbian Davis Cup teammate Viktor Troicki.
Top-seeded Rafael Nadal found himself in a surprisingly competitive match but still won in straight sets, getting past 93rd-ranked Teymuraz Gabashvili 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-3 at night. There were only two breaks of serve — both by Nadal, the last two times Gabashvili served under the lights.
"My serve worked well," said Nadal, who saved the only break point he faced.
While he's trying to complete a career Grand Slam, the No. 1-seeded woman, Caroline Wozniacki, is bidding for her first major title anywhere. Wozniacki opened her bid for that title by defeating NCAA singles champion Chelsey Gullickson 6-1, 6-1 in a match that ended at 12:53 a.m..
"Thank you for sticking around," 2009 U.S. Open runner-up Wozniacki told what was left of the crowd afterward, "even though I know it's been a long night."
Under a sizzling sun several hours earlier, Djokovic and Troicki played for more than 3½ hours, and the on-court temperature approached 110 degrees. Djokovic was down a break in the fourth set while already trailing, before righting himself.
"You kind of start panicking a little bit when you don't feel great physically," the third-seeded Djokovic said, "and your opponent takes advantage."
Mardy Fish, an American seeded 19th, also won in five sets, but fan favorite James Blake needed only three to reach the second round.
Sharapova never has lost earlier than the second round in seven U.S. Opens. But she also hasn't made it past the third round since taking the championship. She lost at that stage in 2007 and 2009, and missed the tournament in 2008 shortly before having right shoulder surgery.
Sharapova made adjustments to her service motion after that operation, then missed nearly two months this season with a right elbow injury. But she has seemed lately to be on her way back to being a contender at the biggest tournaments, reaching the finals at two hard-court tournaments this summer.
She only double-faulted twice Tuesday, and it was Groth who donated points with shaky serving, including on the last point of the second set.
"Maybe if I would have served differently," Groth said, "everything would be easier."
At the start, though, it was Sharapova who hardly was at her best. When Groth pounded a return winner off a second serve, she broke Sharapova to take the opening set.
When play resumed, Sharapova's shots improved.
"It's still Sharapova, so it's not like she's going to go, 'There you go,'" Groth said.
Sharapova-Groth was the day's third match in Arthur Ashe Stadium that went the full number of sets, making for a night session that started about 1½ hours later than the 7 p.m. schedule. So Nadal's match didn't end until shortly after 11:30 p.m., and then the top-seeded woman, Caroline Wozniacki, still had to head out on court.
Earlier, No. 4-seeded Jelena Jankovic, like Sharapova, needed to turn things around after losing the first set. Jankovic, the runner-up at the 2008 U.S. Open, managed to get past 18-year-old Simona Halep of Romania 4-6, 6-4, 7-5. Jankovic was two points from defeat at 5-4 in the third set before taking the last three games to close out the match.
"The conditions were tough," Jankovic said. "But I didn't want to think about that. I just wanted to focus as much as I could on the match and play each point one point at a time."
Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 U.S. Open champion, needed three sets, too, before eliminating 39-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm.
Wozniacki, last year's runner-up in New York, and Jankovic both have a chance to overtake Serena Williams at No. 1 in the rankings by winning the title. Next for Jankovic comes a matchup against Mirjana Lucic, who beat Alicia Molik 7-6 (5), 6-1 to win a U.S. Open match for the first time in 11 years.
The first seeded woman to exit was No. 8 Li Na, who lost to Kateryna Bondarenko 2-6, 6-4, 6-2, and she soon was followed by No. 26 Lucie Safarova and No. 30 Yaroslava Shvedova. Winners included Wimbledon runner-up Vera Zvonareva, No. 9 Agnieszka Radwanska and 2009 semifinalist Yanina Wickmayer.
In men's action, No. 16 Marcos Baghdatis, No. 24 Ernests Gulbis, No. 28 Radek Stepanek, and No. 30 Juan Monaco were eliminated.
Nadal wins U.S. Open 1st-round match in 3 sets
NEW YORK (AP) — For all of Rafael Nadal's considerable talents with a racket in hand, the part of his game that's most often been criticized — by himself and others — is his serve.
That is quickly changing.
Serving at up to 131 mph and saving the only break point he faced, Nadal began his bid to complete a career Grand Slam at this year's U.S. Open by beating 93rd-ranked Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the first round Tuesday night.
"My serve worked well. Hopefully, I'll continue like this," Nadal said. "My serve is not my best shot, but I always try hard to keep improving. I know if I want to have chances to win here — not just this year, but any year — I need to serve really well."
Asked if he's been focusing on making his serve better this summer, Nadal replied with a smile: "All my life, I worked on my serve. Not this summer, no; all my life."
In Tuesday's match, there were zero breaks of serve until 3-all in the third set, and the No. 1-seeded Nadal broke there when Gabashvili put a forehand into the net. Nadal threw his head back and yelled, "Si!"
The 24-year-old Spaniard broke serve again to end the match, closing with a three-game run.
While it was a straight-set victory, it wasn't necessarily easy for Nadal. He failed to convert any of his first seven break points, and had to weather 49 winners from the big-hitting Gabashvili, 19 more than Nadal produced.
"I had a difficult match," Nadal acknowledged, "but I think I did play well."
The match lasted nearly three hours and, because it began late after three lengthy contests preceded it in Arthur Ashe Stadium, they didn't finish until 11:32 p.m.
The result extended Nadal's Grand Slam winning streak to 15 matches, after his titles at the French Open in June and Wimbledon in July. He owns eight major championships, but has yet to make it past the semifinals at Flushing Meadows, losing at that stage each of the past two years.
Nadal hopes to become the seventh man in tennis history with at least one title from each of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
Gabashvili, meanwhile, has lost in the first round of the U.S. Open two consecutive years. His best showing at a major tournament came at Roland Garros this season, when he upset Andy Roddick on the way to the fourth round.
In the second round, Nadal will face 39th-ranked Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan, who beat Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 7-5, 7-5, 6-1 earlier Tuesday.
Might Nadal hit serves even faster against Istomin than he did against Gabashvili?
"Wait," Nadal said, grinning to make sure everyone knew he was kidding. "Wait for the next one. (I'm) going for 135."
-- Howard Fendrich
Top-seeded Wozniacki beats NCAA champ at U.S. Open
NEW YORK (AP) — Waiting and waiting to play her first match as the No. 1-seeded woman at a Grand Slam tournament, Caroline Wozniacki passed the time by watching Rafael Nadal play his opener, reading a magazine and jogging in the gym.
When she finally set foot on court in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Wozniacki played like someone in a hurry.
Seeking her first major title, 2009 U.S. Open runner-up Wozniacki beat NCAA champion Chelsey Gullickson 6-1, 6-1 in the first round at Flushing Meadows.
Because of long matches earlier, this one began at 11:52 p.m. Tuesday night and ended at 12:53 a.m. Wednesday.
"Thank you for sticking around," Wozniacki told what was left of the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd afterward, "even though I know it's been a long night."
The University of Georgia's Gullickson, daughter of former major league pitcher Bill Gullickson, took the first two points of the match, smacking good service returns on both and hitting a cross-court forehand winner to go up love-30. The third point was typical of the patient, make-no-mistakes Wozniacki: It lasted 22 strokes and ended when Gullickson dumped a forehand in the net.
Still, Gullickson conjured up another forehand winner to earn a break point after a minute of play. Wozniacki erased that with an ace from her ever-improving serve and took the next two points, too, to hold serve and get headed toward a 3-0 start.
Gullickson, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., was making her Grand Slam debut two days after her 20th birthday. She isn't ranked and got into the tournament with a wild card.
"She's hitting the ball really hard. She has a really great game," said Wozniacki, who turned 20 in July. "I know it's tough to be here for the first time ... but I'm sure with experience, she'll be back and play even stronger."
Wozniacki has been on quite a run lately.
The victory over gave her wins in 15 of her last 16 matches. She's won three of the four tournaments she entered before getting to New York, including a title at New Haven, Conn., on Saturday. All of those events were on hard courts, just like the U.S. Open.
And she does it without trying to hit too many high-risk shots, preferring to stay along the baseline and pick her spots carefully.
Against Gullickson, Wozniacki hit only six winners, five fewer than her opponent. But here's the key to Wozniacki's game: She made a grand total of seven unforced errors, while Gullickson made 30.
The only hitch all night for Wozniacki, really, was whiling away the time until her chance to play. A three-set victory by Jelena Jankovic began Tuesday's schedule in the main stadium, followed by a five-set victory by Novak Djokovic, followed by a three-set victory for Maria Sharapova. The night session was supposed to begin at 7 p.m. but was delayed about 1½ hours, so even though Nadal won in three sets, Wozniacki and Gullickson began close to midnight.
"The matches before me were so long. Nobody expected that," Wozniacki said. "But a win is a win. It doesn't matter what time I get on. As long as I win, I'm happy."
-- Howard Fendrich
Mirjana Lucic gets 1st U.S. Open win in 11 years
NEW YORK (AP) — There was a moment, however fleeting, when Mirjana Lucic was tennis' next big thing.
In 1997, at age 15, Lucic won her very first WTA event, in Bol, Croatia. When she won that championship again in 1998, Lucic became the youngest player to successfully defend a title on the women's tour. A year later, she reached the Wimbledon semifinals.
And then, suddenly, everything came apart, an unraveling that involved injuries, an overbearing father and financial problems. Now 28, Lucic is back on tour, and she won a main-draw U.S. Open match for the first time in 11 years Tuesday, beating 90th-ranked Alicia Molik of Australia 7-6 (5), 6-1.
"People are calling me a veteran, which is like, oh, so depressing. I'm, like, 'old' at 28," Lucic said. "But you know, I just love it out there. You know, I'm doing what I love, and I know that there is still a lot of good tennis in me, a lot of good results. That's what's pushing me, and that's why I'm doing it."
Currently ranked 150th as she makes her way back to the upper levels of professional tennis, Lucic needed to go through qualifying rounds at Flushing Meadows last week simply to make it into this year's tournament.
"I worked so hard to get here," she said. "This is my first U.S. Open in, I don't know, seven years or something. Feels incredible."
Actually, it's been eight years since Lucic participated in the American Grand Slam tournament: In 2002, she lost 6-0, 6-0 to Venus Williams in the first round.
Back during her "first" career, Lucic teamed with Martina Hingis to win the 1998 Australian Open women's doubles title, and she climbed as high as 32nd in the WTA singles rankings that season. But then she left the tour for several years.
While she says she didn't really quit tennis, Lucic did have to take a circuitous route to return to the Grand Slam stage. She moved to Florida and has been training at a tennis academy in Bradenton. She entered any event that would take her, even those with total prize money of $25,000 — the U.S. Open, for comparison's sake, has more than $22 million on offer — and some where she had to qualify to earn a spot.
"Every small tournament there is, and losing a lot of times," Lucic said, summing up. "It was really hard. It felt like I climbed the mountain just to get through those tournaments, so I feel really good now."
The 29-year-old Molik knew Lucic back in the good old days, and kept in touch through the years.
"I've known her since I was 14. Let's be honest: She's had a difficult life. We've been friends for 15 years," Molik said. "I'm pulling for her, but let's face it, I'd have liked to have won the match."
Instead, Lucic claimed her first victory at the U.S. Open since the first round in 1999 and first at any Grand Slam tournament since the first round of the 2002 French Open.
Next up: a second-round matchup against No. 4-seeded Jelena Jankovic, the 2008 U.S. Open runner-up.
"I know her. We speak a lot in the locker rooms, and she's a nice girl. ... As far as for her things, I don't really get involved, and I don't really know so much," said Jankovic, who came back Tuesday to avoid a significant upset and edge 18-year-old Simona Halep of Romania 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.
"All I know is that she's been doing well the last couple of months, and she's playing well," Jankovic said about Lucic. "I think that's great for her."
Whatever may happen against Jankovic, Lucic already feels pretty good about what she's accomplished on this trip to New York.
And why shouldn't she, given where she's been?
"It's funny: Every match I win now," Lucic said, "it's like winning an entire tournament."
-- Howard Fendrich
James Blake beats Kristof Vliegen 6-3, 6-2, 6-4
NEW YORK (AP) — James Blake was honored on the first night of the U.S. Open. As some friends pointed out, that's the kind of recognition usually reserved for retired players.
"They're trying to get rid of me already," Blake said with a grin a night later.
The 30-year-old American isn't going anywhere for now. He cruised into the second round Tuesday, beating Kristof Vliegen of Belgium 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Blake hadn't lost in the first round at the Open since his debut in 1999. But he'd also slipped to 108th in the rankings and needed a wild card to get in.
"Really just happy to get through and hopefully put as little stress on my body as possible since it's getting older and there's plenty of miles on it these days," he said.
Asked a question about Andre Agassi, Blake got to reminiscing about their five-set classic in the 2005 quarterfinals — when Agassi was 35.
"You know," Blake said wistfully, "there's a chance I still could be playing in four or five more years."
On Monday night he was honored for overcoming adversity to inspire others. He'll keep doing so from the court in the second round when he faces 205th-ranked qualifier Peter Polansky of Canada, who knocked off 30th-seeded Juan Monaco.
"I don't think I want to put it all into perspective quite yet, because I think I've got more career left in me, more good tennis," Blake said. "I'm looking forward to that. Then when I'm done, I really hope I can sit back and really be proud."
-- Rachel Cohen
Djokovic rallies to beat Viktor Troicki in 5 sets
NEW YORK (AP) — In the second official match he ever played, Novak Djokovic faced Viktor Troicki in the under-10 division.
"He destroyed me," Djokovic recalled Tuesday.
The scene was being repeated about 15 years later in the first round of the U.S. Open.
"Today he was the better player on the court — for a while," the third-seeded Djokovic said of his friend from Serbia.
Djokovic, a year younger but now ranked 44 spots higher, rallied in the searing heat for a 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 win.
Down two sets to one, Djokovic had his serve broken in the first game of the fourth set. Troicki nearly went up two breaks, but the 2008 Australian Open champ fought off break points in his next two service games.
"He knew that I might go down a little bit after that chance, so for sure he was more pumped," Troicki said. "He knew that was maybe the last moments to try to play better and stay alive."
Troicki had 23 aces. In winning the second and third sets, he hit 71 percent of his serves in — and won 87 percent of those points.
"I never saw him serve that way," Djokovic said.
He should know, since the two practiced together for years.
But Djokovic started picking up Troicki's serve better in the final two sets and outlasted the sun.
"You just have to try to be patient and wait for the shadows," he said, "like I did."
-- Rachel Cohen
Notebook: Slimmer Mardy Fish wins in 5 sets at U.S. Open
NEW YORK (AP) — The old, admittedly out-of-shape Mardy Fish won only 2 of 8 five-set matches he played at the start of his career.
The new, 30-pounds-lighter Fish has won 2 of 3, including a 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory over Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic in the U.S. Open's first round Tuesday.
"I feel like a completely different player. I mean, I know that I am," said the 19th-seeded Fish, who has won 17 of his past 19 matches. "So how far that takes me, I have no idea. But, you know, I've never been fitter and never been mentally as strong. I've never wanted it more, and so hopefully that goes a long way."
Fish, who lives in Tampa, Fla., hit 24 aces against Hajek but found himself trailing 2-1 in sets.
"It was a scary position to be in, no doubt about it," Fish said. "This is a new position for me. It's new, sort of, to have a lot of expectations, have a lot of people talking about you. It's a new spot for me, and it's where we want to be, for sure."
So what did Fish do Tuesday? Went out and took the last two sets in only 51 minutes.
The 6-foot-2 Fish weighed 203 pounds on Sept. 28, 2009, the day he had surgery on his left knee. Now he's slimmed down to about 170, thanks in part to new eating habits overseen by trainer Christian LoCascio.
In a recent interview, LoCascio recalled being at a tournament in Italy and watching Fish eat pizza as an appetizer before dinner or heaping mozzarella on a salad at lunch.
"All of that kind of stuff was adding up, and he was ... just enjoying himself — enjoying himself off the court, maybe a little bit more than he needed to," LoCascio said. "Once the knee injury happened, it all kind of hit home. The weight kind of was a contributing factor to it, and he saw it as something he could really attack and conquer and come out better for it."
Fish's best U.S. Open result was a quarterfinal appearance in 2008, and he thinks he's capable of making that type of run again.
Nowadays, Fish said, he'll come across old pictures of himself, turn to his wife and ask, "What was your problem? Why didn't somebody tell me that I looked like that?"
SOCK IT TO 'EM: There's been a lot of talk lately about what the future of U.S. tennis may hold. One young American will get a chance to introduce himself on a big stage Wednesday, when 17-year-old Jack Sock plays in the first round of the U.S. Open.
Sock, a high school senior who grew up in Lincoln, Neb., earned a wild card from the U.S. Tennis Association by winning the boys' 18s singles championship at the USTA national championships at Kalamazoo, Mich., on Aug. 15.
He'll face 63rd-ranked Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland on Court 13, one of the five Flushing Meadows courts equipped for TV coverage.
"My goal for my lifetime is I want to make a living playing this sport," Sock said. "If that means top 50 or top 20 or whatever, that would be awesome."
He hasn't decided whether to go to college — "I'm going to see how the rest of this year goes," Sock said — and gave a long list of possible destinations, should he go that route: Texas, Virginia, Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida, Southern Cal.
"He's a really, really good competitor, and he has a natural sense of the game," said Mike Wolf, who coaches Sock at a tennis academy in Kansas. "He understands the geometry of the court."
Sock said he got a chance to practice once with 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick, the last American man to win a Grand Slam singles title, and calls Roddick "a great inspiration to watch; he works so hard."
Sock also received a USTA wild card for the junior boys' tournament, so he'll get to play again in New York, no matter what happens against Chiudinelli.
"I hope he wants to go out there and play to win, which he will, but the greatest part of it is not so much the experience of the playing a guy like Chiudinelli, but just the moment of being at a Slam and seeing how you match up at this point," Wolf said. "It can really reveal not just where you are in your tennis game, but in your mind. It's a really good measuring-stick opportunity for him."
BEATING THE HEAT: The temperature rose into the mid-90s at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday, and that heat, combined with high humidity, prompted the U.S. Open to put its "extreme weather policy" into effect as of 1 p.m. for women's singles matches.
That means players are allowed to request a 10-minute break after the second set — and the tournament said at least two matches were interrupted.
Organizers put into motion a few adjustments to help others with the heat, including cutting down ball kids' shifts from 2 hours to 1½ hours, repeatedly reminding fans to stay hydrated and encouraging spectators to move to shaded or air-conditioned areas around the grounds.
PUSHING 40: There are times when Japan's Kimiko Date Krumm stands there in the stifling heat, looks across the net at a woman half her age and thinks, "What am I doing out here?"
For two hours Tuesday, she answered her own question.
Date Krumm, who turns 40 on Sept. 28, nearly beat 11th-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova before losing 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in the first round of the U.S. Open. Had she pulled off the upset, Date Krumm would have been the third-oldest woman to win a U.S. Open match since the Open era began in 1968.
"Sometimes, I look across the court and say, 'That looks like my daughter,'" Date Krumm said. "But I'm still on my feet."
Ranked as high as fourth back in 1995, Date Krumm (known as Kimiko Date before she got married) played in the Olympics — the Atlanta Olympics — in 1996, then took more than 10 years off. She announced her comeback in 2008, after being persuaded by her husband to return to the tour.
She slowly played her way back into the top 100 and played the first main-draw Grand Slam match of her comeback at the Australian Open in January.
Her return to the U.S. Open ended up being only a one-match affair, though she had the 25-year-old Kuznetsova in trouble for a while. Date Krumm went old-school, using a backhand slice to move her opponent backward and forward on the court instead of side-to-side.
That was good for one set. Then Date Krumm's left quadriceps started tightening up, Kuznetsova adjusted to the strategy and the match was over.
"Everyone's more powerful out there now," Date Krumm said. "It was very, very difficult to adjust, but I did. Now, it's the recovery that's more difficult to me. I play one day and I'm more tired compared to all the younger players."
-- Howard Fendrich
U.S. Open Glance
NEW YORK (AP) — A look at Tuesday's play at the $22.7 million U.S. Open tennis championships:
WEATHER: Mostly sunny and very hot with low humidity. High of 95.
ATTENDANCE: Day: 34,696. Night: 23,771. Total: 58,467.
MEN'S SEEDED WINNERS: First Round: No. 1 Rafael Nadal, No. 3 Novak Djokovic, No. 8 Fernando Verdasco, No. 10 David Ferrer, No. 19 Mardy Fish, No. 23 Feliciano Lopez and No. 31 David Nalbandian.
MEN'S SEEDED LOSERS: No. 16 Marcos Baghdatis, No. 24 Ernests Gulbis, No. 28 Radek Stepanek and No. 30 Juan Monaco.
WOMEN'S SEEDED WINNERS: First Round: No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, No. 4 Jelena Jankovic, No. 7 Vera Zvonareva, No. 9 Agnieszka Radwanska, No. 11 Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 14 Maria Sharapova, No. 15 Yanina Wickmayer, No. 18 Aravane Rezai, No. 22 Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, No. 23 Maria Kirilenko, No. 25 Alexandra Dulgheru and No. 31 Kaia Kanepi.
WOMEN'S SEEDED LOSERS: No. 8 Li Na, No. 17 Nadia Petrova, No. 26 Lucie Safarova and No. 30 Yaroslava Shvedova.
TOP PLAYERS ON COURT WEDNESDAY: Men: No. 4 Andy Murray vs. Lukas Lacko, No. 7 Tomas Berdych vs. Michael Llodra, No. 9 Andy Roddick vs. Janko Tipsarevic, No. 18 John Isner vs. Frederico Gil; Women: No. 2 Kim Clijsters vs. Sally Peers, No. 3 Venus Williams vs. Rebecca Marino, No. 5 Sam Stosur vs. Anastasia Rodionova, No. 6 Francesca Schiavone vs. Maria Elena Camerin, No. 12 Elena Dementieva vs. Sybille Bammer.
STAT OF THE DAY: Of the 317 points played in Novak Djokovic's five-set victory over Viktor Troicki, Djokovic won 159 while Troicki won 158.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Somebody from the stands kept saying to me, 'Hold on, try to hang in there,' and that's exactly what I did." — Novak Djokovic, who rallied to beat Viktor Troicki in five sets.
WEDNESDAY ON TV (All Times EDT): Tennis Channel, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (live), 11 p.m.-Mid (highlights); ESPN2, 1-7 p.m. (live), 7-11 p.m. (live)
ON THIS DATE: Sept. 1, 1971: John Newcombe loses to Jan Kodes in four sets, becoming the first top seed to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open.
College
Group: Number of college tennis teams shrinking
An organization that advocates Title IX reform says opportunities to play tennis are shrinking in NCAA Division I because of the law.
The College Sports Council released a study Tuesday showing that the percentage of schools sponsoring tennis teams has declined in recent years. Chairman Eric Pearson blamed Title IX, which requires that a school's ratio of male to female athletes mirror the gender ratio of the undergraduate student population.
"A sport like tennis is affected because it's a smaller-roster sport," Pearson said. "If you get rid of a tennis team, men or women, you can replace that with a rowing team that will have much larger squad sizes, and balance out the numbers on the women's side.
"If we could reform Title IX so schools had other ways to comply, rather than chasing the proportionality formula, it would be better for everybody."
The NCAA called the CSC's interpretation of the date misleading. The Women's Sports Foundation also disagreed with the council, saying any accurate analysis of Title IX requires looking at athletic departments as a whole.
The CSC study shows that there are more tennis teams for women (311) than for men (258) in Division I. But the percentage of schools sponsoring women's teams has fallen from 96 percent in 1996 to 93 percent in 2009, and the percentage of Division I schools sponsoring men's teams has declined from 92 percent to 77.5 percent during the same span.
The CSC argues that Title IX enforcement resulted in the elimination of men's teams while failing to help the women's game grow.
But the NCAA said the number of tennis teams and players in Division I has actually grown since 1996.
"Tennis continues to be a popular sport around the world and on our campuses," the NCAA said in a statement. "There is no evidence that the relatively minor changes overall in tennis participation are related to Title IX."
The Women's Sports Foundation said the CSC's premise is faulty.
"If schools are cutting women's tennis or gymnastics, it is most certainly not due to Title IX," the foundation's Nancy Hogshead-Makar said in a statement. "If schools chose to swap one sport for another more popular sport, Title IX cannot keep a school from making the swap. Schools chose what sports to offer, not Title IX."
In June, the CSC released a study showing only 59 percent of Division I programs offer men's soccer, compared with 93 percent that offer women's soccer. The council blamed the disparity on Title IX and the way schools comply with it.
That conclusion was also met with a stern rebuttal from both the NCAA and the Women's Sports Foundation.
The council is a national coalition of coaches, athletes, parent and alumni.
-- Steven Wine
