CBSSports.com: Serena's win secondary to remembering Michael Jackson

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- Serena Williams handled herself beautifully on the court and no less elegantly in the post-match interview Friday. On an afternoon when even at Wimbledon tennis seemed less important than a day earlier, her words were as impressive as her shots.

The news was unavoidable. In Britain, Michael Jackson was even larger than in the United States. He was to appear in a 50-show run at London's 02 Arena starting July 13, for which $85 million in tickets had been sold.

Nine of the first 11 pages in the Times of London dealt with Jackson's death. The headline in three-inch high letters in the 3.5-million circulation Sun proclaimed 'JACKO DEAD.' It was impossible not to know.

And Serena knew.

"I'm always online," she said."I'm always looking at the latest news until I fall asleep. So I saw it fairly early."

What we saw Friday on another warm, clear afternoon -- one that again mocked the idea of building a roof over Centre Court -- was Serena at her workmanlike best out on Court 2. She was a deliberate third-round winner over Roberta Vinci, 6-3, 6-4.

Then, hit by questions no one might have imagined at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, she provided answers both heartfelt and insightful.

Not that Serena, ever conscious of the commercial world and her endorsements, didn't take advantage of her presence. She sat down at the desk where the microphones sit and adroitly plunked down a squeeze bottle with a Gatorade label quite visible.

"What did Michael Jackson mean to you personally?" was the first query. Nothing about forehands or foresight. Only about a nearly mythic entertainer. "Would you think about dedicating today's victory, perhaps?"

Serena was prepared. She knows Wimbledon. She knows she's a celebrity, even if she tries to deny it.

"No," was her response, meaning the dedication. "I mean, he was a great guy, a complete icon. Words can't express my shock and horror. Just thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. It's just a terrible, terrible thing."

Williams met Jackson some time ago. She reacted the way others react to her, emotional, uncontrolled.

"I think he was the ultimate celebrity," she said. "I think any celebrity who met Michael Jackson was completely in awe. I know I was. I kept thinking, 'Oh my God, oh my God. It's him, it's him. So for me, he was the celebrity of all celebrities."

And then the silly stuff. Not from Serena, who has won this event twice and has been runner-up twice, including last year when she was beaten by older sister Venus. From the media, which was looking for any angle.

"Can you moonwalk?" someone wondered. Her quick answer was in the negative.

It was another walk that almost threw Serena. There's a new Court 2 at Wimbledon. This one is farther away from Centre Court grandstand and locker rooms. The other, nicknamed "The Graveyard of Champions," because of all the upsets, was noisy and cramped for the fans.

Serena was six minutes late for the scheduled 1 p.m. start. She was waiting for the normal escort, and it never arrived.

"Well, I thought someone was gonna come get me," was her explanation. "Then I figured, well, maybe I just have to report. I didn't know what to do. So I was waiting, warming up. Waiting and waiting.

"Finally, I said, I'm just going to go out. I'm used to someone coming and saying, 'OK, let's go.'"

Serena is the No. 2 seed, but there have been times when Roger Federer, a five-time champion, has had to play on Court 2. He didn't like it, felt it was beneath him. Serena, on the other hand, didn't care. Although she said, "I don't think I played great today," it took only 1 hour, 7 minutes to move to the second week.

"It's not a court for Roger," she said of Court 2, "but it's definitely a court for me. But I haven't won Wimbledon five times. I really enjoyed the court. It had the challenge system [an instant-replay camera]. It worked for me. I actually really liked it."

The atmosphere is different. Those are the fans who queue to enter, the ones who have only grounds passes. "It's a big difference," she affirmed. "The fans are more involved. It seems more verbal. And it's fun."

The fun ended with talk about Michael Jackson, a sobering dialogue.

"Well, I think everyone listens to his music," he said. "It's like you think of the Beatles, you think of Elvis Presley, you think of Michael Jackson. Those are lifetime icons that I've never forgotten.

"I've been following him. He's not been well, from what I read. He's been in and out of the hospital. So I wasn't super shocked. But it's Michael Jackson. He's the greatest entertainer, for me, of all time."

Spoken by surely one of the great women's tennis players of all time.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11896933
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Victorious Roddick posts up, beats the press

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- The challenge came after the match, which is often the case at Wimbledon. Andy Roddick had won, but now he was being asked what he thought of the Shaquille O'Neal trade.

At least by the Americans in the interview room.

The Brits only wanted to know where Andy might dine in London. They didn't have much of a chance.

Not with a hoops guy like Roddick. He likes to eat. He prefers to talk basketball. Or baseball.

Andy won his second-round match Thursday, defeating Russian Igor Kunitsyn 6-4, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. A stumble in the third set, a figurative one that is, but nothing that couldn't be and wasn't corrected.

"A win is a win," Roddick said. "The set I got broken, I had numerous break chances, and he got the one he had. I knew I was getting the better of him. Probably played my best set by far in the fourth set."

These are fine days for Andy. He was married in April to model Brooklyn Decker. The minor injuries that have affected him at times seem to have disappeared. Two others from his hometown, Boca Raton, Fla., Mardy Fish and Jesse Levine, still are in the Wimbledon draw. And the media continue to ask his opinions about the NBA.

The man knows his basketball.

"Well, Griffin is going one," he said of the draft, still several hours away, "and then it's going to be interesting to see what Minnesota does. I think they have, what, five, six, 18 and 28?"

It will be interesting to see what Andy Roddick does. He is two months from his 27th birthday. The years keep moving. Roddick for so long has been the one constant of American tennis, successor to the great ones, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Jim Courier.

Roddick has a Grand Slam title, the 2003 U.S. Open championship. He has two seconds, runner-up to Roger Federer here at Wimbledon in 2004 and '05. What he or American tennis doesn't have is a replacement.

"I'd love nothing more than for some 17- or 18-year-old to pop out and get in there, in the top 15 or top 10," Roddick said. "But you can't deal in hypotheticals."

Was it ironic or simply interesting that on another warm day at Wimbledon, Andy and 28-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, the Australian, standard bearers for their nations the past many years, each were winners?

It was expected of Roddick, seeded No. 6, but not of Hewitt -- a former Wimbledon champion -- who, having been idled by hip surgery the end of 2008, is No. 56 in the world rankings.

Hewitt upset No. 5 seed Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 7-5, 7-5, if you can describe as an upset a loss by a 6-foot-7 clay-court specialist to a player whose flat shots stay low on grass.

"I don't think it's surprising," was Roddick's observation. "He's certainly capable of playing very well on this surface."

Very well, indeed. Hewitt was the Wimbledon men's singles winner in 2002.

A post-match session with Roddick is as fascinating as watching him hit those 140 mph serves. He is quick-witted and aggressive, virtues that are advantageous on court and in the interview room. He can fire one at you in both places.

There's an English singer-songwriter named Rick Astley, who Roddick, according to his Twitter, had on his iPod.

"I busted my wife on some of her crappy music," Andy said, "and she brought up Rick Astley. I can't deny it. It's in my iPod. And I'll bet it's in your iPod, too, so shut up."

When a Brit told Roddick, "You can get arrested in this country for having Rick Astley on your iPod," Andy responded, "You can get arrested in my country for lying under oath, so ..."

So what does he think of the Phoenix Suns sending Shaq to the Cleveland Cavaliers?

"Well," Roddick insisted, "it works both ways. I mean, Phoenix cuts dollars, and the Cavs have a big man. I mean, it was pretty apparent in the playoffs with Dwight Howard [from Orlando] that that was the part missing. Keep him healthy. I think he and [Zydrunas] Ilgauskas will be able to spell each other.

"There's going to an adjustment period with a 7-3, 350-pounder in the middle ... but it's only going to make the team better."

What will make Andy Roddick better? Where might he be had Roger Federer not arrived at virtually the same time, Federer twice at Wimbledon and once in the U.S. Open beating him in finals?

It's one of those intriguing questions that can be debated forever. But you can't deal in the hypothetical. Andy told us that. And a lot more.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11892894
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports: Wimbledon Is In a 'Grass' by Itself

WIMBLEDON, England -- It's different here, even if the language is the same. Forget that idea the Brits are charming, diplomatic if you will. This is the original place where people tell it like it is, and no apologies to Howard Cosell -- or at least, how they think it is.

It was the third day of Wimbledon, the oldest of sporting competitions, going back to the 1870s, and the sun was shining -- that new roof over Centre Court still is unused -- and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club grounds were chock-a-block with fans, more than 40,000 of them.

Roger Federer and Serena Williams, as expected, won their second-round matches on this fine Wednesday and Maria Sharapova, still working her way back from that shoulder injury, lost hers.

Tennis on grass courts. A festival more than a sporting event.

The desire is to get tickets for the semifinals or finals, still more than a week away, but the best of Wimbledon is found in the early rounds, when the weather is fine and matches literally are taking place at every one of the 19 courts. It's a show worthy of anything on the stages of the West End theaters.

It's different here. The ad for Sure deodorant on the car of the District Line train shows a woman with an upraised arm, clutching a pole with the words, "...twice the protection against sweat." Not perspiration. Not wetness. Sweat.

They don't sweat the use of prepositions. The sign at an intersection near the tennis complex tells motorists there is "No waiting in Bathgate Road," while another nearby warns "No alcohol on the stands.''

If baseball were popular here, would a walk would mean putting a runner "in" first base?

What we call an ATM, they call a cash machine, not to be confused with Pat Cash, who was a machine of sorts when he won men's singles in 1987. What we describe as a cell phone, they list as mobile phone. A seafood market remains a fishmonger.

And what would some states' beverage control units think of giving away small cups of beer, "Honey Dew, the United Kingdom's organic beer," to people walking the mile from the Southfields station to the Wimbledon grounds?

Serena Williams drinks something else. At least in public. Gatorade, or as promoted in those new commercials, "G." When Serena, the No. 2 seed, sat down for an interview after an easy, 6-2, 6-1, triumph over Jarmila Groth, she was wearing an orange T-shirt with a Nike swoosh logo large enough to cover Texas.

Then from her gym bag she lifted a bottle of "G" and placed it near the microphone, as to be better seen on television.

The sports drink is distributed in Britain, but not as widely as, say, Twinings tea.

At age 27, winner of 10 Grand Slam championships, Serena is creating a television script of her life. "I call it 'my treatment,' so I'm working on my treatment now," she said. "I was going to do it Tuesday, but I started watching 'Dexter' and got sidetracked."

She's missed a few forehands in her life, now Serena has to worry about missing deadlines?

What Wimbledon has been missing early on is compelling stories. The roof has been a non-issue. Except for Sharapova, the favorites won. Maybe that's why in this country of legalized gambling an unfounded report a match may have been fixed took on a life of its own.

An Austrian named Jurgen Melzer defeated Wayne Odesnik, an American, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2, which, since Melzer is seeded, if at No. 26, and Odesnik is not, shouldn't have been terribly surprising.

But just before the match began, the bookmaker Betfair said it received more than six times as many wagers as it normally would, and Betfair spokesman Mark Davies said the odds on Melzer "shortened significantly."

There was a simple explanation. One of the television commentators, apparently for the BBC, pointed out before the first shot that Odesnik had a thigh injury. You can just picture the gamblers in the pubs or at home rubbing their hands today and greedily laying down a few quid on Melzer.

Betfair received about $980,000 in wagers on the match, Davies said; the average for a first-round match at Wimbledon is less than $163,000.

"It's being reported as potential corruption, but I don't see it that way at all," Davies told The Associated Press. "I doubt that there was any wrongdoing."

But there was plenty of hyperventilating, worry if you will. Or as it's described in England, people getting a twist in their knickers. Maybe Serena could work it into her script.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award -- given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football -- he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he has recently been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/06/24/wimbledon_is_in_a_grass_by_itself_96408.html
© RealClearSports 2009

CBSSports.com: Sharapova stumbles but optimistically looks toward future

By Art Spander
Special to CBSSports.com

WIMBLEDON, England -- She was the star of the show three years back in New York.

Maria Sharapova won the U.S. Open and the timing was perfect -- Nike was running a commercial that featured her as a woman of means, with accompaniment by the song I Feel Pretty from Westside Story.

Yep, Sharapova is going home early again but her passion to improve is as strong as ever. (Getty Images)   These days the only music that fits Sharapova is the blues. She has learned the hard way about an athlete's vulnerability, that at any moment she can be betrayed by her body.

That, as we've heard so many times, you're only one injury away from the end of a career.

Sharapova's career is still going, but her stay at this year's Wimbledon is over. In what accurately can be described as a comeback, Sharapova hasn't come back far enough.

Given a gift seed of 24 because of her presence rather than her recent record, Sharapova was beaten Wednesday in the second round, 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, by Gisela Dulko of Argentina.

Tennis is a tough sport on young women. Virtually all the great ones of late -- Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Serena Williams, all except the remarkable Martina Navratilova -- have been hurt. For Sharapova, who won this tournament, who won the Australian, who won the U.S., it was a rotator cuff tear in her right shoulder -- disaster for a right-hander.

She missed the Beijing Olympics. She missed the U.S. Open a couple of weeks later. She kept hoping the shoulder would heal, but it did not, and in October, like so many major league pitchers who have incurred the same injury, Sharapova underwent surgery.

Now she's undergoing the process of re-establishing herself, a complex process when you've been away for months, as was Sharapova. Now she not only needs to find the forehand, she needs to find the confidence.

"You just move forward," was Sharapova's philosophical comment about the loss. "This is not an overnight process. It's going to take time, as much time as it needs, as much time as I need on court to get everything together."

Time, that precious element. Football and basketball are governed by a clock. Teams run out of time. Athletes run out of time. Sharapova is only 24, but she has been playing for years. She used to look behind her at all the new faces entering the game. Now she must peer ahead, toward the players in front of her, toward the possible decline of her game.

This was only Sharapova's fourth event since rejoining the tour. Missing so many tournaments, she had fallen to 60th in the rankings but received a seeding because of her history.

Dulko, ranked 45th, had won just three games in two matches against Sharapova. But in this match, Dulko kept Sharapova off balance with drop shots, while Maria -- as would be natural for someone unable to play for a while -- struggled with the two essentials, the serve and the forehand.

Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004, but that seems a lifetime ago rather than five years. If understandably arrogant when she was on top of the sport, not only because of what she did on court but with the Canon and Nike promotions off the court, Sharapova seems humbled and chastened by her fall.

There was purity in her observations. She wasn't trying to fool the media. Or herself.

"I had so many easy balls, and I just made unforced errors from those," a candid Sharapova conceded. "I don't know if that's because I haven't played. You know, I've had those situations before, and those balls would be pieces of cake, but today they weren't. But it's OK."

Pieces of cake. An American idiom, presented by a Russian. Who in effect is an American. She's lived in Florida for 17 years and speaks flawless English, flawless in pronunciation, without any hint of an accent.

The injury, the recovery, the agonizing work of rebuilding have given Sharapova a new appreciation of many things, from trying to find perspective to finding joy in just hitting a tennis ball again.

"First of all, you think of injuries as basically preventing you from playing your sport," was her reflection. "But if you look at the bigger picture, there are so many things that can happen that can limit you to doing things in life or even having a life.

"If you put things in perspective when you get injured, yes, my career is a huge part of my life, and that's what I do on a daily basis. So is it frustrating when that goes away for a while? Absolutely. But if you have a good head on your shoulders, you know that there's a life to live."

Just being at Wimbledon, reminded Sharapova, is an accomplishment. When you can't compete for months and then are given the opportunity to appear in the most famous of tournaments, there is a certain satisfaction.

"I had the pleasure of playing on Centre Court again," she said. "I didn't play on it last year. Losses are tough, more here than any other tournament. But it's all right. I have many more years ahead of me."

The shoulder is fine now. It sounds as if the head is, too.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/11889066
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

SF Examiner: When Wimbledon gets a roof, the rain stays away

WIMBLEDON, ENGLAND — Manny Ramirez has nothing on this country, where one arrives to find a headline in the Times of London reading “Henderson guilty of doping ...”

He is the trainer of the Queen’s racehorse Moonlit Path.

What goes on out there? Manny? A-Rod? And now Moonlit Path, who failed a drug test in February?

Does the mare get a 50-day suspension?

A strange world sports has become. The U.S. Open in New York turns into a rainy mess and then offers up a surprise winner when Lucas Glover holds off Phil Mickelson and David Duval.

Over here, where there’s a new retractable roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court to keep out the rain, it’s warm and sunny.

“The roof looks really nice,” said Venus Williams, who Tuesday looked very good herself, with an opening-match win over Stephanie Voegele of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-2.

“The sun’s been shining,” Venus affirmed. “We haven’t had to use the roof yet. It’s kind of ironic. But I’m sure it will get some use.”

Undoubtedly. They’ve had some notoriously bad weather at Wimbledon in the roughly 130 years the tournament has been held, occasionally consecutive days without tennis or afternoons when only one match was finished.

Andy Roddick followed Venus onto Centre Court and needed four sets to get by Jeremy Chardy, 6-3, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3. He said he barely was aware of the roof, which was pushed together like a closed accordion at one end of the superstructure.

“You don’t notice that much,” Roddick said. “I hadn’t seen it before I walked out. They did a good job. It’s not this big, imposing thing.”

As is television, at least figuratively. Television, the networks, in effect forced Wimbledon to construct the roof. The decision came painfully.

They don’t like a lot of change in Britain. Hey, if it was good enough for Henry VIII, then why tinker with success?

Unless, TV figuratively raises another roof because it has to show that 1980 Borg-McEnroe 18-16 fourth-set tiebreaker a 42nd time because there’s no live tennis. So, Wimbledon has its roof.

What Venus has is five women’s singles championships, the last three in succession. It was 15 years ago at what then was called Oakland Coliseum Arena, Williams, a teenager from Compton with white beads in her hair, made her professional entrance.

“I remember,” Venus said. “I was so excited. Just growing up, my parents always told us we’d be winning Wimbledon. ... It was something I was preparing for. I think they were geniuses to put that in our heads.”

Roddick hasn’t won it. He twice reached the finals but had the misfortune to meet Roger Federer, in tennis, a genius in his own right. Maybe, now at age 26, Roddick, once trained by Brad Gilbert of Marin, makes it to the summit. When someone asked him to sum up his chances, Andy said, “Better now that I got through the first one.”

Venus, too, is through the first one.

“It was pretty straight forward,” she said of the victory.

Venus turned 29 last week. Wimbledon is her great stage. “I obviously feel very good here,” she said with no real explanation, “and I take advantage of that feeling.”

I wonder how Moonlit Path is feeling these days? Probably thought she was given flaxseed oil.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-When-Wimbledon-gets-a-roof-the-rain-stays-away-48967921.html
Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company