CBSSports.com: Oudin, Isner turn in memorable day, bright future for American tennis

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- It was the day that wouldn't end. It was an afternoon that became evening and offered American tennis a future as bright as the moon that eventually rose over Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Youth will be served -- and volleyed and backhanded.

First, Melanie Oudin, the wunderkind, and then John Isner tossed caution to what little wind there was on this historic day at Flushing Meadows and tossed the schedule of the U.S. Open upside down and inside out.

The 17-year-old Oudin, who's becoming adept at this sort of thing, upset Maria Sharapova 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, in 2 hours, 58 minutes on Saturday.

Then the 24-year-old Isner upset No. 5 seed Andy Roddick 7-6 (3), 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 7-6 (5) in 3 hours, 51 minutes.

They came back-to-back, the matches, nearly seven hours of tension, and for a sellout crowd of more than 24,000, there was such excitement that the spectators didn't want to leave.

Except two more matches, the evening program, were still to be played. And the fans who held tickets for those matches, which wouldn't begin until 10 p.m., not the announced 7 p.m., were waiting to get their seats. They had been watching the big TV screen in the plaza for more than three hours.

What they saw was the 6-foot-9 Isner smashing 39 aces and keep Roddick, who has the record for the fastest serve ever, 156 mph, off balance and out of sorts.

This after Oudin, who for comparison's sake is more than a foot shorter than Isner -- she's listed at 5-foot-6 -- kept coming at Sharapova with the aggression of a UFC fighter.

Two days earlier, Oudin had knocked off the No. 4 seed, Elena Dementieva, a Russian. Then she discombobulated Sharapova, the 2007 champ, the No. 29 seed, a Russian. Maria had 21 double faults. Next, in the fourth round Oudin will play Nadia Petrova, a Russian.

It sounds like Napoleon's campaign against the Czars in the 19th Century.

"I had every emotion possible," said Oudin. "I mean, I was crying. I was so happy and excited. I'm pretty sure I screamed after that last shot."

Which was a cross-court winner.

Isner's last shot was, of course, a monster serve in the fifth-set tiebreaker. Roddick hit it out.

"I had to play the match of my life to beat him," said Isner, referring to Roddick, who won this tournament in 2003 and two months ago took Roger Federer to a fifth set at Wimbledon, where there are no fifth-set tiebreakers, and lost 16-14.

"On this stage, this setting, I proved I can play with anybody."

We're only maybe eight miles from Broadway, 42nd Street, the Great White Way. You know the cliche, "You're going out there a kid, but you're coming back a star." Oudin and Isner have filled that role.

She's from Marietta, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, home-schooled so she could become the champion Melanie seems destined to be. He's from North Carolina but was a star at the University of Georgia. Must be something in the water down there.

Tobacco Road? How about Topspin Highway?

"There's a lot out of your hands, the way he plays," Roddick said of Isner, whom he had beaten twice in two previous matches, including a few weeks ago in the semifinal of the Washington, D.C., tournament.

"You can't teach 6-9," Roddick said of the angle and power of Isner's serve. "Sometimes you try to fight it off. But it's not like the majority of matches we play, where if you play well you win. He doesn't allow you to get into the match."

Isner contracted mononucleosis in the late spring and couldn't enter either the French Open or Wimbledon.

"I remember how ticked off I was at home," said Isner, "but it may have been a blessing in disguise. I took a month off, then started working hard and smart."

Oudin, who has "BELIEVE" embossed on the ankle of her multicolored tennis shoes, also credits her practice routines for success.

If you recall, after Melanie stunned Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon, Jankovic contended Oudin didn't have "the weapons," primarily a serve. What would anyone expect from a Munchkin? But she has staying power and courage.

"I think my biggest weapon can be mental toughness," said Oudin. "I developed it. I wasn't born with it."

Someone wondered if she'd been labeled a giant killer, although to her every opponent is rather enormous. "Yeah," she said, "a couple of people have called me that."

What you could have called Saturday's play in the Open was confused. The afternoon matches went so long and so deep into the evening that the women's competition between top seed Dinara Safina and Petra Kvitova was shifted from Ashe Court to Armstrong Court so the James Blake-Tommy Robredo match wouldn't be starting around midnight.

That's one of the unpredictable parts of tennis. You never know how long a match might run. The ones involving Oudin and Isner seemed to run forever, but they didn't mind. Neither did the fans on this wonderful long day's journey into night.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12162826
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: For Serena, a win isn't a win without dramatics

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- The threats went unfulfilled. There was no brawl. There were no angry words. Serena Williams did get irritated, but only with herself.

"Because," she explained, "I wasn't very happy with my performance."

As compared to the previous time when she wasn't very happy with Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, accusing her of cheating when they faced each other the end of May in the French Open.

That's when Serena growled at Martinez Sanchez across the net, "I'm going to get you in the locker room for that."

That day Serena whipped Martinez Sanchez, on the clay court, not off it, winning in three sets. On Friday, an ocean away, Williams shook herself out of lethargy and won 6-3, 7-5 in the third round of the U.S. Open.

This one closed with a handshake, followed later by a denial from Martinez Sanchez she even heard Serena's boast three months earlier in Paris.

In the first set that day, Serena ripped a ball that virtually everybody contended hit Martinez Sanchez, meaning Williams would have won the point. But after the ball plopped back in front of Serena, Martinez Sanchez said it hit her racquet, not her body.

Serena then complained to the chair umpire, who attempted to avoid any decision.

"I said, 'Did you ask her?'" Serena said that afternoon. "He said, 'Well, she's saying it didn't happen.' I looked her dead in the eye. 'Why? Just be honest, if the ball hit you or not.' I mean, hello, it totally hit her.

"She just looked down, and I just have no respect for anybody who can't play a professional game and be just be really professional out here."

Then, having lost the argument and shortly later the set in a match she would take 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, Serena told the umpire, "She better not come to the net again."

Strong words? "Well," Williams answered, "I am from Compton, you do know ..."

We do, although Serena now is based in Florida with older sister Venus. Martinez Sanchez, 27, is from Spain.

Asked if there were a repercussion from the French incident, if that's the proper description, Martinez Sanchez said, "No. I never think about it."

You can be certain Serena hasn't stopped thinking about it. When confronted Thursday after a doubles match, she said, "The ball hit her."

On Friday, wearing a post-match T-shirt upon which was printed, "You Can't Spell Dynasty Without Nasty," Williams was less direct.

When asked if she lost respect for players whom she considered cheaters, Serena was more politician than critic. "I can only speak for me," she said. "I try to be very professional, extremely professional in my job. That's what I'm here to do, and win, I hope."

Read between the lines, or specifically interpret between the quotes. At the French, Serena sneered at Martinez Sanchez's refusal to admit guilt. "I would never do that," Williams said. "I've never done that. I've never sunk so low ... because that's all I've ever been was extremely professional to anyone I've ever played."

Implying, what, Martinez Sanchez was not? "She's a tough player," was the Williams observation on Friday. "I was just trying to go out there and do my best. And I knew I had to be serious today."

Serena's the Drama Queen. With her it's usually something. In 2003 at the French, it was the "C" word again, cheating, when eventual champion Justine Henin raised her hand while Williams was serving and later denied it. At the 2004 U.S. Open. Serena got some awful line calls while losing to Jennifer Capriati. That led to acceptance of the Hawk-Eye electronic replay system.

On Friday, Serena, defending champion in the Open, offered some histrionics when she was down 3-1 in the second set.

"I got nasty today, but to myself," was the way Serena framed it. "I was screaming to myself because I wasn't very happy with my performance ... I have my own mental issues, and everyone has to battle themselves sometimes."

Serena's autobiography, On the Line, reached bookstores a few days ago. She discusses her insecurities, the depression after sister Yetunde Price was murdered and her dealing with a muscular body she finally has come to accept and appreciate.

When someone wondered about early reviews, Serena reminded, "I've been playing this [tournament], so I've been working. I haven't had the chance to see the reviews yet. I've been doing the job that I've been doing."

Which Friday included a victory in which she got mad at herself, not the opponent.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12158741
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

RealClearSports.com: Arnie: Long Live the King

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

He went after a course the way Muhammad Ali went after an opponent. Arnold Palmer didn't "play'' golf, he worked golf, attacked golf. He was fearless but not flawless. He was human.

He was The King. He'll always be The King.

A great nickname, a descriptive nickname, bestowed on so very few, upon Richard Petty, upon a long-ago San Francisco 49er running back, Hugh McElhenny; upon Elvis Presley, of course; and upon Arnold Daniel Palmer.

You didn't have to like golf to like Arnie, but if you did like golf it was so much the better. The man made the game what it is, a multi-billion-dollar operation, show business with bogeys, a television show that runs from one end of the calendar to the other.

Arnie reaches 80 next week -- strokes, not years. America will celebrate. The world will celebrate. He's the hero who stayed humble. As Curtis Strange, a great golfer himself, was to observe, "Arnold Palmer makes everybody feel like he's their best friend.''

Tiger Woods may be in control of the Tour these days, but he's merely leasing it. Arnie always will be the owner.

Ben Hogan was the grinder. "It's in the dirt,'' he told those who wanted to be champions, implying one had to hit shot after shot in practice. Sam Snead was the graceful one, the "Sweet Swinger.'' Jack Nicklaus, who followed Arnie, was the perfectionist, the pragmatist.

One year at Pebble Beach, the tournament now called the AT&T Pro-Am but then called the Bing Crosby, Jack hit his tee shot on the famous par-five 18 into Carmel Bay. The next year, leading, Nicklaus teed off with an iron, not a wood. The late, great sports columnist Jim Murray, almost insulted, wrote, "Arnold Palmer wouldn't use an iron to press his pants.''

Arnie never played it safe. If there's a lot of Nicklaus in Tiger Woods, there's a great deal of Palmer in Phil Mickelson. They want to do it their way, the challenging way, the exciting way.

Arnie tried to make a two on every hole. He spent three rounds attempting to drive the short par-4 first hole at Cherry Hills in Denver in the 1960 U.S. Open, failing each time. But the fourth time he succeeded, made birdie and won his only Open.

He lost in a playoff to Nicklaus in 1962 at Oakmont. It was my wedding day. The ceremony was delayed until the final putt, which produced Jack's first pro win. Arnie sensed what was about to happen. "Now that the big kid's out of the cage,'' Palmer said about the 22-year-old Nicklaus, "look out.''

Arnie was beaten the next year, 1963, in another playoff, at The Country Club. And then came the most aggravating, and the most symbolic, at San Francisco's Olympic Club in 1966.

I was a rookie golf writer for the San Francisco Chronicle and properly awed by Palmer. He had a 7-shot lead over playing partner Billy Casper with nine holes to play, a 6-shot lead with six holes to play. But Arnie was chasing the Open record, and the next thing we knew he had to make a 4-footer on the 72 hole just to tie Casper, who won the playoff the next day.

More than 40 years I've watched and interviewed and followed Arnie as he grimaced after missing yet another putt, as he wandered over to the edge of the fairway and smiled at every woman in the gallery, as he reached out to tap a child on the head and then willingly signed an autograph for everyone who asked.

Arnie loved golf. We loved Arnie. The course was his stage, his existence.

Nicklaus was never more than a golfer, if a brilliant one. Arnie was an actor. Jack couldn't stay when he no longer was competitive. Arnie maybe stayed too long. Or did he?

Three years ago, Arnie, struggling, announced it was time to stop playing competitively.

"I've been doing this for a long time,'' he said, "and first of all, to stand out there and not be able to make something happen is very traumatic in my mind. The people want to see a good shot, and you know it and you can't give it to them. That's when it's time.''

He left competitive golf, and we were left only with visions of the way it used to be.

There he stands, the young man out of the west Pennsylvania coal country, with the blacksmith arms and the blue-collar background. Arnold Palmer is young again. And so are we.

Long live The King.

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. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/09/03/arnie_long_live_the_king_96473.html
© RealClearSports 2009

CBSSports.com: Diminutive Oudin making noise as next great American hope

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- She's a sporting cliche, the All-American girl, small but daring, confident but humble. She's an Irving Berlin song, a Norman Rockwell painting. Most of all, Melanie Oudin is the hope that the United States will have a part in the future of women's tennis.

Two months ago, Oudin stunned the world's No. 6 player, Jelena Jankovic, in the third round at Wimbledon, drawing attention and more than a few disparaging remarks from a skeptical Jankovic, who contended sourly of Oudin, "She doesn't have any weapons."

Whatever she has, courage, desire, the quickest feet this side of Usain Bolt -- all right, that's an exaggeration -- the 17-year-old Oudin used it to upset Elena Dementieva, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, Thursday in the second round of the U.S. Open.

And Dementieva, No. 4 in the rankings and in the seeds, the 2008 Beijing Olympic champion, was gracious, as opposed to being bitter.

"I think," Dementieva said about Oudin, "is very talented. She is not afraid to play. She was very positive, going for shots, for winners. This is just the beginning."

America can only wish. In women's tennis of late, there's been Serena Williams and sister Venus Williams and, well, the days of Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati seem about as far away as the Andromeda galaxy.

For years we've been wondering who's next, if anybody's next, since virtually every top young female player is from Russia or Serbia. It's too early yet to say, "Stop wondering," because even if Oudin is the third-best player from the United States, she's only the 70th best player in the world.

Or was before Thursday, when she picked up a lot of points in addition to picking up the spirits of people in the U.S. Tennis Association.

Oudin, from Marietta, Ga., the suburbs of Atlanta, is a mere 5-foot-6, but as the saying goes, the tennis ball doesn't know or care how big you are.

She's a hustler, in the positive sense of the word. If she were a baseball player, she'd always be taking the extra base, ramming into the catcher on close plays at the plate.

"I had to win the match," Oudin said. "[Dementieva] didn't give it to me. I played with no fear. She's expected to win. I went out and played my game."

Which is one of attacking. None of this wussy, tentative stuff. At 5-foot-11, Dementieva is half a head taller than Oudin. Yet Oudin didn't play defensively.

Asked whether she lost the match, Dementieva responded, "No, she won it."

And Oudin won the hearts of the home-country fans at her first appearance in the big house, 24,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium. First appearance as a player. Oudin had been there before, but only watching. Now she's the one being watched.

With "Believe" stamped on the outside ankle of both shoes, a suggestion of boyfriend Austin Smith, Oudin was making believers of a great many.

She did have physical problems with an aching iliotibial (IT) band on the outside of her left leg, bringing tears and a trainer who applied treatment and then a heavy wrap. But Oudin kept going.

"I had strained my IT band a little bit," she said, "and it had been getting better. I think today, kind of with everything going on, first time on Ashe, I was beating No. 4 in the world, about to beat her -- I think it just started cramping a little bit ... but I'll be fine for the next match."

Oudin said she's idolized Serena and Venus since Oudin was 7 or 8. Another she looks up to, well down to, is 5-foot-5 Justine Henin, who retired a year ago after reaching the top of the rankings.

"She proved you don't have to be 6-foot something," Oudin said of Henin, "to be No. 1 in the world."

That's a place Oudin has talked of going. It doesn't hurt to have a dream. Especially when you're a teenager. Oudin has a fraternal twin, Katherine, who, although a tennis player of sorts, is "totally opposite; she's going to college, wants to be an obstetrician."

Melanie was home-schooled, which is the way of Americans, girls or boys, who want to be a factor in tennis. The Europeans turn pro young, so if you don't want to fall behind, you've got to learn geometry by finding angles for the forehand.

"I think it's cool to be called the third-best American behind the Williams sisters," Oudin said.

Mary Joe Fernandez, the TV commentator and U.S. Fed Cup captain, sent Oudin out in a match in February and was delighted.

"She knows how to win," Fernandez said. "Once she gets hold of a point, she pretty much knows what to do."

And that's never let it go. As Jankovic and Dementieva have learned.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12153974
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.

CBSSports.com: Gasquet falls to Nadal, happy to be back from suspension

By Art Spander
The Sports Xchange/CBSSports.com

NEW YORK -- One had been in suspended animation, unable to play because of an injury. The other had been merely suspended, banned from tennis because he failed a drug test.

Tennis wasn't the only focus Wednesday as Rafael Nadal, who didn't play from early June to August because of sore knees, defeated Richard Gasquet, coming off his suspension, in straight sets.

The Gasquet case is a strange one. An independent anti-doping tribunal concluded that Gasquet had ingested 1.46 micrograms of cocaine, "no more than a grain of salt," by kissing a woman he had just met in a Miami night club in March.

A bit preposterous, perhaps, but it saved Gasquet's unfulfilled career.

His two-year suspension, imposed in May, was reduced to 2½ months, and so Wednesday, there was Gasquet in his element and a short while later out of the U.S. Open. But like one of Liz Taylor's marriages, it was nice while it lasted.

Lacking preparation and facing a man he had never beaten in six previous attempts, Gasquet was beaten 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 by Nadal.

"I don't have any pain," said a happy Nadal, who because of his absence slipped from second to third in the rankings. For a while in 2008, he had been No. 1.

If Gasquet has pain, it is mental.

"It was impossible for me," Gasquet said. "If at the beginning of the year some will [ask whether] you will win four Grand Slams or you will be tested for cocaine, for sure I will tell them I will win four Grand Slams."

Gasquet said he even stopped working on his game during his time off. "Try practicing," he said quietly. "If you have this kind of thing, you won't."

That made Wednesday's result entirely predictable. The judgments against him and later in favor of him definitely were not.

Gasquet tested positive in a urine sample in March after withdrawing from the Sony Ericsson Open at Key Biscayne, Fla., because of a shoulder injury.

Unable to play, the 23-year-old Frenchman went with friends to a club in Miami to see a French DJ perform at a dance music festival. The tribunal pointed out that the club "was notoriously associated with use of illegal recreational drugs, including cocaine."

Gasquet told the tribunal hearing, held in London in June, that he kissed a woman known only as Pamela, and the tribunal determined it was likely she had consumed cocaine that night, although there was no direct evidence.

Also, the tribunal wrote this in its report: "We have found the player to be a person who is shy and reserved, honest and truthful, and a man of integrity and good character."

The guy went to a place notoriously associated with drug use, met a woman, started kissing her and then was judged shy and reserved?

Is it actually possible to ingest cocaine by kissing someone? One official with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said it was "highly unlikely." He did not say impossible.

As did Gasquet when asked what it was like when he was told of the suspension by the International Tennis Association. He also used "incredible."

The tribunal, apparently watching too many Alfred Hitchcock movies, said Gasquet was "on the balance of probability, contaminated with cocaine by Pamela" and therefore not significantly at fault for the doping offense.

"We take into account that the amount of cocaine in the player's body was so small that if he had been tested only a few hours later, his test result would be likely to have been negative," the tribunal ruled.

Wait until all those accused steroid users -- Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro -- find out about that.

Gasquet also argued at the hearing that his positive test came after he withdrew from Key Biscayne. Cocaine is a banned drug for athletes in competition. Of course, five-time Grand Slam winner Martina Hingis tested positive for cocaine after losing at Wimbledon and was suspended until Sept. 30, her 29th birthday.

She's finished. Gasquet is not. "I'm a tennis player," he contended. "That's my life -- to be on tour."

A Wimbledon semifinalist in 2007, crushing Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals and then, of course, losing to Roger Federer in the semis, Gasquet has a wicked one-handed backhand, rare in modern tennis if not unique.

With only one event since April, he was overmatched against Nadal on Wednesday, explaining, "It's hard to play well, to be fit, to be ready, especially when you have to play against a guy like Nadal."

The discussion of suspension and absence continued until a U.S. Tennis Association official ordered, "Only questions about the tennis."

What questions? Gasquet was down 3-0 like that, lost the first set in 35 minutes and lost the match in 1 hour, 41 minutes.

The ITF and World Anti-Doping Association want his penalty reinstated. Despite the specious evidence in his favor, that's doubtful.

"In my mind, I'm happy," Gasquet said. "I can play on center court. I saw the last two Grand Slams [French Open and Wimbledon] on TV. Even though I lost here, I'm happy to get to play."

You might say he hasn't kissed off the season.

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http://www.cbssports.com/tennis/story/12148571
© 2009 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved.