EVERT AND NORMAN

Tennis champ Chris Evert and golf legend Greg Norman have split just 15 months after they wed - because neither wanted to move out of their own home.

Mum-of-three Chris had kept the Florida mansion she shared with her exhusband, despite Greg's pad being even more flash, and his having carried out big renovations ready for her to move in.

A friend said: "Chris hated the idea of living in the same place Greg shared with Laura, his wife of 25 years."

The couple, both 54, confirmed they had split but promised to "remain friends".

IT'S STILL NOT ABOUT YOU, SERENA

Serena Williams was accentuating the positive on Sunday after her return to singles action for the first time since her rant [This was no rant! It was a physical threat.]at a lineswoman at the U.S. Open last month.

The world number two was fined a record $10,000 for the verbal assault on the official during her semi-final loss to Belgian Kim Clijsters in New York, and could still face further punishment after an investigation into the incident [Not likely. Tennis officials would rather look the other way.].

Williams, who has since apologised [ belatedly] to the official, could face a grand-slam ban if the incident is deemed a "major offence" by investigators.

The Australian and French Open champion said she thought it would be inappropriate to comment about the investigation while it was continuing, but suggested that her enthusiasm for the game was undimmed by the incident.

Serena, this isn't about YOU!

It's OUR beautiful game and you have made it ugly!

MURRAY'S WRIST

As expected Andy Murray’s problems with inflamed tendons in his left wrist have forced the world no.3 to pull out of next week’s Rakuten Japan Tennis Championships in Tokyo and the Scot’s participation in the upcoming Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 the following week remains uncertain.

Although MRI scans have shown 22 year-old Murray is suffering no long-term damage to his non-racket arm, he is determined not to endanger his chances of contesting either the calendar ending ATP World Tour Championships at London’s 02 Arena or next January’s Australian Open where he is determined to mount a concerted campaign to win his first major title.

MURRY - SORE WRIST

World number three Andy Murray has withdrawn from next week's Japan Open due to a wrist injury, the Briton said on his website.

Murray suffered the injury at last month's U.S. Open and aggravated the problem in Britain's Davis Cup tie against Poland on Sept. 18.

He will sit out the Oct. 5-11 Tokyo event on the advice of doctors, a statement on his website (www.andymurray.com) said.

His withdrawal will come as a further blow to tourmanent organisers following world number one Roger Federer's cancellation due to fatigue.

U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro will assume top seed status at the $1.3 million event.

REUTERS

MEN'S RANKINGS

NALBANDIAN RETURNS

Former world No. 3 and 2002 Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian will make his comeback from hip surgery in an exhibition tournament in Buenos Aires in December.

The Argentine, who had surgery in May, will be joined in the tournament on the clay courts of the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club by Chile's Fernando Gonzalez, Spaniard Carlos Moya, Russian Marat Safin, Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis and compatriot Juan Monaco.

Nalbandian plans to return to the ATP circuit in January in Sydney where he will defend his title and play in the Australian Open.

REUTERS

SERENA'S TAMPAX COMMERCIAL RELEASED

"If I could, I would take this &%$#@! Tampax and shove it down your &%$#@! ******* and kill you," Williams said."I swear to God I'm... going to take this &%$#@! Tampax and shove it down your &%$#@! *******, you hear that? I swear to God, bitch!"

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

As the 642nd shot of the rally floated high above her head, Vicki Nelson decided it was time to go for a winner.

“I thought I was going to go crazy,” Nelson told reporters after the match. “No matter what I did with the ball, she kept getting it back.”

She added: “It took me a long time to get up the nerve to come in, but she finally hit a short lob and I put it away — forever.”

Twenty-five years ago, on Sept. 24, 1984, Nelson and Jean Hepner, who were ranked No. 93 and No. 172 in the world, engaged in a 29-minute, 643-shot rally that remains the longest point played in a professional tennis match.

For comparison, during a match last month, Andy Murray and Julien Benneteau had a rally that lasted 53 shots, and it was the longest either of them could remember playing in competition.

The rally between Nelson and Hepner occurred in the first round of the $50,000 Virginia Slims-sponsored Ginny tournament at the Raintree Swim and Racquet Club in Richmond, Va., with Nelson finally prevailing, 6-4, 7-6 (11).

The 6-hour-31-minute marathon was itself the longest match in tennis history for nearly 20 years and remains the longest match completed on a single day. (In the 2004 French Open, Fabrice Santoro defeated Arnaud Clément in 6:33. That match, however, was suspended by darkness in the fifth set, so the final 1:55 was played the next day.)

Both Nelson and Hepner seem vaguely embarrassed that their names are in the record books.

“Even now, just thinking about it, my stomach is starting to hurt,” Hepner said. “I had a lot going on in my personal life at that time and I was trying to turn my career around and it was getting tougher to do. But I didn’t stay out there for six hours to get attention; I just wanted to win that match badly.”

Hepner, who was then 25, retired from the sport soon after and now lives in Redwood City, Calif. She is a teacher, property manager and competitive chess player, but only rarely plays tennis and no longer has any connections to the professional tennis world.

Nelson, who goes by Nelson-Dunbar after marrying, lives in Medina, Ohio, and remains involved in the sport. Her husband, Keith Dunbar, was a professional tennis coach and their 13-year-old son, Jacob, was the top-ranked player in the country in the 12-and-under division last year. Their son Ethan, 17, wants to play Division I tennis in college next year, and their 10-year-old daughter, Emily, has just begun playing.

The rally that put Nelson-Dunbar and Hepner in the record books came at set point for Hepner, who was ahead, 11-10, in the second-set tie breaker, which lasted 1:47 on its own.

“There was tons of lobbing,” Nelson-Dunbar said. “I would try to come in and she’d lob me again.”

After winning the point, Nelson-Dunbar collapsed with cramps in her legs. The chair umpire, who apparently maintained consciousness throughout the 643-stroke point, actually called a time-violation warning, but Nelson-Dunbar pulled it together and got back to the baseline to begin the next point.

How does a point go on for 29 minutes before one player or the other hits a winner or makes a mistake?

“We were both pretty much standing on the baseline lobbing,” Nelson-Dunbar said.

Hepner recalled, “I was just really concentrating and was very consistent.”

Two points later, Nelson-Dunbar closed out the match and apologized to the lines officials for its length.

“I felt so bad for them,” she said. “They were sitting out there so long, and they must have been falling asleep.”

Hepner said she had no idea the match had dragged on for more than six hours. “There’s time distortion when you are in the alpha state — like a hypnotic state,” she said. “I had no idea that six and a half hours had passed.”

John Packett, who covered the match for The Richmond Times-Dispatch, had the foresight to keep track of the strokes, explaining, “I started counting because the rallies were going so long, you had to figure, Who knows how long these points are going to last?”

Packett, who covered tennis and other sports for The Times-Dispatch for nearly 40 years, recalled the match as dull, yet strangely compelling.

“I’m not sure why I even watched it,” he said. “I’m glad I did, since it turned out to be a historic match, but it wasn’t one of the highlights of my journalistic career.”

Hugh Waters, a former tennis coach and the owner of the Raintree club, remembered: “I had a lot of people coming up to me at the tournament saying the match was ridiculous, but I always jumped on them. It takes guts to do what they did.

“People don’t understand the mental aspect of the game: this was a battle of wills and real tennis fans like me could appreciate it.”

Nelson-Dunbar turned 22 minutes after the match ended, but she went to bed without celebrating because she had to play again that afternoon.

Before calling it a night, she called Keith Dunbar, who was then her boyfriend.

“She told me it was the worst day of her life,” he recalled. “I asked her if she lost, and she said no, she won, but she had just gotten off the court. I told her to imagine how Jean felt.”

In her next match, Nelson-Dunbar was ushered out of the tournament by Michaela Washington, 5-7, 7-5, 6-0. “I was really bad — I could barely move that day,” Nelson-Dunbar remembered.

She earned $775 in prize money for the week, and Hepner, who stayed with a local family during the tournament to reduce travel costs, took home $475 for her efforts, or about $73 an hour on court.

Among the astonishing elements to the match was this: If Hepner had won the epic rally, she would have forced a third set, and who knows how long the match might have lasted.

DAVE SEMINARA

NYTIMES

POINTS

The top five players -- Del Potro must now be included in that group -- will have no less than three weeks off after the Open before returning to the ATP wars and, while most of them are signed to play at least four events, Rafael Nadal's plans are not yet clear.

He's recovering from an abdominal injury and is signed into only Shanghai (Oct. 12-18), Paris and the Masters Cup in London.

Here's a player by player breakdown:

* 1. Federer. Has 11,240 ranking points with 1,400 to defend the rest of the year, including 500 at Basel and 450 from Madrid during 2008. He'll reappear Oct. 5 at Tokyo, then play Basel, Paris and Masters Cup. He's currently 1,695 points ahead of No. 2 Nadal, but Nadal has 700 fewer points to defend. There are approximately 5,000 points left out there among Masters Cup, Paris, Basel, Tokyo, Shanghai and Valencia.

* 2. Nadal. Has 8,845 ranking points with 700 to defend the rest of the year, including 450 from Madrid and 250 from Paris. His scheduled return to play is Oct. 12 at Shanghai, but that's subject to his recovery from injury.

* 3. Andy Murray. Has 8,390 ranking points with a whopping 2,350 to defend the rest of 2009, including 1,000 for winning Madrid last year, 600 from Masters Cup and 500 at St. Petersburg. He's going to have a difficult time holding onto No. 3 by year's end. He's scheduled back at Tokyo with Shanghai, Valencia, Paris and Masters Cup on his dance card.

* 4. Novak Djokovic. Has 7,480 ranking points with 1,840 to defend the rest of the season, including 1,300 for winning Masters Cup. On his schedule is Shanghai, Basel, Paris, Masters Cup.

* 5. Del Potro. Has 6,825 ranking points with 1,200 to defend the rest of the season, including 250 at Madrid. He'll play Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris and Masters Cup.

If you subtract the points Djokovic and Del Potro have to defend the rest of this season from their current totals, Djokovic would still be ranked No. 4, but by only 15 points ahead of Del Potro, who has a serious chance to rise to No. 3 by the end of the year.

Charles Bricker

WHAAAAATTTTTTT???????

ALL ABOUT HER

 

There's no chance Serena will be suspended from one or more future Grand Slams, a ruling currently being pondered by the International Tennis Federation. The TV networks simply won't allow it. Serena is a bigger story than ever, certain to cause a buzz wherever she goes. It won't necessarily be a negative buzz, either. When she spent Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York, she reportedly moved cheerily through the celebrity world she so desperately covets. I'm sure someone said to her, "Girl, you went off!" - with hearty laughter all around.

As for how Serena handled the whole thing, well, that's an entirely different story. More than once in the aftermath of her vicious language toward a lineswoman, who had called her for a foot fault that put her one point away from losing the match (Williams lost the match when the umpire assessed her another point for the dissent), she described herself as a "sincere" person. That is hardly the case. Her reaction to this crisis was the very definition of insincerity.

First, during her postmatch interview, she completely distanced herself from blame, speaking in absurdly general terms. Then she let one of her handlers draw up a nebulous written statement, explaining how "everyone could truly see the passion I have for my job" and how "I look forward to continuing the journey." I was surprised there wasn't some sort of toothpaste ad at the end.

She should have been right back at the National Tennis Center that following day, demanding some air time with CBS. She needed to get before the cameras with a heartfelt apology to the lineswoman, Clijsters, the fans at courtside and especially young kids who were watching on television. Instead, she and her handlers issued an "amended" written statement, containing the proper words but offering no glimpse of Serena in person, and she was off to her nightlife frivolity.

By the time she came into the interview room, following her women's doubles title with sister Venus on Monday, a USTA official was there to monitor the scene, making sure that all but the initial questions would be about doubles. (Imagine the paranoia that goes into that kind of thinking; Serena needs to explain herself, and the USTA would prefer some sort of gag order.)

Serena decided, on her own, that she could handle the pertinent questions. She did all right, but once again seemed to lack conviction. When she insisted, again, that she couldn't remember what she'd said to that lineswoman, she lost a ton of credibility. Serena has spent her whole life trying to act like a champion on court, hiding her rage against all forms of injustice, and she finally snapped. I think she would recall the words quite well.

So there you go. Hardly a mention of Kim Clijsters or Juan Martin del Potro, the most worthy champions, but that is the columnist's role: Write what the people are talking about. Ugliness, once again, has ascended to the forefront.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/15/SPJD19NNIJ.DTL#ixzz0RHg4l6RS

LOST IN THE STORM

Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro bludgeoned Rafael Nadal 6-2 6-2 6-2 at the U.S. Open on Sunday to reach his first grand-slam final.

The sixth seed overpowered the Spaniard in two hours, 20 minutes of outstanding hitting to set up a final against either five-times champion Roger Federer or fourth seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia.

"It's very difficult for me to speak at this moment. This is my favourite tournament and I can't believe this moment," a beaming Del Potro said in a courtside interview.

"I am very close to my dream, to win this tournament. I hope I can do it. I am very happy to be here. Tomorrow I will fight until the final point, if I win or lose, I think this is the best moment of my life."

Nadal went into the match struggling with a right abdominal injury and his service speed was clearly down, allowing Del Potro to be aggressive on his returns.

SERENA SWEARS SHE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING

"If I could, I would take this &%$#@! ball and shove it down your &%$#@! throat and kill you," Williams said."I swear to God I'm... going to take this &%$#@! ball and shove it down your &%$#@! throat, you hear that? I swear to God, bitch"

SERENA PENALTY: 3%

Serena Williams was fined $10,000 Sunday for a profanity-laced tirade directed at a U.S. Open line judge, and an investigation is under way to determine whether there should be additional punishment.

The $10,000 penalty — not quite 3 percent of the $350,000 in prize money Williams earned by reaching the semifinals at Flushing Meadows — is the maximum on-site fine that can be issued for unsportsmanlike conduct at a Grand Slam tournament.

The U.S. Open said in a statement that the Grand Slam Committee Administrator will "determine if the behavior of Ms. Williams warrants consideration as a major offense for which additional penalties can be imposed."

ANOTHER VIEW

Trailing 4-6 5-6 15-30, Williams launched into a second serve but the bespectacled lineswoman sitting at the baseline held up her finger to call her on a foot-fault -- meaning the American had served a double-fault to go match point down.

Astounded by the verdict, Williams flipped out and marched to the official shouting. She waved her racket ominously in the lineswoman's direction and then shook a ball in her clenched fist as she threatened "to shove it down" her throat.

"I swear to God I'm... going to take this... ball and shove it down your... throat, you hear that? I swear to God. You better be glad -- you better be glad that I'm not, I swear." Williams told the line-judge in her expletive-laden rant.

Having already received a warning earlier in the match for smashing a racket, Williams was handed an automatic point penalty for a second violation which gave Clijsters the match 6-4 7-5.

The Los Angeles Times was in no doubt about exactly what punishment should be meted out.

"Let's get right to the point. Serena Williams should be fined heavily and suspended for a while from the pro tennis tour. Let's see what kind of guts tennis, a sport normally soft on discipline, has this time. If she were a football player, she'd be out for the season."

EVERY WORD WRITTEN BY SERENA

"Last night, everyone could truly see the passion I have for my job. Now that I have had time to gain my composure, I can see that while I don't agree with the unfair line call, in the heat of battle I let my passion and emotion get the better of me and as a result handled the situation poorly," Williams said in a statement released Sunday by a public relations firm.

"I would like to thank my fans and supporters for understanding that I am human and I look forward to continuing the journey, both professionally and personally, with you all as I move forward and grow from this experience."

Unfortunately, the lies and obfuscation of PR are beginning to do their work.

RACKET AND SPIN

"All hell broke loose" is how original bad boy of tennis John McEnroe described drama queen Serena Williams as she went kicking and screaming out of the U.S. Open on Saturday.

Williams has made a cameo appearance in medical drama ER and lists acting as a hobby but she does not need to rely on a script to produce her own drama.

On Day 13 of the hardcourt major, wide-eyed fans at Flushing Meadows witnessed the latest episode to unfold around the 11-times grand slam champion.

Facing Kim Clijsters in a hotly anticipated semi-final showdown at the Open, an angry outburst from Williams resulted in one of the most bizarre endings to a match on a grand slam stage.

With the Belgian on the brink of victory, defending champion Williams was called for a foot-fault on a second serve to go match point down.

Astounded by the verdict, Williams immediately saw red and threateningly marched up to the official. She waved her racket ominously and thrust the ball into the lineswoman's face as she launched into a tirade.

"I swear to God I'm... going to take this... ball and shove it down your... throat, you hear that? I swear to God," Williams told the line-judge.

The lineswoman reported her to umpire Louise Engzell for verbal abuse. Having already received a warning earlier in the match for smashing a racket, Williams was handed an automatic point penalty for "unsportsmanlike conduct," giving Clijsters the match and a final date with Danish ninth seed Caroline Wozniacki.

Not since McEnroe was defaulted from a fourth round match against Mikael Pernfors at the 1990 Australian Open -- when he swore at the umpire, supervisor, and referee -- has a singles player suffered such an ignominious exit from such a high profile match.

But Williams remained unrepentant for her tirade even though the lineswoman told the chair umpire that she felt threatened.

"She says she felt threatened? She said this to you?" she asked the reporter who fielded the question.

"I've never been in a fight my whole life, so I don't know why she should have felt threatened."

The ball leaves her racket with a great deal of spin!

REUTERS

NOT SO SERENE, EH!!

"IF I COULD, I WOULD TAKE THIS ******** BALL AND SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR ****** THROAT AND KILL YOU" -Serena's threat to the linesman who called her footfault.

 

Of course, Serena 's denying everything, but the audience behind the linesman heard it all.

The interesting question is - will the USTA will take further action?

Probably, they'll run and hide, not wanting to be embroiled in all of the issues involved.

COST HITS THE ROOF

The cost of building a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium is too expensive and may not be practical for the U.S. Open, the head of the U.S. Tennis Association said Saturday.

A persistent drizzle over the last few days has created a scheduling nightmare for the Open, but USTA executive director Gordon Smith said a roof was not the answer.

"Would I love to have a roof? Absolutely," he said. "But it is certainly one of those situations where you have to really look at the practical aspects.

"In '07 we didn't have a single session rained out. In '08 we had one, and thus far, knock on wood, hopefully we'll only have one rained out in '09."

However, this is the second straight year the U.S. Open has been forced into a Monday finish because the rain came late in the tournament and gave organizers no wiggle room.

"Had they been earlier in the tournament, we wouldn't be in the position where we have to end on Monday," he said.

"So you weigh that against the potential costs of a roof on Ashe of $100 million or more, and it's a tough decision, especially when we're trying to figure out the best ways to utilize the revenues to promote our sport."

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