The dazzling U.S. Open run by American teenager Melanie Oudin ended abruptly on Wednesday in a hail of unforced errors, while Roger Federer was tested but marched into his 22nd consecutive grand slam semi-final.
Ninth-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki was steady, if unspectacular, in defeating the unseeded Oudin 6-2 6-2 to reach the semi-finals of the year’s final grand slam.
“I’ve had a great run this tournament,” said the 17-year-old Oudin. “I’m a perfectionist, so… losing isn’t good enough for me. Today I was a little bit fragile.”
Top seed Federer overcame an inspired comeback effort by Robin Soderling to beat the 25-year-old Swede 6-0 6-3 6-7 7-6, winning the final-set tiebreaker 8-6.
“It was so close toward the end,” said Federer, who has beaten Soderling in all 12 career meetings, including at Wimbledon and the French Open this year.
“It’s a great relief to come through. He started to play better and better as the match went on. I knew he was going to be tough but the beginning was bit too easy.
“All of sudden he found his way into the match.”
In the semi-finals, the five-times defending champion will face fourth seed Novak Djokovic, who advanced with a 7-6 1-6 7-5 6-2 victory over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, the 10th seed.
Elsewhere, Belgium’s unseeded Yanina Wickmayer dispatched Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko 7-5 6-4 and set up a semi-final encounter with Wozniacki.
But the big news of Day 10 at Flushing Meadows was the quiet elimination of Oudin, the diminutive Georgian who failed to respond to the urging of the 23,000 fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
FOREHAND FALTERS
Oudin, who beat fourth seed Elena Dementieva and former champion Maria Sharapova en route to the quarter-finals, had 43 unforced errors during the 88-minute match against Wozniacki and only seven winners from her chief weapon, the forehand.
“I started off slow,” said Oudin, ranked number 70. “I wasn’t able to come back. She’s such a strong player. She doesn’t give you anything for free. She plays incredible defense, makes me hit a thousand balls.
“I don’t know what else I could have done. I could have been more consistent and been more patient but she really made me think out there and made me have to hit a winner to win the point. I was a little too impatient.”
The 19-year-old Wozniacki kept the pressure on Oudin, registering only five winners, while letting her opponent spray the ball all around the stadium on a blustery night.
A Philadelphia man who accused former Indianapolis Colts receiver Marvin Harrison(notes) of shooting him has died from wounds sustained in another shooting.
Philadelphia police say Dwight Dixon died Friday. Dixon, 33, had been hospitalized since being wounded multiple times by an unknown shooter in July.
Dixon was convicted in January of lying to police about the earlier shooting, which happened April 28, 2008. His lawyers say Dixon initially did not say Harrison shot him because he was afraid of him.
Investigators determined that a gun owned by Harrison was used in that shooting but declined to file charges because of conflicting accounts of who pulled the trigger.
The Colts released Harrison in February. He remains a free agent.
Highlanders Football Club of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, has fired coach Madinda Ndlovu over his failure to restore the once-competitive team’s fortunes.
Ndlovu led the team to just 7 victories in 21 games, leaving it in 10th place in the 16-team Premier Soccer League and mathematically out of the running for the title.
He replaced Methembe Ndlovu, sacked after the last season when Highlanders finished in seventh place. Highlanders last won the PSL title in 2006.
Highlanders Chairman Themba Ndlela told reporter Marvellous Mhlanga-Nyahuye that the club and Ndlovu parted ways amicably, adding a new coach will be named before season’s end.
BALTIMORE — As if things weren’t bad enough for the Baltimore Orioles, who just clinched their 12th consecutive losing season: On Wednesday, a temporary fence and police tape surrounded the spot that had been occupied by a monument to one of the team’s all-time greats, Cal Ripken.
The large aluminum No. 8 outside the Camden Yards ballpark was stolen Tuesday night by four young men who were arrested about two hours later, Baltimore police said. The monument was recovered.
Surveillance cameras captured video of the men removing the 4-foot monument and placing it in the bed of a pickup truck, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Police put out an all-points bulletin, and the men were arrested in east Baltimore after officers responding to a disorderly conduct report spotted the object in the truck bed, Guglielmi said.
The Orioles have a series of aluminum monuments depicting retired uniform numbers outside one entrance to the downtown ballpark. They include Brooks Robinson’s 5, Jim Palmer’s 22 and Eddie Murray’s 33.
The suspects were identified as Gary Parker, 19, of Baltimore; Matthew Rayner, 19, of Chase; Patrick Reynolds, 18, of Middle River; and Jason Stoneberner, 19, of Essex.
They were being held at the city’s Central Booking and Intake Center on charges of felony theft and destruction of property, police said. There was no indication they had attorneys.
Police returned the monument to the Orioles on Wednesday after taking photos and examining it for evidence, Guglielmi said.
“I don’t know if they’ll be able to reuse it,” he said.
Orioles spokesman Monica Barlow said the team had no comment about the theft because it was a police matter. She said she did not know when the monument would be reinstalled. The Orioles began a five-game road trip with a 10-0 drubbing by Boston Tuesday night, their 82nd loss of the season, and will return home Monday.
Ripken had no comment on the theft, said his spokesman, John Maroon.
Allen Iverson has finally found a home this offseason and he will take a one-year deal with the Memphis Grizzlies.
“God Chose Memphis as the place that I will continue my career. I met with Mr. Heinsley, Chris Wallace and my next head coach Lionel Hollins,” Iverson wrote on his Twitter page.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal initially reported the signing.
Iverson, 34 years old, will take what has been widely reported as an offer for $3.5 million with incentives.
Iverson was previously mentioned in connection with teams like the Bobcats, Knicks and Heat among others this offseason.
Iverson finished last season with the Pistons and although he was on Detroit’s playoff roster, he was not an active participant, and was he actually with the team. He averaged 17.5 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds last season. He was sent to the Pistons in a swap last season that sent Chauncey Billups to the Nuggets.
Sporting News’ Sean Deveney reported earlier this week that Iverson to Memphis looked inevitable. With Iverson in Memphis, the team has a number of scorers to choose from, but will there be enough shots to go around? In addition to Iverson, the team added forward Zach Randolph this offseason. The duo joins Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo, who are viewed as promising young building blocks in Memphis. The Grizzlies already have point guard Mike Conley in the backcourt and selected UConn center Hasheem Thabeet in this year’s draft.
“I feel that they are committed to developing a winner and I know that I can help them to accomplish that. I feel that I can trust them,” he wrote on Twitter.
For more coverage of Allen Iverson’s offseason decision making, click here.
UPDATE, 11:47 p.m.: The Grizzlies confirmed the signing later Wednesday and scheduled a Thursday news conference open to the public at FedExForum.
Asher B. Chancey also writes for Baseball Evolution and you can read his work there by following this link.
At this point, we have to begin to discuss the possibility of an official curse – for the third time in four years one of the American League’s elite homerun hitters has suffered a season ending injury in September, and for the second year in a row it may cost the American League a 40-homerun hitter. On Monday, Carlos Pena broke two fingers after being hit by a C.C. Sabathia pitch against the Yankees. Pena currently leads the AL in homerun with 39, ahead of current AL RBI leader Mark Teixeira’s 35 and several players at 31, but is now done for the season.
Last season, Carlos Quentin led the AL in homeruns with 36 and had essentially locked up the AL Most Valuable Player Award going into September when he broke his wrist after slamming his bat in frustration on September 5th. He ended up second in the league with 36 homeruns behind Miguel Cabreras’ 37.
In 2006, Travis Hafner – who came up through the Rangers farm system with Pena, and who with Pena was made expendable by the emergence of Teixeira – was dominating the American League with 42 homeruns, 117 RBI, 100 walks, and a league leading 1.097 OPS and 179 OPS+ when his season was ended on September 1st when he was plunked by C.J. Wilson of the Rangers.
One is also reminded of Sammy Sosa’s first elite-power season, in 1996, when he had 40 homeruns and 100 RBI through August 20th, but had his wrist broken when he was hit by a pitch against the Marlins. He finished fifth in the NL in homeruns behind Andres Galarraga’s 47, and almost certainly would have led the league if not for the injury; Galarraga hit 13 homeruns from the date of Sosa’s injury through the end of the season. Interestingly, both the Sosa and Hafner HBP’s came with the bases loaded and drove in a run.
Sadly, unlike Hafner, Quentin and Sosa, this injury will likely cost Pena three different crowns. Not only does he currently lead the American League in homeruns, but he also leads the league in walks (87) and strikeouts (163). The AL bases on balls race is very tight, with Chone Figgans tied with Pena and Nick Swisher one walk behind him, while Jack Cust (152) and Russ Branyan (149) are more than capable of catching Pena in the strikeouts department.
Looking at the careers of Sosa, Hafner, and Quenton, one wonders what’s next for Carlos Pena. For Sosa, Hafner, and Quentin, these injuries radically changed their careers, and one must wonder whether the same will be said for Pena.
Sosa, of course, would go on to struggle through the 1997 season, and the narrative of that year is that the wrist injury lingered, plaguing his season. Of course, 1998 would be the year that Sosa and Mark McGwire would change baseball forever, and it is possible that Sosa’s 1997 troubles led to his alleged usage of performance enhancing drugs before the 1998 season; it has often been alleged that players begin using performance enhancers in response to injuries, so it makes sense. If so, then one HBP in 1996 changed the course of baseball history.
Hafner and Quentin, meanwhile, have not been the same players since their season-ending injuries. Quentin has been terrible in 2009 (16 homeruns, .235 average, .769 OPS) after what looked to be a breakout 2008 season, and Travis Hafner went from being one of the best hitters in baseball to enduring a solid, but comparatively lousy, 2007 and injury-plagued 2008 and 2009 seasons.
The good news for Pena is that his injury is to his fingers and not his wrist – the number of players to rebound slowly from broken wrists is too many to count, but includes Sosa, Quentin, Hafner, Vernon Wells, Derrek Lee, Hideki Matsui, Ken Griffey, Jr., among others – and comes at the end of the year, so he should have plenty of time to recover before Spring Training 2010.
On the other hand, Pena, like Hafner, has never been the model of consistency and durability, and has given the impression of someone playing on borrowed time during his big-power-low-average stint with the Rays. Whether this marks the end of Pena’s brief period as a full time major league contributor, like Hafner, remains to be seen.
On another note, it is impossible not to notice the convenient way in which this injury occurred. Pena, teammate Evan Longoria, and Mark Teixiera are currently locked in battles for the homerun and RBI titles; Pena currently leads Teixeira in homeruns by four, and Teixeira leads the RBI race with 106 ahead of Longoria (102) and Pena (100). Obviously, Pena won’t be garnering any more RBI, and with Pena done for the year the RBI opportunities for Longoria likely decrease as well. So, Sabathia’s sniping of the American League homerun leader essentially paves the way for Mark Teixeira to lead the league in both homeruns and RBI, which make Teixeira the front-runner for the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that Award could go to anyone other than a player who leads the AL in homeruns and RBI in his first season with the New York Yankees in the year that the team led the AL in wins after missing the playoffs the previous year. Sorry, Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter.
It is all just a little too convenient.
As to Pena’s recovery, I won’t make any predictions. I am, after all, the one who said we’d seen the last of Derrek Lee, who currently has 32 homeruns, a .298 average, and a .954 OPS.
And as to the AL MVP, well, let’s just hand it to Mr. Teixeira now. Unless, of course, he has some frustration-related bat-slamming in his future.
