open Page 33 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

An Opening Day Medley Of Great Baseball Stories
To celebrate Opening Day, dig into our trove of profiles of some of the game’s most enduring characters—from Ty Cobb and Pete Reiser to Doc Ellis and Steve Carlton. ...

Roger Federer Can't Be Stopped By Rafael Nadal, Or Anyone Else
Two famous rivals named Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both got hurt, and both entered rehab cocoons for most of 2016, biding their time until this January. One emerged a radiant butterfly, posting a 19-5 record on the season, playing in three championship matches—a lovely comeback by any metric. Bu...

MLB Opening Day Hashtags, Ranked
Opening Day begins in less than one hour, and we have been blessed with 30 team marketing slogans and emojis to celebrate. Ranked:...

Diminutive Tennis Player's Entertaining Hot Streak Ends With ACL Tear<em></em>
If you were to flesh out the cohort of the next generation of tennis, the first few picks would be easy: Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Zverev are the sure shots; Dominic Thiem and Lucas Pouille are a little older but have got to be in the mix; and from the U.S. there’s Jack Sock and hopefully Frances ...

Good Lord, These Moody Man-Children Can Play Tennis
Nick Kyrgios’s win over Alexander Zverev in Miami Thursday was one of my favorite men’s matches this year, but the whole thing felt like a devil’s bargain: for every point of absolute gold, the public was taxed one drawn-out tantrum. A frustrating proposal for some—definitely for the chair ump and l...

Jittery Roger Federer Gets An Ugly Win
Today Roger Federer let slip, like an ill-timed fart, perhaps the worst four-point sequence ever seen on his serve....

Venus Williams Is Going For It
Venus Williams defeated world No. 1 Angelique Kerber in straight sets last night to advance to the semifinals of the Miami Open. By downing Kerber, the 36-year-old became the oldest player to defeat a world No. 1, but she has no desire to rest on that accomplishment....

Nick Kyrgios And Alexander Zverev Meet Again
Both kids passed their tests Tuesday in Miami, and now they’ll play each other for the second time ever....

These Roger Federer Volleys Almost Hurt To Watch
Roberto Batista Agut did about as well as you can do against the greatest these days, pushing him to two tiebreaks in the fourth round of the Miami Open, but, just, c’mon—these fucking nonchalant volleys....

Two Of Tennis's Best Young Guns Dismantled A Pair Of Hard-Serving Robots
Both Nick Kyrgios and Alexander Zverev, the two most promising players aged 21 or under, survived their third-round tests yesterday against two aging serve-bots. Neither win came easy. When your competition moves around the court with the grace of a mannequin but can still regularly whoop 130 mph ac...

Nike Drapes Its Athletes In A Mess Of Green Puke
Roger Federer rolled right through Juan Martin del Potro in the third round of the Miami Open, 6-4, 6-3. It was what you’d expect: forehand winners aplenty on both sides; Fed giving the big guy no absolutely no time to ease his way into the point; Delpo proving that he still can hit the crap out of ...

Frances Tiafoe Gave Roger Federer A Scare, And America Some Hope
American tennis fans should take heart: their 19-year-old prodigy Frances Tiafoe caused the GOAT some woe, at least for a little while. Tiafoe, who is creeping closer to a breakout victory over a top player, took Roger Federer to a first-set tiebreak in their second-round match at the Miami Open bef...

Jirí Veselý Goes Between The Legs For Winner<em></em>
American Jack Sock took the first set against Jirí Veselý tonight, but even if the Czech loses their Miami Open match he’ll go home knowing he delivered the highlight of the match: a between-the-legs winner off what was a near perfect lob volley from Sock. Don’t try this at home....

Confessions Of A Petty Citrus Thief
Perhaps the best perk of living in California, better than proximity to robber barons or weed, is the ubiquitous presence of fruit trees. Anecdotally speaking, everyone has a dang lemon, orange, plum, or avocado tree. Even when our fair state was in the worst throes of the mega drought, one could gr...

French Tennis Guy Benoit Paire Is An Expert At Smashing Tennis Rackets
French hothead and World No. 39 Benoit Paire defeated Martin Klizan 7-6(4), 6-3 in the first round of the Miami Open on Wednesday. As you might expect from a volatile head case, there were a couple racket casualties along the way. ...

Extra-Cool Iguana Is Now The King Of This Tennis Court
There is, supposedly, tennis being played at the Miami Open today. However, all the footage I’ve seen from the tournament indicates that some sort of benevolent reptile takeover is going down....

The Tennis Dogs Are Snatching Balls And Dropping Dung
The Brazil Open brought rescue dogs on court to retrieve tennis balls, in an effort to promote local animal shelters in Sao Paulo. Just like last year, the practice—like the dogs—was very good. This year’s crop of pups: Cindy, Nanda, Pretinha, Mia, Arlete and Ovelha. I couldn’t tell you which one of...

Will Serena Williams Be Ready For The French Open?<em></em>
It’s only March and the French Open isn’t until the end of May, but there’s reason to wonder (or in my case, as a devoted Serena disciple, worry) if Serena Williams will be ready to win the next grand slam of the year. She hasn’t played a competitive match since her Australian Open win and she annou...

When Nick Kyrgios Gives A Shit, He's The Future Of Tennis
Bless Nick Kyrgios for doing so much without ever really seeming to care. I’m not referring to those especially dumb, fringe cases—the forehands sliced for no reason, or the shameless tweeners during high-tension rallies—although he does plenty of that. I just mean just the way he hits the average ...

Novak Djokovic Gets The Best Of Juan Martin Del Potro, Who's Still Missing Something
The last time these two matched up, last August at the Rio Olympics, they delivered the best tennis storyline of 2016: Juan Martin del Potro, rising from the dead after two years of surgeries to both wrists, upsets a Novak Djokovic who’d then had a vice grip on the No. 1 spot for two whole years. Th...