US OPEN
Coco Gauff has come back to win her first-round match at the U.S. Open after losing a set against an opponent who frustrated her with the time she took between points. Gauff came through a 30-point, 25-plus-minute game to begin the second set and wound up beating Laura Siegemund 3-6, 6-2, 6-4. Some highly seeded players lost earlier Monday on Day 1 at the year's last Grand Slam tournament. The No. 4 man, Holger Rune, and the No. 8 woman, Maria Sakkari, both exited.
Novak Djokovic has made a winning return to the U.S. Open, rolling to a 6-0, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Alexandre Muller. The 23-time Grand Slam champion shook off a late start after an opening-night ceremony, racing through the first set in 23 minutes. Djokovic missed the tournament last year, not allowed to travel to the U.S. because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19. Djokovic improved to 17-0 in first-round matches at the U.S. Open and assured he will regain the No. 1 ranking on Sept. 11. It will be his 390th week atop the rankings, extending his own record.
Tennis player Fiona Ferro has returned to compete at the U.S. Open a year after she accused her former coach of rape. That case is still pending. Ferro, who's from France, took a few months off from the tour after going public with her story following a loss in qualifying at Flushing Meadows in 2022. And she still has not hired a personal coach for 1-on-1 work, instead training with a group of players who are coached by someone from the French tennis federation. She lost in the first round Monday in New York to Victoria Azarenka, who offered kind words afterward.
After a rousing tribute from former first lady Michelle Obama, Billie Jean King on Monday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Open becoming the first sporting event to offer equal prize money to female and male competitors, promising to never stop fighting to maintain that hard-won progress. “Our work is far from done,” King said in a speech to a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd between matches in the night session. Obama introduced the 79-year-old tennis legend by recalling how King as the defending U.S. Open champion in 1973 rallied her fellow women players not to play in that year’s tournament unless women got the same pay as men.
MLB
Jose Altuve completed the first cycle of his career with a two-run homer over the Green Monster in the eighth inning, and the Houston Astros rolled past the Boston Red Sox 13-5. Altuve struck out swinging to lead off the game, then doubled in the third, singled in the fifth and tripled in the sixth. His homer made him the first Astros player to hit for the cycle since Brandon Barnes against Seattle on July 19, 2013. Yordan Alvarez added a three-run homer as part of a six-run sixth inning and José Abreu hit a solo home run for the Astros, who won their third straight.
Aaron Judge ended an 0-for-17 slide with his 249th home run, Luis Severino pitched shutout ball for the second straight start following an alarming skid and the New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers 4-1 in a series opener. Judge walked in the fifth and scored on Gleyber Torres’ double, then combined with Torres for back-to-back homers in the seventh off Beau Brieske. Judge’s 29th homer of the season came in his 806th career game, meaning he could become the fastest to 250 homers. Ryan Howard reached 250 in his 855th game in 2010, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Nathaniel Lowe hit a two-run single with two outs in the ninth inning and the Texas Rangers rallied past the New York Mets 4-3 for just their second victory in 11 games. Adolis García began the comeback from a 3-0 deficit by lacing a run-scoring double in the seventh for his 95th RBI — second-most in the American League. Robbie Grossman’s groundout in the eighth scored Corey Seager, who had three hits. Texas remained one game behind first-place Seattle in the AL West, only the second day this season the Rangers were not atop the division. Brandon Nimmo ended an 0-for-21 slump with a two-run homer for the last-place Mets. DJ Stewart also went deep.
Trea Turner homered twice, Bryce Harper hit a two-run shot and the streaking Philadelphia Phillies beat Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Angels 6-4. Turner hit a tying solo homer in the second and the go-ahead shot in the fifth that made it 5-3 and sent the NL wild-card leaders to their fourth straight win. Craig Kimbrel worked the ninth for his 21st save. Turner has hit in 17 straight home games and is hitting over. 300 in August. The Phillies have hit 52 homers this month, the most in the majors.
Ronald Acuña Jr. fended off two fans, including one who made contact with him in right field, while sparking the Atlanta Braves to a 14-4 rout of the Colorado Rockies. Acuña tied career highs with four hits and five RBIs, hitting his 29th home run and stealing two bases to increase his major league-leading total to 61. He is one homer shy of becoming the first 30/60 player. One fan got his arms against Acuña during the middle of the seventh inning, just after Atlanta scored four runs to open a 9-4 lead.
SOCCER
Leading officials within the Spanish Football Federation have asked suspended president Luis Rubiales to resign because of his behavior at the Women’s World Cup, including kissing a player on the lips after Spain won the championship match. The heads of the regional bodies say his “unacceptable behavior has caused great damage to the image of Spanish soccer.” The heads also want interim president Pedro Rocha to immediately withdraw the federation’s request to UEFA to suspend it from international competitions. The federation’s request for a suspension was widely seen as an attempt to silence some of Rubiales’ critics because a suspension would ban Spanish teams from competitions like the Champions League.
NFL
Patrick Mahomes is a two-time NFL MVP, a two-time Super Bowl MVP and has led the Kansas City Chiefs to the AFC championship game five straight seasons. It's no surprise Mahomes was a unanimous choice by The Associated Press for the top spot among quarterbacks. A panel of nine AP Pro Football Writers ranked the top five players at QB, making their selections based on current status entering the 2023 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points. Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers and Jalen Hurts finished behind Mahomes in that order.
Andy Reid couldn’t win the big one until he went to Kansas City and got Patrick Mahomes. Now, there’s no telling how many big games the coach affectionately known as “Big Red” will win. Reid was a near-unanimous choice by The Associated Press for the top spot among NFL head coaches, receiving eight of nine first-place votes. A panel of nine AP Pro Football Writers ranked the top five head coaches, making their selections based on current status entering the 2023 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points, respectively. Six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick, Kyle Shanahan, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh finished behind Reid in that order.
WNBA
Sabrina Ionescu scored 25 points and Breanna Stewart added 20 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists to help the New York Liberty beat the Las Vegas Aces 94-85 in the final regular season meeting between the teams. The Liberty cut the Aces’ lead for the top overall seed in the playoffs to 1 1/2 games with only a handful left to play. The teams potentially wouldn’t meet again until the WNBA Finals. They split their four regular-season games. New York (28-7) has won four straight since losing in Las Vegas on Aug. 17. Jackie Young scored 24 points to lead the Aces (30-6).
HOCKEY
The newly established Professional Women’s Hockey League provided a sneak peek on where its six franchises will be based, a day before it is scheduled to make the news official. The PWHL’s newly launched social media account revealed the sites based on the only six accounts it is following with teams based in the New York tri-state area, Minnesota, Boston, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Each market has an account with @PWHL as a prefix. The PWHL is scheduled to formally announce its inaugural six franchises during a video conference call today
The PWHL, which will feature a collection of the world's top female players, plans to launch play in January and is backed by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and retired women’s tennis star Billie Jean King. The group is moving swiftly in essentially building a league from scratch, a process that was spurred in late June when Walter bought out the rival Premier Hockey Federation to clear the way for one North America professional women’s hockey league.
NCAA
The dearth of Black coaches leading major college football programs routinely draws scrutiny. This season 14 of 133 major college programs and seven of 69 Power Five conference teams will have Black head coaches. Just as notable is how drastically under-represented African-Americans are among offensive coordinators, the job mostly likely to lead to a head-coaching gig. Only seven Black coaches will be offensive coordinators at Power Five schools this season, and only nine across all of the top tier of Division I.
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