Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Golf's dream pairing - Woods and Mickelson - is on the course in the final round at Pebble Beach. Jason Sobel has hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Euro Roundup: First-place Manchester City won 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday on Joleon Lescott's goal in the 63rd minute, maintaining its two-point lead over Manchester United in the Premier League.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
Getty Images
NEW YORK - Any chance he got, on TV and on the Web, Juan Martin del Potro wanted to watch replays of Roger Federer’s last shot sailing out to end the U.S. Open final.
It was as if del Potro himself could not quite believe that he is now a Grand Slam champion — or, perhaps, could not quite believe that Federer had failed to win his sixth consecutive title at Flushing Meadows and 16th major overall.
“I still feel chills,” the del Potro said Tuesday, a day after his startling 3-6, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 comeback victory over Federer. “I can’t explain with words.”
That pretty sums up the way this whole, wild U.S. Open went.
Seeing Federer clutching the runner-up’s silver tray under his left arm Monday night, a blank expression on his face, while del Potro’s big silver trophy was a few feet away, stood as only the latest of a series of extraordinary images from the past 15 days:
One of the reasons we follow sports is because of their unscripted nature: You might think you know who’s going to win — and you might think you know what’s going to happen — but you never really know.
Even del Potro and his coach, Franco Davin, acknowledged Tuesday that they didn’t exactly arrive in New York convinced that a championship would be the end result.
Not this year, anyway.
“I won’t say we prepared for this U.S. Open planning to win it,” Davin said. “We came to the U.S. Open with a chance.”
Del Potro, who rose one spot to No. 5 in the rankings Tuesday, won’t turn 21 until later this month and had never won a Grand Slam semifinal before this tournament. It was only on Sunday, as the Argentine was powering his way to a 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Rafael Nadal, that del Potro really began to think about what he was getting quite close to accomplishing.
This, he said Tuesday, is what was running through his mind during that match: “If I beat Nadal, maybe I can win the tournament.”
Maybe.
In addition to earning his first major title, and giving himself a ton of confidence moving forward, what del Potro might very well have done is inspired other young players to believe that they, too, can break up the Federer-Nadal dominance.
Until Monday, Federer and Nadal had combined to win 17 of the previous 18 Grand Slam titles, a streak they started at the 2005 French Open. In that span, Federer and Nadal played each other in seven of those major finals.
Yawn, said some.
And then there was this: Heading into Monday, Federer was 2-5 in those Grand Slam finals against Nadal, and 13-0 against everyone else, a list that includes Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt.
But del Potro went out and proved what can be done.
First he handed Nadal the worst Grand Slam loss of the Spaniard’s career.
Then, the very next day, del Potro wore down Federer.
“Rafa, we’ve had some epic ones, sure, great ones over the years,” Federer said. “Who knows? Maybe del Potro is going to join that as well.”
It’s the sort of development that might make players such as Andy Murray or Novak Djokovic or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga take note.
|
Then he paused and pointed out: “Still, you need to play very well to win against them. You need forehand, backhand, serve, everything. If you have one shot that’s no good, you can’t beat them.”
Del Potro did beat them, one right after the other.
“Two unbelievable matches,” del Potro said. “An amazing tournament.”
He was talking about his performances.
He might as well have been talking about the whole event.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
 | Video |
 |
Is Serena sorry? Serena Williams talks about the conduct code violation and her U.S. Open semifinal loss to Kim Clisters. |
 | Slideshow |
 |
NBCSports.com |
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
NBC Sports TV and livestream listings
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
