US women’s national team star responds to racially abusive fans

Tom Szczerbowski/USA TODAY Sports

Sydney Leroux scored the third goal of the U.S. women’s national team’s 3-0 win against Canada in an international friendly Sunday in Toronto, but her celebration landed her in trouble. After rounding the goalkeeper and tapping the ball into the goal, Leroux — who was born in Canada but chose to play internationally as an American — shushed the crowd and popped her jersey. She was given a yellow card for the celebration.

Fans at BMO Field booed Leroux throughout the game, and afterward Leroux wrote a message on Twitter addressing those who heckle her.

Pregnant Angels fan reveals baseball bump to the world

(Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)

This is Los Angeles Angels fan Courtney Stitzinger, and she is currently the greatest baseball fan/expectant mother in the world.

Unfortunately for Courtney, and her expectant child Wyatt, the Angels fell to the Astros Monday night 2-1. However, that shouldn’t stop anyone from fully supporting the most creative baseball fan in her third trimester.

NBA prospect D.J. Cooper shines at invitational

Ohio University senior guard D.J. Cooper continued his string of impressive performances in preparation for the NBA Draft last week at the prestigious Portsmouth Invitational in Portsmouth, Va., according to a news release from Ohio Athletic Media Relations.

The Portsmouth Invitational features 64 of the nation's top college basketball seniors in an eight-day, four-team tournament format, the release said. Scouts and front office staff from a number of NBA teams were on hand throughout the event.

Cooper, an AP All-America Honorable Mention, averaged 11.7 points, 7.3 assists, 5.7 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game in three contests with his team, the Norfolk Sports Club. According to the release, Cooper tied for first among all competitors with 22 assists and ranked fourth in assist/turnover ratio (3.1).

The release said the Chicago native was third among all participants, making nine 3-pointers and shooting 39.1 percent from beyond the arc for the tournament.

Cooper's best game came on Saturday, April 13, when the senior just missed out on recording a triple-double. In 35 minutes on the floor, the release said Cooper posted 20 points, distributed a game-high 10 assists and added eight rebounds, while leading Norfolk Sports Club to a 94-65 win over Portsmouth Sports Club.

Cooper additionally notched 10 points and a game-high eight assists in Norfolk's second game of the tournament against Mike Duman Auto Sales.

Next up for Cooper is the NBA Draft Chicago Combine June 7-8.

Stosur feels time still on her side for second slam

Samantha Stosur isn't feeling the clock ticking on her quest for a second grand slam title despite another opportunity passing by at her favourite major tournament.

The world No.9 was left bitterly disappointed after crashing out in the third round of the French Open, her 40th grand slam, at the hands of Serbian Jelena Jankovic on Saturday.

With many viewing Roland Garros as Stosur's best opportunity to add to her 2011 US Open triumph, she admitted it was frustrating having to wait a year for another crack on the red clay.

But while Stosur admits at 29 she's no spring chicken, she believes there's still plenty of time to achieve more success at the highest level.

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''I know I'm getting older and I know there's only so many grand slams left,'' Stosur said after the loss. ''But I'm not 30 yet and players are playing well into their 30s, so I'm not too worried about running out of time.

''You do want things to happen now though, you don't want to have to wait another year for another chance at events like this.

''But there's only one winner at the end of the day, so there's a lot of other disappointed players as well and you've got to be able to bounce back.''

The 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 defeat ended Australia's involvement in singles at Roland Garros this year, with Stosur the only member of a seven-strong contingent to reach the third round. It continued a frustrating season for Stosur.

''It certainly hurts,'' she said. ''I do feel like I'm capable of having a good tournament here and the third round is not where I wanted to end up.''

Stosur started strongly against Jankovic, looking sharp in the first set before a mid-game fadeout allowed the 18th seed back into the contest.

At 3-0 down in the deciding set, after losing six straight games, things looked bleak but Stosur showed some mental toughness to fight back to lead 4-3. The late stages were tense, with Stosur saving three match points before Jankovic eventually won to set up a fourth-round meeting with American Jamie Hampton.

Stosur will turn her attention to Wimbledon, though with a poor recent record there she may already have one eye on the US Open.

Surprise recall keeps veteran's World Cup hopes alive

After being repeatedly overlooked recently, Sasa Ognenovski thought he would never play for the Socceroos again and that his World Cup dream was over.

But the late-blooming 34-year-old, who has claimed 16 caps since breaking into the national team in 2010, was shocked when national coach Holger Osieck recalled him to the Australian set-up for Tuesday's match against Japan.

Alarm bells first rang for Ognenovski when he was left out of February's friendly against Romania in Spain, when Osieck made the unusual decision to play Lucas Neill, despite the national captain being suspended.

"Lucas wasn't going to play [against Oman], and yet he played that game alongside [Robbie] Cornthwaite, so I thought, if there's an opportunity there for the boss to see how a new defensive partner would work with me, that was it," Ognenovski said on Sunday. "But I didn't get called up so I thought I would be probably out be out of here, and then I didn't get called up for the Oman game, so you start thinking you're not in the picture any more.

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"I hadn't communicated with Holger at any stage in that time. I wasn't given an explanation, so I thought I was out. "

Having been bizarrely excluded by Pim Verbeek in the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup, despite being the country's best-performed defender in the lead-up, there was suddenly a very real prospect that Brazil 2014 would also be beyond his reach. It was widely speculated that Ognenovski had fallen out with Osieck after he had to be taken off after 14 minutes of the World Cup qualifier against Jordan, which Australia lost 2-1, but the player said that "wasn't quite the case".

Federer Stretched by Simon, but Doesn't Break

Then Federer did what Federer does. He raised his game to a level that most of his opponents are simply incapable of equally, Simon among them. His forehands went deep into corners. His lobs drifted over a helpless Simon’s head. His backhand was — well — his backhand, whizzing past a beaten Simon. Federer even deployed a drop shot or two. In the end, the result was exactly what was expected — a victory — if not exactly the way it was supposed to go, 6-1, 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. On paper, at least, his quarterfinal match should be even tougher. There, Federer will face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the tournament’s sixth seed.

Federer’s results have inevitably started to wane with age. But Federer has not failed to reach the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam event since the 2004 French Open, a streak of 36 majors in which he has been in the final eight men. This was the 900th match victory of Federer’s career, making him just one of four men in history to hit that mark, and putting him behind only Jimmy Connors (1,156), Ivan Lendl (1,068) and Guillermo Vilas (940) on the all-time list. More significant to Federer, though is this: the victory secured his 40th trip to a Grand Slam quarterfinal, as astounding measure of his consistency.

Until Federer went down, he appeared as routinely invulnerable as that record would suggest. In the first set, he hit a forehand from deep in the right corner that curved around the net post like a capital C for a winner to give him a set point that he converted to win the first set, 6-1.

But with the two on serve, and Simon serving to go to 3-all in the second set, Federer’s right foot appeared to catch in the dirt as he moved to his left. He went down hard on both knees. Simon held, and in the next game, Federer was broken for the first time in the match to go down 3-4. What might have seemed to be just a hiccup when Federer dropped the second set — the first set he’d lost in the tournament — became a full-blown crises when he was broken at love in the third set to give Simon a 3-2 lead. Then, he hit a weak forehand volley into the net to be broken again, giving Simon a 5-2 lead.

With Federer trailing, something startling happened. The Paris crowd began rooting for a comeback against one of their own. Federer has won here just once, in 2009, but as the light began to fade, it was as if Federer’s faithful wanted to will him to go on at least a few hours longer. In the fourth set, with his wife covering her face in nervousness, Federer hit a forehand deep into a corner to finally break Simon again, to take a 4-2 lead. Federer pumped his fist and the fans roared for him. And when Simon hit a backhand into the net to lose his serve — and the fourth set — again, the tennis universe seemed to steady on its axis. After that, it surprised absolutely nobody when Simon hit a forehand long on a Federer break point to give Federer a 2-0 lead in the fifth, making the final outcome merely a matter of time. By then, the crowd was again exhorting Simon. But when Federer finally prevailed, when Simon’s backhand was pushed wide, Federer raised his racket in victory. Even Simon smiled.

Tsonga cruised over Viktor Troicki, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. Tsonga has not dropped a set in Paris.