Sports Desk_ More Info on Tennis and Futbol

While the ceremonies at Ground Zero, The Pentagon, and Pennsylvania were making headlines this weekend, there were also lots of things going on in the sports world.
Alas, due to space constriants, we can only talk about tennis and soccer.

Let's begin with the U.S. Open women's tennis final where Samantha Stosur, 27, from Gold Coast, Australia, (pictured above) became the first Aussie woman to win the tournament since 1973: 6-2; 6-3.

In the process, she was able to win over favorite and crowd favorite Serena Williams, 29, who has 27 grand slam titles, including doubles, to her credit.

In the quarterfinals, Williams had defeated one of my favorite players, Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (I love people with long, difficult surnames since I have one myself). But, the 20-year-old should be moving up from her current number 16 ranking after her stellar play in New York.

In the soccer universe, we start in Italy where Juventus beat Parma 4-1 at home in a game that was mentioned a few entries ago. Two of the four Juventus goals game from Italian stars Simon Pepe and Claudio Marchisio.

In England, in a game that was nationally televised in America, Chelsea beat Sunderland 2-1 with goals from John Terry and Daniel Sturridge.

I was under the impression that play in the Turkish Premiere League would be delayed due to a match-fixing scandal, but the league started action over the weekend. Yesterday, my favorite Turkish team (well along with GalataSaray) Bursaspor won a home game over Kayserispor 3-0, in Bursa, with goals from Turkish star Ozan Ipek as well as Gokcek Vederson (who is half-Turkish and half-Brazilian!) and Argentine Pablo Battalla.

Here in the United States, in MLS play, D.C. United traveled from the nation's capital to Los Angeles over the weekend where they beat Chivas USA 3-0. All three goals were scored by Charlie Davies (pictured here).

Now, back to the regular news....

Things We Learned on Google Today- Juventus FC's Star Player Is...

While researching this piece which is continuing to look at famous soccer teams from around the globe, we learned that current Juventus FC star Alessandro Del Piero, 36, holds the team record for most appearances in a team uniform at 635 and team goals scored at 281. Del Pietro is also the team's captain. Juventus FC will face rival Parma on Sept. 11th.

The Italian powerhouse Juventus FC plays its home games in Turin, and the team has a new stadium which is one of the main subjects of discussion amongst European soccer fans.

Del Pietro's teammates include fellow Italians Simone Pepe and Fabio Grosso as well as Serbian star soccer player Milos Krasic.

But, Del Pietro will have to continue playing for five more years to be the oldest player ever to wear a Juventus FC uniform. That distinction belongs to goalie legend Dina Zoff who played until age 41 when he retired from soccer in 1983. Zoff was also the oldest player ever to captain a World Cup-winning team. When he was 40, he tended goal for the 1982 Italian team which won it all in Spain.

Juventus FC won the UEFA Champions League by defeating Ajax Amsterdam in 1996.

SIDEBAR: Starting tomorrow, I will start a three part series on an Australian tourist named Amanda Rigg, who was killed as a result of a suicide bombing by far-left terrorists in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sept. 10, 2001. I happened to walk on the exact same street that she did on that fateful afternoon, which was alas sadly forgotten because of the even more horrific events of the next day.

The series will also discuss my feelings about being so close to one terrorist act as another one happened in my home country the very next day.

SIDEBAR TWO: They were finally able to play tennis today at the U.S. Open in New York. We had mentioned Russian up and comer Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who has perhaps the longest surname in the tennis world. Today, she lost to Serena Williams. But, we wish her well in her seemingly very promising career.

Quote of the Day- Ingmar Bergman

This month, we are featuring quotes from famous film directors and Scandanavians, and perhaps it is fitting that we begin wtih the late, iconic Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman ("The Seventh Seal, "Persona," "Fanny and Alexander").

Here is the quote:

"I am so 100 percent Swedish....Someone has said a Swede is like a bottle of ketchup_ nothing and nothing and then everything at once_splat! I think I'm like that."

For more information on the famed director, we suggest that you read about Bergman in the Australian web journal "Senses of Cinema" (sensesofcinema.org). I was going to try to write a selection on the American film director Stanley Kramer ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?") for them, but I never got around to it.

SIDEBAR: We love people with long, difficult names, so we were delighted to watch Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova,20, (we checked the spelling of her name four times!) advance in the U.S Open tennis tournament by defeating Francesca Schiavone, another person with a tricky name, over the Labor Day weekend.

Alas, for the young Russian tennis star mother nature is preventing her next match with American superstar Serena Williams as rain forced postponements of matches in New York for a second misreable day in a row.