What a match. Andre Agassi displayed his fighting skills and superior fitness in a thrilling 5-set victory over Marcos Baghdatis, 6-4 6-4 3-6 5-7 7-5. The 21 year old Baghdatis succumbed to cramps late in the fifth, while Agassi, 36, seemed to be moving fine thanks to the cortisone shot he received following his first round victory. Agassi has made breaking down his opponents physically a trademark of his play - I’ll never forget the 2001 Australian Open semi-final when he was trailing one of my idols, Patrick Rafter, two sets to one, when Rafter also succumbed to cramps and eventually lost the match.

Andre plays a forehand shot during his epic victory over Marcos Baghdatis

Thursday night’s match was one of the most exciting in recent memory, and the atmosphere at Arthur Ashe stadium must have been electric. At certain times throughout the match, you could see the emotion on Agassi’s face. In the 4th set, Agassi blew a 4-0 lead to lose the set 5-7, and he admitted in the post-match interview with John McEnroe that he choked.

In the next round, Agassi plays Benjamin Becker of Germany, who is playing in his first US Open. Supporters of Agassi will be hoping that he will have a relatively easy match against Becker, as Agassi’s first two matches have been very lengthy and challenging. If Agassi manages to win his next match and progress through to the 4th round, he would most likely face fellow American Andy Roddick. In what could be a very symbolic match between the old and new of American tennis, Roddick could find himself holding the short-end of the stick for the first time in New York when it comes to crowd support - it would be one heck of a match.

I must apologise to anyone who has been checking here regularly only to find a lack of updates. The reason for the sporadic entries is that my mum is currently visiting from the homeland, and I have been trying to spend as much quality time with her as possible. Before my mum flew over though, I had asked her to pick up a couple of sporting books that I have been wanting to read for quite some time - one of those being Steve Waugh’s autobiography, “Out of my comfort zone.”

Steve Waugh’s patented ’slog sweep’

Any number of the guys that grew up with me playing cricket, whether it was outdoor, indoor, or in the driveway, would tell you that my idol growing up was Steve Waugh. A brilliant cricket player who struggled early in his career but proved his worth when he returned to the team and later went on to captain the most successful cricket team in history. Steve Waugh was at his best when the odds were stacked against him, and I will always remember the partnership he had with his twin brother, Mark, during which he scored his highest test score of 200 and won the series against the West Indies in 1995.

Steve Waugh at the launch of his autobiography

The autobiography itself is rather lengthy at just over 800 pages. However, the book provides a history and insight into how the game and business of cricket evolved during Steve’s time in the team, and it is an extremely interesting read. In his renowned down-to-earth manner, he writes about relationships within the team dynamic that, up until now, have been kept under close guard. One moment that stands out was during the 2001 Ashes tour when he had to inform former opening batsman, Michael Slater, that he was being dropped from the team. Slater responded with “You can all go and get f..ked” and left the room. As the Australian team always seemed to get a long so well, this was a rare insight into the team dynamics and the pressures that the Captain of the team was presented with.

For any cricket fans out there who have not read this book, I suggest that you do.

I found an interesting article in the tech section at smh.com.au. I don’t normally read the tech section, but I found this and decided to take a look.

I have to applaud Cricket Australia for their decision to cancel a reported 1300 tickets for this summer’s (Australian) Ashes series that have been bought from auction sites such as ebay. It is always frustrating when you wait hours upon end to buy tickets online only to miss out, but no more than 5 minutes later the tickets are up on the auction sites with asking prices that, at a minimum, are twice the face value of the original ticket price.

The headline following England’s first ever cricket defeat

Ever since the English regained the Ashes for the first time since 1989, the rematch in Australia this year has been one of the most anticipated sporting events, for both countries, in recent memory. Cricket Australia has done the right thing by trying to ensure that the action will be available at a reasonable price for those who are lucky enough to get tickets, but hopefully they will learn from the mistakes they made while selling the tickets online and implement new systems in the future that ensure the general public, and not online scalpers who are out to exploit the public, get the best access to these tickets.

Gritty performance from the unseeded Andre Agassi in the first round of the US Open tonight, with Agassi prevailing in 4 sets (6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-2).The first 3 sets went to tie breaks, with Pavel winning the first set and Agassi fighting back to win the next two sets in the tiebreaks. In the third set, Agassi came back from 4-0 to force the tiebreak, in which he won 8-6.

Andre serves in his first round match against Andrei Pavel

The crowd was electric from the moment Agassi took the court, but it is evident that age is finally catching up with the great champion who now struggles to dispatch opponents who in year’s past would not have troubled him in the slightest. Pavel played a brilliant match, but it was a match where Agassi was nowhere near his best.

Agassi will face the extremely talented Marcos Baghdatis (finalist in the Australian Open and semi-finalist at Wimbledon this year) in the second round. It will be a good sign of where Agassi is in his game at the moment, and if he can make his way in to third round, he will have a good chance of making it deep into the second week of the tournament. One thing is for sure - anyone that comes up against him will have to face the pro-Agassi crowd as well as the great man himself.

After the safety car came out on the 14th lap (following Vitantonio Liuzzi’s spin out), a tactical error was committed by the Ferrari team, which saw both of their cars enter the pits at the same time in first and second position (Felipe Massa pitting first while Micahel Schumacher waited by idely). This left Schumacher leaving the pits in third position on the tail of points leader Fernando Alonso.

Massa went on to win the race with Alonso in second, half a second clear of Schumacher in third place. Congratulations go to Massa, who won his first formula one race, but with Schumacher in such a tight race with Alonso for the championship wouldn’t you think that they would have done everything in their power to guarantee Schumacher the best result possible? The team should have requested that Massa do another lap before pitting so Schumacher would have been allowed to pit and get out before Alonso and in all probability win the race and close the gap in the championship even further. As it stands, Alonso has stretched the lead back out to 12 points with 4 races left in the season. If Schumacher fails in his quest for an 8th World Championship title, today’s race will be looked on as the turning point in the closing stages of the season.

Alonso holds off Schumi in the final stages of the Turkish Grand Prix

Tiger Woods has a share of the lead, once again, going in to the final round of a major tournament. That spells trouble for the other players in the field at the US PGA since Tiger has never lost a major tournament when he has been leading or had a share of the lead with one round remaining. Tiger shot a course record 65 (7 under par) to move in to the drivers seat. How the rest of the field, especially Luke Donald (tied), Mike Weir (2 back), and Geoff Ogilvy (3 back), respond to the challenge of chasing Tiger on the final day of a major following such a brilliant round should be exciting to witness.

The most emotion Tiger showed in the 3rd round was after he sunk a par putt on the 5th hole

When it comes to the Aussies in the field, it has been exciting to watch Geoff Ogilvy take his game to the next level. He opened today’s round with a double-bogey, but rebounded well to finish with a 68 (4 under par). Ogilvy’s inconsistency has definitely cost him this week - if he had have been able to keep the bogeys away he would have been in the lead by a few shots. The same could be said for Adam Scott, who has had moments of great play followed almost immediately with a bogey. As it stands, Ogilvy is three shots back and still has a shot at winning his second major of the year, but it will take a spectacular round that is free of bogeys.

Geoff Ogilvy plays an approach shot in the third round

Any athlete who has played competitive sport knows that in the heat of the moment things can be said that are regrettable - especially when the tirade is directed at match officials. I know in my younger days I was guilty of expressing my opinions of what I thought were bad calls to match officials - and this was only in junior competition. So imagine - two weeks left in the regular season, in the dying stages of an important professional game, your team is 2 points down with one minute left, and an official makes a horrible call that costs your team the chance of a potential victory.

How would you react?

For Andrew Johns, the best Rugby League player alive, his reaction was to call the official a f..k..g c..t. Unfortunately for Johns, this was not the first time that he has abused match officials in such a manner and faced a 4 week ban - which meant he would miss the finals series.

Andrew Johns leaves he judiciary after getting off with a light two match ban

What should have been an automatic 4 week ban turned in to a 2 week ban when Johns simply said “I’m sorry.” I must say that I agree with Alex Brown from smh.com.au in this article when he says that Johns was the benficiary of a double-standard. Because Johns is the biggest name in the game, it seems as though Johns received preferential treatment over other players who, in the past, have also been sorry for their actions on the field, but have been shown no leniency when they faced the judiciary. This is a horrible precedent that has been set, which will no doubt come back to haunt them in the future.

Now I don’t believe that players should face any bans for language that is used in the heat of the moment, but the rules are there for a reason and should be enforced. It’s a catch-22 situation because I don’t think Johns should have been facing a ban to begin with, but to bend the rules for the premier player in the league isn’t fair on the rest of the players in the league either.

This one may not make sense to many of the American viewers of this site, but I thought this was incredible. I especially like the look on the umpire’s face and Andrew Symonds’ reaction - classic.

England’s new manager, Steve McClaren, has made his mark on the team by dropping David Beckham from the squad that will play Greece in a friendly on August 16th. McClaren informed Beckham of his decision to exclude him from the squad, citing that it was time to take England in a new direction.

Although many thought that Beckham’s form in the World Cup was sub-standard, I personally believe that without him in the team, England would not have progressed as far as they did. He was directly responsible for victories against Paraguay and Ecuador, and he also setup the first goal against Trinidad and Tobago (a goal that came in the last 10 minutes of regulation). Fair enough he’s not as quick as he once was, but he’s also 31 years old. He’s still one of the best passing midfielders in the world, and his execution of freekicks is second to none. I still believe him to be one of the top players in the world, and I would definitely want him on my team. Who will ever forget the free kick in extra time against Greece that put England through to the 2002 World Cup?

Although McClaren hasn’t closed the doors on a return to the England squad for Beckham in the future, it is highly unlikely that the new manager will admit that he made a mistake and return him to the squad. I believe this is a premature end to Beckham’s superb international career.

One of many Beckham highlights - this one against Greece to put England through to the 2002 World Cup

In the past few days I have been trying really hard not to write about any of the negative controversies that have been dominating the sports media, whether it be Floyd Landis coming up with new excuses for his positive tests, Justin Gatlin doing the same thing, or former Australian cricket star Dean Jones calling a South African cricket player (who happens to be a Muslim) a terrorist while commentating, but I’m caving in today. I read this article on Maurice Clarett on espn.com this morning and thought it was really well done.

In the space of 4 years, Clarett has gone from this:

Clarett with some bling

to this

Clarett with some newer bling

Clarett became the next big thing in 2002, when he led Ohio State to the National (college) Championship, scoring the winning touchdown against Miami in the second overtime. Clarett unsuccessfully challenged the NFL’s rule that you must be out of high school for three years before entering the draft and was left in the wilderness for the next few years. After being drafted by the Denver Broncos last year, Clarett was cut before a preseason game was even played - effectively ending any chance he had of playing professional football.

On January 2 of this year, Clarett turned himself in to police after an armed robbery of two people outside of a nightclub. Couple that with the arrest (armed with an AK-47, two blocks away from the residence of a witness who will be testifying against Clarett in relation to the armed robery charges) two days ago and you have one of the most dramatic falls from grace in recent memory.

If Clarett had have spent the two years after winning the National Championship with Ohio State instead of thinking he was bigger than the league and an exception to the established rules, he would no doubt now be a millionaire many times over. Now, instead of living in a mansion, he’ll be living in a 6′ by 6′ room that he can call his own. Kids, stay in school!