After getting bounced from Wimbledon again in the first round, American Ryan Scott is beginning to wish he had chosen to focus on more conventional tennis surfaces – grass or clay, for example – during his formative years.
“I can destroy anyone on gravel, but there just aren’t many gravel surface tournaments out there,” said Scott. “In fact, there are none. And it’s kind of destroying my career.”
Scott says his former coach is to blame.
“My parents and me were sold a bill of goods by the guy when I was a junior player,” said Scott. “He insisted that gravel was the surface of the future – he said the wild bounces and cut up and bruised players would make the sport more fan-friendly – and that if I started training for gravel before anyone else, I’d dominate the future of the sport. Well, 15 years later, we’ve not seen one gravel event. Well, not counting the annual non-ATP event Ryan Scott Invitational, of course. But that’s always just me and Roger Federer and I have yet to beat him.”

A blistering 100m time of 0.82 seconds put in by an Oklahoma high school sprinter will not be recognized as the world record because in was registered during a furious F4 tornado that whipped through his town, swept him up and hurled him and most of the crowd over the finish line.
“I knew when I broke out of the blocks that I got a good start,” said Owen Norbridge. “I felt like I was flying. And a split second later, I was – right in the eye of the tornado. Then a sheep and a huge section of a roof beam hit me and knocked me over the finish line. Once I was mercifully dropped to the ground a few hundred yards past the finish line, the first thing I thought was: ‘Thank God I’m alive.’ Then right after that I though: ‘Oh, man. They better not try to rip this away from me because of the whole tornado thing. I mean, my times were really improving. Six months ago I was running 12.2s. And I got it all the way down to 11.5s. So I don’t think a sub-one-second 100 is impossible for me.”
Norbridge says losing his world record hurts almost as much as losing all of his teammates in the storm.
“I was the only one who survived the tornado, so I was deemed the winner and the world record holder in order to keep my spirits up through my recovery,” he said. “Luckily, though, I will be keeping at least one world record. Apparently no one before in history has been thrown over 500 yards by a tornado while impaled by a javelin, relay baton and pheasant. So that’s kind of cool, I guess.”

A lifelong, diehard Pittsburgh Steelers fan was rushed to a city hospital this afternoon after bleeding black and gold out of a superficial wound received in a minor car accident.
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With just six weeks left until his shot at the welterweight championship, challenger Robby Madden is rigorously training in preparation for the pre-fight weigh-in trash talk session.
“I’m giving it my all,” said Madden. “I don’t want to blow my chance. In boxing, this is how you make your name – by being outrageous in front of the cameras at the weigh-in. The boxing is important, too, I guess. But as long as I’m flashy and seen as somewhat crazy, I’ll have opportunities for fights far into the future, win or lose.”
Madden says he and his trainer have been watching tapes of some of the greats in order to prepare for his shot.
“Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, Jr. – there’s so much to learn from those guys,” said Madden. “They are all brilliant in there own way. I think I want to be a homage to all of them. I’ll rhyme like Ali, be insane and violent like Tyson and overly cocky and arrogant like Mayweather. If I can pull it off – and I’m training 12 hours a day to do so – it will totally overshadow the fact that I’ll probably be knocked out in a minute or two.”