A day before he took over the No. 1 ranking, Rafael Nadal looked like the game’s top player, winning Olympic gold.

Elena Dementieva exploited Dinara Safina’s 17 double-faults and rallied to win the women’s singles gold in Beijing.

Venus and Serena Williams teamed up to win the Olympic doubles final Sunday, beating Spanish duo Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-2, 6-0.

The American sisters, seeded second, shrieked when Ruano Pascual sent the championship point long. Then they jumped for joy and hugged each other.

The win improved the sisters’ Olympic record to 10-0 and gave them their second gold medal. They won the doubles event at the Sydney Games but didn’t play Athens because Serena was hurt.

Roger Federer extended his arms in triumph and began to hop. Then he embraced his doubles partner and they hopped together.

Federer had waited awhile for a big victory to celebrate, and when the chance came he was ready. He added a gold medal to his extensive trophy collection by teaming with Stanislas Wawrinka to win the Olympic doubles Saturday.

The Swiss duo beat Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson of Sweden 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3.

Juan Martin del Potro won his fourth straight tournament Sunday, beating Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-3 to take the Legg Mason Tennis Classic championship.

The 19-year-old, ranked No. 19 in the world, has won his last 19 matches since June 25, when he was bounced from Wimbledon in the second round.

Serving with a 5-3 lead in the second set, del Potro used two aces to go up 40-15. But on two match points, he first put a backhand, then a forehand, into the net.

Second-seeded Nadia Petrova dominated unseeded Nathalie Dechy, 6-2, 6-1, to win the Western and Southern Financial Groups Women’s Open on Sunday.

Petrova, who reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon this year, clinched the win with a forehand return on her second match point to win her first championship since the 2007 Tier II Paris indoor tournament and her first outdoors since the Tier I Berlin Open on clay in May 2006.

Pat Cash and Jim Courier won round-robin matches Saturday to advance to the Hall of Fame Champions Cup final.

Playing on the historic grass courts at the International Tennis Hall of Fame at the Newport Casino, Cash beat John McEnroe 6-7 (0), 6-2, 10-7 (Champions tiebreaker) and Courier edged Wayne Ferreira 7-6 (0), 6-3.

Cash and Courier won their round-robin groups with 3-0 records.

The winner will receive ,000.

Scoville Jenkins, who lost to Roger Federer in the first round at Flushing Meadows last year, and former NCAA champion Amer Delic were among eight men receiving wild-card entries Thursday into the U.S. Open.

The USTA also invited Americans Brendan Evans, Austin Krajicek, Jesse Levine and Sam Warburg, along with Carsten Ball of Australia and Laurent Recouderc of France.

The 21-year-old Jenkins is ranked a career-high 195th.

Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker plans to marry his late manager’s daughter, who is 16 years younger than the German tennis icon, a newspaper reported Monday.

The couple got engaged Sunday “in the closest family circle,” according to the online edition of Bild, Germany’s mass-circulation newspaper.

Becker, 40, divorced Barbara Becker, with whom he has two children, seven years ago. He also has a daughter with London-based model Angela Ermakova.

Tennis picks for the next few days. We’re up over 17% so far
this year and add new picks daily

31st May 2007
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I cannot stress enough the importance of trying different mental strategies and finding a routine and method that works for you….