Hotheaded tennis star Serena Williams has been fined $2,000 for her outburst during yesterday's U.S. Open final. Video shows Williams berating the chair judge during a break in the second set, telling the official, among other things, "If you ever see me walking down the hall, look the other way, because you're out of control... You're totally out of control, you're a hater, and you're unattractive inside." Reuters reports that Williams has refused to apologize for the threats and insults, explaining that they were made in the heat of the moment. Also, this is America last time she checked—many brave soldiers have given their lives to defend her right to be rude. more ›

Tributes to those who were martyred ten years ago filled the sports world Sunday, but amazingly Major League Baseball repeated a mistake from that era. In 2001 the Mets wanted to wear FDNY and NYPD hats to honor the victims of 9/11 but MLB denied them permission. Those Mets wore the hats in defiance of MLB rules. Sunday, the 2011 Mets tried to make the same tribute with the same result. Most shockingly, it was the Vice-President of MLB, Joe Torre, the Yankee Manager ten years ago, who made the decision. more ›

The Mets broke their losing streak and got the weekend off to a good start with a 5-4 comeback win. Mike Pelfrey wasn't great, but he managed to make it into the seventh inning while allowing three runs. Justin Turner put the Mets ahead 4-3 in the fifth with a RBI double. The bullpen protected the one-run lead into the 9th, but Manny Acosta couldn't close the door on Chicago. With two outs, Darwin Barney singled home the tying run, but Acosta escaped further damage and the game went to the bottom of the 9th. Nick Evans led off with a single and was replaced by a pinch runner, Jason Pridle. Pridle advanced to second on a sac bunt, but Ruben Tejada lined out for the second out of the inning. The Cubs chose to intentionally walk Jose Reyes bringing Turner back to the plate. Turner delivered again, singling home Pridle with the winning run. more ›

A janitor at this year's US Open has been charged with swiping two laptops from the SmashZone "fan interactive," and a search warrant of his apartment in Corona, Queens yielded a half-ounce of crack cocaine, marijuana, a loaded 9mm handgun, and three other laptops that were reported stolen from the US Open last year. Yet another salient lesson in quitting while you're ahead. more ›

Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2: Rookie Ivan Nova won his 11th straight game and improved his record to 15-4 in a victory over Toronto at Yankee Stadium. Nova, who hasn't lost since June 3rd, fell behind early when the Blue Jays scored two runs in the top of the 1st inning. The Yankees were able to tie the game in the 3rd when Brett Gardner hit a two-run home run. Robinson Cano drove in Derek Jeter for the go-ahead run in the 5th inning and Mariano Rivera finished the game like he normally does, notching his 37th save of the season. more ›

Red Sox 9, Yankees 5: If Phil Hughes is fighting for his spot in the Yankees rotation, his performance against the Red Sox probably didn't help things. Hughes allowed six runs over 5 2/3 innings to drop to 4-5 for the season. Helping Hughes though is the fact that AJ Burnett pitches today in his own attempt to remain a starter. In spite of Hughes' efforts on the mound, the Yankees were actually able to take a brief lead in the 6th inning. Then Hughes pitched another 2/3 innings. The win put Boston up 1.5 games in the AL East. more ›

Leave it to the sport of super-shushing and scurrying little servant boys to demand the air remain rarefied enough for people to smack a ball back and forth over a net. more ›

Oh look out, scary Serena Williams went on one of her famous tirades today when she rolled her eyes after a reporter brought up her infamous 2009 U.S. meltdown! You'll recall that Williams blew her stack after a line judge made a call she disagreed with, yelling, "I swear to God, I'm f*ckin' takin' this ball and shovin' it in your f*ckin' throat… I swear to God." (The video has been pretty effectively suppressed by the USTA, but you can still watch it here.) She went on to lose the match and was fined $82,500 for what the Times described as "a shocking display of vitriol and profanity." But that's all ancient history! more ›

Arthur Ashe stadium in Flushing, Queens has made it through Sunday's nastiness intact, and the U.S. Open tennis tournament will kick off today as planned. According to the U.S. Open website, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center "was mostly spared of any major damage." The first match, between Tobias Kamke (GER) and Mardy Fish (USA), is set to start at 1 p.m. (with brawling in the stands T.B.D.). The grounds crew stayed overnight at the facility on Saturday in order to to make repairs as quickly as possible, and one worker sums it up thus: “It was a little rain storm. We got pretty lucky." more ›

It's that time of year again—when reporters go through the paces at the try outs to be a U.S. Open ball boy or ball girl. Hundreds apply to have the chance to retrieve tennis balls in the final Grand Slam tournament of the year, but only a few reporters get to, um, show off. more ›

Hey, remember that guy throwing f-bombs during the Novak Djokovic and Philipp Petzschner U.S. Open match, which raised the ire of a middle-aged woman and her 75-year-old dad and the three of them got into an ugly, perfect-for-Youtube fight? Well, Manhattan resident Joseph Pedevill is back in the news—and it's allegedly over an interview one of his neighbors did with the NY Post! more ›

Yesterday evening, defending U.S. Open champ (and part-time Jersey girl) Kim Clijsters defeated Vera Zvonareva to win the women's final. Clijsters, who also won the Open in 2005, said, "Whenever I step on this court, I don't know, it just feels like coming home." more ›

More fallout from the Thursday night brawl in the U.S. Open stands: The three fans have now been banned from the Open through the 2012 Open and they've all filed civil harassment charges against each other! The 27-year-old man whose cursing sent 49-year-old Tracey Falco and her 75-year-old dad Lawrence Burnett is now hiding out in his East Side apartment: The Daily News reports that Joseph Pedeville is "chastened" with his girlfriend coming to his defense, "He's freaking out. He didn't do anything wrong. Thank God, he didn't do anything wrong." more ›

Who knew tennis matches could be so riddled with crime! While it hasn't gotten all Match Point over in Queens (yet), there has been some unsavory behavior at the U.S. Open, and it's only the first week. First up, this guy was caught trying to scalp 339 tickets on Tuesday—but then the real action happened last night, when we saw the first upper deck brawl—it was all caught on video, of course: more ›

Waiters who worked as suite attendants at the US Open tennis tournaments are suing their catering-company employers for stiffing them on overtime and screwing them out of tips. For many employees, US Open shifts routinely start at 9 a.m. and run through the last set at night. Most were paid $17 hour to operate luxury suites for rich big shots in the blazing heat—but while the catering companies took a 21 percent "service charge" from their posh clientele, that never trickled down to the help, the lawsuit alleges. more ›

It was quite a year for sports in the New York City area. The Yankees won their 27th World Championship, two brand new baseball stadiums opened (a total cost of nearly $2.5 billion), and Martin Brodeur set the record for most wins in NHL history. There were some ugly moments too — Serena Williams' explosion at the US Open, the Mets (again), the Nets, the Giants, and of course that Tiger Woods thing that you can't escape no matter where you live. more ›

• Juan Marin del Potro, a 20-year-old Argentine ranked sixth in the world, unseated Roger Federer in Monday's final to take the U.S. Open crown away from the five-time defending champion. A day after del Potro demolished Rafael Nadal in straight sets, he rallied past Federer in five. He survived Federer's serving for the second set and a fourth-set tiebreaker before breaking the world No. 1 twice in the fifth set.

Serena Williams will return to Arthur Ashe Stadium this afternoon for the US Open Women's Doubles finals, less than 48 hours after the outburst that eliminated her from the singles draw and gave a whole new meaning to the Kanye West line "an ass like Serena." The USTA gave Williams a slap on the wrist yesterday—a $10,500 fine for misconduct—but said they are still reviewing tapes to see if a stiffer penalty will ensue. Some were calling for Williams to be kept out of today's match or at the very least stripped of her $350,000 singles prize money. more ›

The US Open once again proved itself as one of the most theatrical stages in sports last night during the women's semifinals where Serena Williams saw her chances for repeating as champion ended after losing her cool and going off on a line judge. After Serena became upset at the judge's unexpected call for a foot fault, she pointed at the official and yelled, "I swear to God, I'm f*ckin' takin' this ball and shovin' it in(?) your f*ckin' throat… I swear to God." As if the outburst wasn't sensational enough, Williams then got docked for a penalty point (she had already received a warning after smashing her racket at the end of the first set) which couldn't have come at a worse time—match point. That meant that the confrontation would be the final point of the tournament for Williams, sent packing by Belgian Kim Clijsters. Here's the extended play of the whole string of events, that we imagine left Eli Manning doing a nervous gulp of his Oreo Double Stuff. more ›

The gentlemen behind the blog Where Todd P Won't Be emailed us last night with the following urgent press release:

BREAKING (GIF Siren) -- Alec Baldwin picking teeth at US Open tonight during the female quarterfinal at the US Open earlier tonight. Developing....

The Parks Department has been letting a concessionaire charge drivers $18 per car to park on grassy playing fields in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and some people in Queens are mad. Well, one person, at least; a park advocate named Greg Godfrey. He's outraged that the parkland is being gobbled up by cars on days when the U.S. Open overlaps with Mets games, which will happen for the last time tonight when the Mets play the Marlins at Citifield, adjacent to the tennis center. So taxpayers who use the park for cricket and soccer have been relegated to dusty fields, and Godfrey gripes to the Daily News, "When you constantly compress open space and green space, you're reducing the oxygen in the fields and that's where you're losing grass growth." Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski calmly responds that, "You need to give and take, and we all make room for each other," and promises that the USTA reseeds the parking areas. But Godfrey won't be satisfied until somebody builds a multi-level parking deck for sports fans, which Lewandowski acknowledges as a nice idea, it's just that paying for it is "a stumbling block." more ›

Last night out in Flushing Meadows, the US Open witnessed an event in sports that is relatively unheard of: Following Rafael Nadal's four set win in Arthur Ashe Stadium, a male fan rushed the court and planted a kiss on the Spanish superstar. What's more than that—Nadal seemed to have no problem with it whatsoever. The video below shows the modern day Morganno rushing the court as soon as Rafa went shirts-off time immediately after his match concluded. more ›

Yesterday, 17-year-old Melanie Oudin continued her surprise run at the U.S. Open, defeating 13 seed Nadia Petrova 1-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3 and advancing to the quarterfinals. The crowds at Arhur Ashe Stadium have been rallying around the 70th-ranked Georgia native (for instance, listen to the crowd at match point, right before beating Maria Sharapova), but the attention is also a bit overwhelming. more ›

• Blue Jays 14, Yankees 8: Even a first-place team can look like last-place ones. All it has to do is start Sergio Mitre, play terrible defense and play backups for half the game because it has a day-night doubleheader the next day. The Yankees led this game, 5-4 at one point, but then Mitre and Mark Melancon had enough of that. Derek Jeter had three hits, leaving him three shy of Lou Gehrig's Yankees record. The Yankees start a long homestand with two against Tampa Bay on Monday.

• Yankees 6, Blue Jays 4: By avoiding a losing streak, the Yankees extended their American League East lead to 8 1/2 games. Andy Pettitte labored through six innings of four-run ball. That included four walks. Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira had homers for Yankees, who bounced back from being one-hit on Friday night. Derek Jeter's two hits move him seven away from breaking Lou Gehrig's all-time Yankees hit record. Sergio Mitre will start Sunday's finale.

• Mets 8 Rockies 3: Pat Misch earned his first career win thanks to seven strong innings of pitching. Mitsch allowed two homers, but settled down, avoiding becoming the first player in the Majors to lose his first 13 starts. Mets rookie catcher Josh Thole got his first career start and his first hit, eventually going 2-5 with a single and double. David Wright and Angel Pagan both had two RBI and Daniel Murphy cleaned up with a homer, double and two RBI's.

One of the understated highlights of watching the US Open each year is keeping an eye on the ball boys and girls at Arthur Ashe Stadium, watching as the horde of mostly teenagers frantically dart onto the court to rescue errant tennis balls without distracting the megastars they whiz by. On Tuesday night, one ball boy took center stage in his dramatic attempt to recover a ball during the match between Andy Murray and Ernests Gulbis. Let's go to the video tape: more ›

The 2009 U.S. Open tennis tournament kicked off yesterday in Flushing with fireworks, Heidi Klum, an unseasonable chill, and a hotly contested match between Venus Williams and Vera Dushevina, a 22-year-old Russian who, despite being ranked 47th, gave the number 3 ranked Williams a serious run for her money. After narrowly losing the first set to Dushevina, Williams came from behind to squeak out a second set win, then pounded the white Russian 6 games to 3 to win the match—a victory she credited to all the fans shouting "Go Venus!" throughout the long two-and-a-half hour contest. more ›