First Set

NEW YORK -- For one set, it could have been 1982.Jimmy Connors was charging up the middle like a bull. Ivan Lendl was standing on the baseline. And the crowd at the National Tennis Center was up and roaring, giving a shout that cut through the hot, humid night.Tennis was young again. And exciting again. And the U.S. Open was like the best drama on Broadway, giving you chills, tugging the heart, and yes, even bringing a few tears.But it would not, could not, last.After all, Connors is 40, not 30. Tennis is filled with power, not finesse.

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

When Ally Spector and David Nguyen dropped the first sets of their respective singles finals, they knew they had to make several changes against top opponents to win Howard County championships. Nguyen, of Wilde Lake, and Spector, of Reservoir, were up for the challenge. Both adjusted and won the next two sets handily to clinch their first county titles yesterday at Wilde Lake Tennis Club in Columbia. River Hill won both the boys and mixed doubles titles, securing a third straight team championship with 39 points.

Of all the skills the Reservoir volleyball team showed Tuesday night, it was one you can't measure that made the biggest difference — mental toughness. The No. 11 Gators rallied from a big deficit in the first to defeat visiting No. 12 Atholton, 29-27, 25-18, 25-18, in a key Howard County league game. "When you play your rival, it's more personal," Reservoir senior Kelsea Belt said. "Some of us are good friends with the girls on that team, so we really wanted this one. The Gators (5-3, 5-2)

Mike Clark of Baltimore defeated Tim Johnson, 6-2, 6-2, yesterday to advance to the finals of the Maryland State Hardcourt Championships at St. Paul's School.Clark, the top seed, will play No. 2 seed Mike Castrilli today for the championship.Leading 3-1 in the first set, Clark rallied from a 0-40 deficit to break Johnson's serve and extend his lead to 4-1.After losing his serve the next game, Clark played more aggressively and, with the help of forehand winners, broke Johnson's serve, then held serve to clinched the first set, 6-2.Johnson did not hold serve in the first set."

NEW YORK - Hard to believe that it's been 10 years since Pete Sampras came out of nowhere to win the first of his record 13 major championships at the U.S. Open. Hard to imagine that, at 29, Sampras is considered the grand old man of men's tennis. One more thing: Sampras is still hard to beat. Facing set point in his first-set tiebreaker yesterday in his semifinal match against Lleyton Hewitt, Sampras took advantage of a sloppy forehand volley by the 19-year-old Australian and turned it into a 7-6 (9-7)

It took about the same time for "The Match" for the National Prep Team Tennis Championship to be decided yesterday as it took to read this far. Deerfield Academy coach Jay Morsuch wasn't kidding when he sent word out of the hills of Western Massachusetts last week that "we have depth."Host McDonogh and Deerfield, both unbeaten through three matches after the morning pairings, squared off first in three doubles pairings worth one point. McDonogh's top tandem of Nick Colvin and Chris Chiu bested Ogden Phipps and Nick Aquavella in a pro set, 8-5, then the cheering stopped.

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- She looked like the old Steffi Graf, winning the first set 6-0. But Graf wasn't playing the old Gabriela Sabatini yesterday in the Lipton tennis tournament.The Sabatini of the '90s is a confident player who does not run out of hope or energy. The improved Sabatini climbed out of the hole and beat Graf again 0-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-1.Sabatini now challenges Monica Seles in tomorrow's final. Seles, the defending champion and the No. 1 player in the world, trounced Mary Joe Fernandez 6-1, 6-2 in last night's semifinal.

Amid numerous picnickers and blaring car stereos in Druid Hill Park, Josh Eventoff of Baltimore defeated Tom Bender of Woodlawn, 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-1, to win the men's singles championship of the Baltimore Open tennis tournament yesterday."

HAMPSTEAD -- The girls singles final at yesterday's Carroll County Tennis Championships at North Carroll High School presented few surprises to Becky Duex and Mandy Koenig.As teammates at Westminster High, they played each other several times a week throughout the season. Yesterday, their knowledge of each other showed.In a back and forth match throughout, Duex escaped with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 win to avenge her loss to Koenig in last year's final."It's horrible having to play her," said Duex, the Owls' No. 2 singles player behind her opponent.

Volleyball is a game of momentum. Third-ranked Mount de Sales found that out Sunday, the hard way. The host Sailors sprinted out to a 1-0 lead in sets but couldn't hold on, dropping the Maryland/D.C. Private Schools Championship to Good Counsel, 11-25, 25-16, 25-22, 25-19. The victory was the third straight for the Falcons, who have beaten Mount de Sales in each of the past three years. "We were able to win the first set, and then their talent really showed," said Sailors senior Caroline Casey (nine kills)

Build it and they will come. That's the idea behind the use of synthetic turf athletic fields at some Harford County schools. The first field, at North Harford High School, has been used by high school teams for the past three weeks. And four more synthetic turf fields are planned. Since his appointment in 2005, Harford Executive David R. Craig has pushed for synthetic turf fields at the schools. He and other advocates say synthetic turf allows for increased use, less maintenance and more durability.

Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse coach Dave Pietramala wanted his struggling offense to loosen up by getting off to a good start, and he wanted his team to show some passion by delivering some nasty hits. Yesterday, in a game the No. 14 Blue Jays had to have against visiting, struggling, 11th-ranked Syracuse, he got what he wished for, on both counts. Hopkins jumped all over the Orange in the first quarter, got tremendous production from sophomores Kevin Huntley and Paul Rabil, and threw its weight around with some memorable aggression to earn a 14-9 victory before 2,836 at chilly and windy Homewood Field.

THE SPOT WHERE HULL STREET meets the south Baltimore waterfront played an important role in American history, but you'd never know it just by glancing around. It doesn't have the powerful land mass of Federal Hill, or the well-preserved buildings of Fort McHenry. Not even a plaque to explain its significance. But what this area lacks in artifacts, it more than compensates for in authenticity. This stretch of Locust Point is the place where nearly 2 million men, women and children from other countries first arrived by boat to the United States from the early 1800s to 1914.

Last spring, when her obstetrician suggested an ultrasound test to see if she was carrying more than one baby, Jennell Dickens prayed that she wasn't carrying twins. When an ultrasound technician examined her belly, counting two, three and four heartbeats, she steeled herself for quadruplets. That was before a radiologist entered the room and found another heartbeat. Dickens cried for two months. Yesterday, she was the picture of composure, smiling and laughing at the University of Maryland Medical Center just two days after delivering four girls and a boy 10 weeks early.

When Ally Spector and David Nguyen dropped the first sets of their respective singles finals, they knew they had to make several changes against top opponents to win Howard County championships. Nguyen, of Wilde Lake, and Spector, of Reservoir, were up for the challenge. Both adjusted and won the next two sets handily to clinch their first county titles yesterday at Wilde Lake Tennis Club in Columbia. River Hill won both the boys and mixed doubles titles, securing a third straight team championship with 39 points.

Broadneck senior Jennifer Hellier relied on her experience. For Severna Park junior Andrew Porter, redemption played a role.Hellier and Porter both captured their third straight county singles titles at the Anne Arundel County Tennis Championships at Chesapeake High yesterday.Arundel captured the team title behind its strong doubles play. The Wildcats edged runner-up Severna Park, 35-33, with Broadneck taking third with 21 points.Arundel's top two boys doubles pairs reached the final, with Aaron Gough and Brad Hurst needing to go into a third-set tie-breaker to get past teammates Jordan Hoyt and Dave Filo, 8-7, in the decider.

It took almost the entire season, but McDonogh sophomore Chris Chiu finally found redemption yesterday at the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference tennis finals.Chiu's only loss during the regular season came against Loyola's Kevin Strouse, the tournament's top-seeded singles player, on April 3, so Chiu was eager for a rematch in yesterday's No. 1 singles final.In the end, Chiu not only claimed his first singles title with a 6-3, 6-2 victory but also erased the memory of his first defeat in high school competition.

NEW YORK - Washington Nationals manager Frank Robinson proudly eschews numbers and statistics for old-fashioned baseball sense. He has said repeatedly that he doesn't need a computer printout to know how his team and players are doing. He certainly didn't need to be told that the Nationals had scored in the first inning only twice in their first 16 games, and that they had won both times. Now, after pounding the New York Mets, 11-4, to avoid a sweep at Shea Stadium yesterday, the Nats are 3-for-3 when they grab a first-inning lead.

WASHINGTON - The second set was churning along and Chanda Rubin was not pleased. Her erratic backhand had her overcompensating with pressure on her forehand, and her forehand was not responding the way she wanted. When she pushed an easy forehand volley long, she clasped her hand over her white hat in total embarrassment. Rubin, ranked No. 8 in the world, was the anchor of this U.S. Fed Cup team, and she was out to prove she deserved it. As she faced Italian Francesca Schiavone in what would be the deciding match in an American sweep, she willed herself to steady her game and put her opponent away.