Match Point

Tired of that same old bowling league format? While you're thinking of signing up for fall bowling leagues, consider the match point system of scoring.Match point scoring adds an element of individual competition to team bowling that can make for more interesting team matches.In your traditional bowling league, the team with the most pins for each game wins one point. With another point awarded for total pins for three games, there's a possible four points to be won on a given night.In the match point system, each bowler on a team is paired against a bowler on the other team.

For the Match Point Gals, tennis at the Jewish Community Center in Owings Mills is more than a means of exercising. Who they are: Ten women per season, ages ranging from 43 to 72. All of the women are mothers. One is a retired English professor. Another is a preschool Hebrew instructor. Summer players are Laurie Altman, Melissa Berman, Stacy Caplan, Shari Donato, Natalie Frazier, Joan Hellman, Marty Lane, Andrea Polsky and the mother-daughter duo of Natalie Ostraw and Katya Smith.

NEW YORK -- It was his first time in Louis Armstrong Stadium, and the kid was acting like he owned the place.For 3 hours and 3 minutes, he was shoving Ivan Lendl around the court, blowing in 120 mph serves that had Lendl backing off the baseline and swinging from the Long Island Railroad. The kid was slicing backhands and rumbling in for volleys, and here he was now at double match point in the fourth set of the first round of the U.S. Open.The crowd stirred, making that rustling noise of surprise and delight that is the soundtrack at every upset.

NEW YORK -- She is a little bug they cannot crush. She is Melanie Oudin, age 17, a four-match sensation at the biggest tennis carnival in the world, the U.S. Open. She left home in Marietta, Ga., to come to New York City and see whether she could make it there. Little did she know, thanks to television and the Internet, she would make it everywhere. She is 5 feet 6 and seems to have a specialty. She beats Russians, usually big Russians. She is in the round of 16 because she did it again Monday, sending away 5-foot-11 Nadia Petrova, the 13th-seeded player, 1-6, 7-6 (2)

PARIS - Roughly 40 minutes had gone by since Gustavo Kuerten had begun walking merrily toward the net to celebrate his second French Open title yesterday, roughly 40 minutes since a cross-court backhand struck by Magnus Norman had been called out, only to be overruled by the chair umpire, Francois Pareau, to Kuerten's stupefaction. "It was like I was watching white and he was watching black," Kuerten said. Roughly 40 minutes, and the fifth-seeded Brazilian was still on Center Court, still in the fourth set chasing down Norman's heavy forehands and trying his best to forget all the match points that had gone by. He had squandered three in the 10th game, four in a marathon 12th game and three in the ensuing tiebreaker.

WASHINGTON - Red, white and blue bunting outlined the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center yesterday and flags from nearly 100 nations flew as the American and Italian teams were introduced for their quarterfinal Federation Cup match. It was supposed to be a tight and tense competition, or so said Billie Jean King, the U.S. coach, before the matches. But in eight previous ties, Italy has never beaten the United States in a Fed Cup. But King doesn't have her A-team here. Instead, she sent No. 18-ranked Meghann Shaughnessy against Italy's Francesca Schiavone, who is ranked No. 32. And she sent No. 8 Chanda Rubin against Italy's Rita Grande, who is No. 55. "Anything can happen in a tie," she said, predicting a chance for the Italians to make it an exciting, tight competition.

A feature in which Sun writers and critics sound off about the movies. Audiences already are talking about the visual poetry of Terence Malick's The New World, about Felicity Huffman's amazing turn as a man in the last stages of a sex-change operation in Transamerica, about the ribald charm and wit of Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova, about Woody Allen's resurgence as a director of the Hitchcockian Match Point. Unfortunately, none of those audiences are in Baltimore, because none of those films has opened here yet. That's really not fair, to the filmgoers, or to the films.

WIMBLEDON, England - What had the potential to be an electrifying day of tennis at Wimbledon came up a few shots shy of truly memorable yesterday. Not that Lindsay Davenport and Lleyton Hewitt of Australia didn't try their best, albeit unintentionally, to push things in that direction in the fourth round. Third-seeded Hewitt, unusually, squandered two match points in the third set and needed another set to finish off Taylor Dent, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-3. Top-seeded Davenport, who blew a match point in the second set by pushing a backhand just long, lost the second-set tiebreaker but rallied to defeat No. 15 Kim Clijsters of Belgium, 6-3, 6-7 (4)

PARIS - Martin Verkerk stood on center court at Roland Garros. He had reached match point in his semifinal. One more shot, perhaps, and Verkerk, ranked 46th in the world and playing in his first French Open, would be in the men's singles final. Tears were gathering in his eyes as the final point was played. In his head were thoughts, he would say later, of "my whole life. I saw the bottom, the challengers. I saw two times how I wanted to quit tennis because I was mentally not good. I had the talent but not the fight."

When Rachael Grob of Mercy prepared to serve late in Game 3 yesterday against Catholic, she knew the Sharpshooters were in trouble. Catholic had won the first two games and led, 9-4, in this one."We needed a spark," said Grob.And she provided it.Grob used her line-drive serve to score 11 straight points and give Mercy the victory -- and the momentum. Top-seeded Mercy later fought off match point and went on to score a stunning 9-15, 3-15, 15-9, 15-10, 16-14 victory over third-seeded Catholic in the championship game of the Catholic League tournament at Seton Keough.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Henry VIII is coming back to the throne. And this time, he's bloody gorgeous. Showtime's epic 10-part miniseries The Tudors holds court beginning tonight at 10 with Jonathan Rhys Meyers cast as the unlikely lead. And much like Henry VIII, the show's producers can't disguise their ambitions - to produce a show that finally gets Showtime an HBO-style hit, popular both with the Emmy nobility and peasants alike. They've invested an unprecedented $38 million and have spent millions more promoting it. "We are hoping to be back here filming for another two, three, maybe four years, because the material we have to work with is so rich and there's so much story to tell.

The hulking metal barns are treasured by the area's tennis community. Thousands of people have volleyed with friends on the indoor courts, including Pam Shriver, who practiced here nearly every day during the peak of her career. Now, more than three decades after it was built, the Green Spring Racquet Club has been sold to developers who are considering razing the barns and building offices. Neighbors, complaining of crowded roads, are gearing up for a fight over the site's fate. Although the new owners say play will continue for more than a year, players are scrambling to find new courts.

When a character in Poseidon announces he isn't called "Lucky" for nothing, you just know he'll be pulped in seconds. Audiences snort when he comes to an abrupt and mangled end. They're trying to signal that it's time to retire "luck" as a gimmick from pop culture. As the poor man's version of destiny, "luck" has been overused so long it's lost any magical charm or even the tang of cheap irony. On the lighter side, Just My Luck, the new Lindsay Lohan romance, follows a chic Manhattanite whose good fortune ends when she kisses a bad-luck boy at a masquerade party.

THE QUESTION I thappens evrey year. The Oscar nominations are announced and voters forgot all about your favorite film of the year. So, which movie got robbed? WHAT YOU SAY Hands down, it's The Producers. OK, so I'm prejudiced. My family saw it on Broadway a week before Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the show. Both actors were fabulous on Broadway and just as good in the movie version. DAVID BOYD, WHITE HALL I think the one movie that was the pure standout movie of the year was Walk The Line.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Wimbledon champion Venus Williams crashed in the first round of the Australian Open today, losing, 2-6, 6-0, 9-7, to Tszvetana Pironkova. It was only the third time in 34 Grand Slam tournaments that the five-time major winner has lost in the first round. The 10th-seeded Williams sprayed 65 unforced errors, including 41 in the third set, as she struggled to control her ground strokes in her first tour-level event since September. Bulgaria's Pironkova, ranked 94th, was broken when she served for the match in the ninth game of the third set. Williams, who also had a chance to serve for the match in the 12th game, gave Pironkova match point with a backhand into the net and surrendered the 2-hour, 28-minute match on another backhand error.

A feature in which Sun writers and critics sound off about the movies. Audiences already are talking about the visual poetry of Terence Malick's The New World, about Felicity Huffman's amazing turn as a man in the last stages of a sex-change operation in Transamerica, about the ribald charm and wit of Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova, about Woody Allen's resurgence as a director of the Hitchcockian Match Point. Unfortunately, none of those audiences are in Baltimore, because none of those films has opened here yet. That's really not fair, to the filmgoers, or to the films.

Meghan Cornwall of Annapolis has played in more pressure-filled matches than most and adjusts well to them. But yesterday, in the final match of her high school career, pressure caused her trouble.Cornwall stumbled from the start in her state title match against Karen Prangley of Atholton. She made several mistakes which, combined with Prangley's steady play, helped the Atholton sophomore win the first set and advance to match point in the second.But Cornwall showed why she's a champion by saving that match point, rallying from behind in the subsequent tiebreaker and going on to win her third straight state title, 5-7, 7-6 (7-4)

When a character in Poseidon announces he isn't called "Lucky" for nothing, you just know he'll be pulped in seconds. Audiences snort when he comes to an abrupt and mangled end. They're trying to signal that it's time to retire "luck" as a gimmick from pop culture. As the poor man's version of destiny, "luck" has been overused so long it's lost any magical charm or even the tang of cheap irony. On the lighter side, Just My Luck, the new Lindsay Lohan romance, follows a chic Manhattanite whose good fortune ends when she kisses a bad-luck boy at a masquerade party.

Before the matches began last night at Pam Shriver's 20th anniversary Mercantile Tennis Challenge, there was a difference of opinion among the four former world No. 1 players assembled at 1st Mariner Arena on how the games would be played. "For fun," said the Martinas, Navratilova and Hingis, who exhibited little humor in the set won by Hingis, 8-4. "Is there such a thing as an exhibition with John McEnroe?" said Jim Courier, who endured through McEnroe's antics in an 8-6 victory. "There is such a thing," McEnroe said.

WIMBLEDON, England - What had the potential to be an electrifying day of tennis at Wimbledon came up a few shots shy of truly memorable yesterday. Not that Lindsay Davenport and Lleyton Hewitt of Australia didn't try their best, albeit unintentionally, to push things in that direction in the fourth round. Third-seeded Hewitt, unusually, squandered two match points in the third set and needed another set to finish off Taylor Dent, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-3. Top-seeded Davenport, who blew a match point in the second set by pushing a backhand just long, lost the second-set tiebreaker but rallied to defeat No. 15 Kim Clijsters of Belgium, 6-3, 6-7 (4)