Sports

Bayer Leverkusen were facing a start to the season of two matches and just one point. That would have been a disaster, especially with Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich dropping points in the early going to open a window for them. Then Bayer found a late goal to down Werder Bremen and put them on three points, mid table, but right in the thick of it with the other top contenders. A title cannot be won in the first weeks of the season, but it can be lost and Bayer did enough to make sure they weren’t on the verge of losing it before August came to an end.

Bayer Leverkusen 1-0 Werder Bremen

Apparently Michael Ballack is still alive because he got a surprise start for Leverkusen and he was like most players on both teams, underwhelming. The match was ugly for long stretches and was not going to turn any non-believers into football fans. Michal Kadlec made sure that the Leverkusen supporters would remember the match for its result and not it’s ugly play when he snapped a header five minutes from time. It was saved, but it came right back to him and he knocked home the rebound to earn Leverkusen the win.

Kaiserslautern 1-1 FC Augsberg

Two matches into the season and Bundesliga new boys have yet to lose. Not a bad start for Augsberg after they picked up their second draw of the campaign against Kaiserslautern. They were first on the board when new signing Sascha Molders was able to turn and fire low for the opening goal just nine minutes into the match. Florian Dick kept Kaiserslautern from faling further behind when he cleared a ball off the line. That proved crucial when Etey Shechter found the net 10 minutes from time to earn the home side a point.

Serena Williams won the second and biggest title of her career at the Rogers Cup in Toronto Sunday, defeating No. 10 seed Samantha Stosur 6-4, 6-2 in the final. The title is the 39th of Serena’s storied career.

After an extremely competitive first set, Serena blasted her way through Stosur in the second set, breaking Stosur in the first and fifth games of the set to take control. Stepping into the court to cut off the Stosur serve, Serena neutralized her opponent’s biggest weapon effectively, and only faced one break point on her own serve in the entire match.

Serena closed out the tournament with an ace, threw her arms up in the air and jumped around a few times. She was happy.

Storming through the second with the speed and determination that Serena showed was necessitated by the ominous weather that hung overhead. A loud clap of thunder boomed overhead early in the second set, and rain began to fall as the trophy ceremony got underway after the match.

The title cements Serena’s place as the favorite going into the US Open, which starts in just over two weeks.

Stay tuned to SB Nation’s coverage of the 2011 US Open Series at SBNation.com as well as on Twitter, @DailyForehand .

The 2011 PGA Championship leaderboard has a new player tied for the lead. Keegan Bradley hit a birdie on the first hole, moving himself into a tie for first place with third-round leaders Jason Dufner and Brendan Steele. The previously-unknown golfer has made it clear early that he will be a part of the chase for first place.

Bradley followed up his birdie on 1 with arguably an even more impressive shot on the second hole. His second shot fell deep into a bunker far away from the hole, but Bradley hit an unbelievable shot out of it to within a couple feet from the hole to save par. That keeps Bradley at -7 for the tournament.

In addition, Scott Verplank has moved into second place all by himself at -6 with a birdie on the second hole. Elsewhere, strong starts from Luke Donald and Nick Watney have put them at -3, four shots off the lead. Trevor Immelman, Gary Woodland and Sergio Garcia are -3 on the day and have moved to -2 for the tournament.

The full PGA Championship Leaderboard is here, and follow this storystream for updates throughout the rest of the tournament from the Atlanta Athletic Club.

Two teams entered the season as big title favorites. Ajax were the defending champions and favorites, primed to make it two straight titles as they found replacements for the players who departed for other clubs. There’s no doubt that the smart money was on them to bring home the title, but they had one team that looked capable of toppling the men from Amsterdam. That was Twente and both teams got a bit of a challenge this week.

Twente answered the call on Saturday by tearing AZ Alkmaar apart, but that was nothing compared to what Ajax did to Heerenveen on Sunday. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you your two Dutch Eredivisie favorites, Ajax and Twente.

Ajax 5-1 Heerenveen

There was a time when this match was competitive. In fact, Ajax only led at the break because of a wonder strike by Toby Alderweireld. That goal put Ajax in front after the two teams traded goals in the first half and it looked like Heerenveen was going to be in this one until the final whistle.

Then the second half started. Christian Eriksen picked out Derk Boerrigter to make it 3-1 in the 51st minute. Eriken played the role of creator once more when he found Gregory Van der Wiel, but his shot hit the crossbar, but that didn’t stop it from becoming painfully obvious that Eriken was the star of the show. Miralem Sulejmani finished well on a great team goal to make it 4-1 before Van der Wiel finally beat the post in the final minute to make it 5-1 and send a message to the rest of the league, “come and get us.”

FC Utrecht 2-2 De Graafschap

Last week was all about coming back from two goals down for the draw in the Eredivisie so Utrecht, or more accurately Jacob Mulenga, decided to remind us of what it was like. Rydell Poepon put De Graafschap on top when he was able to put home a rebound after 14 minutes despite Utrecht incensed that he was not called for offisde. Soufian El Hassnaoui single-handedly doubled the lead after an hour when he broke down the left, ran the length of the pitch then cut in before finishing for the two-goal lead.

Utrecht would not go away though with Mulenga getting on the end of a cross in the 77th minute and chipping the keeper to halve De Graafschap’s lead. Mulenga erased the lead five minutes later when he was played in on goal and while his finish wasn’t picture perfect, it did crawl over the goal line for an equalizer.

FC Groningen 4-2 ADO Den Haag

Tim Matavz, step forward and claim your prize. The Groningen striker picked up a hat trick to lead Gronigen to their first win of the season. First he headed home a cross. Next he collected a pass before firing low to make it two. Instead of taking a pass for his third he nodded home a ball off of the crossbar. That was all before halftime, then Leandro Bacuna scored three minutes after the break and it was 4-0 Groningen. Two goals before the hour mark put ADO back in the match, but it wasn’t nearly enough as Matavz won the match and my heart. 

Hercales 2-1 NAC Breda

Heracles was able to overcome a halftime deficit to keep NAC in search of their first point of the season. Jordy Buijs put the visitors in front in the first half when he nodded home a free kick from 10 yards, but that was as good as it got for NAC. Heracles came out flying in the second half and equalized in the 66th minute when Willy Overtoom converted a penalty. Ten minutes later, Everton did his best imitation of Bujis, nodding home a free kick of his own for the winner as Heracles improved to four points on the year.

Read More: David Villa (F – Spain), Barcelona, Real Madrid

Welcome back to La Liga action, everybody. Okay, maybe not because it’s just the Supercup, which doesn’t actually count for anything, but we can call this the season debut of Spanish football, right? What’s more symbolic of Spanish football than Real Madrid and Barcelona? Nothing, that’s what.

For Madrid it is the 4-2-3-1 with a near full team. Barcelona isn’t quite a full team, but they have a few of their big names in there with Andres Iniesta, David Villa and new boy Alex Sanchez. Oh yeah, there’s also the fun of the Cristiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi match up. So they don’t really match up, but it’s more fun to say that it’s one versus the other so we’ll do it.

Real Madrid (4-2-3-1): Iker Casillas; Sergio Ramos, Pepe, Ricardo Carvalho, Marcelo; Xabi Alonso, Sami Khedira; Angel Di María, Mesut Özil, Cristiano Ronaldo; Karim Benzema

Barcelona (4-3-3): Victor Valdes; Dani Alves, Javier Mascherano, Eric Abidal, Adriano; Thiago Alcantara, Seydou Keita, Andres Iniesta; Alexis Sanchez, Lionel Messi, David Villa

It’s been an erratic start for many of the players atop the 2011 PGA Championship leaderboard on Sunday. The one player who has yet to drop any strokes is Jason Dufner, and he is therefore alone in first place at 7-under through four holes. Keegan Bradley and Scott Verplank are tied for second at 6-under, and Brendan Steele has dropped to 5-under.

Bradley birdied the first hole to tie Dufner for the lead, but then bogeyed the par-four third hole to fall one shot back. Steele, meanwhile, began the day tied for the lead, but bogeyed the first hole, then bogeyed the par-three fourth after hitting the ball wide of the green.

Verplank is the only member of the leaderboard that has improved, hitting a birdie on the second hole to jump up to 6-under.

The full PGA Championship Leaderboard is here, and follow this storystream for updates throughout the rest of the tournament from the Atlanta Athletic Club.

The Field of Dreams is probably the second greatest baseball movie Kevin Costner has ever starred in. That apparently isn’t as enticing as it should be, however, considering the movie set has still not been sold despite what seems to be a reasonable $5.4 million price tag.

The field itself, along with the Kinsella’s two-bedroom house, six outbuildings and 193 other acres (including the cornfield, one would assume) has been on the market ever since May 2010, but hasn’t found a buyer yet, according to the Dubuque (IA) Telegraph Herald.

The real estate agent is chalking up the time its taking to sell the property as another victim of the economy, but it seems that the asking price is low enough that somebody should buy the place.

If nothing else, why not just buy the place and hold old-timey, exhibition baseball games while charging some sort of admission. Since somebody’s already built it, the new owner would only have to make sure the people will come.

SEC expansion has been put on hold, at least for the time being. Dr. Bernie Machen, the chair of the SEC Presidents and Chancellors, has released a statement indicating that “no action” will be taken on accepting Texas A&M into the league as of right now. The statement did, however, leave the door open for the league to accept Texas A&M in the future.

 ”The SEC Presidents and Chancellors met today and reaffirmed our satisfaction with the present 12 institutional alignment.  We recognize, however, that future conditions may make it advantageous to expand the number of institutions in the league. We discussed criteria and process associated with expansion.  No action was taken with respect to any institution including Texas A&M.”

That should probably end the thought of Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 for the time being. One potential problem may have been that the SEC could not find another team to join with Texas A&M. The league had suggested it would only add Texas A&M if a 14th team could be found.

Keep an eye on SEC expansion chatter in this StoryStream and over at Team Speed Kills and SB Nation Atlanta.

Read More: usa vs mexico, mexico vs usa, usa vs mexico 2011, mexico vs usa 2011, Mexico, United States

Okay Jurgen, I know it’s just a friendly and you’re just trying to get a look at some players, but you could have at least made it interesting. The United States managed to register zero shots on goal in Jurgen Klinsmann’s first 45 minutes as USMNT coach, allowing Mexico to have a majority of the possession. It’s basically impossible to pick out a player who was outstanding, and just under half the team might make the grade as ‘adequate’. Oribe Peralta is the lone goal scorer, and Mexico lead 1-0 at halftime of what has been a pretty dull match.

The USA lineup implied that Michael Bradley would be playing in a central playmaker’s role behind Edson Buddle, but he’s reverted more and more back to his old deep lying role as the match has gone on. Jermaine Jones has done very little, Buddle’s touch is poor, and the team has done little to nothing to get the wide players involved in the game. The back line has not been embarrassing, but they haven’t looked spectacular either.

After a dull 45 minutes, hopefully Klinsmann spices things up with his personnel and/or formation. Seriously, at least make this fun. A boring 1-0 loss in a friendly tells us nothing and puts me to sleep. It’s an exhibition!

Read More: Albert Haynesworth (DT – NEP), New England Patriots, Washington Redskins

Albert Haynesworth‘s restructured contract with the New England Patriots reveals just how savvy the franchise really is. Haynesworth is set to earn $1.5 million in base salary this season, nearly $4 million less than the $5.4 million he earned with the Redskins last season. The contract is heavily incentive laden, however, allowing Haynesworth to earn back his money depending on how many snaps he plays this season.

The first bonus kicks in once Haynesworth plays 20 percent of the available defensive snaps, earning him an additional $1 million. Afterwards, the bonuses start coming in $590,000 increments once he hits 45 percent. From then on he’ll earn an additional $590,000 at 50, 55, 60 and 65 percent. He will earn another $400,000 if he makes the Pro Bowl.

The system should help motivate the notoriously work-adverse defensive tackle to, you know, work. Haynesworth gets a significant pay raise in 2012, up to $6.7 million in base salary, providing him even more incentive to wreck offensive lineman like the defensive MVP of yore. 

The Patriots are set to kickoff their preseason Thursday against the Jaguars. Head over to Pats Pulpit for the latest analysis on Haynesworth’s prospects and this year’s team.