Today’s Sports Highlight in History:
In 1995, Cal Ripken played in his 2,131st consecutive major league game to surpass Lou Gehrig’s 56-year record. Ripken received a 22-minute standing ovation and later hit a homer in Baltimore’s 4-2 win over California.
On this date:
1920 — Jack Dempsey knocks out Billy Miske in the third round to retain the world heavyweight title. It’s the first radio broadcast of a prizefight.
1920 — Bill Tilden wins his first of seven U.S. Open men’s singles titles, defeating Bill Johnston, 6-1, 1-6, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3, at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y.
1941 — Bobby Riggs beats Frank Kovacs in four sets to win the men’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Sarah Palfrey Cooke wins the women’s title with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Pauline Betz.
1948 — The United States sweeps Australia 5-0 to retain the Davis Cup title.
1975 — Chris Evert wins her first of six singles titles in the U.S. Open with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, victory over Evonne Goolagong. In the men’s semifinals, Manuel Orantes performs one of the great comebacks in tennis history, saving five match points to defeat Guillermo Vilas, 4-6, 1-6, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4, after trailing two-sets-to-love and 0-5 in the fourth set.
1980 — Chris Evert Lloyd beats Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia to win her fifth U.S. Open singles title in the last six years.
1980 — John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors battle in perhaps their greatest U.S. Open match. McEnroe edges Connors in the semifinal, 6-4, 5-7, 0-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3) in front of a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium.
1991 — A pair of teenagers play a level of tennis beyond their years in a women’s semifinal match at the U.S. Open. Seventeen-year-old Monica Seles beats 15-year-old Jennifer Capriati, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (3) to advance to her first U.S. Open final.
1992 — Noureddine Morceli of Algeria smashes the world record for 1,500 meters, clocking 3:28.86 at an international track and field meet in Rieti, Italy. Morceli breaks the record of 3:29.46 set by Said Aouita of Morocco in 1985.
1993 — Helena Sukova of the Czech Republic beats Martina Navratilova 7-5, 6-4 to advance to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. Navratilova’s loss leaves the United States without a women’s quarterfinalist for the first time in the tournament’s history, dating to 1887.
1996 — Baltimore Orioles’ Eddie Murray’s 500th career HR.
2003 — In the U.S. Open, No. 2 Justine Henin-Hardenne wins the all-Belgian women’s singles final, beating No. 1 Kim Clijsters, 7-5, 6-1.
2008 — US Open Women’s Tennis: Serena Williams wins her third US title; beats Jelena Janković of Serbia 6-4, 7-5.
2017 — CoCo Vandeweghe becomes the third American to get into the U.S. Open women’s semifinals, beating top-seeded Karolina Pliskova 7-6 (4), 6-3. Madison Keys completes the sweep for American women, giving the host country all four U.S. Open semifinal spots for the first time in 36 years. The 15th-seeded Keys takes 69 minutes for a 6-3, 6-3 victory over 418th-ranked qualifier Kaia Kanepi of Estonia. The Americans haven’t had all four semifinalists at the U.S. Open since 1981, when Tracy Austin beat Martina Navratilova for the title. Chris Evert and Barbara Potter also made the semifinals.
2017 — FIFA orders that a World Cup qualifier between South Africa and Senegal be replayed after the referee is found guilty of match manipulation and banned for life. South Africa beat Senegal 2-1 in the qualifier last November, helped by a penalty awarded by Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey for a nonexistent handball.
2020 — World #1 tennis player Novak Djokovic is sensationally disqualified in 4th round of US Open after hitting a ball in frustration, striking a line judge; trailed Pablo Carreño Busta 5-6 in 1st set.
