Tennis
Roger Federer is done. OK, not exactly, but his streak of making 10 consecutive Grand Slam finals appearances was snapped last week. Serbian Novak Djokovic beat Federer in straight sets at the Australian Open last week in the semifinals. Federer had won 19 matches in a row before falling to the third-seeded Djokovic. Federer failed to win his third straight Aussie Open and Djokovic faced Jo-Wilfried Tsonga the world’s No. 2 men’s tennis player Rafael Nadal in the other semifinal. Federer’s quest to catch Pete Sampras with the most Grand Slam titles (14) remains two behind and he will have to wait to get closer for the French Open, where Federer hasn’t won.
NFL
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady must want more attention than he already gets. After being seen walking with a boot on his foot in New York City last week, something that got way too much attention, he was missing from practice on Thursday and Friday. With all the attention surrounding the two Super Bowl teams anything will make news but when golden boy Brady is missing, who knows what the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick are up to. Belichick refused to talk about what his darling QB was up to when the rest of the team was practicing.
College basketball
IUPUI coach Ron Hunter decided he wanted to get 30,000 pairs of athletic shoes to send to children in need in Africa. He decided to coach a basketball game shoeless as part of his campaign. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and due to the fact that shoes kept pouring in, he increased the goal to 40,000. Some students showed up barefoot to the game and Hunter had 110,000 pairs of shoes by tip-off. Several big companies donated thousands of shoes including Wal-Mart and Nine West. The shoes will be given to Samaritan’s Feet, a non-profit group that started four years ago.
