{"source":"Sports","paragraphs":["\u003cp\u003eThough the Nets had just been

eliminated by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the playoffs, they had
overachieved and shown some promise for the future. And Phil Jackson had become the
Knicks president the year before, bringing his triangle offense and a coaching
résumé that included 11 N.B.A. titles to Manhattan. Little did New York fans know
that it would be four dreadful years before playoff basketball would return to the
city. It finally will on Thursday night, when the Nets host the Philadelphia 76ers
in a series tied at one all. While there has been no playoff basketball in the city
in the interim, much has happened in those four years. And for Knicks and Nets
fans, not much of it has been good.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eNaturally, when
teams shrug at the free-agent market, it manifests itself in salaries below
players’ expectations. But the widespread rebuilding phenomenon — or tanking, as
some call it — resulted in eight teams with at least 95 losses last season, the
most in history. It was no coincidence that attendance also dropped by more than
three million fans, falling below 70 million for the first time since
2003.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThe high point remains the 4-0 defeat of
Leicester City on Boxing Day, one of those rare performances where each component
part of a sporting machine appears to be operating with some intimate, shared
knowledge of the other pieces. Either side of this there has at times been an air
of double take about Liverpool’s run, of things happening that stretch credibility,
that verge on some kind of sporting magic
realism.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eRichard Lewis, the outgoing chief executive
of Wimbledon, hopes tennis can be \"off and running again\" by August, when the US
Open is scheduled to begin, although he admits there may be \"no more tennis this
year\". Speaking the day after the All England Club finally cancelled the
championships for the first time since the second world war, Lewis acknowledged
that uncertainty has gripped tennis because of the continued spread of
coronavirus.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHis original lawsuit against the Yankees
and M.L.B. was dismissed in 2015, and last October, an appellate court rejected his
arguments to have that judgment overturned. In fact, the New York State Supreme
Court even ordered Zlotnick to pay the league and the Yankees $745 in court costs,
which he has refused to pay. Editors’ Picks Yes, Fake News Is a Problem. But
There’s a Real News Problem, Too. The next, and possibly final step, is the state
Court of Appeals in Albany, which has received arguments from both sides and is
expected to rule soon on whether Zlotnick’s appeal can
proceed.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAnd sure enough, if they tune in to the
upcoming Rugby World Cup in Japan, they will see many large players on the field.
There are the wide bodies, the 275-pound-or-so prop forwards like Sekope Kepu of
Australia, Charlie Faumuina of New Zealand or Steven Kitshoff of South Africa. Then
there are the tall timber guys — most often in the lock position — like the 6-foot-
10 Rory Arnold of Australia, his 6-foot-8 teammate Adam Coleman, or Brodie
Retallick of New Zealand and Eben Etzebeth of South Africa, also both 6-foot-8, and
quite a few others who look like they would be comfortable in the
N.B.A.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eNo sport is more often used to tell the story
of America than baseball. Yet Marcenia Lyle Stone, known as Toni, who became the
first woman ever to play big-league professional baseball when she took the field
as a second baseman for the Negro Leagues’ Indianapolis Clowns in 1953, has largely
been relegated to a footnote in history: one in a long list of African-American
women who endured hardships, overcame discrimination and helped shape the nation
only to be shoved aside, their contributions
minimized.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgüero’s latest goal puts him alongside
Alan Shearer in one respect. They are the only two players in the Premier League
era to score 20 times or more in six different seasons. Yet the more important
detail relates to what that goal means for the title race on a day when the
supporters of Liverpool, an hour into the game, might have dared to think the
momentum was about to swing dramatically their way.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIt
seems every year there is huge growth in women’s sport. Each new year brings bigger
crowd figures, new competitions, increased television coverage and new records
being set. But as the nation took to social media to share in the emotion of
Phillips’ anterior cruciate ligament injury, it was clear there was another, less
quantifiable, factor at play. Earlier this month, journalist Isabelle Westbury
faced backlash on Twitter when she was critical of the criteria for Britain’s
Sports Personality of the Year award.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eEven by his own
high standards Lewis Hamilton set a new benchmark in 2019. In a class of his own,
his sixth championship was defined by opening with an almost crushing, relentless
run that all but had the job done by the summer break. After Valtteri Bottas
started strongly and the teammates shared two wins apiece, Hamilton found another
plane. Four from four followed including harassing Sebastian Vettel into an error
in Canada, a tyre management masterclass in Monaco and a clinical, precision
dissection in France where he finished 18 seconds ahead.\u003c/p\u003e"]}