Wimbledon 2010: Serena Williams defeats Vera Zvonareva to win women's final

Not long after the BBC’s live broadcast of the women’s final, they replayed some of the match, and watching the second showing felt very much like sitting through it the first time: you knew who the champion was.

This was the most predictable of Wimbledon finals. The best period of the match for Vera Zvonareva was in the warm-up, as it was only then, during the exchange of three-quarter-strength forehands, that she was able to stay with Serena Williams on Centre Court. Once the umpire had called “play”, and Williams was clouting the ball through the grass, this was not a real contest, the Californian winning 6-3, 6-2 in just over an hour.

Sports digest: Brock Lesnar stops Shane Carwin at UFC 116

Brock Lesnar rallied from a horrific first-round beating to stop Shane Carwin with a choke in the second round, defending his heavyweight title at UFC 116 in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Lesnar won his first fight in nearly a year despite taking a pounding in the opening minutes from Carwin, the previously undefeated interim champion.

Lesnar took down Carwin in the second round and got him in an arm triangle choke, forcing Carwin to tap out.

UFC social media scores first-round knockout in UFC’s heavyweight championship

VANCOUVER — Even before heavyweight champions Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar square off in the ring Saturday, the UFC has scored its own first-round knockout with a social media campaign that has fans marketing the match to their Twitter and Facebook friends.

A first for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, 116.UFC.com is an interactive site where fans can create their own virtual fighters, stacking up against heavyweights Carwin and Lesnar and making predictions for the fight’s outcome. So far, more than 17,000 people have stepped into the virtual ring to create avatars based on their own size and weight, predicting results of the event.

Zvonareva Faces Big Odds Against Serena Williams

Vera Zvonareva has never played in a Grand Slam final before. At No. 21, the Russian is the second-lowest ranked player ever to reach the Wimbledon women's final. Her opponent is the world's top-ranked player and a three-time Wimbledon winner.

Nothing to worry about then.

"I don't care what everyone says," the 25-year-old Zvonareva said. "I know if I can play my best tennis I can beat anyone on the other side of the net. That's what I'm going to try to do on Saturday. I never look at any odds or comparisons. It's not important to me."

Standing on the other side of the net will be none other than defending champion and 12-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams.

"I'm hoping to still peak in the final," said Williams, a scary thought from someone who hasn't dropped a set in six matches and has served a Wimbledon record 80 aces.

Williams will be playing in her sixth Wimbledon final and 13th Grand Slam title match, and knows Centre Court at the All England Club as well as anyone in the game.

"On paper it looks like I should win," Williams said. "But Vera, she's beaten some good people. Her last two matches she's been down a set, so she's obviously a fighter. She never gives up. The biggest thing for me is to stay positive and not put too much pressure on myself."

World Cup 2010: Old masters Brazil and Holland now more steel than silk

Except the 2010 versions of Brazil and Holland are very different from previous incarnations as both coaches admitted on Thursday evening.

Football, they said, had moved on from 1974 and 1978 (the high spots for the Dutch) and 1982 (for Brazil); that great team that promised so much but failed to win in the final. And winning is all that matters to Carlos Dunga and Bert van Marwijk.

Pragmatism first; everything else a distant second. Both are achieving that aim.

“Total Football was 1974,” Van Marwijk stated on Thursday night. “That’s a long time ago and I know there was the 'samba football’ of Brazil. But football changes.

"Everyone is getting fitter and better organised. So when you play now it is more difficult to win the World Cup.

“I can understand why the Brazilians have changed also. But they can win the World Cup and so can we. In the past we’ve won a couple of matches and thought we’d made it and then were sent home.”

Arum: It's all up to Mayweather

MANILA,PHILIPPINES - Floyd Mayweather Jr. has a couple of weeks to decide whether or not he wants to fight Manny Pacquiao.

Otherwise, Top Rank president Bob Arum said Pacquiao, the best boxer in the planet today, will start looking elsewhere, and move on to his scheduled return to the ring on Nov. 13.

In an article posted by BoxingScene.com yesterday, Arum hinted that everything’s been agreed upon between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, which represents Mayweather in the talks that have gone on and off for a few months now.

“There’s no actual date of a deadline, but it’s sometime in the middle of July,” Arum told Rick Reeno of the boxing website.

“If we haven’t gotten this thing locked up and done then we’re going ahead and taking another opponent. We’re not just going to sit there and blow our chances for a fight in November,” Arum was quoted as saying.

Tiger Woods to shell out $750 mn in club-class divorce

LONDON: Mind-numbing figures are par for the course for Tiger Woods. But this is surely one he'd have preferred to avoid. The disgraced golfer has agreed to give his ex-wife almost $750 million (about Rs 3,500 crore) as part of a divorce settlement which also bars him from letting any of his girlfriends near his children, daughter Sam (3) and son Charlie (1).

The settlement is probably the third-largest ever, behind only Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's $1.7-billion payout to his ex-wife Anne and Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn's split with his former wife Elaine, which was estimated to have cost him almos

t $955 million.