Die Allianz T-D-P » Hameed made 30 not out and Lancashire won the

LONDON -- Serena Williams insisted she was not focused on No. 22.Said she wouldnt discuss it.Kept coming close without quite getting it.Now she finally has it. And so she can flaunt it.Williams lifted both arms overhead and raised two fingers on each hand right there on Centre Court to show off the magic number after winning her record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title by beating Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-3 in the Wimbledon final on Saturday.Definitely had some sleepless nights, if Im just honest, with a lot of stuff, Williams said. My goal is to win always at least a Slam a year. It was getting down to the pressure.She pulled even with Steffi Graf for the most major championships in the Open era, which began in 1968. Now Williams stands behind only Margaret Courts all-time mark of 24.This was Williams seventh singles trophy at the All England Club -- only Martina Navratilova, with nine, has more in the Open era -- and second in a row. The victory at Wimbledon a year ago raised her Grand Slam count to 21, where it remained until Saturday.Its been incredibly difficult not to think about it. I had a couple of tries this year, said Williams, who went back on court a few hours later to win the doubles title with older sister Venus. But it makes the victory even sweeter to know how hard I worked for it.There was a stunning loss to Roberta Vinci in the U.S. Open semifinals in September, ending Williams bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam. Then losses in finals to Kerber at the Australian Open, and to Garbine Muguruza at the French Open.Time heals, said Williams coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. By losing, you realize things.In the rematch against the fourth-seeded Kerber -- the first time in a decade two women met to decide multiple major titles in a single season -- the No. 1-ranked Williams came through. This goes alongside six championships at the U.S. Open, six at the Australian Open and three at the French Open.The 34-year-old American did it, as she often does, with nearly impeccable serving. She slammed 13 aces. She won 38 of 43 first-serve points. She faced just one break point -- at 3-all in the second set, representing Kerbers only real opening -- and shut the door emphatically with aces at 117 mph and 124 mph.There was more that Williams did well, though. Much more. Facing the left-handed Kerbers reactive, counter-punching style, Williams dictated exchanges and compiled a 39-12 edge in winners.Williams hammered second serves that floated in at 75 mph, breaking once in each set. She volleyed well, too, winning the point on 16 of 22 trips to the net, including a tap-in on match point. Soon, she was wrapping Kerber in a warm embrace, then holding up those fingers to symbolize 22.I was trying everything, but she deserved it today. She really played an unbelievable match, said Kerber, who hadnt appeared in a major final until beating Williams in Melbourne. I think we both (played) on a really high level.Kerber, a German who knows Graf well, defeated Venus in the semifinals and hadnt dropped a set until Saturday. But she could not keep up with the trophy on the line, although it was a high-quality final that was tighter than the scoreline might indicate.Played a good match, Kerber said. That makes it a little easier for me.Later Saturday, Williams earned a second piece of hardware when she and Venus defeated Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova 6-3, 6-4 for their sixth doubles trophy at Wimbledon and 14th from all majors.In singles, Williams got better as the tournament went along, taking the last 12 sets she played after dropping a tiebreaker to open her second-round match against Christina McHale. After that set, Williams smashed her racket and flung it away, drawing a $10,000 fine.There had been some thought that Williams was really stung by her loss to Vinci in New York, that it was too big a disappointment to push aside and lingered, somehow, when she followed with the setbacks against Kerber and Muguruza.If anything, I was able to show resilience that, no, thats not going to shake me, youre not going to break me, Williams said, its going to make me stronger.So, Williams was asked Saturday, is she already thinking about No. 25, to surpass Court?Oh, God, no, Williams said. One thing I learned about last year is to enjoy the moment. Im definitely going to enjoy this.---Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich Fake Vans Online . Luis Suarezs double powered Liverpool to a 4-0 victory over Fulham, and Southampton easily overcame Hull 4-1 to continue the south coast clubs impressive start to the season. Liverpool and Southampton sent Chelsea down to fourth place as the west London club was held to 2-2 at home. Fake Vans Slip-on . The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Lions have not announced the hiring, which was first reported by ESPN. Lombardi, the grandson of former Green Bay Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi, has been an offensive assistant on Sean Paytons New Orleans staff since 2007. http://www.fakevans.com/fake-vans-toy-story/ .Y. -- Sabres defenceman Tyler Myers had no intention of changing his hard-hitting style before taking part in a disciplinary hearing for his illegal check to New Jersey forward Dainius Zubrus head. Fake Vans Shoes . Pedro scored from a pass by Lionel Messi in the 33rd minute and added two more goals in the 47th and 72nd after Valdes saved his second penalty in four days following his stop in Wednesdays 4-0 over Ajax in the Champions League. Fake Vans Free Shiping . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. Do you remember the first time you hit a ball with a bat?It doesnt matter what type of ball it was or even whether you used a rough stick instead of a bat. Do you remember the thrill of making the ball travel some distance? Perhaps it went a fair way and eventually you discovered that this was achieved by timing the stroke. Perhaps you then nagged a parent, sibling or friend to provide balls for you to hit and before long you were asking them to bowl in the garden, yard or street.Some people are lost to cricket from the very start. It is a little like love.Watching Haseeb Hameed bat is to be reminded of ones innocence and of Blakes echoing green. Like many prodigies, he makes what he does look dangerously simple. This is because for all the technique, the coaching, the selection of shot, there is in his play a palimpsest of his childhood and an eight-year-old boy pestering his father, Ismail, to let him play cricket with his elder brothers, Safwaan and Nuaman.Hameed is no longer pestering; he is demanding. His batting is suffused with a style both simple and cultivated; it expresses his demand that he be allowed to bat for as long as possible. He has been so successful in his 18 first-class matches, all but four of them against Division One attacks, that he is demanding to be selected for Englands winter tours. Experienced Test and county bowlers try to dismiss him and then speak in admiration of his obvious skill, his preternatural self-possession at the crease, his ability to bat with a partner yet retreat into his own world, one which is inured to the comments of opponents. Is it my turn to bat yet?It is a world in which shots are played to balls and then played again to imaginary deliveries as if the quest for perfection can never be completed. There is something Buddhist about all this although Hameeds only noble truth on the field is the accumulation of runs. I cannot think of another young batsman who has radiated comparable tranquility.His opponents say he will play for England. They are right. Hameed is one of the best young players Ive seen in a long time, said Yorkshires captain, Andrew Gale. Hes an old-fashioned opening batter who occupies the crease and didnt get out of his shell all day. He just played beautifully. Gale was speaking at the end of the first day of last months Roses match. Hameed had just made a century against his team. It was as if Joe Frasier has taken time out at the end of the seventh round in Manila to say that this chap Ali could actually box a bit.Then Hameed made another hundred in the second innings. Everyone recorded the fact that he was the first Lancashire player to make two centuries in a Roses match and that he was the fifth-youngest player to make 1000 runs in an English season. What was rather overlooked was that Hameed had faced 209 balls and batted for over 302 minutes to make 114 in the first innings; he then faced 124 balls and batted for 173 minutes to make 100 not out in the second dig.People on blogs have referred all season to the Way of Hameed - that Buddhism thing again? - but Hameeds way is changing. Sharp coaches like Nottinghamshires Mick Newell have noticed that the tempo of his batting is quickening. This is happening not because he is hitting more boundaries - he has frequently collected as many fours as his partners - but because he is learning to work the ball around for ones and twos, often against attacks of international quality.The statistics of Hameeds short career - 18 first-class matches - have been seized on by the games gourmands but they are satisfying to the gourmets, too.In six innings in 2015 he averaged 42.83; after 23 innings in 2016 he averages 53.76. In his 29 innings he has been dismissed for single-figure scores on two occasions.He has been bowled three times in his first-class career and never with fewer than 44 runs against his name.Hameed is an opening batsman. He is 19 years old. Now, please forgive the impertinence, think about those numbers again.Lancashires director of cricket, Ashley Giles, speaks of Hameed with deep admiration and a touch of amusement. He understands that he and sensitive coaches like Mark Chilton have been charged with developing a very special talent.In May Giles was talking about Hameed playing for England within four years; now he knows it will happen sooner than that. He laughs as he talks about not being able to pull the wool over peoples eyes any longer. He also knows that a Test career is what the young batsman has always craved. After playing for Lancashires junior teams, almost always the one above his age, Hameed demanded to be picked for Lancashires senior side. Now he is demanding to be selected ffor England.dddddddddddd We are back with the child whose only interest was playing cricket and in scoring as many runs as possible. Can I bat now, please?Hameed has never hidden his ambition. First Lancashire, then England. His heroes are Test cricketers. First and above all, there was Sachin Tendulkar, the great Sachin as Hameed refers to him. Now there are also Virat Kohli and Joe Root. There must be a fair chance that Root will be Hameeds England captain at some point. The two met during this years Old Trafford Test when Hameed was one of four twelfth men and, as he said, Joe Root changed in my place in the dressing room before making 254. His spot. Lucky Joe. Yes, I know there are many stiff challenges ahead of Hameed and they will offer a more severe examination than he has received before. That is one of the tough delights of Test cricket. The point is that Hameed knows it as well. He wants to take his careful skills, the beautiful way in which he leaves the ball and match them against the best bowlers on Earth. He meets a bowlers gaze but he does not reply to sledges. It is not necessary. He prefers to take a few steps towards square leg as if pondering all that he has learned in the seven or so seconds it takes to face a ball in a cricket match. Then he readies himself again. One imagines Dale Steyn is looking forward to making his acquaintance; maybe one or two Australian quicks have already watched a video or two; Bay 13 at the MCG probably cant wait to greet him. The feeling will be mutual. Just give him a little time.Among all the many judgments that have been made about Hameed one of the most illuminating is also the simplest and, paradoxically, the vaguest. Has gets it, says Giles. What he means is that Hameed possesses a cricketing understanding beyond thought and an appreciation of the game that cannot be coached. It is this that enables him to calibrate risk, (to take back a phrase that has passed from originality to cliché in less than two months). Hameed has all the shots but he will not play them until the odds are in his favour or the game requires him to do so. Otherwise, he might fall victim to one of the ways in which his innings can end and that is always awful. To see him walk from the wicket after someone has dismissed him for a low score is to see a young man beset with sorrow beyond consolation. He always wants to bat. Please can I bat now? Such, such are the joys.Let me end with my first sight of Hameed for it has served as something of an epigraph to all that has followed. On July 3, 2014 Lancashires second XI were playing Warwickshire at Southport. I had that morning returned from watching the first team draw their match at Taunton. I ambled down to Trafalgar Road and saw a Lancashire side that needed 217 to win collapse from 99 for 1 to 143 for 5 as a series of batsmen with first-team experience played half-arsed fancy-dan shots.Although not working at the game, I had taken a notebook. Hameed batted at No.6 and he faced a Warwickshire attack that included Recordo Gordon and Josh Poysden. I watched him play a few shots and started writing down phrases: gently impressive…his shot selection clear and correct… Later they were incorporated into a piece I wrote for the Lancashire website which included the following: It was as if almost every shot Hameed played - there were three false ones in his 79 balls - was a justified consequence of intelligence he had collected.Hameed made 30 not out and Lancashire won the game by three wickets. He did not get off the mark until his 20th ball when he cover-drove a four. He didnt add to that tally until his 40th ball when he pushed a single. That stroke marked a gradual increase in his run rate. Late in his innings, when all risks had been assessed, he drove Poysden for a low, sweet, straight six. Hameed talks intelligently but he is never more eloquent than when he is batting.He was 17 years old and just at the end of Year 12 at Bolton School. Second-team coach Mark Chilton was pushing him hard, dropping him into difficult situations where he would be tested by good bowlers.Above all, perhaps, there was calm. But then there almost always is with Hameed. Calmness is often the first impression made by watching him fulfil his vocation. He admits with a wry, self-aware grin that he has no idea what he would do in life were he not a cricketer. But thats fine because, as his former Lancashire colleague, Ashwell Prince, tweeted during the Roses match, Hameed was born to bat.He is a Chateau Lafite cricketer in a wine-box world. ' ' '