Sports

Bobby Riggs on his epic “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match with Billy Jean King, plus a fond look back at lifeguarding contests and women's slow-pitch.

Frank Ackley of Springs continued to climb the ladder in his United States Tennis Association age group by reaching the semifinal round of the U.S.T.A.’s national Level 1 grass court championships at the Philadelphia Cricket Club recently.

Groundworks Landscaping and the Clubhouse won East Hampton Town women’s and men’s slow-pitch softball playoff trophies, thanks largely, in the women’s case, to Emma Beudert’s high-arc backspun lobs, and, in the Clubhouse’s case, to some solid slugging last Thursday night.

For people who perform and rely on a single item for success in their chosen profession, especially when they’re on a big stage, you can be assured that not just any run-of-the-mill knockoff will suffice. And that's particularly true of tennis rackets.

Mario Deslauriers and his 20-year-old daughter, Lucy, wound up going head to head in Sunday’s $300,000 Doha Inc. Grand Prix jump-off, joined by Devin Ryan. They were the only ones to enjoy fault-free trips among the 39 horse-and-rider combinations who vied in the Grand Prix’s first round.

The East Hampton and Shelter Island High School boys and girls cross-country teams turned out for the 42nd running of the Great Bonac 5 and 10Ks at the Springs Firehouse Monday, and, predictably, the 5K’s top 20 largely comprised those teams’ members, who have been running all summer.

High school sports go full bore, while the Steve Tarpinian triathlon is Sunday in Noyac.

Early in the morning of Aug. 7, four swimmers — two with considerable open water experience and two with much less — met at the Ship Ashore Marina in Sag Harbor, shook hands, and, in the company of two support boats, set off at 5 a.m. from Cedar Point toward Gardiner’s Island, eight and a half miles away.

Brianne Goutal-Marteau, a three-time Grand Prix runner-up at the Hampton Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton, said, as she was preparing to take her 2-year-old daughter, Clea, into the Grand Prix ring to be judged by Joe Fargis Sunday morning, that the leadline division, in whose sections 2-to-4-year-olds and 5-to-7-year-olds compete, was “the most important class.”

An East Hamptoner is longboard champ, Red Devil ocean swims are Saturday at Atlantic Avenue Beach, and two youngsters rake in karate trophies.

It was a result that shook the tennis world. In the late summer of 1986, in the U.S. Open’s first round, Paul Annacone of East Hampton defeated John McEnroe, handing the champion of seven Grand Slam singles tournaments a shocking loss.

The horse action at the Hampton Classic continues through Sunday, while Monday brings the Great Bonac 10K and 5K benefit road races and high school sports start on Tuesday.

When the dust had cleared on the Artists’ 10-8 win in the Artists and Writers Softball Game Saturday at East Hampton’s Herrick Park, Ed Hollander, basking in the glow of victory, said that, surprisingly, the Game had “smacked of competence.”

The Long Island Ducks, coming off a four-game winning streak and now leading the Atlantic League’s Liberty Division, will be at home all week in Central Islip.

Preparing the Bridgehampton grounds for the horses, riders, and thousands of people who will return to the weeklong Hampton Classic starting Sunday began almost the minute last year’s show ended.

Kal Lewis, a Shelter Island High School miler and cross-country runner, led a field of almost 800 over the Ellen’s Run 5K course in Southampton Sunday, breaking the tape in front of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s Parrish Hall in 16 minutes and 15.90 seconds.

Swimmers ages 7 through 79 churned the water in Bill and Dominique Kahn’s 25-yard pool here Saturday, raising money for pancreatic cancer research and evoking the spirit of the late Dr. Charles van der Horst, a retired University of North Carolina medical professor internationally known for his work with AIDS patients.

It's the Johnny Mac tennis legends exhibition at Hampton Racquet on Saturday, while Sunday kicks off the weeklong Hampton Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton.

This coming weekend will be a busy one sports-wise, with the Artists and Writers Softball Game at East Hampton’s Herrick Park Saturday afternoon and Ellen’s Run at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Sunday morning.

In the end, Leif Hope, who has been an integral part of The Game for a half-century, said, it’s all about entertainment and raising money for four local charities — the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, Phoenix House, the Retreat, and East End Hospice.

The Hampton Lifeguard Association, as it did last year, placed sixth in the United States Lifesaving Association’s national tournament in Virginia Beach this past weekend.

The recent graduate of Messiah College in Pennsylvania, who was the nation’s leading scorer in men’s soccer in the fall, has signed a contract with Stumptown Athletic of Charlotte, N.C., an entry in the newly formed National Independent Soccer Association.

The Strides for Life 3-miler in Southampton Sunday morning drew a field of around 600 and made significant fund-raising strides as well for the Lung Cancer Research Foundation, to the tune of about $365,000.

Aside from the big-ticket Artists and Writers Game and Ellen's Run, there's plenty of slow-pitch softball and a tennis pro-am in Southampton Saturday.

The Pink Panthers, a team made of up the late Travis Field’s schoolmates and friends, made it four in a row at the popular softball tournament played in his name this past week at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett.

A hotly contested five-on-five basketball tournament at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett and 3 and 6-mile paddleboard races off Havens Beach in Sag Harbor Saturday morning left their contestants spent, while at the same time raising money to be spent on Down syndrome and breast cancer research.

Julie Ratner has from the beginning seen to it that nearly all of the money raised by the race, put on by the Ellen P. Hermanson Foundation, has been put to good use here. Ellen’s Run happens on Aug. 18, starting from Stony Brook Southampton Hospital.

Block Island paddle leaves from the Montauk Lighthouse early Saturday, while East Hampton lifeguards hit the national competition in Virginia Beach this weekend and men's and women's slow-pitch teams take to the Terry King field in Amagansett.

Town and village ocean lifeguard squads from East Hampton to as far as Jones Beach gathered at Main Beach last Thursday to compete in the 33rd annual Main Beach Ocean Lifeguard Tournament.

The Sag Harbor course of Jordan’s Run, a 5K in memory of Marine Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter, who lost his life in saving those of 150 fellow servicemen in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2008, took its 448 participants by Pierson High School, from which he’d graduated, across the bridge to North Haven named after him, and along Oakland Cemetery, where he is buried.