Athen » you do that, you’re going to win a lot of games.”

MASON, Ohio -- Venus Williams left her winning touch in Canada. Williams knocked off sister Serena while reaching the finals in Montreal on Sunday, finishing runner-up. She lost to Lucie Safarova 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-4 in the first round Tuesday. "I wish I could have felt today like I did in Montreal, just to make it more competitive," Williams said. The tournament lost its other defending champion when Victoria Azarenka withdrew because of an injured right knee. Williams had an energizing week in Canada and hoped to keep their momentum going in Cincinnati, using it as a springboard to the U.S. Open. But her successful week came with a cost. Williams arrived Sunday night and opened Tuesday morning, leaving little time to recover from her deep tournament run. "Yeah, it was definitely a quick turnaround," she said. "Maybe it would have been a little better to play a little later in the day. But I think she just played so well. No matter what shot I hit, she hit a winner." Safarova led 5-2 in the third set and appeared to have won a match point, but Williams challenged and the call was overturned. Williams rallied to win the set and then another. "Thats a terrible feeling," Safarova said. "You think youve won and you have those emotions, and suddenly, youre back in the match against a great player. Then she broke me, and I thought, Uh, oh. Ive lost matches on challenges before. I told myself, Im not losing this one." Azarenkas withdrawal is the latest setback in a season full of injuries. Shes been sidelined for much of the year with an ailing left foot. She aggravated an injury to her right knee at Montreal, where she lost in the quarter-finals, and hoped a few days of rest would take care of it. She decided to withdraw after practising Tuesday morning. "I started to feel a little bit better and did everything I could, but its just not enough time for me to feel good to play a full match," she said. "Im going to get more treatment and get more work done and should be good for the U.S. Open." Fifth-seeded Maria Sharapova broke Madison Keys to go up 3-0 in the final set and held on for a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win that was gratifying. She was coming off a loss in the third round at Montreal. "I didnt have a great week last week," she said. "No matter who is across the net, its never easy going out in the first round because you want to change that result around. You want to change your attitude and your performance and obviously the result." ------ Freelance writer Mark Schmetzer contributed to this report. Alec Ogletree Jersey . Louis against the Blues. The Canucks picked up their second straight victory in the swings opener on Tuesday in Calgary before getting routed in Minnesota last night, 5-1. B.J. Hill Giants Jersey .DeMarco Murray got his 20th carry late in the fourth quarter with a 10-point lead, not long after Dez Bryant made his final catch of the day.Sure enough, a 44-17 win over Washington didnt change Dallas post-season position. http://www.nygiantsfanatic.com/c-88-giants-will-hernandez-jersey.aspx . Costa Rica followed up its wins over Uruguay and Italy by holding England to a dour 0-0 draw on Tuesday, enough to finish first in Group D. Cody Latimer Giants Jersey .Y. - Terry and Kim Pegula have no immediate plans to tinker with their new NFL team. Custom New York Giants Jerseys .Y. Islanders 4Winnipeg 5 Dallas 2Nashville 3 Colorado 0San Jose 5 Edmonton 2---AHLProvidence 5 St. Johns 4 (OT)Chicago 6 San Antonio 2---NBACleveland 105 Toronto 101Portland 98 Detroit 86New Orleans 104 New York 93Oklahoma City 114 Milwaukee 101Memphis 114 Dallas 105Miami 103 Phoenix 97Utah 100 San Antonio 96L.LOS ANGELES – It’s been less than a week since Randy Carlyle was fired, but it’s evident already that Peter Horachek is doing things quite a bit differently from his predecessor. Communication. System. Deployment of personnel. Horachek has quickly engineered a few tweaks to the way the Maple Leafs are run, those changes a contrast to the manner in which things were done for nearly three seasons under Carlyle. “The guys are responding pretty well,” Horachek said after practice in El Segundo, California, about 20 minutes from where the Leafs will meet the Kings at the Staples Center on Monday night. “We’ve been positive and they’re in a good frame of mind right now.” The shift in communication between players and the head coach is stark. Carlyle ran the ship his way. Horachek, conversely, is looking to achieve much more of a two-way street. He’s not simply dictating to the group, but requesting their feedback and opinion. “I encourage them to voice their opinion and open up because most of the players were kind of quiet and they weren’t talking a lot [previously.] And I wanted to encourage them to speak and to be heard,” Horachek said. He’s also decided to have weekly meetings with Toronto’s leadership group, a collective that includes Dion Phaneuf, the three to four designated alternate captains and Jonathan Bernier. The plan is to address the events of the previous week, look ahead to the seven days that follow and even address the schedule and what time, for instance, to hold practice on the road. The idea behind the meetings is to institute ownership and make the players feel like they’re part of the decision-making process. Horachek remembers doing the same thing with Barry Trotz in Nashville and then again in Florida last season when he served as the teams interim head coach for 66 games. “I think he wants us to be involved and take charge,” Bernier said. Beyond the push for better communication are structural changes that actually affect events on the ice. Tyler Bozak observed that Horachek was pushing for more “puck possession” and the earliest results speak to that. Amongst the worst puck-possessing teams in the league under Carlyle, Toronto won possession fights with Washington and Columbus, holding both under the 30-shot plateau. The Blue Jackets, in fact, were limited to just 20 shots, rarely finding threatening positions to beat Bernier. The sample size of six periods isn’t much to go on, but given how frequently the Leafs leaned upon Bernier under Carlyle’s direction, how little they possessed the puck and how much they broke defensively, the two games are obviously an encouraging start. “I think we’re doing a lot more of the little things,” Phil Kessel said. “We’re playing [a] better two-way game, we’re not giving up as many shots and as many chances and when you do that, you’re going to win a lot of games.” Horachek wouldn’t deny his hurried attempts to change the product, pushing for less “cheating” toward offence and more structure in positiooning in all three zones.dddddddddddd Hes talked often already about a 5-5-5 approach, all five guys working cohesively together. Structure was evident in a thorough 5-2 win over the Blue Jackets, just the third victory in 11 games for the Leafs. “No, it’s different,” he said of systemic adjustments. “There’s some differences and there’s a difference in how we approach it and a difference in positioning. We want to keep focused on doing it together. It doesn’t matter what system you do, you can do any system you want, [but] if you don’t do it together it won’t work. If you do it together, it can work.” One adjustment has seen the Leafs alter their approach to defensive zone exits, an acknowledged aid in limiting opponents to fewer than 30 shots in four of the past five games. “We’re bumping pucks to the middle more than rimming it around the wall and it’s letting us get out of our zone cleaner,” Bozak said. Cleaner exits means less time spent hemmed in the defensive zone. Bernier, meanwhile, observed a push to have a tighter presence around the net. He noted how the wingers were playing lower in the defensive zone, not jumping out as far at opposing defenceman. “They want them to be really tight to the net, so I think it helps us to break the puck out easier,” he said. Systems aside, Carlyle never could achieve the necessary defensive commitment of the group. That was especially true of Kessel and some of the team’s top offensive weaponry, who sacrificed defence in the name of offence. Horachek dismissed the idea that those players were incapable of playing to a tighter brand. “Every guy in the world’s capable of doing that,” he said. “It’s all about how much you want to do that. We’re trying to pull everybody into the circle and everybody wants to be in the circle.” The chessboard has also been rearranged under his leadership. He’s replaced James van Riemsdyk with a safer element in Daniel Winnik on the team’s top line, keeping apart a threesome (Kessel and Tyler Bozak being the other two components) that was snowed under for most of the season. Richard Panik, who struck offensively in limited minutes, was pushed up from the fourth line and onto a unit with Nazem Kadri and James van Riemsdyk. And mostly sheltered under Carlyle’s direction, Morgan Rielly has seen his opportunity climb higher. The 20-year-old played a career-high of nearly 24 minutes in Horacheks debut, leading the team in even-strength ice-time versus Columbus. Change, simply put, has come quick with different leadership. And that was an expressed purpose of firing Carlyle. Brendan Shanahan said he wanted to get a look at the roster under a different coach and see if the results changed. Those results are still yet to be determined. The change? Well, that’s come quickly enough. “I think he’s been great for our group so far,” Kessel said of Horachek. “Obviously I think there’s a different feel. There’s obviously always a different feel when there’s a coaching change.” Cheap Celtics Jerseys Wholesale Nets Jerseys Cheap Knicks Jerseys Cheap Stitched 76ers Jerseys Raptors Jerseys China Cheap Bulls Jerseys Wholesale Cavaliers Jerseys Pistons Jerseys China Pacers Jerseys China Cheap Bucks Jerseys Online Wholesale Hawks Jerseys Cheap Hornets Jerseys Wholesale Heat Jerseys Cheap Magic Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Wizards Jerseys Nuggets Jerseys China Timberwolves Jerseys China Cheap Thunder Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Blazers Jerseys Wholesale Jazz Jerseys Cheap Warriors Jerseys For Sale Cheap Clippers Jerseys Lakers Jerseys China Wholesale Suns Jerseys Cheap Kings Jerseys Authentic Cheap Mavericks Jerseys Rockets Jerseys China Cheap Grizzlies Jerseys Wholesale Pelicans Jerseys Spurs Jerseys China ' ' '