Mark Maloney on Kentucky sports

In a battle of Frenchmen, Kentucky’s Anthony Rossi topped Georgia’s Sadio Doumbia 6-4, 6-3 Monday to win the Southeastern Conference Coaches’ Indoor (tennis) Championships at UK’s Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex.

Rossi, ranked 36th nationally, is UK’s second winner of the event. The first was Adam Malik in 1989. 

Seeded seventh in the tournament, Rossi lost only two of 12 sets in the four-day tournament.

Doumbia, ranked 10th nationally and seeded No. 3 in the tournament, served first and led each set 1-0.

Rossi, who held serve throughout the day, broke Doumbia in the third game of each set.

More details to follow in the Herald-Leader and on kentucky.com.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, arguably the greatest female athlete of our time, will be coming to Lexington this summer.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

“JJK” will join one of her Olympic teammates, Lexington’s Sharrieffa Barksdale, for a three-day track and field camp at Henry Clay High School.

The camp, focusing on “sprints, speed, throws, jumps and hurdles” will run in split sessions from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., June 7-9. The opening session, 9 a.m.-noon, is for ages 7-11. The second session, 1-4 p.m., is for ages 12-18. Besides track and field athletes, the camp caters to baseball, basketball, football, soccer and tennis players hoping to refine their speed.

Cost for the three days is $300. Coaches may attend for $200.

JJK competed in four Olympics as a heptathlete and long-jumper.

In the heptathlon, she earned a silver medal in the 1984 Games at Los Angeles, then struck gold in 1988 at Seoul and in 1992 at Barcelona. In the long jump, she won gold in 1988, then took bronzes in 1992 and in the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Sharrieffa Barksdale

Barksdale also competed in the 1984 Olympics, reaching the semifinals in the 400-meter hurdles. She is the former American record-holder in the event. Barksdale has remained active in the sport and served as assistant manager of the U.S. Olympic track and field team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Campers will receive a T-shirt and autographed camp photo.

A breakdown of disciplines:

Sprints — Campers will hone sprint drills, 40-yard dash, block-start technique, form running, acceleration, speed maintenance and relay exchanges.

Throws — Will be covered in detail, including training technique, and focusing on shot put and discus.

Jumps — The high jump will be broken into simple easy-to-learn parts. The long jump will be covered start-to-landing by JJK. Campers will be able to see and correct faults in their technique.

Hurdles — Technique for both long and short hurdles will be taught by JJK and Barksdale. Included will be instruction in how to alternate lead legs in order to prevent loss of momentum.

One of my favorite stories about technique comes from JJK’s husband, revered coach Bobby Kersee. Twenty years-or-so ago he was explaining to a group of reporters that the idea in the hurdles is to keep “air time” over the barriers to a minimum because that is when momentum is lost. So skim over the hurdle as close as possible without making contact, then snap that lead leg down to get back on the track. One day at practice he made his point with this visual — and I’m paraphrasing — “Jackie, I’m going to set this dime on top of a hurdle. I want you to knock it off, but don’t touch the hurdle.” Now, that’s a difficult drill!

For more information, contact Barksdale at  (859) 519-7131  or by e-mail at Blairs3833@yahoo.com.

The United States Olympic Committee announced Tuesday its Athletes of the Month for July.

And the winners are …

Women – USA Softball shortstop Natasha Watley;

Men — USA Swimming’s Ryan Lochte;

Team — USA Swimming’s men’s 4-by-100 freestyle relay swimmers.

Runner-up in the team category was the USA Basketball men’s under-19 team that won its age-group World Championships. That team included Darius Miller (Mason County H.S., Univ. Kentucky) and Shelvin Mack (Bryan Station H.S., Butler Univ.).

Natasha Watley

For the first time, 10 percent of the vote was determined by followers of the USOC’s Twitter site (@USOlympic). A panel of U.S. Olympic family members accounted for the other 90 percent of the vote.

Watley helped Team USA to gold-medal finishes in the Canada Cup and KFC World Cup of Softball (at Oklahoma City). Starting a team-high 18 games, Watley went 25-for-47 (.702) at the plate, knocking in 20 runs and going 8-for-8 in the stolen-base department. She hit two doubles and two homers, including a grand slam against Canada in the World Cup.

At the FINA World Championships in Rome, Lochte set a world record in winning the 200-meter individual medley and swam on the world-record 800-meter freestyle relay team, as well as the championship-record 400-meter freestyle relay. Lochte also won a bronze medal in the 200-meter backstroke.

The USOC team honor, the men’s 400 free relay, went to Michael Phelps, Lochte, Matt Grevers and Nathan Adrian. Their World Championships time of 3:09.21 edged the Russians by 31 hundredths of a second and beat the favored French team by more than half a second.

The top three in the Athlete of the Month categories:

WOMEN — 1. Natasha Watley; 2. Kelly Rulon, swimming; 3. (tie) Tina Charles, basketball; Rebecca Soni, swimming; Serena Williams, tennis.

MEN — 1. Ryan Lochte; 2. Troy Dumais, diving; 3. Andy Roddick, tennis.

TEAM — 1. U.S. men’s 400-meter freestyle relay swim team; 2. U.S. men’s U-19 basketball team; 3. U.S. women’s senior water polo team.

Jeremy Abbott

Figure skater Jeremy Abbott, tennis player Serena Williams and the Women’s National Under-18 Hockey Team were named Tuesday as Athletes and Team of the Month for January by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Abbott won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship by beating, among others, two-time champ Evan Lysacek and three-time winner Johnny Weir. At 23, Abbott is the oldest first-time national champion since Rudy Galindo in 1996. The win also give Abbott a spot in next month’s World Championships.

Williams swept the singles and doubles titles at the Australian Open, going 10-1 for the month. She won the Aussie singles title by defeating Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-3, a day after teaming with sister Venus to take the doubles crown. Serena, regaining the No. 1 singles ranking, now has 10 major singles titles and eight majors in doubles.

U18 Team USA

The under-18 hockey squad won the International Ice Hockey Federation World Women’s U18 Championship for the second year in a row. Team USA finished 5-0, outscoring opponents 58-4. Included was an 18-0 semifinals victory over the Czech Republic, followed by a 3-2 overtime victory of Canada in the finals. Kendall Coyne (Palos Heights, Ill.), who scored the game winner against Canada, led tournament goal-scorers with eight.

Her teammates: Brittany Ammerman of New Jersey; Blake Bolden of Ohio; Corinne Boyles and Megan Bozek of Illinois; Kate Brock, Jillian Dempsey and Jackie Young of Massachusetts; Caroline Campbell of Missouri; Brianna Decker, Alex Kelter, Jamie Kenyon, Amanda Kessel and Alex Rigsby of Wisconsin; Lindsey Fry of Arizona; Alex Nelson of Minnesota; Meagan Mangene of New York; Amanda Pelkey of Vermont, and Madison Packer and Taylor Wasylk of Michigan.

Results

Men — 1. Jeremy Abbott, figure skating; 2. Steve Mocco, wrestling; 3. Tyler Walker, Paralympic skiing.

Women — 1. Serena Williams, tennis; 2. Lindsey Vonn, Alpine skiing; 3. Alissa Czisny, figure skating.

Team — 1. U.S. Women’s National Under-18 Hockey Team; 2. Bob/Mike Bryan, tennis; 3. Keauna McLaughlin/Rockne Brubaker, figure skating