Sept. 5
1922 — The U.S. beats Australia 4-1 to capture the Davis Cup for the third straight year.
1938 — Don Budge leads the U.S. to a 3-2 victory over Australia in the Davis Cup final at Philadelphia. Budge beats Adrian Quist of Australia 8-6, 6-1, 6-2 to wrap up the title.
1949 — Pancho Gonzalez captures his second consecutive men’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Gonzalez needs 67 games — the most ever in a final — to defeat Ted Schroeder, 16-18, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4. Mary Osborne du Pont defeats Doris Hart 6-4, 6-1 for the women’s title.
1951 — Maureen Connolly, 16, wins the U.S. women’s singles title with a 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 victory over Shirley Fry.
1960 — Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) beats 3-time European champion Zbigniew Pietrzykowski of Poland by unanimous points decision to win Olympic light heavyweight boxing gold medal at the Rome Games.
1975 — Martina Navratilova of Czechoslovakia loses to Chris Evert in the U.S. Open semifinals, then appears at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service office in New York and asks for political asylum.
1987 — John McEnroe is fined $17,500 for tirades at US Tennis Open.
1989 — Chris Evert’s illustrious career ends in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open when she blows a 5-2 first-set lead and is beaten 7-6, 6-2 by Zina Garrison. Evert’s record at the U.S. Open is 101-12 and she finishes her career with a match record of 1,304-145 and 18 Grand Slam titles.
1990 — Ivan Lendl’s bid for a record nine straight U.S. Open men’s finals ends in the quarterfinals. Pete Sampras wins in five sets, 6-4, 7-6, 3-6, 4-6, 6-2.
1994 — SF wide receiver Jerry Rice catches 2 touchdown passes and runs for another score in 49ers’ 44-14 rout of the Raiders; surpasses Jim Brown as NFL’s career TD leader with 127.
1995 — Cal Ripken Jr. ties Gehrig’s record of playing in 2,130 straight games.
1998 — Mark McGwire becomes the third player in baseball history to reach 60 home runs, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds 7-0. He joins Babe Ruth and Roger Maris with 60 homers in a single season.
2001 — Old rivals Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras battle in a classic match. Sampras wins in four sets, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5), with neither player losing serve.
2002 — The U.S. men finish without a medal at the basketball world championships. Yugoslavia comes back from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter and defeats the U.S. 81-78. After going 58-0 using NBA players in international competitions, the Americans lose two straight.
2007 — Alicia Sacramone’s floor routine rallies the U.S. to the world women’s gymnastics title in Stuttgart, Germany. The Americans finishes with 184.4 points, beating defending champion China by .95 for their second world title, and the first won on foreign soil.
2009 — Three-year-old filly Rachel Alexandra becomes the first female to win the Grade I Woodward Stakes when she holds off Macho Again by a head at Saratoga.
2011 — Antron Brown becomes the first NHRA racer to win the U.S. Nationals in both Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle, beating Del Worsham in the Top Fuel final. Brown, five-time winner this season, completes a successful transition to Top Fuel from Pro Stock Motorcycle in 2008.
2013 — Denver’s Peyton Manning ties an NFL record with seven touchdown passes against the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens to lead the Broncos to a 49-27 win in the season opener. Manning becomes the sixth player to throw for that many, and the first since Joe Kapp on Sept. 28, 1969.
2020 — 8-1 Underdog Authentic holds off heavy favorite Tiz the Law to win the 146th Kentucky Derby.
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Sept. 6
1920 — Jack Dempsey knocks out Billy Miske in the third round to retain the world heavyweight title. It’s the first radio broadcast of a prizefight.
1920 — Bill Tilden wins his first of seven U.S. Open men’s singles titles, defeating Bill Johnston, 6-1, 1-6, 7-5, 5-7, 6-3, at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y.
1941 — Bobby Riggs beats Frank Kovacs in four sets to win the men’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Sarah Palfrey Cooke wins the women’s title with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Pauline Betz.
1948 — The United States sweeps Australia 5-0 to retain the Davis Cup title.
1975 — Chris Evert wins her first of six singles titles in the U.S. Open with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, victory over Evonne Goolagong. In the men’s semifinals, Manuel Orantes performs one of the great comebacks in tennis history, saving five match points to defeat Guillermo Vilas, 4-6, 1-6, 6-2, 7-5, 6-4, after trailing two-sets-to-love and 0-5 in the fourth set.
1980 — Chris Evert Lloyd beats Hana Mandlikova of Czechoslovakia to win her fifth U.S. Open singles title in the last six years.
1980 — John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors battle in perhaps their greatest U.S. Open match. McEnroe edges Connors in the semifinal, 6-4, 5-7, 0-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3) in front of a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium.
1991 — A pair of teenagers play a level of tennis beyond their years in a women’s semifinal match at the U.S. Open. Seventeen-year-old Monica Seles beats 15-year-old Jennifer Capriati, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (3) to advance to her first U.S. Open final.
1992 — Noureddine Morceli of Algeria smashes the world record for 1,500 meters, clocking 3:28.86 at an international track and field meet in Rieti, Italy. Morceli breaks the record of 3:29.46 set by Said Aouita of Morocco in 1985.
1993 — Helena Sukova of the Czech Republic beats Martina Navratilova 7-5, 6-4 to advance to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. Navratilova’s loss leaves the United States without a women’s quarterfinalist for the first time in the tournament’s history, dating to 1887.
1995 — Cal Ripken plays in his 2,131st consecutive major league game to surpass Lou Gehrig’s 56-year record. Ripken receives a 22-minute standing ovation and later hits a homer in Baltimore’s 4-2 win over California.
1996 — Baltimore Orioles’ Eddie Murray’s 500th career HR.
2003 — In the U.S. Open, No. 2 Justine Henin-Hardenne wins the all-Belgian women’s singles final, beating No. 1 Kim Clijsters, 7-5, 6-1.
2008 — US Open Women’s Tennis: Serena Williams wins her third US title; beats Jelena Janković of Serbia 6-4, 7-5.
2017 — CoCo Vandeweghe becomes the third American to get into the U.S. Open women’s semifinals, beating top-seeded Karolina Pliskova 7-6 (4), 6-3. Madison Keys completes the sweep for American women, giving the host country all four U.S. Open semifinal spots for the first time in 36 years. The 15th-seeded Keys takes 69 minutes for a 6-3, 6-3 victory over 418th-ranked qualifier Kaia Kanepi of Estonia. The Americans haven’t had all four semifinalists at the U.S. Open since 1981, when Tracy Austin beat Martina Navratilova for the title. Chris Evert and Barbara Potter also made the semifinals.
2017 — FIFA orders that a World Cup qualifier between South Africa and Senegal be replayed after the referee is found guilty of match manipulation and banned for life. South Africa beat Senegal 2-1 in the qualifier last November, helped by a penalty awarded by Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey for a nonexistent handball.
2020 — World #1 tennis player Novak Đoković is sensationally disqualified in 4th round of US Open after hitting a ball in frustration, striking a line judge; trailed Pablo Carreño Busta 5-6 in 1st set.
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Sept. 7
1892 — Jim Corbett knocks out John L. Sullivan in the 21st round in New Orleans to win the first world heavyweight title fought with gloves under the Marquis of Queensberry rules.
1941 — Bobby Riggs wins his second U.S. men’s national title by beating Frank Kovacs, 5-7, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3.
1952 — Australia’s Frank Sedgman wins the men’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships for the second year with a three-set victory over Gardnar Mulloy. Maureen Connolly wins the women’s title.
1953 — Maureen Connolly becomes the first woman to complete the Grand Slam when she beats Doris Hart, 6-2, 6-4, in the U.S. Open women’s singles final.
1958 — Australia’s Ashley Cooper beats countryman Malcolm Anderson in five sets to win the men’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Althea Gibson comes back to beat Darlene Hard for the women’s title. Cooper beats Anderson, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6, 10-8, 8-6. Gibson beats Darlene Hard, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.
1969 — Margaret Court beats Nancy Richey, 6-2, 6-2 to capture the U.S. Open women’s singles title.
1970 — Jockey Willie Shoemaker rides Dares J to a 1½-length victory at Del Mar to become the winningest jockey. Shoemaker’s win breaks the all-time record of 6,033 set by Johnny Longden four years earlier.
1974 — US Open Women’s Tennis, Forest Hills, NY: Billie Jean King wins her 4th and final US singles title; beats Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Australia 3-6, 6-3, 7-5.
1980 —John McEnroe beats Bjorn Borg of Sweden 7-6, 6-1, 6-7, 5-7, 6-4 to win his second straight U.S. Open men’s title.
1986 — Dan Marino throws his 100th career touchdown pass, the fastest QB in NFL history to do so.
1991 — Seventeen-year-old Monica Seles beats 34-year-old Martina Navratilova, 7-6 (1), 6-1, to win her first U.S. Open women’s singles title.
1993 — Mark Whiten of the St. Louis Cardinals has the greatest game at the plate in major league history in the nightcap of a doubleheader against Cincinnati. In the 15-2 win, Whiten hits four home runs and drives in 12 runs, becoming the only player to accomplish both feats in one game.
1997 — In the new Arthur Ashe Stadium court, 16-year-old Martina Hingis and 17-year-old Venus Williams play the youngest Grand Slam final in the Open Era. Hingis wins her first U.S. Open title 6-0, 6-4. Patrick Rafter beats Greg Rusedski, 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, to win the men’s crown.
2001 — Venus Williams and Serena Williams reach the finals of the U.S. Open and become the first sisters to play for a Grand Slam championship in more than 100 years. Venus defeats Jennifer Capriati 6-4, 6-2, after Serena powers her way past top-seeded Martina Hingis 6-3, 6-2 in 51 minutes.
2002 — Venus and Serena Williams meet in a prime-time U.S. Open women’s singles final for the second straight year. Younger sister Serena comes out on top, defeating the two-time defending champion, 6-4, 6-3, for her second U.S. Open women’s singles title.
2003 — In the closest 1-2-3 finish in IRL history, Sam Hornish Jr. edges Scott Dixon and Bryan Herta at the finish line to win his second straight Delphi Indy 300. His margin of victory is .0099 seconds, and just .0100 separates first and third place.
2003 — Andy Roddick wins his first Grand Slam tournament title, defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero, 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3, in the U.S. Open men’s singles final.
2012 — Aries Merritt of the U.S. sets a world record of 12.80 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles at the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels. He cuts 0.07 seconds off the mark of Cuba’s Dayron Robles from four years ago.
2012 — Bob and Mike Bryan beat Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-4 to win the U.S. Open men’s doubles title for a record 12th Grand Slam championship. The American twins break a tie with Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde for the most in the Open era, which started in 1968.
2014 — Serena Williams wins her third consecutive U.S. Open championship and 18th major title overall. Williams takes 75 minutes to beat good friend Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 6-3 and matches Chris Evert’s total of six championships at the U.S. Open. Bob and Mike Bryan win a record-tying fifth U.S. Open doubles championship for their 100th tournament title.
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