PARIS (AP) — Varvara Lepchenko of the United States reached the third round at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, upsetting 19th-seeded Jelena Jankovic of Serbia 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-4 at the French Open. After the players shook hands at the end of the 3-hour, 6-minute match Thursday, Lepchenko leaned over the net and gave it a kiss. She is ranked...

Photographs by Sebastian PodestaThe Brooklyn Knights of the P.D.L. practice and play at the Metropolitan Oval is Maspeth, Queens. Sebastian Podesta’s family is from Argentina and he is a fan of River Plate, the Buenos Aires club known as Los Millonarios. So it might seem a bit irreconcilable that Podesta, 26, who grew up in Colorado and is a graduate of New York...

Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesMarion Bartoli playing a backhand against Petra Martic on Thursday at the French Open. Her restless, fidgety rambunctiousness between points sets will often reduce commentators and spectators to bewilderment or even giggles. But in the opening set of her second-round match Wednesday evening against Croatian Petra Martic, French No. 1 Marion...

Instead, the fourth-seeded Brit rebounded from an awful first set to beat Jarkko Nieminen 1-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 and reach the third round. “I was few points probably from stopping,” Murray said. “I just didn’t really want to stop the match. Then at the end of the second set I started standing up at the change of ends, and my back...

The injured Giants receiver Hakeem Nicks delivered some encouraging news Thursday when he told reporters that he planned to rejoin the team next week. Nicks plans to be with the team when it visits the White House on June 8, though the timetable for his return to football activities remains fluid. Nicks is confident, however, that he will be recovered from his...

CP PhotoNiklas Lidstrom, left, is checked by Erik Cole of the Hurricanes in the 2002 Stanley Cup finals. PARIS — Li Na of China, the defending French Open champion, defeated Stephanie Foretz Gacon of France, 6-0, 6-2 in 52 minutes Thursday to advance to the third round. Li won nine consecutive games before dropping her serve on a double fault, a miscue that might...

The quest for a first Grand Slam title is best pursued on the run. But there was the fourth-seeded Murray, unable to muster much more than a stagger, allowing Jarkko Nieminen’s routine shots to fly past him for winners on Thursday afternoon. One could have forgiven Nieminen, an unseeded 30-year-old Finnish veteran, for dropping his racket and rubbing his...

Most of the characters on the bench have changed as well. Unless you want to count Larry Robinson, who was a special assistant coach in 2003, all that remain of that club are Patrik Elias and, of course, the ageless Martin Brodeur, who is now 40 but whose face is still boyish and unlined, his limbs still rubbery. He skates out at the beginning of every game the way...