Victoria Azarenka Reaches U.S. Open Semis, Retains World Number One
RAJPAL: Well, the teams are now set for golf's Ryder Cup, the biannual battle between Europe and the United States. On Tuesday, the USA captain named his four wild card picks for the competition which begins later this month. Let's bring in our Patrick Snell at CNN Center to unveil the newest members of Team USA -- Patrick.</s>PATRICK SNELL, CNN SPORTS CORREPSONDENT: Hi there, Monita. Yes, interesting stuff from Davis Love III, the U.S. skipper. Let me run through his picks starting off with the very experienced campaign, a Jim Furyk, the '03 U.S. Open champion gets a nod. He's going to be playing in his eighth Ryder Cup. So Jim Furyk will be very pleasantly surprised with that. He's a current world number 30. You may recall he almost won this year's U.S. Open at San Francisco. So Furyk certainly has the game and can never be underestimated. Stevie Stricker, this is going to be his third Ryder Cup for the U.S. Winner already this year in Hawaii very early on this year. Tied for seventh at the PGA Championship recently. Dustin Johnson, the big hitting powerful striker of the ball off the tee, especially, second Ryder Cup. He won in Memphis. Tied for ninth at the British Open at Royal St. Annes. And then a rookie thrown in there, Brandt Snedeker. Basically, a good prospect, a guy who did so well, as well, at the British Open. He was tied for third there. And he won at Torrey Pines in California earlier in the season. So, plenty of interesting talking points. The U.S. skipper David Love III saying, look, I'm confident. I believe in my team. And I believe that this is a good nucleus of players moving forward.</s>DAVID LOVE III, RYDER CUP CAPTAIN: Building a team and camaraderie are what the Ryder Cup is all about. I think our team will tell you we pull together a lot better than people think we do and then the only thing we do is we try too hard because we're so together. We get in our own way a little bit and that's going to be our goal. We've talked about it a lot. Fred's talked about it a lot, about what he's done to have our guys loosen up, have fun and go play golf. And these guys know how to do it, we've just got to go do it for three days in Medina.</s>SNELL: And they're going to be a tough act to beat on home soil. Monita, remember what happened four years ago at Valhalla in Kentucky, the Americans coming on strongly beating the European team on that occasion -- Monita.</s>RAJPAL: Well, staying in the United States, let's talk a little bit about tennis. They've managed to play a little bit between the raindrops in New York. What's the latest from the U.S. Open.</s>SNELL: They have, yeah. Frustrations, pretty much, on and off all right through this Tuesday so far. It means a delay. You've got a backlog of play there at Flushing Meadows. But I can tell you the women's defending champion from Australia Sam Stosur is out. Disappointment to her, losing to the top seeded Victoria Azarenka who is through to the semis, by the way, at the U.S. Open for the first time. It was a close fought one 6-1, 4-6, 7-6. So it went to three sets before Stosur would be eliminated. Azarenka maintaining her world number one spot as well as she's next going to play either the '06 champion from Russia, Maria Sharapova, or Marion Bartolli of France for a place in Saturday's final. You can see she's rather delighted with her progress there. Also a little later on -- much later on probably -- this Tuesday, it could be Andy Roddick's last ever professional match. I say could be, it all depends on the result against the former champion Juan Martin del Potro from Argentina, the '09 champ. Roddick, of course, if he wins. He stays alive. His career stays alive. But at the age of 30 now, Roddick has confirmed he's calling it quits and this will be his last ever pro tournament. And talk about huge popularity, the fans really getting behind their American idol, if you like. And Roddick smiling. He's been smiling all week. We'll be smiling later Tuesday into Wednesday, we shall see. Monita, back to you.</s>RAJPAL: I'm wondering if they're smiles of relief at some point that a decision has been made. Patrick, thank you very much for that, of course. Patrick will be up there with more on the U.S. Open and the Ryder Cup in about an hour on World Sport. Well, still to come here on Connect the World, the Obama camp is hoping he'll get a bounce from the Democratic National Convention. Well, the numbers are just in from the Republican Convention. We'll bring them to you. Plus, the wheelchair tennis star with a remarkable nine year winning streak. We speak to Esther Vergeer later in the show.