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STANFORD, Calif. -- As Johanna Konta pounded the ball from every spot on the court Sunday and rarely missed, there were moments Venus Williams could do little more than applaud her opponents stellar day as winners whipped down the line and drop shots fell perfectly.With a crowd of 2,268 largely rooting for the American icon Williams, Konta regularly reminded herself to breathe to keep her mind on the match and not her daunting task.The hard-hitting Konta outslugged top-seeded Williams to capture her first career singles title at last while playing for her first championship, winning the Bank of the West Classic 7-5, 5-7, 6-2.Its actually quite an incredibly humbling experience. Its a great validation of the hard work youve been putting in and its a great motivator on the things you want to keep getting better at, she said. I played her twice previously. I knew going into it I was going to be playing against a magnitude of experience. Venus Williams doesnt need an introduction.Her serve and return games equally solid on another unseasonably hot day at Stanford, Konta held on in the third set after squandering a 4-1 lead in the second to open the door for Williams to come back.When Williams netted her forehand return on the third match point, Konta dropped her racket to the ground and covered her face in triumph before heading to the net for a handshake. After receiving her trophy and addressing Williams directly with a thoughtful compliment of the 36-year-old stars grace and game, Konta posed for a round of photos that this time will be all the more special.She played at such a high level today, Williams said. She saved her best tennis for the final, which is what you want to do.Konta is having a blast being part of British tennis right now, everyone riding high after Wimbledon with Andy Murray winning at home.Yeah, long live the Queen, guys, she said with a big grin.Over the 2-hour, 18-minute match, the third-seeded Konta figured out Williams big serve for the second time this year, standing some 10 feet behind the baseline to return it and generating pace from Williams regular serves of well higher than 100 mph.The 25-year-old Konta also stunned Williams with the straight-set victory in the first round at this years Australian Open. Coming into Sundays match, Konta considered her return game a key to whether she would win.She plays really well against me, so maybe she comes out and doesnt feel any pressure and just swings for it, Williams said. I tried to stay in there and fight. ... What can I say but give her credit.Konta became the fourth-oldest first-time titlist this year. A steady serve helped carry Konta to Sundays final. She nailed 11 aces and moved Williams all over the court with an array of powerful groundstrokes and timely drop shots.Konta, headed to the Olympics next month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also was the first British woman to reach the final at Stanford since Virginia Wades runner-up finish in 1981.Williams was seeking her third tournament win at Stanford and denied career singles championship No. 50 while playing for her 80th title. At 49 singles tournament wins, she remains second among active players only behind younger sister Serenas 71.Of course I wanted to win, but I imagine with any luck Ill have more chances to get another title, she said.Williams is projected to move up to No. 6 in the next rankings. She will play in Montreal this coming week before the Rio Olympics next month.See you all in Rio, she told the crowd before exiting the stadium. Cheap Air Jordan Free Shipping . Goals from Jerome Boateng, Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller extended Bayerns unbeaten run to a record 37 matches. "This record is incredible," Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said. Wholesale Authentic Jordans . -- The Portland Timbers and Real Salt Lake played to a 0-0 tie Saturday night that left the top of the Western Conference standings unchanged. http://www.cheapjordanschinawholesale.com/ . Spiller left Week 3s 27-20 loss to the New York Jets with a thigh injury, but fully practiced with the team all week and expects to be ready to go on Sunday. Cheap Air Jordan . -- Three close looks at the bucket, three misses. Wholesale Jordans Online .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. When I was 8 years old in the fall of 1984, my father purchased a bottle of cheap champagne that said Chicago Cubs 1984 NL East Champions. He promised we would pop open the bottle and spray it all over each other when the Cubs won the World Series. But then a ball rolled through Leon Durhams legs. Steve Garvey pumped his fist. And the bottle never got opened.When my parents moved, the bottle went with them. Another shelf. Another layer of dust.It went through Will Clark in 89. The high of Game 163 in 1998, and the low of being swept by the Braves days later. And then 2003. I wont name names. But I watched in utter jealousy as the Red Sox and White Sox ended their tortuous droughts in subsequent years. Someday, I told myself. Someday.A few years back, my oldest daughter asked me why we cheer for a team that always loses -- that hadnt won a World Series since a date that she couldnt even process. I talked to her about loyalty. About belief. And about how amazing it would be when that someday finally happened. I told her the story of the time Theo Epstein walked me through the Cubs training facility in Arizona, pointed at the 1908 and 1945 World Series banners hanging from above and told me to ignore them. Were going to get a couple of those for ourselves, he insisted that day.Epstein knew -- this was about far more than being the best baseball team in the world. This was about family. About generation after generation passing along a love for something while not knowing when the payoff would ever come.This year I believed was the year. But a sobering thing happened before these playoffs even began. I was at the gym when I took the call. The words on the other end were numbing. Open heart surgery. Sooner rather than later. A little less than a year earlier, doctors had discovered an aneurysm on my aorta, the same ailment that killed actor John Ritter. They told me I probably would need surgery at some point in my life. But a cardiac surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, the same one who saved the life of NBA forward Jeff Green, had reviewed my case. He didnt think I should wait. He told me I had a month. Maybe two.Before his nurse could even explain the procedure, before the talk of stopping my heart or putting me on a ventilator, I said four words: After the World Series. She said something about the Indians, how she wasnt sure they would even make the World Series. And I told her no. She didnt get it. This was because of the Cubs. I pulled out a calendar and told her we could schedule the procedure for the first Monday after the World Series: Nov. 7. The doctors agreed.And so did most everyone who knows me well. They got it. Yes, technically, I was walking around with a ticking time bomb in my chest. The aneurysm could rupture at any point -- a potentially fatal occurrence. But the odds were small. One friend texted me, Forget the World Series. Forget the Cubs. This is the World Series of life.I told him I couldnt do it. I had to wait.And so for the past month Ive watched every pitch of every game with an even greater sense of interest. I had been scheduled to cover the Cubs through the postseason for ESPN, but after one day at Wrigley Field before the start of the National League Division Series, I knew I couldnt handle it.A little more than 30 years ago, on the afternoon of May 26, 1986, my grandfather had a stroke at Wrigley Field. His friends said he was heckling Pete Rose when it happened. He spent the rest of his life in a nursing home, unable to use the left side of his body. I had been to Wrigley probably a hundred times since then. Each time I climbed those cement stairs and looked out to the ivy and old scoreboard, I thought about him and how much he loved the Cubs. But on the day before this years division series, a paralyzing fear came over me. What if I was next? I began to sweat. And shake. I tried to talk to colleagues and friends like everything was fine. But inside I was flipping out. I left without writing a word.On the drive home, I decided I would spend this October surrounded by family and friends. If the unthinkable was going to happen, I wanted to have the people I loved by my side. Each victory against the Giants and Dodgers brought the Cubs one step closer to the World Series, and at the same time, brought me one day closer to surgery.When the ffinal opponent ended up being the Cleveland Indians, I had no words.dddddddddddd My father had grown up in Cleveland a die-hard Indians fan. He moved to Chicago in his 20s, decided there was no way he could cheer for the rival White Sox and picked the Cubs as his new team. He fell in love with Wrigley and introduced it all to me. I never had a chance.Now, here was his hometown, the same place I would soon visit to help save my life, facing the Cubs in the World Series. In the last week of October, I went to Cleveland for a series of pre-op tests. It just so happened the dates were the same as Games 1 and 2 of the World Series. On the day of Game 1, I bounced from appointment to appointment in a Cubs T-shirt. Most everyone gave me a hard time -- playfully. I threw it right back. When one nurse chucked a wad of paper at me and I dropped it, I quickly replied, My bad. I catch about as well as the Indians. We all laughed. After my final test that day, my wife and I headed straight to Progressive Field for Game 1. It was surreal. The Cubs. The Indians. My team. My dads team. The World Series. And in the left-field corner, a massive ad for the Cleveland Clinic.For most of the postseason, I had managed to stay relatively calm during games. I watched my wife roll herself into a ball on the couch. There were friends who refused to move an inch when something good happened. And others who admitted to wearing the same underwear after a Cubs win. But I stayed relatively sane, taking a rational approach to the highs and lows of the postseason. Until Game 7, that is. I spent all of Wednesday unsure what to do with myself. I cleaned the house. I took out the garbage. Then my wife reminded me it wasnt garbage day.For my entire life I had wondered what this moment would be like. The Cubs, one win away from the World Series. Where would I watch the final game? In the stadium? The press box? A bar? The streets of Wrigleyville? But now that the biggest Cubs game of my life was here, I was home. On the couch.Throughout the night, I listened to my 2-year-old repeat the chorus to Go Cubs Go over and over and over again. I chuckled when she pointed to the TV and yelled KRIS BRYANT! and then danced maniacally to one of?Anthony Rizzos walk-up songs, Intoxicated. But perhaps I was most touched by a moment in the eighth inning, when Rajai Davis hit his tying home run and my older daughter turned to me, probably reading the pain, fear and anguish on my face and said, Dad, its going to be OK. We got this.From then on, its all a bit of a blur. When Ben Zobrist doubled home Albert Almora Jr. to give the Cubs the lead in the 10th, I know I high-fived my neighbor so hard he thought I broke his hand. And when the final ground ball rolled into Bryants glove and he threw it to Rizzo, I know I grabbed my daughter, held her as tightly as I could and whispered in her ear, This is why we believe.From there, I thought about my father. My mother. My grandparents. I thought about Richard Savage, Betty Maute, Helen Keiling and so many other older Cubs fans I had met over the years who were no longer with us. There was champagne. No, it wasnt that same bottle from 1984. At some point, in some move after Dad died, that bottle disappeared. But the moment was just as special. I dont remember what time I went to bed. But when I woke up Thursday morning, the TV in my bedroom was still on. My daughter was sleeping next to me, and the first thing my eyes saw was a replay of Epstein being doused with champagne. It wasnt a dream.Early Monday morning, around the time the people in Chicago begin waking up to get back to their normal lives, a team of doctors will roll me into an operating room in Cleveland for the six-hour surgery that will save my life. As the anesthesia kicks in and my thoughts begin to drift to a calming place, Ill see a bunch of grown men in blue jerseys jumping up and down in an infield. Ill see a 39-year-old backup catcher ending his career in the most unimaginable way possible.Ill picture that bottle of champagne, cork popped, sitting empty on my kitchen counter. Deep inside there will be smiles. For the Chicago Cubs just won the World Series.And I was alive to see it. ' ' '