Many in the tennis world were surprised by the return of Lindsay Davenport to the WTA tour last year after the birth of her son. Her critics felt she had lost the desire to play professionally, and that her legacy would be tarnished by her ill-fated return.

This couldn’t be further from the truth; Davenport’s comeback has produced two victories in her first year back on tour, and there is no question that she can compete with the world’s top players again. But don’t count out her winning a fourth Grand Slam title. A right knee injury has forced her to default from Wimbledon and the Olympic singles tournament. This was a setback for Davenport, as her comeback was primarily motivated by the opportunity to play in Beijing.

At 32, Davenport is the fifth-oldest woman at the U.S. Open. Her short-term motivation is that she can still walk out on a court and rip a ground stroke as hard as any player competing at Flushing this week. And it is this stroke that will mask Davenport’s lack of lateral quickness. Also, the extra day of rest between rounds will help her recoup the strength needed to advance at the U.S. Open.

She is approaching one match at a time and is downplaying her chances of winning the Open, which makes sense since has only played eight tournaments this season.

Anyone who saw the opening and/or closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing knows that they were… well… simply amazing. I don’t care what people say about the fireworks being fake, and a ton of other stuff being CGI, it looked great, and was a real treat to watch. The next Summer Olympic Games will be held in London, England in 2012. Yahoo! Sports columnist Martin Rogers wrote a great piece on the high standards that were set by China, and how hard it’ll be for London to match them.

Any attempt by London to replicate the extraordinary exhibition staged by the Chinese capital would ultimately be doomed to abject failure.

The 2008 edition was the kind of Olympics that is only possible if you have the world’s biggest collection of humanity at your obedient disposal.

Few other countries have the kind of political control needed to order factories to temporarily shut down to reduce smog, or forbid half of all car owners from taking to the road on any given day.

It’ll be really interesting to see what London is able to pull off. However, we’re going to have to wait four years to find out.