Aug. 27
1884 - Richard Sears beats Howard Taylor, 6-0, 1-6, 6-0, 6-2 to win his fourth straight U.S. men’s national tennis championship.
1903 - Britain’s Hugh Doherty is the first non-American to win the men’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships with a 6-0, 6-3, 10-8 victory over the William Larned.
1909 - William Larned wins his fifth U.S. men’s singles tennis title with a five-set victory over William Clothier in Newport, R.I.
1928 - Helen Wills beats Helen Hull Jacobs to take the fifth women’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Wills needs only 33 minutes, defeating Jacobs 6-2, 6-1.
1957 - Hickory Smoke, driven by John Simpson, Jr., wins the Hambletonian Stakes after taking the fifth and deciding heat.
1969 - Lindy’s Pride, driven by Howard Beissinger, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.
1975 - Onny Parun of New Zealand defeats Stan Smith 6-4, 6-2, in the first night match ever played at the U.S. Open. A crowd of 4,949 saw the match at the West Side Tennis Club.
1976 - Transexual Renee Richards, formerly Richard Raskind, is barred from competing at the U.S. Open tennis championships after refusing to submit to a chromosome qualification test.
1978 - The New York Cosmos beat the Tampa Bay Rowdies 3-1 to win the NASL Championship.
1985 - Mary Joe Fernandez, at the age of 14 years and eight days, becomes the youngest player to win a match at the U.S. Open. Fernandez beats Britain’s Sara Gomer 6-1, 6-4.
1996 - Stefan Edberg stuns Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek at the U.S. Open, winning 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 in his record 54th straight and final Grand Slam event.
1999 - Maurice Greene and Inger Miller win the 200-meter dashes at the World Championships, giving the United States a sweep of the short sprints. Greene is the first sprinter to win the 100 and 200 at a major global meet since Carl Lewis swept both at the 1984 Olympics.
2006 - Marco Andretti, 19, becomes the youngest winner of a major open-wheel event, beating Dario Franchitti by 0.66 seconds to take the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma.
2015 - Jamaican Usain Bolt wins his fourth successive 200-meter title at the World Championships in Beijing. Bolt’s time of 19.55 seconds is the 10th fastest ever and his best for three years. Justin Gatlin finishes second in 19.74.
2018 - Simona Halep makes a quick-as-can-be exit from the U.S. Open, becoming the first No. 1-seeded woman to lose her opening match at the Grand Slam tournament in the half-century of the professional era. Halep is overwhelmed by the power-based game of 44th-ranked Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-2, 6-4 in a match that is stunningly lopsided and lasted all of 76 minutes.
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Aug. 28
1908 - Fred McLeod wins the U.S. Open golf title with a one-stroke victory over Willie Smith in a playoff.
1922 - The oldest American international team golf match, the Walker Cup, is established with the United States beating Britain 8-4.
1949 - The United States wins the Davis Cup, beating Australia 4-1.
1950 - Althea Gibson becomes the first black player to compete in the U.S. Open. Gibson wins her first round match, defeating Barbara Knapp of Britain 6-2, 6-2, at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y.
1956 - Australia sweeps the United States 5-0 to capture the Davis Cup.
1959 - Bye Bye Byrd sets a world record for the mile pace on a half-mile track in 1:57 4-5 at Roosevelt Raceway.
1976 - The Toronto Metros win the NASL championship with a 3-0 victory over the Minnesota Kicks.
1989 - Eighteen-year-old Pete Sampras wins his first U.S. Open singles match in four sets over Agustin Moreno of Mexico.
1990 - Stefan Edberg becomes the first top-seeded player, since John Newcombe in 1971, to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open. Edberg loses to Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2.
1993 - Pinch-hitter Jeremy Hess’ bases-loaded single with two outs in the sixth inning gives Long Beach, Calif. a 3-2 victory over Panama in the championship game of the Little League World Series.
1994 - Tiger Woods, 18, becomes the youngest winner in the history of the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, capturing the last three holes of his 36-hole title match against Trip Kuehne.
1995 - Monica Seles, plays in her first Grand Slam tournament in more than 2 1-2 years and beats Ruxandra Dragomir 6-3, 6-1 in first round of the U.S. Open.
2008 - In one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history, top-seeded Ana Ivanovic is ousted from the U.S. Open. Ivanovic is beaten by 188th-ranked Julie Coin 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second round. Never before in the Open era that began in 1968 had the No. 1 woman lost this early in the tournament.
2009 - Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva bounces back from losing her world title by setting a world record of 16 feet, 7 1/4 inches in the Weltklasse meet in Zurich.
2011 - Three-time PGA Tour winner Kirk Triplett won the News Sentinel Open in Knoxville, Tenn. to become the oldest winner in Nationwide Tour history. At 49 years, 4 months, 29 days, Triplett closes with his second straight 4-under 68 for a one-stroke victory over Marco Dawson.
2014 - Acknowledging he “didn’t get it right” with a two-game suspension for Ravens running back Ray Rice, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announces tougher penalties for players accused of domestic violence, including six weeks for a first offense and at least a year for a second.
2014 - Kenny Hill breaks Johnny Manziel’s single-game passing record with 511 yards and No. 21 Texas A&M beat No. 9 South Carolina 52-28. Hill, in his first career start, finishes 44 of 60 with three touchdowns.
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Aug. 29
1885 - John L. Sullivan wins the first world heavyweight title under the Marquess of Queensbury rules when he beats Dominic McCaffrey in six rounds. The fight features 3-ounce gloves and 3-minute rounds.
1952 - Dr. Reginald Weir becomes the first black man to compete in the U.S. Tennis Championships, Weir appears two years after Althea Gibson breaks the color barrier in the tournament and loses in four sets to William Stucki.
1962 - A.C.‘s Viking, driven by Sanders Russell, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.
1968 - Open tennis begins at the U.S. Tennis Championships. Billie Jean King wins the first stadium match at the U.S. Open and amateurs Ray Moore and Jim Osborne have upset wins over professionals. Moore beats No. 10 Andres Gimeno and Osborne defeats Barry MacKay, each in four sets.
1974 - Nineteen-year-old high school basketball star Moses Malone, signs a contract with the Utah Stars of the ABA to become the first player to go directly from high school into major professional basketball.
1978 - The USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. opens. Bjorn Borg beats Bob Hewitt in the first match 6-0, 6-2 in the best-of-three sets.
1987 - Charlie Whittingham becomes the first trainer to surpass 500 stakes wins when he sent Ferdinand to victory in the Cabrillo Handicap at Del Mar Racetrack.
1993 - Laffit Pincay Jr. wins the 8,000th race of his career aboard El Toreo in the seventh race at Del Mar racetrack to become the second thoroughbred jockey to ride 8,000 winners.
1993 - Brandie Burton’s 20-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff edges Betsy King for the du Maurier Classic title, the LPGA tour’s final major of the season.
1998 - Toms River, N.J., wins its first Little League World Series with a 12-9 victory over Kashima, Japan. Chris Cardone hits home runs in consecutive at-bats - including the game-deciding two-run shot.
2005 - Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova becomes the first U.S. Open defending women’s champion to fall in the first round, losing 6-3, 6-2 to fellow Russian Ekaterina Bychkova on the first day of the U.S. Open.
2011 - Petra Kvitova becomes the first defending Wimbledon champion to lose in the first round at the U.S. Open, 7-6, 6-3 to Alexandra Dulgheru.
2013 - The NFL agrees to pay $765 million to settle lawsuits from thousands of former players who developed dementia or other concussion-related health problems they say were caused by the on-field violence. The settlement, unprecedented in sports, applies to all past NFL players and spouses of those who are deceased.
2015 - Usain Bolt anchors Jamaica to a fourth successive men’s 4x100-meter title and adds to his record-breaking personal haul of IAAF World Championships gold medals to 11.
2018 - Wanheng Menayothin surpasses Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s 50-0 record, beating Pedro Taduran in a unanimous decision to improve to 51-0. The 32-year-old Menayothin (51-0, 18 KOs) won his 10th successful title defense of his WBC minimumweight belt that he won in November 2014.
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