ESPN Olympic Sports

PARK CITY, Utah -- Despite his enormous success in the World Cup last season, gold medalist Ted Ligety still does not like the ski equipment regulations the International Ski Federation (FIS) imposed last year in an attempt to make the sport safer.

"I've been very vocal against the new regulations that have been put in place, for a variety of reasons," Ligety said at the Olympic media summit Monday. "The No. 1 reason is I don't think the safety question is really a valid question they were going to answer with these new skis. Also, I think it makes an unfair situation when a governing body makes rules that completely favor certain athletes and don't favor others.

"Also, it really affects the next generation of skiers coming up. This year, there will be 16-year-old skiers skiing on the same skis we did in the World Cup last year and they're hard for me to ski on a lot of times. That definitely does not help the development of the sport."

The regulations for giant slalom increased the minimum length of the skis (from 185 to 195 cm), as well as their minimum turn radius (from 27 meters to 35 meters). Ironically, Ligety said those modifications favor his style of skiing, but he said he is upset because they hurt skiers with different styles.

"In giant slalom, they definitely favor me. The style of skier they favor is someone who arcs more of the turn and takes the turn deeper, and that's definitely something I do," Ligety said. "But you look at someone like Massimiliano Blardone. He was third in the GS standings the year before and he was way out there this year [13th]. He was a guy that would take a straighter line and chop off the top of his turn, then hit it hard and get some acceleration out of his turn. And that technique just doesn't work anymore.

"There are definitely guys who have had their careers hurt by the new skis."

Ligety blasted the FIS on his website, calling the governing body a "dictatorship" and insisting the rules will ruin the sport. Asked Monday what changes he would have made instead, Ligety said he would prefer there be no regulations.

"FIS has proven themselves to be wrong every time they make new ski regulations," he said. "Before they made the skis wider and that made the skis more aggressive and created more injuries and now they're making them narrower. They keep having all these ideas that they test very mildly and they don't work, and then a couple years later they go back. I think it would be better if they just stayed out of it and let the ski companies make the regulations. ...

"I don't think it's made it any safer. In a lot of ways, it's made it more dangerous because you have to really muscle the ski around and manipulate and twist on the ski."

PARK CITY, Utah -- Though he hasn't competed in more than a year and is the oldest male on the U.S. alpine ski team, Bode Miller didn't exactly mince words when asked Monday about his plans for the upcoming season.

"I'm going to kick ass," Miller said. "That's the gist of it."

The statement was greeted with chuckles from the assembled media at the Olympic media summit, but this was no joke. The man who hasn't competed since microfracture surgery on his left knee in spring of 2012 finds himself refreshed, refocused and reenergized entering what is his fifth and likely last Olympic campaign of his decorated career.

The 35-year-old Miller said Monday that he left his decision to retire entirely to the results of the surgery. If things went well, he planned on skiing again. If they didn't, then that was going to be it. With the surgery a success, he's back for what he said is likely his last competitive season.

"It's perishable being a ski racer," he said. "Until you're rotten and shriveled up, you keep going. I'm pretty shriveled up, but I'm not all the way rotten ... at least not yet."

During his recovery, he spent much of his time on the beaches of Southern California with his wife, Morgan Beck, a professional volleyball player, doing plyometric exercises designed to help slim and strengthen his 6-foot-2 frame. He said he's now 20 pounds lighter than when he last competed, allowing him to be even quicker than he once was.

And, most important, his repaired knee is finally pain-free. Despite being relatively conservative during a recent training session in Portillo, Chile, the early results were promising.

"I didn't take a lot of risk," he said. "One thing during an Olympic season is risk management. It's easy to make stupid mistakes in summer training. But in terms of structure, the knee is perfect. The ligaments are in great shape. The last few days were demanding on the body and I was ready."

He added, "My fitness will be a huge asset for me. It's something that was neglected the past few years, so my plan is to kick ass."

And while doing so, help those who are less fortunate. On Monday, the USOC announced that Miller will be the first athlete ambassador for a new "Gateway to Gold" program designed to introduce people with physical and visual disabilities to Paralympic sports and identify those with the possibility of competing for the U.S. Paralympic Team. It was Miller who sought out USOC CEO Scott Blackmun last year with the goal of improving opportunities in the Paralympic space. The new program will essentially take the core principles of Miller's Turtle Ridge Foundation to a broader audience.

"It's a philosophy that needs a broader audience. It needs more exposure," Miller said. "People get inspiration from watching people deal with these situations and do the incredible. I would not still be racing today had I not gone through that process. It really is something I benefitted from and is really important. I'm thrilled to be part of it and ready to help out."

While Sochi organizers have promised snow will be on the ground despite warn temps in the coastal town (on Thursday, it was 66 degrees there and 59 in the mountains), one thing we can say for sure: The venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be there.

Here's a look at some of the locales you'll see next year:

Shayba Arena

The Shayba Arena will host ice hockey games and is in close proximity to other ice skating venues. Capacity: 7,000.

Fisht Olympic Stadium

The Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, and most medal ceremonies. Capacity: 40,000.

'Ice Cube' Curling Center

You guessed it -- curling competitions will be held here. The venue is in the center of the "Coastal Cluster," where all of the ice-based venues are located. Capacity: 3,000.

Bolshoy Ice Dome

The ice hockey venue is said to be modeled after a "frozen water drop," but spectators may think it resembles a disco dance floor when they see the roof light up in multiple colors at night. Capacity: 12,000.

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Lindsey Vonn made her first comments today since suffering a season-ending knee injury Tuesday at the World Championships:

"First off, I want to say thank you to the amazing medical staff that cared for me," Vonn said in a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Ski Team. "I plan on returning to Vail as soon as I can to have the necessary surgeries. I am also grateful to my fans for the outpouring of support, which has really helped me stay positive. I can assure you that I will work as hard as humanly possible to be ready to represent my country next year in Sochi."

Vonn was also released today from the hospital in Schladming, Austria, where she was treated and evaluated immediately after Tuesday's crash.

ESPN's Stephania Bell discusses Vonn's knee injury and her chances of recovering in time for the 2014 Winter Olympics here:

Lindsey Vonn learned to ski on a 300-foot slope steps from Interstate 35 in Minnesota and turned herself into the most accomplished American skier in history.

She crashed in a training run at the 2006 Winter Olympics and had to be air-lifted to the hospital, yet came back to compete in the race two days later (she finished eighth). She severely bruised her knee in a training run before the 2010 Olympics but overcame the injury to become the first American woman to win gold in the downhill. She won the World Cup overall title three consecutive years (2008 to 2010) and four times total, and has World Cup victories in all five events.

She posed for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and even won a cow in a race.

Vonn has done virtually everything a skier can do in her sport except compete in a World Cup race against men. And that will still be the case Thanksgiving weekend.

Over the weekend, the International Ski Federation (FIS) rejected Vonn’s request to compete against men at the World Cup race at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, the final weekend of November. In a statement, the FIS said: "One gender is not entitled to participate in races of the other and exceptions will not be made to the FIS Rules."

Vonn did not have a public comment. Bill Marolt, president of U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, said Vonn "has achieved greatness from her tenacity in seeking new challenges. We’re disappointed that the FIS Council did not support the proposal but also respect its direction."

As I wrote when Vonn first made her request, watching her race against Bode Miller, Ted Ligety and Marcel Hirscher would have been great fun. But it also would have taken away from her fellow skiers that same weekend when they compete in Aspen, Colo., at the only women’s World Cup race held in the United States this season.

I respect Vonn's desire to challenge herself, and I wish her another superb season. But there is a reason the genders compete separately in sports. In addition to allowing opportunities for women, it provides them with important attention and financial possibilities. If a woman feels she has the skill to compete against men, by all means she should be allowed to do so. But only if she is willing to truly compete, which means competing throughout an entire season, not just when it would be fun or challenging or convenient.

After all, as good as she is, Diana Taurasi won’t get to play in one select NBA game just to challenge herself.

Life off the skis this year hasn't always been that easy for Lindsey Vonn (she and husband Thomas Vonn filed for divorce early in the season), but life on the skis has been spectacular. And in a way, the personal issues played a role in the competitive success.

"I think it's just given me more purpose -- skiing is the only thing that is simple in my life and that's helped me focus on skiing in general," Vonn said Friday in a conference call after accomplishing a feat no American skier, male or female, ever had. "I've gone through difficult times in life with injuries and some family issues, but skiing has always been a constant. I can always rely on it. I've always been able to wake up knowing I can go on the mountain and focus."

Vonn, who grew up in Minnesota where the local slope had a vertical drop of about 300 feet, is simply the most successful skier in American history, with the World Cup titles to back it up.

By winning the giant slalom at Are, Sweden, on Friday, Vonn clinched her American-record fourth World Cup overall title. Vonn had shared the U.S. record with Phil Mahre at three after nearly setting the record last year, when she finished three points shy of the title (she previously won in 2008, 2009 and 2010). She said last season gave her incentive this year.

"I was more motivated," she said. "I was disappointed in the way the season ended last year, with races canceled and losing the overall by three points. I wanted to come out strong and keep that going until the end. The problems in my personal life made me more focused. I definitely have held my focus more than ever before."

Vonn had the lead after the first giant slalom run Friday and won with a combined time of 2:28.0, nearly a half-second ahead of Italy's Federica Brignone. It was her 11th win of the season and 52nd of her career. It also was her 15th World Cup season title in a specific discipline and third of this year (she already locked up the downhill and super-combined titles). With an American-record 1,808 World Cup points, she also has a chance to break Hermann Maier's season record of 2,000 when the season ends next weekend.

"I'm really excited about next week," she said Friday. "Trying to beat the 2,000-point barrier is extremely significant and I may never have the opportunity again. It's been a huge day in many ways, but I still have a lot of motivation for the end of the season. I will fight to end and hopefully will have the points at the end."

Vonn credited her offseason training for building up the endurance she needed this season. She said switching to the longer men's skies helped her improve in the giant slalom, which had been her lone weakness.

"I felt like I entered the season stronger than I've ever been before as far as physical strength," she said. "I felt like I got on roll and didn't stop."

Eleven victories, a whirlwind trip to Russia (she clinched her fifth consecutive World Cup downhill title on the slope where the 2014 Sochi Olympics will be held), a win to clinch her fourth overall title, a chance to pass Maier -- can a skier pack more into a season?

"It's been an incredible season," Vonn said. "I've had a lot of personal struggles off the slope and I found the mental strength to overcome it. My sisters have been around, and there have just been a lot of really special moments this season. I feel lucky to have skied as well as I did."

The Summer Olympics in London may be just around the corner, but American skiers recently got a taste of the slopes above Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, when Russia held its first alpine World Cup races this month.

Lindsey Vonn clinched her fifth consecutive World Cup downhill title with a third-place finish there last weekend and Bode Miller finished fourth two weekends ago on what will be the 2014 Olympics downhill course. Miller told reporters at the event that the hill setup and jumps are good, but the course has too many turns.

"The Olympic downhill has to be the real thing and especially when you have such a great venue as this, it would be awesome to showcase it well," he said. "But this is way too turny for a downhill. It's borderline obnoxious for a downhill being that turny. It is tough when they've never run a race before, but I'm sure they're learning as much as we are and I'm sure they'll figure out how to use this terrain and make something special."

Vonn told reporters she liked the race hill.

"It's hard to compare this course to the other courses on the World Cup because it's so unique," she said at a press conference. "The terrain is really cool. It has everything -- side hills, traverses. It has a lot of terrain. It has flats, steeps. It has turns like a super-G, it has big, open turns. It really has everything. I don't think the jumps are too challenging for the women. I think it's good just the way it is."

Sochi is a large resort city of 400,000 on the Black Sea with a very mild winter climate with average temperatures near 50 in February. The Olympic alpine venue is located at the new resort of Rosa Khutor in the mountains above the city.

In an email to reporters, U.S. ski team media representative Doug Haney detailed how arriving there was like landing in a boom of the industrial revolution.

"Sparks flew from all directions as welders blasted train trestles, sky cranes hoisted beams, bus stops were humming. It was 8:30 p.m. Fifty thousand people have been working 'round the clock for the past year and a half building for 2014. Another 25,000 will be added to that number in the next year."

"This is the coolest hill I've ever seen for ski racing -- downhill, super-G -- it doesn't matter,'' Travis Ganong told reporters on the slope. "This hill is just awesome, top to bottom. It has really steep technical sections, really cool rolls and terrain with bank turns, and then big jumps and the mountains around here are gorgeous. The set can probably use some change before the Olympics and they'll work on that in the next couple of years, but in general this is a great hill."

In January of last year, aerial skier Jeret "Speedy" Peterson sat across from me in a coffee shop in the lodge at the Deer Valley Resort, outside Park City, Utah. Sun was streaming in the windows and ambient noise swirled around us: Chatter, laughter, a barista banging a filter to get rid of espresso grounds.

Peterson was in a good place. He had already clinched a spot on the 2010 U.S. Olympic team and the freestyle World Cup that weekend was another chance for him to refine the form and landing for his signature trick -- the triple-flip, five-twist Hurricane. He was finding it easier to speak openly about what had gone awry in his life. His backstory of personal tragedy made his well-publicized exit from the 2006 Olympics after a public brawl look like what it was, a trifle.

I found his willingness to talk about his struggle with depression impressive.

"My stance on it is that I didn't do anything to make it happen," Peterson said, speaking deliberately, a slight twang infusing his low voice with warmth. "You know, it's no different than having a broken arm. It's something that you have, it's something you have to deal with, and if you don't, it's not gonna heal."

He said he had liberated himself from the weight of public expectation.

"I definitely have a lot of people who support me in what I do," he said. "If there's people who feel they need to shun me for one incident, I don't even want those people in my life. I'm not here to impress everybody else. I'm here to have fun and I'm here to enjoy what I do and be the best person that I can be. I'm not going to please everybody and I'm not going to try to do that."

He spoke like someone who believed he was winning.

"I'm comfortable in admitting where I went wrong and things in my life that have gone wrong," he said. "If people don't want to be my fan, they don't have to be. I'm OK with that."

It wasn't a defensive statement, just a straightforward assessment: Take me or leave me, and if you take me, take the whole package. There was not one ounce of phony in Speedy Peterson.

In that moment, after years of watching Peterson from a reportorial distance, I did become a fan. Not in the traditional sense of rooting for a quantifiable result; I just wanted him to keep his bearings, maintain his hard-won balance and live a long, happy life. So when he stuck the Hurricane and won a silver medal in Vancouver a few weeks later and joy illuminated that open book of a face, I was quietly, unprofessionally elated.

His press conference the next morning was a moving tribute to the power of perseverance. I left the room feeling uplifted and wrote a story, and then I checked out of freestyle skiing for another four years. Peterson went back to school. I followed him on Twitter and Facebook. He seemed busy. I liked to think he was thriving.

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Warm weather turned the Swiss slopes where the Alpine skiing World Cup was supposed to have been held over the last four days into soup. The best-of-four series that was to have decided the season-long title duel between Germany's Maria Riesch and three-time defending champion Lindsey Vonn was reduced to a best-of-two, and Riesch wound up prevailing by three points.

In the larger scheme of things -- like, say, the events in Japan and Libya -- this is not a tragedy. In a sense, scrubbing both the super-G and giant slalom evened things out, since Vonn is stronger in speed events and Riesch in technical events. And cancellation was obviously the right call if conditions were unsafe.

But this still equates to ending the World Series with one team up three games to two. There are apparently no provisions in the World Cup rules to deal with this kind of situation. And because of that, the sport lost out on what could have been one of its most compelling moments in recent history, especially in what is usually a lower-key season following a Winter Olympics.

Coupled with the maybe-it's-on, maybe-it's-not status of the world figure skating championships that were slated for Tokyo this coming week, fans of international sport would be well within their rights to ask the following fundamental question:

Where's Plan B?

The two events obviously were affected by diametrically different circumstances. The weather in Switzerland was forecast to be unseasonably warm days in advance, but you can't cancel an event based on a guess, however educated.

Still, why couldn't the two women's races -- if not the men's -- have been re-scheduled for the following weekend in the same location or somewhere else in Europe? It's not as if there aren't any other ski resorts in the vicinity and plenty have experience in hosting World Cup events.

The public answer from FIS, the sport's world governing body, was that there are "no reserve days" (in a six-month season?) and that it would be "unfair to reschedule one race and not another," as if the World Cup final were just any race.

Those statements are tantamount to "We just don't do that," and that's not enough. The real answer likely lies in a lack of flexibility with contractual commitments to sponsors and television, and the arrangements to which officials have become accustomed. In other words, it's probably about everything but the athletes, who should be the constituents international federations are most concerned with.

As for figure skating, the complete tone-deafness of the International Skating Union is stupefying. The magnitude of the catastrophe in Japan called for a swift, compassionate response, not a tentative and seemingly political one. At last word, the ISU was awaiting an answer from Japanese organizers before acting on any of the offers that have been made from other countries, including the United States and Russia.

Either the world championships should have been canceled immediately -- some have suggested part of the multi-million dollar budget for the event could have been donated to disaster relief -- or officials should have sent condolences to Japan, promised automatic hosting privileges within a certain time frame and worked around the clock to find an alternative location. And next time, there should be a backup in place that would be on notice for the entire year before.

Skating also is blowing a huge opportunity with its fan base and disregarding the best interests of the athletes by fumbling around with the bizarre idea of holding worlds at the start of next season. Imagine if worlds were to be held in the next few weeks, dedicated to the people of Japan, perhaps even used as a fund-raising platform. Imagine reigning world champions Mao Asada and Daisuke Takahashi defending their titles with grace and dignity before a worldwide audience. It would be riveting, emotional and entertaining, which are the reasons we bother watching sports to begin with.

More to the point, it's time for international federations who handle millions of dollars in commercial enterprise to stop acting like mom-and-pop stores. At any given time, any global sport might have to deal with natural disaster, political unrest or plain old lousy weather. There should be a sensible crisis plan in place for every major event, and a coherent way to communicate it.

Four days, two women, one trophy. If this were a movie script, it might have been sent back for tweaks because it's a little too perfect, especially since Lindsey Vonn and Maria Riesch also happen to be good friends.

The forecast in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, is for warm temperatures and hot competition in the women's Alpine skiing World Cup final. Germany's Riesch and the United States' Vonn go at it in the downhill event Wednesday, the super-G Thursday, the slalom Friday and the giant slalom Saturday for all the marbles. Riesch leads Vonn by a scant 23 points in a series where wins count for 100.

What's actually at stake is the big crystal globe awarded to the best overall skier on the circuit. If Vonn wins, it would be her fourth straight and perhaps hardest to achieve. If Riesch hangs on, she would become the first German woman to capture the championship in 13 years and the third in history.

Over the past two weeks, Vonn has clinched season titles in the combined, downhill and super-G events and steadily whittled away at Riesch's lead. Her stock is on the uptick, a trend underscored by the rivals' results last weekend in the technical events. Instead, the woman who has won more World Cup races than any other American skier, male or female, reached the GS podium for the first time in her career, finishing third; meanwhile, Riesch DNFed on the second run of the slalom.

Vonn declared she is where she wants to be after racing from behind all season, and she wouldn't be there without having taken some chances. She embraces both the great performances and the mishaps on her Facebook page and Twitter feed, posting videos of her crashes and, just last week, a photo of a little unwanted facial color.

Her decision to race the downhill at the World Championships shortly after sustaining what was described as a mild concussion has been questioned, and rightly so given our ever-increasing knowledge about the potential consequences of those risks. But no one can doubt the passion Vonn brought to the circuit this season even after checking off the lifetime goal of winning an Olympic gold medal a little more than a year ago in Vancouver.

The men's competition will be somewhat of an afterthought. Croatia's Ivica Kostelic built a Secretariat-like lead to clinch the overall crown last weekend. Giant slalom specialist Ted Ligety of the U.S. will try to keep his grip on a 77-point lead over Norway's Aksel Lund Svindal (Cyprien Richard of France is just another three points shy in third) to win his third season title in the discipline.

At this time last year, Evan Lysacek and Lindsey Vonn had accomplished everything in their respective sports except medal at the Olympics. In the eyes of the American masses, that meant they were still somewhat off the radar -- unfair, perhaps, but true. Tuesday's announcement that they had been named the U.S. Olympic Committee's sportsman and sportswoman of the year rewards perseverance and poise under pressure. As a bonus, they've both remained down-to-earth while their celebrity has soared.

Lysacek entered the crucible of Vancouver as the reigning Grand Prix and world champion in figure skating and won Olympic gold -- the first time a male skater had completed the worlds-Olympic double since Scott Hamilton did it in 1984.

His performance was strong enough athletically and artistically to overcome the absence of a quadruple jump, and by extension, to beat Russian jumper extraordinaire Evgeni Plushenko. Lysacek's natural class subsequently came in handy in riding above the ensuing mini-tempest and Plushenko's petulant comments. Perhaps most touchingly, Lysacek sincerely seemed as happy or more so for his longtime coach Frank Carroll, who'd come close to gold with former pupils Linda Fratianne and Michelle Kwan, as he was for himself.

Vonn was already a poster girl for sustained excellence when she arrived in Canada as the two-time World Cup overall champion. She also arrived gimpy, and famously wrapped her bruised shin in quark cheese to heal it. Her gold medal in the downhill and bronze in the super-G event were affirmations of her talent rather than revelations, but given the slippery slope of expectations she was navigating, spectacular nonetheless.

Vonn evinced no signs of an Olympic hangover the following month when she clinched her third straight World Cup title and became the most decorated American skier ever on the global circuit, male or female. She already has six World Cup race victories to her credit this season. The so-called technical events of slalom and giant slalom remain Vonn's Achilles heel, but characteristically, she's attacking those disciplines this season, unwilling to concede anything.

At a recent U.S. Ski team camp in Vail, Colo., Vonn mingled with fans and tirelessly signed autographs until darkness fell. It's clear she appreciates her success, but it hasn't changed her hat size.

Lysacek told reporters on a conference call that he finally allowed himself to tag along with his family of "avid skiers'' this summer after years of avoiding the pastime for fear of injury, and has skied black diamond trails in Idaho and Japan. No word yet on whether Vonn is working on a triple Lutz.

WENGEN, Switzerland -- Ivica Kostelic won a World Cup super-combined event Friday to extend his lead in the overall standings with a third victory in 12 days. Bode Miller was the top American in sixth place.

Kostelic dominated the afternoon slalom run, after placing sixth in the downhill, for a combined two-leg time of 2 minutes 40.44 seconds. Carlo Janka of Switzerland was second, 0.58 seconds back. Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway was third.

American Ted Ligety used the second-best slalom run to place ninth.

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A recap of Thursday's World Cup action:

Men's slalom: Ligety finishes sixth

ZAGREB, Croatia -- Andre Myhrer of Sweden won a World Cup night slalom race on Thursday for his second career title, four years after capturing his first.

The Olympic bronze medalist, who was fourth after the opening run, finished on the icy Crveni Spust course in a combined time of 1 minute, 52.74 seconds. Ivica Kostelic of Croatia was 0.10 seconds behind to finish second in his home race for the third time in four years.

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ESPN.com's Bonnie D. Ford recently caught up with Will Gregorak, who talked about what it's like being one of the new skiers on the slopes for the U.S. team and what he expects from himself in the giant slalom this season.

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VAIL, Colo. -- The town square in this manicured resort was dark by the time Lindsey Vonn stopped signing autographs Saturday evening. Her teammates in their identical purple plaid jackets had gradually drifted away after a long day of training and media interviews, but Vonn, still looking relaxed and fresh, kept scrawling away on hats, jackets, skis, anything offered to her. She lives just steps away and you could feel an almost palpable sense that she didn't want to let anyone down.

[Podcast: Vonn talks with Bonnie Ford about staying motivated ... and cheese. ]

Disappointment has largely disappeared from Vonn's vocabulary in the past three years, and she'd like to keep it that way. A three-time defending World Cup overall champion and double world championship gold medalist in speed events, Vonn survived injury and intensely high expectations to win a downhill gold and a bronze medal in the super-G at the Vancouver Olympics.

A veteran at 26, Vonn's next quest is to be more versatile. She is committed to competing through the 2014 Sochi Games and wants to improve her performance in the technical events. Of Vonn's 33 career wins on the World Cup circuit, only two have come from slalom and three from the combined event; giant slalom remains her last unconquered frontier. She focused on slalom and giant slalom in training this summer -- "I've always struggled with those two events," she said -- and tweaked her diet this fall, eliminating rice, pasta, bread and dairy products.

Maintaining dominance and expanding a skill set can be a tricky equation for an athlete, but "It's definitely possible," Vonn said. Her motivational example is a role model who has become a friend, Roger Federer. She witnessed him complete his career Slam at the 2009 French Open -- the first match at that level she'd seen in person -- and spent quality time with him before this year's U.S. Open.