The United States women’s national soccer team begins its quest for a third World Cup championship today when the U.S. takes on Australia. It’s the first game for both teams and should be one of the best in the tournament so far. The U.S. is ranked second in the world and Australia is 10th.

Hundreds of rabid U.S. fans from the group American Outlaws and thousands of others wearing red, white and blue are expected to pack the stadium for the Group D opener in Winnipeg, Canada. One of the biggest questions is the health of the U.S. squad. The team has been hobbled by injuries to several key players, including forward Alex Morgan and midfielder Megan Rapinoe. Still, the U.S. team is deep and the coaches have tinkered with various starting lineups over the past few games.

Those aren’t the only issues swirling around the team. At a pre-game news conference on Sunday, questions surfaced again about star goalkeeper Hope Solo. Solo is widely considered the best goalkeeper in the world and, arguably, of all-time. But she’s been dogged by brushes with the law, and over the years some teammates have been frustrated by the distractions. U.S. head coach Jill Ellis says she’s standing by Solo despite media reports that surfaced this weekend detailing the goalkeeper’s demeanor during a domestic violence arrest last summer.

“That was a long time ago. We’ve moved on,” Ellis told reporters.

Even if the latest drama in the Solo-saga spills onto the field, Australia won’t have much of an upper-hand. The Americans have played the Aussies 24 times — and never lost (beating them 22 times and tying twice). One reason for that success is forward Abby Wambach. She’s scored the most goals (182) of any woman in international play.

Another player to watch on the U.S. squad is Julie Johnston who is playing in her first World Cup. At 23, she’s the second-youngest person on the team and has appeared in only nine international games. But as my colleague Shereen Marisol Meraji reported today on Morning Edition, Johnston is a player to watch:

“A couple of injuries on the back line of the U.S. National Team cleared room for Johnston to show off ahead of the tournament. As a defender she scored three goals. She hasn’t always played defense – she was a midfielder and forward at Santa Clara University.

“In an NPR interview, she said ‘I loved being an attacker so much, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t think defending was fun or anything like that. It’s just that growing up, all I knew was attack, attack, attack.’ It’s that drive that her fans can’t get enough of — U.S. team coach Jill Ellis calls her a warrior. And she brings that fire to the defensive line, sometimes going on 60-yard runs up the field.”

The last time the U.S. won the World Cup was 1999. Many believe that if the U.S. doesn’t win this year, it will be a disappointment. The march to a third victory begins tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET. You can watch it on Fox Sports 1.

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Julie Johnston, 23, didn’t make the World Cup qualifier, but is now a starting defender on the team. She protects the goal, but is known to go on 60 yard runs from the back line to score goals.

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Stan Wawrinka thwarted Novak Djokovic’s bid to complete a career Grand Slam. Serena Williams won her third French Open title. Renee Montagne talks to freelance tennis writer Courtney Nguyen.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers have evened the NBA Finals at one game apiece. Sunday night in Oakland, the Cavs won a thrilling game, beating the Golden State Warriors 95-93 in overtime. Both finals games have gone to an extra period.

Cleveland led by 11 points with a little over three minutes left in regulation, but the Warriors stormed back and tied the game with just seconds left to send it into overtime.

Cleveland took the lead quickly in the extra period. The Warriors fought back, but Cavs guard Matthew Dellavedova’s two free throws put Cleveland ahead for good.

The Cavs, once again, were led by 4-time league MVP Lebron James. He had a coveted triple double — with 39 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists.

But equal if not more credit should go to Dellavedova. He started the game in place of injured all-star point guard Kyrie Irving, who broke his kneecap in game 1.

Dellavedova’s harassing defense on Golden State star point guard Steph Curry contributed to one of Curry’s worst nights of the season. He only sank 5 of 23 shots, and he was 2 for 15 from three point range — an abysmal percentage for the league’s best long-range shooter.

The teams now head to Cleveland for Game 3 on Tuesday

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The 90-foot wide, flagpole-topped incline in Minute Maid Park’s center field will be removed at the end of this year’s baseball season. Tal’s Hill is named for the Houston Astros’ former president, Tal Smith.

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The spotlight is about to shine on one of the more unlikely starting players in the NBA Finals.

Australian native Matthew Dellavedova is expected to start for the Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday night, in game 2 of the NBA finals against the Golden State Warriors. He will replace injured all-star point guard Kyrie Irving, who had season-ending surgery Saturday to repair a broken kneecap.

Dellavedova is an undrafted 24-year-old, who played Division 1 basketball at St. Mary’s — a small liberal arts college near Oakland, Calif. Among those who’ll be cheering on Dellavedova is his adviser and psychology professor at St. Mary’s, Mary True.

True remembers seeing great things from Dellavedova in his four years playing for the Gaels; he finished his career as the school’s all-time leader in scoring, assists and three-point shots. True says one of those three-pointers beat rival BYU and was immortalized as the “Dellavedagger.”

But True says “Delly” was a standout in the classroom as well. And it’s his performance there, and his fascination with psychology, that makes her believe he’ll be fine when he finds himself on the global stage of the NBA Finals.

‘The Real Deal’

“What really caught my eye was, at the first test in my psychology class, Matthew stayed longer than anybody else,” True says, as she sat in the sun-splashed living room of her Oakland home this week. “I used to do that. I’d read over my answers over and over again, and he did too. And I thought, ‘This is a serious student.’ “

Soon, she says, a nice connection started between them. True was on a plane reading the book How We Decide, and flagged a part about football quarterbacks and how you can’t really know who’s going to be a good quarterback or not. True knows little about basketball, but she grew up in hoops-crazy Indiana, and she says something must have stuck.

“I thought, ‘I think that’s what Matthew does, because isn’t the point guard a basketball quarterback?’ ” she says.

Dellavedova later confirmed that was the case and True gave him the book to read. He thanked her and said he had a book for her, too — one that had a lot to do with work ethic being as important if not more important than talent. A book, she says, Dellavedova studied when he attended the Australian Institute of Sport.

True says after that, they began trading books and “almost every time he’d see me, he’d ask, ‘What are you reading?’ ” He also emailed her his favorite TED Talks and video clips related to psychology. True was impressed by Dellavedova’s curiousity and “voracious” reading.

“He’s the real deal,” she says.

The Importance Of Gratitude

Much of Dellavedova’s interest in psychology dovetailed with his athletic development. True says he was interested in concepts about motivation and perseverance — what makes and keeps people high achievers.

“He could teach a course on motivation,” True says, adding, “I don’t mean that lightly. He has read almost everything I’ve read about it.”

But she notes Dellavedova’s curiousity took him outside the world of sports as well. She says he sent her a TED Talk about new research by social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, on productivity and happiness and how the two are linked. The research focused on gratitude.

True recalls the talk’s message: “If every night you remember three things you’re thankful for, you’ll train your brain not to look for what scares you, but to look for what you’re grateful for all day long.”

Getting The Whole Picture

A day before he was expected to start in the NBA Finals, Dellavedova grinned when asked about his connection to Professor True and psychology.

“I think it helps a lot,” he says of his continued reading: “Definitely on the court and life in general.”

Of course, having an interested and active mind isn’t always the best thing in high-level sports. Elite athletes have the ability to turn off the mind, or at least keep it from interfering with peak physical performance.

“It’s something all people need to learn,” says Dellavedova. “I think it’s something you get better at [over time].”

So far during these playoffs, Dellavedova has shown the ability to fully engage in the battle of high-level post-season basketball. But in the mind of critics, he’s sometimes engaged too much. Some have labelled Dellavedova a “dirty player” after incidents in games against the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks.

Not surprisingly, Mary True is among his defenders.

“As a scientist, I think it’s unethical to cherry pick the data,” she says, adding, “it sure seems to me that’s what [his detractors] did.”

Painting a negative picture of Dellavedova because of isolated incidents “is not good science,” True says. “Would you like someone to go over your life, pick [a few] moments and define you that way?”

True prefers to define Matthew Dellavedova in broader terms: Yes, the tenacious and motivated basketball player, but also the voracious student whose curiosity didn’t end when classes finished. She last saw Dellavedova in February, during the NBA’s All-Star break. He brought his parents to campus and took them around, obviously to see the basketball coach, but also to see True.

“I was most impressed [he brought them] to see his professors,” she says. “We all sat around for an hour and talked.”

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Stan Wawrinka won the French Open by beating No. 1-seeded Novak Djokovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in the final Sunday, thwarting Djokovic’s bid to complete a career Grand Slam.

The eighth-seeded Wawrinka, so long in the shadow of his Swiss Davis Cup teammate and pal Roger Federer, collected his second major title after last year’s Australian Open.

In doing so, Wawrinka put a stop to Djokovic’s 28-match winning streak and left the 28-year-old Serb ruing another close call at Roland Garros. This was the third time in the last four years that Djokovic lost in the final at the clay-court tournament, the only major title he has never won.

This one ended, fittingly, with a down-the-line backhand winner from the 30-year-old Wawrinka. That’s his best stroke and considered among the best in the game. He tossed his racket overhead, then met Djokovic at the net for a hug.

Wawrinka, who earned 1.8 million euros (about $2 million), was making his 11th French Open appearance, equaling Federer and Andre Agassi for most attempts before winning it.

This was also Djokovic’s 11th French Open, and he has so far been unable to clutch the trophy he so dearly desires. He has won eight Grand Slam titles, with five at the Australian Open, two at Wimbledon and one at the U.S. Open.

He’s made quite clear how much it would mean to him to become the eighth man in tennis history with a full complement of at least one title from each major tournament. Djokovic has now lost in the semifinals or final seven times, including the last five years.

In 2012 and 2014, losses in the final came against nine-time champion Rafael Nadal. And while Djokovic finally managed to clear the considerable hurdle that Nadal presents by defeating him in the quarterfinals, this time it was Wawrinka who stood in the way.

And he was too good, using the same brilliant one-handed backhand and booming serves that eliminated Federer in the quarterfinals.

After Djokovic appeared to be climbing back into the match by racing to a 3-0 lead in the fourth set, Wawrinka reeled off six of the last seven games. He broke to within 3-2 when Djokovic netted a forehand on a 31-stroke exchange, one of many lengthy points in a terrifically played match.

Wawrinka got another break, the final one he’d need, for a 5-4 edge, with — yes, of course — a down-the-line backhand winner, then served out the victory.
He had lost 17 of his past 20 matches against Djokovic but was better on this sunlit afternoon.

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On Saturday, race horse American Pharoah won the first Triple Crown in 37 years. Laura Hillenbrand, acclaimed author of Seabiscuit, Unbroken and other bestselling novels, wrote this reflection on the win:

Be thankful for defeat. Be thankful for failure. Be thankful for frustration, for heartbreak, for foolish mistakes, for frailty, for hard luck, for doubt, for longing.

These are the things that gauge the robustness of the challenges we choose, that sound the depths of our bravery and fortitude, that measure our worth. Only those intimate with the pain of loss feel in full the sweet euphoria of triumph.

I am grateful that I waited 37 years, since I was a little girl, for this day. I am grateful for all the brave horses who tried and failed and scattered our hopes. When American Pharoah bent his exquisitely beautiful body into the homestretch at Belmont today, scorching fractions faster and faster as his jockey sat taut-armed on his back and 90,000 fans shouted him home, it was those horses, and those 37 years, that made his staggering, unbelievable accomplishment meaningful. They were the leavening of this overwhelming joy, as essential to it as this magnificent creature.

Thank you to the star-crossed Spectacular Bid, to the crying jockey Chris Antley, to the gallant little Smarty Jones, to all the others. American Pharoah, welcome to greatness.

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This weekend is a veritable sportstravaganza! Slate’s Mike Pesca talks Stanley Cup, NBA Finals and Belmont Stakes with NPR’s Rachel Martin.

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The Women’s World Cup got underway with a last-minute victory by host Canada in the opening game against China. The Netherlands beat New Zealand 1-0 in the second game.

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