SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it's time for sports.
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SIMON: Championship weekend at the Aussie Open. Bill Belichick, not yet Hall of Fame. Sports reporter Michele Steele joins us now from Chicago. Thanks so much for being with us.
MICHELE STEELE: Good day, Scott.
SIMON: And we have a new Australian Open women's singles champion, don't we?
STEELE: Yes. We do.
SIMON: Elena Rybakina, who defeated, Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Her second Grand Slam title. How was the match?
STEELE: Yeah. Well, this one was on pretty early in the morning, which was good, I imagine, for the WEEKEND EDITION crew.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: But for those of us who got up bleary-eyed and early, we were treated to some really great tennis. Heavyweight slug fest really came down, Scott, to who could blink last here. Early on, Rybakina, she was like a surgeon. She broke Sabalenka's serve in the very first game, just refusing to let go. Sabalenka, though, world No. 1 for the - for a reason here. She was up 3-love in the third set, looking like, looking like she finally cracked the code. But Rybakina just went cold-blooded. She won her second Grand Slam, and honestly, proving that when the pressure is highest, she's the one with the steady hand. Tough morning for Sabalenka, but what a statement for Rybakina.
SIMON: Men's final tomorrow. And, of course, this is following a huge upset in the semifinals. Novak Djokovic defeated Jannik Sinner, and now he's going to face the world No. 1, Carlos Alcaraz in the final. Does 38-year-old Djokovic - arguably the best player of all time - have a shot?
STEELE: Yeah. The short answer here is abso-freaking-lutely (ph), I think, Scott.
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SIMON: Oh, thanks for, yeah, being so attenuated. Yeah.
STEELE: The longer answer, though, is just, he just dismantled Jannik Sinner in a five-set clinic. He's never lost an Aussie Open final. Never. He's 10 for 10. But you're right. He's 38. In tennis, that is old, and he would be the oldest man to ever win a major. And he's facing off against the world No. 1, Carlos Alcaraz. He's trying to become the youngest man to complete...
SIMON: Wow.
STEELE: ...A career Grand Slam. So what a match. It's legend versus the prodigy, and this is the kind of final that's worth getting up early for or staying up late, 3:30 in the morning on Sunday.
SIMON: Hall of Fame controversy. Bill Belichick, Patriots coach who won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, he was not elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. I guess it takes seven Super Bowls to get in, right?
STEELE: (Laughter) Yeah. It's like saying you need, you know, eight Oscars before you're allowed to walk the red carpet. It'd be Meryl Streep, but nobody else. But all the fuss this week in football is that despite nearly 50 consecutive years in the NFL and six Super Bowl rings - actually, eight, if you include the two that he won as a coordinator.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: He was passed over by Hall of Fame voters this year. You need to get at least 40 of 50 voters to get enshrined in Canton. Belichick only got, Scott, 39. Eleven voters passed on him. You know, some of that could be the shadow of Spygate from 2007.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: Patriots were caught illegally filming opponent's signals. But for voters like my friend Vahe Gregorian, of The Kansas City Star, it wasn't a moral vote. He said, in the Star, it was a mathematic one.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: He's only allowed to vote for a handful of candidates. He felt duty-bound to vote for the older guys first. So it's not that Belichick isn't worthy. It's just, you know, he somehow ended up in the back of the line despite having the most rings.
SIMON: And finally, Lindsey Vonn, the legend, crashed, injured her left knee in the final downhill race before the Olympics. She says, but if there's one thing I know how to do, it's a comeback. Do we know what her chances of competing are?
STEELE: Well, she was airlifted off the mountain. It was a real tough race for her. But she told fans on her social channels that her Olympic dream, quote, "is not over." The tricky part's the timing. As you know, opening ceremony is this Friday. The downhill, her main event, just eight days away on February 8. So it's a real race against the clock. But if anyone can find a way to stabilize that joint and ski at 80 miles an hour through the pain, it would be her. So all of us in sports, we're on Vonn watch until those training runs start in Cortina, Scott.
SIMON: Michele Steele. Thanks so much.
STEELE: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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