Israel sports

Yam Madar made his debut with Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he led his new team to a preseason Super Cup win over Hapoel Tel Aviv.

In his first public comments on the battle surrounding Maccabi Tel Aviv's ownership, the Jewish-American sports executive tells The Jerusalem Post that he is honored to have been approached.

Three Israelis – wheelchair players Guy Sasson and Sergei Lysov and junior Dan Brand - represented Israel at the US Open, although none returned home with a championship.

Yannay is the owner of Hapoel Galil Elyon and Hapoel Tel Aviv BC.

Guy Sasson and Niels Vink opened their US Open doubles campaign with a dominant 6-0, 6-0 victory, keeping their calendar-year Grand Slam hopes alive.

Israeli junior Dan Brand battled severe cramping in his US Open singles loss before returning a day later to advance in doubles alongside Thilo Behrman.

Beitar owner Barak Abramov acknowledged that his club has endured a difficult opening to the season but said there would be no panic following the defeat.

"We could have pressed more and been more aggressive, we could have done a better job against a team like Maccabi Tel Aviv who were coming off a tough loss," Haifa coach Barak Bachar said.

The number of teams and players gathered in Tel Aviv on that sunny Friday was a testament to just how far baseball has come in Israel. It was not always this way.

The blue-and-white ended the August window with two losses, having fallen to Poland 106-86 last week in the first game, and have been officially eliminated from World Cup qualifying.