Israel sports

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.

This summer, Jerusalem signed one of Europe’s top coaches, Serbian Sasa Obradovic, who previously led Monaco to the EuroLeague Final Four.