Agassi continues to serve

Andre Agassi returns to center stage of the U.S. Open next month, and he won't even have to work up a sweat or swing a tennis racket.

The Las Vegan and a few other sports figures will be honored for their charitable work on Aug. 31 during opening-night ceremonies.

The eight-time Grand Slam winner founded the Andre Agassi Foundation in 1994, the same year he won his first of two Open titles. The organization has raised nearly $75 million to provide opportunities for at-risk youth in Southern Nevada.

The Las Vegas charter school that bears Agassi's name graduated its first high school class this year.

Later this month, Agassi, 39, will compete in two matches for the Philadelphia Freedom in the World Team Tennis league.

Even in retirement, he's never far from the court.

• FORMULA FOOL -- Despite his recent comments praising Adolf Hitler's leadership, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone insists he will not resign.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Ecclestone defended his weekend comments that Hitler "got things done."

"I did not put Hitler forward as a positive example but simply noted that, before his appalling crimes, he acted successfully against unemployment and the economic crisis," Ecclestone said in an article in the German newspaper Bild.

Ecclestone, F1's commercial-rights holder, dismissed criticism from the World Jewish Congress calling for his resignation.

He said that it was never his intention to "hurt the feelings of a community," the Bild reported. "Many of my closest friends are Jews."

• NEVER TOO OLD -- Fred Finkeldei has been bowling for 30 years. But the truly impressive part is, that's less than a third of his life.

The 96-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., competed last week in his first United States Bowling Congress Open Championships at Cashman Convention Center.

The retired truck driver bowls in six leagues and averages in the 180s.

He averaged a very respectable 143 in nine games over two days of Open competition under the challenging lane conditions at Cashman.

Finkeldei wouldn't commit to bowling in next year's Open in Reno.

"I'm too old to look that far in advance," he said.

• PRESIDENTIAL SWING -- President Obama shared his biggest disappointment these days with reporters from Russia's state-run television and news agencies.

It's his golf game.

"You probably don't have that much golf weather in Russia, but it's a game that I keep on thinking I should be good at," he said Sunday before leaving for Russia. "And somehow the ball goes this way and that way and never goes straight."

• THE UN-NATURAL -- For U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, choosing golf over baseball as an eighth-grader wasn't such a tough decision.

"I was a short, dumpy kid," he said. "I was a catcher and I got hit a few times where it didn't feel great. So I pulled the plug on that pretty quick."

COMPILED BY JEFF WOLF LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL