bing.Zverev summed up his performance succinctly and accurately afterward, tellin

Dale Earnhardt Jr., your work is done.Long ago, you escaped the enormous shadow of your father.Lately, youve ensured an important legacy all your own by raising a caution flag on head injuries in NASCAR.Now, its time to seriously consider walking away.For good.Earnhardt is already sitting out the rest of 2016 to deal with the lingering effects of yet another concussion, but he made it clear that he hopes to be back behind the wheel next February for the season-opening Daytona 500.My heart is there to continue, he said Sunday at Darlington Raceway. And if my doctor says that Im physically able to continue, then thats an easier decision for me to make. Its not something that I think about. Were trying to focus on just getting well and getting normal.Theres no doubt that NASCAR will be rooting for his recovery, given the sports dwindling television ratings and ever-increasing number of empty seats at the tracks.Earnhardt remains the sports most popular driver, and to have him walk away would be a huge blow given the reluctance of the fan base to embrace a new generation of stars.But Junior cant worry about any of that.Hes got bigger issues to consider.Earnhardt should give a hard look at all those former giants of the NFL whose brains were addled by one brutal hit after another, who died far too young or lived out their years in the cruel isolation of dementia.No one knows for sure what another hard crash would do to Earnhardts brain.He might be fine. He might not be.There are different levels of concussion. There are individual differences. The age the concussion occurs plays a part, said Dr. Katherine Dec, a professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine who specializes in sports-related concussions.Wed all love to have an easy answer, she added. Thats what everyone wants to know, something that makes the decision kind of black and white. But the brain is a miraculous thing. There are still a lot of things we dont know.We know that Earnhardt, at the very least, had two concussions about six weeks apart in 2012, which was the wakeup call that everyone in NASCAR needed to address an issue that had long been swept under the rug. Junior sat out two races that year and sought out concussion experts to get the lowdown on potential problems down the road.He became the most vocal advocate for brain safety, prompting NASCAR to mandate that all national series drivers undergo preseason neurocognitive baseline testing as part of a comprehensive concussion program. He also joined a growing list of athletes by saying he would donate his brain to science after his death, so it can be studied for signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.That will go down as Earnhardts most lasting impact on the sport, far more important than his two Daytona 500 victories or those other 24 career wins, or even the impressive feat of making a name for himself in a sport still dominated by the towering presence of his late father, a seven-time Cup champion.Junior certainly sent the right message again when he stepped out of the car after another hard crash at Michigan this summer. He actually managed to compete in the next three races before the concussion symptoms cropped up again. He had missed six races before announcing Friday he was done for the year, meaning hell miss the final 18 events of 2016.Dr. Raj K. Narayan, the head of neurosurgery at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, and LIJ Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, said its impossible for those on the outside to know exactly what Earnhardt is going through.But there are some common-sense aspects that should be taken into account when dealing with any head injury.The science has not gotten to the point yet where we can accurately qualify the amount of brain damage that already occurred, except to say that the more times you get injured and the more injuries you have, it makes total sense that it is likely to affect you more, he said. I think its quite clear that repeated, multiple injuries increase your risk of becoming demented with the passage of time.Of course, it was probably a lot easier for Earnhardt to make peace with sitting out the rest of the year than it would be for him to call it a career, given his potential -- if healthy -- to race at a high level for several more seasons. He had three victories in 2015, four the previous year. While Earnhardt has never won a season championship, hes been a perennial Chase contender.Lets just hope when Earnhardt sits down with his doctors, when he talks this over with his family and closest friends, he errs on the side of caution.Hes already done so much for the sport.Hes certainly made his daddy proud.He deserves to live a long, healthy life.---Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963 . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/paul-newberry . Lakers Jerseys China . Despite the cost, effort and an improved steroid test, its possible that very few -- if any -- positives will be detected, Dr. Richard Budgett told The Associated Press in an interview. "We just dont know what the results from Torino will be," Budgett said. 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This is time of season when under-the-radar players have ample opportunity to make up ground in the rankings or establish some momentum heading into the next year.For Caroline Wozniacki and a couple of precocious ATP stars, they did both. Here are a few notable items that resonated with our cache of tennis writers this past week:@CarlBialik: A month ago, Caroline Wozniacki had a career résumé most players would envy: 23 career titles, two major finals and 67 weeks at No. 1 (more than Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams).But Wozniacki had never beaten two top-10 players in two successive tournaments. Now she has, with two such wins on her way to the US Open semifinals earlier this month and two more on her way to the Tokyo title last week. The championship gave Wozniacki 24 career titles.There was no particular reason to expect Wozniacki to create career highlights heading into the US Open. She was ranked 74th in the world and hadnt reached a quarterfinal in six months and hadnt beaten a top-10 player in 11 months. Further, she hadnt won a tournament in 18 months.But Wozniacki was starting to feel healthy again, and her good form coincided with her best major, where she reached the final in New York in 2009 and 2014.Now Wozniackis comeback is on an accelerated schedule. She beat Samantha Stosur in Wuhan on Monday -- the Danes fifth top-20 win in a month after scoring just one in the prior 11 months. Wozniacki could return to the top 20 herself with a few more wins.Win another title this week, Wozniacki has a chance to qualify for the WTA Finals. The last time she got there, in 2014, she won three matches and came within two points of upsetting Serena Williams. Wozniacki might be playing even better tennis today.@ptbodo:?Lucas Pouille did some fair racket work this past weekend. He won the first ATP Tour title of his career at Metz, France. In the final, he knocked off Dominic Thiem.Pouille was playing against a generational rival -- and a player in Thiem who, with justification, has always been more highly touted. Thiem already has four ATP titles this year alone.Pouille is the No. 2-ranked player in the under-23 category behind Nick Kyrgios. And while his game isnt as flashy, it is no less explosive. And Pouilles temperament is in an entirely different league. Hes savvy, self-controlled and good under pressure.Growing up, Pouille admired Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. I didnt copy the way they played, Pouille told the ATP communications staff. But I tried to emulate their attitude on the court and their mental strength.ddddddddddddPouille demonstrated those qualities as he made the quarterfinals at the last two majors of the year. At Wimbledon, he knocked off Juan Martin del Potro. At the US Open, he upset No. 5 Nadal in the fourth-round.The win against Thiem was Pouilles fifth over a top-10 opponent this year -- and his 30th overall. Pouille did benefit from a home-court advantage of sorts: French players have won Metz seven of the past eight years.@mattwilansky: Its not easy to create buzz this time of year on the tennis circuit, but Alexander Zverev did just that Sunday. One of the highly touted up-and-comers, Zverev upset US Open champ?Stan Wawrinka?6-2, 3-6, 7-5 in the final of the St. Petersburg Open.Zverev, a flashy 19-year-old from Germany, has been the centerpiece of a next generation of stars. Hes 6-foot-6 with an stout all-court game. At No. 24, hes the youngest player in the top 50. His triumph Sunday was his first career title.Talented as Zverev is, his win has to come as a major surprise given his red-hot opponent. Wawrinka had been riding a 10-match winning streak, which included his run in New York. The Swiss, arguably the best big-game player at the moment, had won his past 11 finals.Even more stunning, Wawrinka was up 3-0 in the final set before succumbing.Zverev summed up his performance succinctly and accurately afterward, telling the media: This victory is something special.@natkinESPN: It speaks to Andy Murrays character that he is already thinking about his legacy while in the prime of his career. Aside from trying to win more titles, Murray told the British media he will try to leverage his weight in bringing an ATP Tour 250 event to Glasgow, where he launched an annual charity exhibition event at the SSE Hydro last week.This comes as a slice of good news, as Murrays mother, Judy, has voiced concerns, saying Scotland is failing to capitalize on the buzz and opportunity created by her two sons.Just ￡800,000 is allocated to Scotland from the Lawn Tennis Associations ￡64 million annual budget, a paltry amount given how much Andy and Jamie Murray -- both three-time Grand Slam champions in singles and doubles, respectively -- have contributed to highlighting the sport.More tennis courts must be built in working-class areas of Scotland -- there are none in the east end of Glasgow for instance -- or the risk of losing the next generation of British tennis talent is high. ' ' '