by tyler | Jun 5, 2023 | CNN, sport
Twenty-year-old golf phenom Rose Zhang etched her name in the history books yet again on Sunday, edging Jennifer Kupcho in a sudden death playoff at the Mizuho Americas Open to become the first player to win an LPGA tournament in her professional debut in 72 years.
After shooting a six-under 66 on Saturday, Zhang entered the final round at Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey with a two-stroke lead over Atthaya Thitikul, Aditi Ashok and Cheyenne Knight.
But Sunday’s final round shaped up to be a roller coaster for the two-time NCAA women’s golf national champion.
With a chance to take a two-stroke lead on the 16th hole, Zhang missed an easy birdie putt to hold a slight advantage over Kupcho. Zhang narrowly avoided dropping a shot on the 17th hole, with a clutch 10-foot par save heading into the difficult 18th.
With a win in sight, Zhang missed a would-be victory clinching putt to send the tournament into a sudden death playoff with Kupcho. Both golfers managed to recover from bad drives on the first playoff hole to tally par-saves. On the second playoff hole, Kupcho three-putted to open the door for Zhang, who sealed her historic victory with a par.
She finished the final round shooting a 2-over par 74, and 9-under par in the tournament.
Zhang, who turned pro on May 26 following a historic career at Stanford, is the second player ever and first since Beverley Hanson in 1951 to win an LPGA tournament in her professional debut.
“What is happening? I just can’t believe it. It was just last week when I won NCAAs with my teammates, and to turn pro and come out here, it’s just been amazing. I’ve enjoyed the journey,” Zhang said on the Golf Channel. “I had so many cheers around me, all my friends and family. I’m just so grateful.”
In a long list of accomplishments, the 20-year-old is also the first ever to capture the NCAA individual national title and tally a win on the LPGA Tour in the same season.
In May, Zhang capped her collegiate career at Stanford by defending her NCAA National Championship crown, to become the first women’s golfer in history to win back-to-back individual national titles.
The victory at Scottsdale’s Grayhawk Golf Club in Arizona tied Zhang with Lorena Ochoa for the most NCAA career victories with 12, while surpassing four others including Stanford alumnus and 15-time major champion Tiger Woods.
Following her maiden LPGA Tour victory, Woods congratulated Zhang on Twitter saying, “Incredible few weeks for Rose Zhang, defends her NCAA title and then wins in her Pro debut. Go card!” Stanford’s athletic teams are known as the Cardinal.
As for what’s next for the budding star, first, she’ll have to focus on finishing off her semester at Stanford, telling reporters her mind is very much on finals.
“It is most certainly on my mind. I have no idea what I’m going to do with that. I’ve got an essay due, PSAT due for CS. We’ll figure that out. I’m also moving on the 13th, so I have a busy week ahead of me, and that’s not golf related,” she said.
Despite the busy school schedule, Zhang says fans can expect to see a lot more of her on the LPGA Tour.
“I’m super excited,” she said during the press conference. “You guys will see me more on the LPGA Tour, as I am taking membership from now on, and I’ll be playing in 2023.”
by tyler | Jun 5, 2023 | CNN, sport
Aaron Judge is no stranger to highlight plays. And on Saturday, he added to his already long list with a spectacular catch.
In the eighth inning of New York Yankees’ 6-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday, Dodgers’ J. D. Martinez unleashed a deep drive into the field.
The ball appeared to be falling to where no Yankees players was, but out of nowhere came Judge.
The 31-year-old sprinted, extended his left hand to snag the ball in a spectacular catch. His momentum took him crashing through a door into the bullpen, which caused Judge to stumble before he was able to throw the ball back into the infield.
“I think the fence got most of it,” Judge said afterwards. “Thankfully, it was that part of the wall where it had some give. I think that saved me quite a bit. If it was a solid wall, it might be a different story.”
According to Statcast per the MLB website, Judge covered 79 feet in 4.7 seconds to make the play, which had a catch probability of 50%.
“Just another awesome catch added to the list, in a big-time spot,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
“I knew it was going to be dead on the run with a tough catch there, and then your heart skips a beat when the fence goes flying open.”
Judge did appear to be briefly affected by the contact with the door, and was checked upon by a whole host of teammates and coaching staff.
But after insisting he was okay, Judge was able to finish out the victory.
However, on Sunday, the Yankees announced that Judge was ruled out of the team’s series finale against the Dodgers with an injury to his big toe on his right foot. The Yankees would win 4-1 without Judge.
New York said it expects him to undergo “X-rays and/or an MRI on Monday in New York.”
However, Judge said on Sunday that he hoped to avoid the injured list.
“I’ve got no answer yet,” he said, per MLB.com. “I’m hoping today and [Monday] having a little bit of rest, we’ll be good to go hopefully on Tuesday. But we’ll take it day to day right now.”
Elsewhere, Jake Burger hit a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to give the Chicago White Sox a dramatic 6-2 win over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
With the game approaching its end, Andrew Benintendi, Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson were sat on the bases with Burger in bat.
But the 27-year-old was able to hit a curveball over the left-center field, although when it left his bat he wasn’t sure if it would make it over the fence.
“Honestly, off the bat, I didn’t think it was getting out,” Burger said. “I thought it was going to be off the wall; a single. It went out, and I’m still trying to come down from it a little bit.”
The victory was made even more special because of the adversity the White Sox have had to come through.
Burger didn’t play for almost two years between 2018 and 2020 while recovering from two Achilles tears.
And at the mound, Liam Hendriks picked up his first win after recovering from cancer.
Pitching in back-to-back games for the first time since his diagnosis, Hendriks pitched a perfect inning in the ninth before Burger’s grand slam.
And what made the moment even more special for Hendriks was the fact the win fell upon National Cancer Survivors Day.
“That’s one thing that’s pretty special,” Hendriks said afterwards. “As soon as you get diagnosed, you are considered a survivor. You’ve lived through this.
“Hopefully, I can continue moving forward and continue somewhat at least doing the right thing on the field and give some people some hope to continue fighting.”
by tyler | Jun 5, 2023 | CNN, sport
The Miami Heat leveled the NBA Finals with a crucial road win against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
The Nuggets were in control of the matchup for most of Game 2, but coming down the stretch the Heat caught fire and soared to an impressive win at Ball Arena, Denver.
Erik Spoelstra’s team outscored the Nuggets 36-25 in the final 12 minutes to seal the win on the road and to take the home advantage back to Miami.
Prior to Game 2, Denver was 11-0 in the postseason when leading by double-digit points, and 37-1 this season when sporting at least an eight-point lead entering the fourth quarter, but Heat never-say-die attitude got them back in the game.
“During the fourth quarter, our guys love to compete,” said head coach Spoelstra. “They love to put themselves out there in those moments of truth.”
The Heat coach added that the difficulties Miami has faced throughout the year have helped power them to gritty victories, as they become the most successful No. 8 seed in NBA postseason history.
“We want to be able to have that privilege of having adversity and being able to overcome it. You gain strength from that,” Spoelstra added.
As so often has been the case during the postseason, Miami’s role players stepped up once more to give the team a much-needed spark.
Gabe Vincent led the Heat in scoring with 23 points, going 4-6 from beyond the arc, to continue his brilliant form in the playoffs – postgame Spoelstra called the guard a “special guy.”
“He’s just an incredible winning player. This year, he’s been a starter for us. He’s been great. He’s off the bench, he’s been great,” Spoelstra said of Vincent. “He’s like a lot of our guys, the competitive spirit. You get challenged like we’re getting challenged in this series, you hope it brings out the best in you. And that’s what it’s doing with him.”
Despite the Heat’s comeback victory in Game 2, Nuggets star Nikola Jokić delivered another vintage performance – something to be expected nowadays.
The two-time MVP dropped 41 points to go with 11 rebounds as he continued a record-breaking postseason.
Following Sunday’s game, Jokić became the first ever center to record 500+ points and 100+ assists in a single postseason, adding to his already incredible résumé.
The Serbian center only recorded four assists in Game 2, but Nuggets head coach Michael Malone was not bothered by this uncharacteristic low.
“Whether it’s 41 points, only four assists, or it’s 25 points and 15 assists, Nikola, one thing I trust about him is he’s going to make the right read time and time again,” Malone explained.
However, Malone was disappointed with the rest of his team’s efforts in the Finals matchup.
“Let’s talk about effort. This is NBA Finals, we are talking about effort; that’s a huge concern of mine,” he said.
Malone added: “We had guys out there that were just whether feeling sorry for themselves for not making shots or thinking they can just turn it on or off, this is not the preseason, this is not the regular season. This is the NBA Finals. That to me is really, really perplexing, disappointing.”
The series now heads to Miami for Game 3 on Wednesday with everything all to play for.
by tyler | Jun 5, 2023 | CNN, sport
Dommaraju Gukesh beat Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the battle of the teenaged chess prodigies at the Norway Chess tournament on Sunday.
Seventeen-year-old Gukesh and 18-year-old Abdusattorov could not be separated during the classical portion of the match with it ending in a draw.
Indian chess grandmaster Gukesh, who last week beat world No.1 Magnus Carlsen on his 17th birthday, eventually prevailed in an armageddon game – which is used in the tournament to separate ties – to claim an important victory in round five.
Gukesh said he thought the outcome and his performance was “pretty good.”
“In the armageddon, he played Catalan which he’s not very familiar with, and I got a very pleasant position out of the opening and there was no way I could lose,” he said.
According to chess.com, in the event of a tie “players contest an armageddon game where White has 10 minutes on their clock and Black has seven, with a one-second increment starting on move 41. Black has draw odds. The player who played White in the classical game plays White in the armageddon.”
The victory means Gukesh rises to fourth in the standings, while Uzbekistani grandmaster Abdusattorov slips to eighth.
In the tournament, which is held in Stavanger, Norway, 10 players compete in a single round-robin tournament. The winner will receive approximately $68,400, with second place winning $36,500.
Gukesh faces Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri in round six on Monday, while Abdusattorov faces the US’ Fabiano Caruana.
Elsewhere, American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura regained the world No. 2 spot for the first time since 2015 with a victory over Aryan Tari on Sunday.
Nakamura dominated throughout against Tari, eventually winning 3-0, to move to second in the world after Caruana had moved above him a day before.
“It was very similar to the Gukesh game [Nakamura won 3-0],” he said afterwards.
“At some point, I started using time, and every move that was played by my opponent was not the move that I was expecting, and finally, I just started moving quickly.”
Afterwards, Nakamura was informed that he’d beaten Tari on his birthday. “Normally, on your birthday, you do much worse,” remembering a London Chess Classic game where he also lost on his birthday against Wesley So. “So I know how it feels.”
Carlsen claimed his own important victory in round five, beating Giri in the armageddon round after their classical game ended in a draw.
Carlsen admitted afterwards that after a low-key beginning to the tournament in his home country, his victory on Sunday was a part of his plan to claw his way back into contention.
“I am on step 2 in my plan to get back into the tournament,” Carlsen said, per chess journalist Tarjei J. Svensen.
“Plan 1 was to change my looks, which didn’t work very well yesterday. The second part of my plan is to do what I did in a time when I had some success by just sacrificing a pawn as quickly as possible and focus on the center and attack after that. Let’s see if it works.”
by tyler | Jun 5, 2023 | CNN, sport
A motorcycle rider died after colliding with a cyclist at the Ironman European Championship in Hamburg, Germany, event organizers announced.
According to a statement from Ironman, a credentialled motorcycle collided with a competitor at the 36-kilometer mark of the bike route while traveling on the course in the opposite oncoming lane.
The competitor continues to receive treatment in hospital and an event photographer, who was also riding on the motorcycle, was injured and has since been released from hospital, Ironman said.
“We are devastated by this tragic accident,” the statement released on Sunday said. “On a day meant to be a celebration of the human spirit, we instead mourn the loss of a member of our triathlon community.
“Our sympathies are with all those affected. Our priority always is ensuring the safety of our participants and those involved in the event. A police investigation is ongoing, and we are cooperating with local authorities to understand the events that lead to the accident.”
In a press release, Hamburg police said that the incident occurred at 8:40 a.m. local time on Sunday.
“The motorcyclist (70) died at the scene of the accident, the triathlete (26) was seriously injured and was taken to hospital. The passenger of the motorcyclist, a cameraman (50), suffered a shock and also came to a hospital,” the police press release said.
“In the area of the accident scene, a closure of the race track was unavoidable. Coming from the direction of the city center, the athletes therefore had to dismount in front of the accident site and pass it over the dike. In the direction of the city center, the race course was rerouted for a short time.”
Police also said that the German Red Cross’ crisis intervention team was providing “psychological acute care” to eyewitnesses and first responders as further investigations into the cause of the accident are ongoing.
The race offered athletes the chance to qualify for the men’s world championships in Nice, France, on September 10 and the women’s world championships in Kona, Hawaii, on October 14.
It consisted of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run in and around Hamburg. According to Reuters, the event was interrupted after the collision and resumed later on.
by tyler | Jun 2, 2023 | CNN, sport
As birthday presents go, defeating the world No. 1 and five-time world champion must rank up there among the best for chess grandmaster Dommaraju Gukesh.
On his 17th birthday, the young Indian chess star beat Magnus Carlsen in the blitz event ahead of the Norway Chess tournament.
Afterwards, Gukesh was presented a cake by the organizers in celebration of both his birthday and the victory.
When asked if he’d prepare for the next day’s matches by eating lots of cake, he replied: “Hopefully.”
The blitz event in which Gukesh beat Carlsen on Monday was held to determine each players’ seeds for the classical event which followed.
In the tournament, which is held in Stavanger, Norway, 10 players compete in a single round-robin tournament.
The winner will receive approximately $68,400 with second place winning $36,500.
As well as Gukesh and Carlsen, a whole host of the world’s best players are competing, including Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
After three games of the official tournament, Gukesh sits fourth in the standings with one win, one loss and one draw.
Carlsen lies down in eighth without a win after two draws and one defeat. Caruana sits atop the standings.
Last week, Carlsen won his first tournament since he relinquished the world championship title he had held for a decade.
“It’s nice to show that my retirement only lasted a couple of days,” he said after winning the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament in Poland.
Gukesh has risen rapidly through the ranks of chess after exploding onto the scene as a youngster.
He missed out by 17 days on becoming the youngest chess grandmaster ever, earning the title at the age of 12 years, seven months and 17 days, just a few weeks older than Russian Sergey Karjakin. Since then, Abhimanyu Mishra broke the record and became the youngest chess grandmaster at the age of 12 years, four months and 25 days.
