Yani Tseng has added another honor to an already impressive string of accomplishments.
The 22-year-old from Taoyuan County has been named the US Sports Academy’s Female Athlete of the Month for the second time this year, after being nominated for her successful title defense at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship in Rogers, Arkansas, last month.
She had also been selected as the Female Athlete of the Month for July.
Photo: AFP
Winning the two monthly honors could boost Tseng’s odds of winning the academy’s Athlete of the Year title, to be awarded in December. The 27th consecutive male and female athletes of the year will be selected through worldwide balloting hosted by the academy in conjunction with USA Today and NBC Sports.
World No. 1 Tseng has won five LPGA titles this year: two majors and three international events. She has now spent 35 consecutive weeks at the top of the women’s world golf rankings, and, with a total of 856.43 points, leaves Suzann Pettersen of Norway a distant second at 447.91 points.
The runner-up to Tseng in the award for last month was another professional golfer, Lexi Thompson of the US, who at the age of 16 years, seven months and eight days became the youngest player to win an LPGA tournament. The third-place winner was Samantha Stosur, an Australian who won her first major women’s tennis title of her career by beating Serena Williams in the US Open.
The academy named Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the No. 1 men’s professional tennis player, the Male Athlete of the Month for last month after he defeated Spain’s Rafael Nadal to win the US Open championship for the first time and clinch his third Grand Slam title this year.
In second place was New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, followed by Cam Newton, an NFL player for the Carolina Panthers who had the best passing performance in a debut game by a rookie in NFL history with 422 yards.
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