Alejandro Canizares ended an eight-year wait for a European title when cruising to a five shot win in the Trophee Hassan II in Agadir on Sunday.
The Spaniard, whose last victory was in the 2006 Russian Open, led from the start after a first round 62 and wrapped up the victory with a closing round of 70 to finish with a 19-under par total of 269.
England’s Andy Sullivan produced a best of the day round of 63 to claim second place, with Swede Magnus Carlsson signing for a 68 to finish two shots adrift to tie for third with England’s Seve Benson, who birdied the last.
Carlsson was helped by holing from off the green on the 18th after engineering a left-handed escape shot from the trees.
As for Canizares, he ended with a double bogey six after his approach rolled off the green and came to a stop beside a badly replaced divot.
The world No. 141 was told by a referee he was not allowed to move the turf and could only advance the ball a few yards with his third shot before it again rolled back down the slope, almost to his feet.
From there he duffed his next pitch before getting up and down to seal victory.
“It’s been a long time since the last win,” he said.
“It felt like it was never coming, but this week I played great, some of the best golf of my career. I hit good shot after good shot and kept my focus,” he said. “I was very accurate and solid with my irons. I left myself lots of chances and although I did not make all of them, the first day was the key... Hopefully, this is the first step for a little bit of improvement in my career.”
For the 31-year-old Canizares, this success ended a 199-event losing streak after claiming the Russian Open eight years ago in only his third-ever tournament.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier