Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova beat former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 6-2 at the Sony Open on Tuesday, earning a second-round meeting with world No. 1 Serena Williams.
The world No. 59 broke the Italian to take the first set and broke again to move ahead 3-1 in the second before recording one final break to close out the contest and collect her first win in four meetings with the 2010 French Open champion.
Schiavone, the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam, has been in miserable form losing seven consecutive first-round matches before ending the barren stretch last week at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
Shvedova, whose only career WTA Tour win came seven years ago in Bangalore, has lost all three meetings with Williams, but did push the six-time Miami champion to three sets during a round of 16 meeting at the 2012 Wimbledon.
The upset of the day went to 20-year-old Monica Puig, who dispatched 36th ranked Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, a four-time winner on the WTA Tour, 6-1, 7-6 (9/7).
It was the second match win of the season for the 58th ranked Puerto Rican.
The tournament began on a down note for the home contingent, with American Bethanie Mattek-Sands falling 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB