Jessica Korda birdied four of the last five holes on Sunday to win the Airbus LPGA Classic in Mobile, Alabama, and claim her third career LPGA victory.
The 21-year-old fired a bogey-free seven-under-par 65, playing the last nine holes in six-under 30 to finish 72 holes on 20-under-par 268 and defeat Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist by one stroke.
The triumph followed wins at the 2012 Australian Women’s Open and this year’s season opener in the Bahamas. Korda gave much of the credit for her performance on Sunday to how well the Robert Trent Jones Trail Crossings course matched her skills.
Photo: AFP
Korda birdied the par-four seventh, but was still well off the pace until the back nine. She began the back nine with a birdie, added another at 12 and sank a curvy 12-footer at the 14th to begin a run of three, including a tense 15-footer at 15 and a tap-in at the par-five 16th to seize a two-stroke lead.
At 18, Korda curled in a birdie putt that forced Nordqvist to make an eagle to match her. The Swede dropped a long birdie putt, but it only trimmed Korda’s victory margin.
Korda became the third multi-event winner on the LPGA Tour this season, joining Nordqvist and Australian Karrie Webb.
England’s Charley Hull, Scotland’s Catriona Matthew and the US’ Michelle Wie shared third on 270, with South Korean Jenny Shin on 271 and the US’ Lexi Thompson, South Korean Ji Eun-hee and England’s Jodi Ewart Shadoff on 272.
World No. 2 Stacy Lewis of the US had the chance to overtake South Korean In-bee Park atop the rankings, but failed to get the solo third-place finish or better on Sunday that she needed to become No. 1. Lewis fired a 71 to settle for share of 10th on 273.
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