Britain’s Laura Davies, a four-time major champion who has not won an LPGA event since 2001, fired a six-under-par 65 on Thursday to share the lead at the Meijer LPGA Classic.
The 52-year-old Englishwoman was level with South Africa’s Paula Reto, Spain’s Carlota Ciganda, South Korean Kim Sei-young and defending champion Lexi Thompson of the US at Blythefield Country Club in Belmont, Michigan.
Taiwan’s Min Lee shot a two-under 69, while her compatriots Yani Tseng and Hsu Wei-ling both carded one-over 72 and Cheng Ssu-chia shot a four-over 75.
Photo: AFP
“It suits my game,” Davies said of the 6,414-yard layout. “It’s open enough, but you’ve still got to hit fairways because these trees are pretty big and if you get behind them — I tried to chip out once, luckily got up-and-down for a par, but other than that, yeah, it’s a good course for me.”
Davies, who hit driver on 17 of 18 holes, opened with a birdie at the par-five first and added another at the par-three fourth. She sandwiched birdies at eight and 10 around her only bogey of the day, birdied the par-three 12th and 14th and made another at 17.
Her last of 20 LPGA titles came 15 years ago at the Rochester Invitational.Reto made an 18-foot putt on the ninth hole, her last of the day, to join the lead pack. She began off the back nine with her only bogey, ran off four birdies in a row starting at the par-3 12th and birdied the 17th and third holes as well.
“I saw the leaderboard after my first nine and I just sort of looked at it and I was like: ‘OK I’m just going to keep playing,’” she said. “From there on in, I just kept playing my game. I wasn’t sure what really was leading. I just sort of stick to my own game.”
The fourth-ranked Thompson hit only six of 13 fairways, but reached all 18 greens in regulation and needed only 31 putts. She started by parring through the back nine, eagled the first, ran off three birdies in a row ending at the par-five fifth and birdied the par-five eighth as well.
“It’s definitely playing a little bit soft so the greens are more receptive than last year,” Thompson said. “The course was playing tough at one point because it got pretty windy out there as well.”
Kim birdied her last two holes to join the co-leaders, while Ciganda had a bogey-free round, starting on the back nine and closing with birdies at the par-three fourth and sixth holes and the par-five eighth.
“I played very solid. My putting was good,” Ciganda said. “I’m very happy with my round.”
Sharing sixth on 66 were England’s Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Americans Amelia Lewis and Jaclyn Jansen, Canada’s Alena Sharp and South Koreans, Baek Q, Chun In-gee and Ryu So-yeon.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with