Agence France-Presse Sports looks back on some of the biggest sporting shocks of last year, with rugby union and tennis featuring.
JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA
Japan caused the biggest shock in Rugby World Cup history as they stunned two-time former champions South Africa 34-32 in their opening pool match in Brighton.
Photo: Reuters
The Brave Blossoms had won just one of their 24 previous matches in the competition, but the Asian champions, under the stewardship of Eddie Jones, signaled their intent early with captain Michael Leitch crossing to put the underdogs 10-7 up.
However, the experienced Springboks, whose starting 15 featured a combined 851 caps, went in with the half-time lead and appeared to have ended the plucky Japan challenge when Adriaan Strauss ploughed over to make it 29-22.
However, Japan fullback Ayumu Goromaru converted his own try to level the scores with 10 minutes to play. The Springboks responded with Handre Polland slotting over a penalty to seemingly put them back on top for good.
Photo: EPA
There was one final dramatic twist though as Japan, opting for a scrum rather than kicking a penalty as time expired, shifted play across the width of the field before finding replacement wing Karne Hesketh, who touched down in the corner to seal an incredible victory.
VINCI, SERENA
Serena Williams looked almost certain to become the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988, and just sixth player overall, to complete a calendar Grand Slam after reaching the semi-finals of the US Open.
With Flavia Pennetta then dumping out second seed Simona Halep in the first semi, the odds on the American landing a historic title shortened further. Riding a 26-match win streak at Flushing Meadows, the world No. 1 was overwhelmingly expected to sweep aside unseeded Roberta Vinci, the veteran Italian more renowned for her doubles success, and set up a showdown with eventual champion Pennetta, against whom Williams owned a 7-0 career edge.
Instead her bid was crushed in stunning fashion as the 32-year-old Vinci rallied from a set down to claim a sensational 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 triumph, beating Williams for the first time to set up the first all-Italian women’s Grand Slam final in the Open era.
FURY, KLITSCHKO
British boxer Tyson Fury registered one of the sport’s biggest upsets by outpointing longstanding heavyweight world champion Wladimir Klitschko in Duesseldorf, Germany, to end the Ukrainian’s nine-year reign.
Manchester-born Fury, 27, handed Klitschko his first loss since 2004 after winning a unanimous points decision 115-112, 115-112, 116-111 as the self-styled “Gypsy King” landed the WBA, IBF and WBO world title belts.
Fury, whose biggest previous win was against fellow Briton Dereck Chisora, was undeterred by the step up in class and backed up his pre-fight promises by confounding his decorated rival as well as the doubters with a skilful, measured performance.
Fury likened his “masterclass” performance to a “mongoose in a cobra’s nest, taking all the eggs home” in his first press conference as world heavyweight king.
EURO 2016
Semi-finalists at the 2014 Soccer World Cup, the Netherlands were expected to routinely qualify for the expanded 24-team European Championship finals and perhaps even contend for the title.
Placed alongside the likes of Czech Republic, Turkey and Iceland, their Group A draw was not overly complicated, but an opening defeat in Prague signaled the start of a disastrous campaign.
A pair of losses to Iceland were damaging, but not terminal, but just three days later a 3-0 defeat in Turkey left Holland’s fate out of their hands. Danny Blind’s men needed three points at home to the already-qualified Czechs coupled with a Turkey loss against Iceland from the final round of matches to rescue a desperate situation, but the Dutch succumbed 3-2, a comical Robin van Persie own-goal typifying their dire qualifying campaign, as the 1988 winners missed out on the European championship for the first time in 32 years.
MELBOURNE CUP
Michelle Payne became the first woman to win Australia’s 154-year-old Melbourne Cup after riding 100-1 outsider Prince of Penzance to a historic victory in November. Those long odds were nothing compared with the obstacles 30-year-old Payne, the youngest of 10 siblings, overcame on the road to eventual success.
She lost her mother, Mary, in a car accident when she was just six months old, and her career was sidetracked by a litany of injuries — including a head-first fall from a horse when she was just 18 that left her with a fractured skull and bruising on her brain.
However, none of that could prevent Payne, reportedly just the fourth female entrant in Cup history, from winning the world’s richest two-mile (3.2km) handicap race, as she held off Max Dynamite (12-1) by half a length, with Criterion (18-1) close behind.
“I thought a girl would win the Melbourne Cup, but I didn’t think it would be one of mine,” Payne’s father said afterward.
WAWRINKA, DJOKOVIC
Novak Djokovic completed one of the most remarkable seasons in tennis history last year with victory at the World Tour Finals, but the all-conquering Serb was denied a career Grand Slam at the French Open as he was beaten in the final by Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka.
All appeared to be going to plan as Djokovic grabbed the opening set 6-4, but a sublime show of stroke-making from the Swiss wrapped up a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
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