WORLD OF SPORT
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Korda misses out on achieving family double Nelly Korda endured a painful day yesterday as she came up short of winning her first LPGA Tour event and completing a rare family double after American compatriot Michelle Wie drained a big putt from off the 18th green to seal a one-shot victory. Korda started the final round of the HSBC Women’s World Championship with a one-stroke lead and was poised to follow elder sibling Jessica’s victory in Thailand last week to become the first sisters to win back-to-back LPGA events since 2000. The 19-year-old made a slow start while her pursuers quickly ate into her lead, yet despite Wie’s heroics, Korda was just one shot behind on the 72nd hole and had a putt to force a play-off. But her effort soon drifted off target as she was left to be consoled by her sister and ponder what might have been after a torturous near-miss.
“I had a bunch of putts that were really close and a lot of them lipped and burned edges. It definitely hurts, but that’s golf,” Korda said of her near miss. “There’s going to be another tournament. There’s going to be another feeling like this. Just have to keep going forward.”
Farah encouraged by triumph in Big Half
British long distance runner Mo Farah won the first Big Half 13.1-mile half-marathon yesterday in his build-up to next month’s London Marathon. Farah won a sprint to the finish line in the London district of Greenwich, ahead of Kenyan Daniel Wanjiru, winner of last year’s London marathon, with Scot Callum Hawkins in third. Farah, 34, had been training in Ethiopia and arrived in London on Thursday. He managed to adjust to a huge drop in temperature for Sunday’s race, his first for six months. “It wasn’t too bad, I was comfortable,” Farah told the BBC, but added with a laugh, “I have to do double the distance (in six weeks’ time).” Farah has turned to marathon racing after a glorious career on the track winning gold medals in both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games.
Lambert encouraged by Stoke’s ‘team’ look
Can team spirit be enough to save a team from relegation? Paul Lambert, the Stoke City manager certainly thinks so. Stoke remain second-bottom of the Premier League table on Saturday after playing out a goalless draw at Southampton. They have only lost one of their six games since Lambert replaced Mark Hughes last month, but have drawn four of them to pick up just seven points from an available 18. But Lambert said: “There’s a lot of games to play and we look a team ... one win takes you 12th, I think, something like that.”