Solo takes leave from pro team
Hope Solo has taken an indefinite leave from the Seattle Reign of the National Women’s Soccer League, less than a week after being suspended for six months by the U.S. national team for disparaging remarks about Sweden’s team during the Olympics earlier this month. The move was announced Saturday by the Reign, who said Solo has been granted personal leave. The team did not say how long Solo would be away. Solo, 35, still faces a possible trial on misdemeanor domestic violence charges after an incident at her sister’s home in 2014, when she was accused of being intoxicated and assaulting her sister and 17-year-old nephew. Solo said she was a victim in the altercation. Earlier this year, an appeals court in Washington state rejected Solo’s request to avoid trial.
TENNIS
› NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska completed a dominating week at the Connecticut Open by beating Elina Svitolina 6-1, 7-6 (3) in the final Saturday. The Polish star didn’t drop a set during the tournament, and she took control of the final from the start by winning 20 of the first 27 points for a 5-0 lead. The title is the second this season for Radwanska, who also won the Shenzhen Open in China in January.
› WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta won his first ATP World Tour title Saturday, beating countryman Roberto Bautista Agut in three sets in the Winston-Salem Open final. Busta, ranked 49th in the world, overcame dropping a first-set tiebreaker at the Wake Forest Tennis Center to upset 17th-ranked Agut 6-7 (8), 7-6 (1), 6-4 and win his first tour title in three final-round appearances, all coming in 2016. Busta, 25, is the sixth first-time winner on the ATP World Tour this season.
FOOTBALL
› In Brandon Burlsworth, the bespectacled former walk-on from the University of Arkansas, former Indianapolis Colts general manager Bill Polian believed he had drafted a player who could be to the team’s offensive line what Peyton
Manning was at quarterback. Burlsworth worked with the Colts’ starters at his very first NFL mini-camp in 1999, but he never got the chance to prove Polian correct. Eleven days after being drafted, Burlsworth was killed in a car crash while driving from Fayetteville, Ark., to his hometown of Harrison. He was 22. Burlsworth’s inspiring life story is the subject of the film “Greater,” which opened Friday in theaters around the country. “The good thing about this is Brandon’s legend lives on in Arkansas, but through this film millions of kids and families around America will get to know him,” said Polian, who is now working as an NFL analyst for ESPN. “Greater” is the first film made by producer Brian
Reindl, an Arkansas football fan and real estate developer. Reindl convinced Burlsworth’s parents to trust him with their son’s story in 2005.