Osaka's comeback ends early at Australian Open
By The Associated Press
Moments after her Grand Slam comeback ended in a first-round loss, Naomi Osaka walked back through the players’ tunnel where her name has a prominent place among recent Australian Open champions.
Three matches into her return from 15 months off the tour, and six months after the birth of her daughter, Shai, Osaka lost 6-4, 7-6 (2) to 16th-seeded Caroline Garcia in a tight encounter at Rod Laver Arena on Monday night.
“The competitive in me is really frustrated that I’m not winning these matches, of course,” Osaka said. “So I wouldn’t say, like, this comeback is how I thought because I’m delusional enough to think I could have won the tournament.”
She smiled, before adding: “I think my delusion is what allows me to win the tournaments.”
Osaka won the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020, and the Australian title in 2019 and ‘21. This was the first time she lost in the first round in Melbourne, where she made her debut in 2016.
She took time out from tennis for her own wellbeing after first-round exits at the French Open and U.S. Open in 2022. She’s not planning any more breaks for now.
The Australian Open started Sunday and will be played over 15 days for the first time, with the first round spread over three days in a bid to cut down on the late-finishing matches.
■ Coco Gauff is through to the second round of the following a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. The 19-year-old U.S. Open champion needed exactly 60 minutes for the victory.
■ Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova lost 6-1, 6-2 to Dayana Yastremska in the first round. Seventh-seeded Vondrousova had seven double faults as she was knocked out by the world No. 93-ranked player.
Ryan celebrates 47th birthday with pro return
Former NHL player Terry Ryan celebrated his 47th birthday with a fistflying return to professional hockey, dropping the gloves and fighting Sunday for the Newfoundland Growlers in the ECHL.
Playing professionally for the first time in 20 years, Ryan traded punches with the Adirondack Thunder’s Zach Walker, a 25-year-old former Boston College player who got the upper hand at the end after Ryan lost his balance.
Ryan fought Walker midway through the third period in the Growlers’ 6-2 loss, also drawing an instigator penalty.
“I wasn’t planning on fighting ... but I turn around and my teammate, my buddy’s got his helmet off,” Ryan said in a video posted by the Growlers. “What do I have to lose? I’m supposed to lose that fight like when I fought Tie Domi when I was 18.”
Ryan appears in the Canadian television comedy series “Shoresy” as Ted Hitchcock and has a popular hockey podcast. His book, “Tales of a First-round Nothing: My Life as an NHL Footnote” was published in 2014.
He was at a bar — “I was probably five or six pints in,” Ryan recounted — celebrating his birthday late Saturday night when he got the call from the Growlers to join the short-handed squad.
“I still skate 4-5 times a week and I play a lot of ball hockey,” Ryan said.
“I just figured if I had the cardio, at least a fraction of it, that I wouldn’t embarrass.”
Drafted eighth overall by Montreal in 1995, Ryan played only eight NHL games over three seasons with the Canadiens. He last played professionally for the ECHL’S Cincinnati Cyclones in 2002-03.
“I was joking with the guys, ‘You get sent down for two weeks, but two decades is a little much,’” Ryan said.
Murray rallies to win PGA Sony Open with 40-foot putt
Grayson Murray is a PGA Tour winner again and feels better than ever about his future. The gold trophy he won late on Sunday at the Sony Open with a 40-foot birdie putt in a playoff is only a small reason for that.
Murray has been sober for eight months, tired of alcohol fueling his arrogance in public and making him feel like a failure for wasting talent in his private moments.
He feels renewed through Christianity and is getting married in April to a woman that became a big part of a small support group.
No, winning didn’t change his life. But it sure provided a big boost to his career.
“My story is not finished. I think it’s just beginning,” Murray said. “I hope I can inspire a lot of people going forward that have their own issues.”
Murray’s wedge into a breeze to a back pin to 3 feet gave him a birdie on the par-5 18th for a 3-under 67 and allowed him to join a three-way playoff with Keegan Bradley and Byeong Hun An. And then he buried a birdie putt from just inside 40 feet with An facing a 4-foot birdie.
Bradley missed from 18 feet. An’s short putt grazed the lip. Murray had his first PGA Tour title since he was a rookie more than six years ago.
Murray, who earned his way back to the PGA Tour with two wins on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, now can bank on his first trip to the Masters in April and a spot in the seven remaining $20 million signature events.