Wozniacki holds off Venus for WTA crown

Caroline Wozniacki won the biggest title of her career when she beat Venus Williams 6-4, 6-4 in the WTA Finals in Singapore on Sunday.

The Dane completed the victory with a backhand down the line on a second match point for her 60th match victory of the season. The 27-year-old Wozniacki’s best previous result at the WTA Finals was reaching the final in 2010.

Williams, 37, who was hoping to win a 50th career title, was the only player at this year’s WTA Finals who didn’t win a title during the season. Williams, who won the WTA Finals title in 2008, had won all seven previous matches against Wozniacki.

“Eight is my lucky number so I was hoping if I was going to beat her at least once in my career it would be today,” Wozniacki said. “I just went out there and did my best.” Wozniacki dropped serve when she was serving for the first set at 5-3, then raced to a 5-0 lead in the second set before dropping serve when serving for the match in the seventh and ninth games.

JOHNSON FALTERS, ROSE TAKES HSBC

Justin Rose took advantage of a recordtying collapse by Dustin Johnson and rallied from eight shots behind to win the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player going for his third World Golf Championships title of the year, lost a six-shot lead. That matched the PGA Tour record for largest blown lead in the final round, most recently by Sergio Garcia at Quail Hollow in 2005, and most famously by Greg Norman in the 1996 Masters.

In the wind-blown final round, Rose shot 31 on the back nine, getting into the game with birdies on the 13th and 14th, saving par with a 10-foot putt on the 15th, and then taking the lead with a birdie on the reachable par-4 16th and perhaps his best shot of the day into 3 feet on the par-3 17th. It added to a 5-under 67, and he wound up winning by two shots.

Johnson, who made 22 birdies through 54 holes, didn’t make one in the final round. He closed with a 77, his worst closing round with the lead since an 82 at Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open. Johnson tied for second with Henrik Stenson (70) and Brooks Koepka (71).

KYLE BUSCH WINS AT MARTINSVILLE

Kyle Busch is the first driver into NASCAR’s championship race, using an overtime pass of teammate Denny Hamlin to win at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway.

Hamlin and Chase Elliott had a heated conversation after the checkered flag because Hamlin wrecked Elliott out of the lead to send the race into overtime.