Clark, Reese lead AP All-America preseason team
Caitlin Clark of Iowa is a unanimous pick for The Associated Press preseason women's basketball All-America team for the second consecutive season.
The star guard was on all 36 ballots from the national media panel that selects the AP Top 25 each week. She led the Hawkeyes to the NCAA championship game for the first time in school history where they lost to Angel Reese and LSU. Reese was also selected as a preseason All-America, appearing on 35 ballots.
Elizabeth Kitley of Virginia Tech, Cameron Brink of Stanford, Paige Bueckers of UConn and Mackenzie Holmes of Indiana were also selected for the team. Kitley and Holmes tied in the voting for the fifth spot.
Clark is now a threetime preseason All-American and is set to have another record year. Last season's AP player of the year averaged 27.8 points, 8.6 assists and 7.1 rebounds. The senior, who has one more season left of eligibility after this year if she wants it, is 810 points behind Kelsey Plum's NCAA record of 3,527 points.
Like Clark, Reese has helped the sport grow. The pair faced off in the NCAA title game last year and nearly 10 million people tuned in. The LSU senior helped the Tigers win their first national championship while leading the SEC in scoring (23 points per game) and rebounding (15.4 per game) and setting an NCAA record with 34 double-doubles in a season.
PGA players have option in Europe
injury. Unfortunately, the time needed for the recovery is longer than we would've hoped for,” Muchova said.
The eighth-ranked Muchova, who lost to Iga Swiatek in the final at Roland Garros in June, would have been making her debut at the WTA Finals.
Sakkari is ranked ninth and missed out on making the cut for Cancún by one spot. But as the first alternate, she moved in because of Muchova's withdrawal. This will be Sakkari's third consecutive appearance at the WTA Finals; she reached the semifinals a year ago in Fort Worth, Texas by going 3-0 in round-robin play.
Play in the WTA Finals begins on Sunday.
The other singles players who qualified for the event are No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 2 Swiatek, No. 3 Coco Gauff, No. 4 Elena Rybakina, No. 5 Jessica Pegula, No. 6 Marketa Vondrousova and No. 7 Ons Jabeur.
• Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep has asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the four-year ban she received for doping violations.
The court said it has registered Halep's appeal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency's decision in September.
The ITIA ruled that the 32-year-old Halep “committed intentional antidoping rule violations “after failing a drug test during the 2022 U.S. Open and for irregularities in her Athlete Biological Passport.
Halep had blamed contaminated nutritional supplements and said she would “do everything in my power to clear my name of these false allegations and return to the court.”
Halep reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings in 2017. She won Wimbledon in 2019, beating 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the final, a year after winning the French Open.
CAS said a panel of arbitrators will rule on the appeal. The court said there's no timetable for a decision.
Halep will be 35 when her suspension ends in early October 2026.