England defeats All Blacks; into Rugby World Cup final

Four years after being dumped out in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup it was hosting, England reached its first final in 12 years with a 197 win over twotime defending champion New Zealand in Yokohama, Japan.

England took an early lead after Manu Tuilagi’s try in the second minute, which Owen Farrell converted, and never trailed. Flyhalf George Ford kicked four penalties to keep the scoreboard pressure on.

The All Blacks hadn’t lost a World Cup game since 2007, had never lost to England at a World Cup, and went into the game on a sixgame winning streak in headtoheads and having won 15 of their past 16.

England will next play the winner of Sunday’s semifinal between twotime champion South Africa and Wales. The final is Saturday in Yokohama.

Skiing: A coach who helped Lindsey Vonn become the winningest female skier of all time guided one of the sport’s biggest prospects to her first World Cup victory at the expense of American star Mikaela Shiffrin in Austria.

Led by Chris Knight, New Zealand’s Alice Robinson, 17, edged Olympic champion Shiffrin to win the traditional World Cup seasonopener on the Rettenbach glacier at Soelden.

It was the first women’s World Cup giant slalom victory for a New Zealander.

“It’s going to take a while to sink in,” Robinson said, adding she planned to fly back to New Zealand on Monday to finish her high school education this week.

Shiffrin was full of praise for her rival, who, like herself in 2011, won her first World Cup race at age 17. “You could see it last year that Alice is going to be really strong,” Shiffrin said. “It’s super cool and really exciting. She skied really solid so it’s awesome.”

Tennis: Roger Federer delighted his hometown fans by cruising past Stefanos Tsitsipas 64, 64 in the Swiss Indoors semifinals in Basel. Federer, 38, will play Alex de Minaur, 20, in Sunday’s final. De Minaur beat Reilly Opelka 76 (2), 67 (4), 76 (3).

Obituary: Former major league umpire Chuck Meriwether, who was behind the plate when the Boston Red Sox ended their championship drought in 2004, died Saturday of cancer at age 63 at his home in Nashville.