Muguruza named WTA Player of Year
Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza was named the WTA Player of the Year, and U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens was named the Comeback Player of the Year. Muguruza beat Venus Williams in the Wimbledon final in July for her second Grand Slam title, then moved up to No. 1 in the rankings for the first time in September.
The awards are voted on by members of the media.
Kremlin Cup: Julia Goerges beat Natalia Vikhlyantseva 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 to advance to the final in Moscow against Daria Kasatkina, who reached her second WTA final of the year when she beat Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2, 6-3. In the men’s draw, Damir Dzumhur advanced to the semifinals by defeating Andreas Seppi 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.
ODDS AND ENDS
Boxing: Maryland dropped a felony first-degree assault charge against Gervonta Davis, 22, at a hearing in Baltimore District Court, but he will stand trial Nov. 29 on a misdemeanor second-degree assault charge from Aug. 1. Davis (19-0) was stripped of his IBF junior-lightweight title after he failed to make the 130pound weight limit for his fight on the undercard of the Aug. 26 bout between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
Figure skating: American Nathan Chen landed two quads to take a strong lead after the men’s short program of Moscow’s Rostelecom Cup, the first of the six-leg figure skating Grand Prix. Chen outpointed Olym- pic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan by nearly six points, with 100.54. Russia’s Evgenia Medvedeva led the women.
Olympics: Carlos Nuzman left prison in Rio de Janeiro after his arrest two weeks ago on charges he arranged $2 million in bribes to land the Olympics he headed last year in Brazil. Nuzman, 75, is to stand trial for money laundering, tax evasion and racketeering, though no date has been set.
Running: The organizers of last weekend’s PNC Milwaukee Marathon got the distance of the course wrong — for the second year in a row. Sunday’s race turned out to be 4,200 feet — or about eight-tenths of a mile — short. That came after last year’s race was measured too long, with runners going at least a half-mile too far.
Soccer: Alex Morgan scored in a fourth straight game, Julie Ertz scored for the fourth time in five games, and the United States women beat South Korea 3-1 on Thursday at the Superdome in New Orleans. U.S. forward Mallory Pugh sustained a hamstring injury and won’t play in Sunday’s rematch in Cary, N.C.
Track and field: Russian shot putter Maxim Sidorov, who won bronze at the 2011 European indoor championships, was banned for a year after testing positive for indapamide, a drug used to treat blood pressure that can also work as a diuretic.