Briefs Alcaraz, Swiatek crowned champions at Indian Wells
Gut-behrami clinches World Cup overall, giant slalom titles
Lara Gut-behrami has completed half of her mission to win four crystal globes this Alpine skiing World Cup season.
And the Swiss star hasn’t even had to show her best skiing yet.
Gut-behrami secured the overall and giant slalom titles Sunday after finishing 10th in the GS at the World Cup finals.
Her only remaining challenger in both classifications, Federica Brignone, won the race but that was not enough for the Italian, who could only overtake Gut-behrami if the Swiss star had finished outside the top 15 and failed to score points.
Gut-behrami is a strong favorite to add the season titles in superg and downhill next week, which would make her the fourth female skier to win four classifications in one season, after Lindsey Vonn, Tina Maze and, most recently, Mikaela Shiffrin achieved the feat.
On Sunday, Gut-behrami avoided risks in both runs, posting only the eighth and 17th fastest times.
It’s the second overall championship for Gut-behrami after winning it in 2016, the last year before Shiffrin’s reign started.
A five-time overall champion, Shiffrin won the title the last two years and led the standings again this season, but the American dropped out of the race when she sustained a knee injury in a crash during a downhill in Italy in January.
Shiffrin ended her season Saturday after winning her second straight race after her six-week layoff.
Gut-behrami passed Shiffrin after winning a GS in Andorra in February before crowning a consistent season in which she has had eight wins and finished outside the top six just four times.
Gut-behrami, who turns 33 next month, is the oldest overall champion and only the second skier to win the sport’s biggest prize in her 30s, after fellow Swiss standout Vreni Schneider, who was 30 when she won the last or her three overall titles in 1994-95.
Carlos Alcaraz arrived at Indian Wells full of doubt about his twisted right ankle. He’s leaving as a two-time champion.
He defeated Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (5), 6-1 for the second straight year in the BNP Paribas Open final on Sunday, earning his first title since winning Wimbledon last year.
Iga Swiatek beat Maria Sakkari 6-4, 6-0 in just over an hour to win the women’s title, with Swiatek losing just 21 games in six matches during the 12-day tournament — an average of 3.5 games per match.
Alcaraz sprained his ankle at the Rio Open in late February. His first practice at Indian Wells lasted 30 minutes without any movement. His first practice with his fellow pros “was really tough for me,” he said in a Tennis Channel interview.
Alcaraz outlasted Jannik Sinner in a three-set semifinal after needing three sets to get out of his second-round match.
Alcaraz became the first man to defend his Indian Wells title since Novak Djokovic won three in a row from 2014-16. He beat Medvedev 6-3, 6-2 last year in the Southern California desert.
For the match, Alcaraz hit 25 winners and had 26 unforced errors, while Medvedev had 11 winners and 23 unforced errors.
Swiatek improved to 20-2 this year, with her wins leading the WTA Tour.
It was a repeat of the 2022 final, in which Swiatek beat Sakkari 6-4, 6-1. Sakkari hasn’t defeated the Polish star since 2021.
Swiatek hit 15 winners and had 11 unforced errors in the 1 hour, 8-minute match. Sakkari had eight winners and 18 unforced errors.
Interim tag gone for Diebler as Ohio St. men’s hoop coach
Ohio State removed the interim tag from men’s basketball coach Jake Diebler’s title on Sunday and announced he will receive a fiveyear contract.
Diebler, 37, was in his third year as associate head coach when he took over the team following Chris Holtmann’s firing on Feb. 14.
The Buckeyes (21-13) went 6-2 under Diebler, including a win over No. 2 Purdue in his first game as interim coach. They won five straight before losing to Illinois on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament.
Diebler, the first Ohio native in 35 years to be named men’s basketball head coach, is in his eighth season with the Buckeyes. He first worked with Ohio State basketball in 2014, spending three seasons as a video coordinator on Thad Matta’s staff. After three seasons as an assistant at Vanderbilt, he returned to Ohio State as an assistant coach under Holtmann before the 201920 season. He was promoted to associate head coach before the 202122 season.