Quick Hitters
Federer loses match and No. 1 ranking at Miami Open
KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. — Roger Federer lost his second consecutive match and the No. 1 ranking Saturday.
Big-serving Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis, a qualifier ranked 175th, rallied to upset Federer 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) at the Miami Open. The 36-year-old Federer had been the oldest No. 1 man ever, but he’ll lose that spot to Rafael Nadal when the new rankings come out April 2.
“I deserve it after this match,” Federer said. “That’s how I feel.”
Kokkinakis became the lowestranked man to beat a No. 1 player since No. 178 Francisco Clavet upset Lleyton Hewitt in 2003. That upset was also at Key Biscayne.
“Pretty crazy,” said Kokkinakis, 21. “I’m pretty happy about it.”
Federer now has lost back-toback matches for the first time since 2014, a dip that comes after a career-best 17-0 start to the year. He lost to Juan Martin del Potro in the Indian Wells final Sunday, a defeat that also came down to a winner-take-all tiebreaker.
Red Sox ace Sale hit by liner, expects to be OK for opener
FORT MYERS, Fla. — This was not the sight the Boston Red Sox envisioned in Chris Sale’s final spring training tuneup: Their ace crumpled on the ground, knocked off the mound by a line drive.
Sale quickly got up, flexed his leg a few times and walked off the field under his own power Saturday. The AL East champions called it a bruised left hip, and Sale said the injury wasn’t serious and wouldn’t jeopardize his opening day start Thursday at Tampa Bay.
“I don’t see anything lingering from this,” Sale said. “Looked a lot worse than it really is.”
Sale was struck by a liner off the bat of Houston’s J.D. Davis in the first inning. A day earlier, San Francisco ace Madison Bumgarner sustained a broken pitching hand when he was hit a line drive and will miss at least a month. X-rays were negative. “When it first hit me, it kind of got me in the hip, but got the nerve. So it shot all the way down to my foot. So, that’s what kind of made me worried,” he said. “I was telling them when I was out there, ‘Give me a minute. It’ll come back. I’ll be fine.’ They didn’t want to wait, so came in here, got it evaluated, looked at, figured out nothing series, just a bruise.”
“It kind of just shocked me more than anything, that initial blow,” he said.