Shapovalov rebounds in Ohio after slow start
Canada’s Denis Shapovalov advanced Tuesday at the Cincinnati Masters.
The No. 34-ranked Canadian came from behind to beat Portugal’s Joao Sousa 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the first round.
Shapovalov enjoyed a decided edge by pounding 28 winners to Sousa’s seven. However, Shapovalov made 31 unforced errors. The Richmond Hill, Ont., native will play Lucas Pouille on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka edged Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (4) in a roller-coaster match.
Dimitrov clawed back from a double break down in the decider to level at 5-5 and after Wawrinka broke again, Dimitrov forced the tiebreak. The Swiss surged into a 4-0 lead, but Dimitrov rallied once more before Wawrinka closed out the match with an ace.
As well, American Frances Tiafoe beat Frenchman Gael Monfils 7-6 (7) 6-3.
On the women’s side, Estonian Anett Kontaveit ousted German 13th seed Angelique Kerber 7-6 (7), 6-2.
She broke Kerber twice to win the second set, winning the first nine points, and two holds to love gave her a 4-0 lead.
Swiss 12th seed Belinda Bencic retired with a foot injury after trailing former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-4, 1-0.
Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova, Zheng Saisai of China and Croatia’s Donna Vekic were among the other early winners.
Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and his Grammy Award-winning wife Ciara have become part-owners of MLS’S Seattle Sounders, they said on Tuesday, adding their names to the star-studded ownership group.
The Sounders won the MLS Cup in 2016 and led the league in attendance for eight consecutive seasons from 2009 to 2016 while playing at Centurylink Field, which is also home to the Seahawks.
The move is the latest effort by Wilson to get involved in professional sports ownership in the region. The newly announced group of investors is led by former Microsoft executive Terry Myerson and his wife Katie Myerson and includes Seattle-bred hip-hop artist Macklemore and his wife.
Adrian Hanauer is the majority owner of the team.
Cricket is set to return to the Commonwealth Games after a 24-year absence with organizers confirming on Tuesday that the program for the 2022 event in Birmingham, England would include a women’s Twenty20 tournament.
The T20 event is one of three new events added to the next edition of the games, alongside beach volleyball and para table tennis, but there was no room on the schedule for shooting.
Eight teams will take part in the game’s shortest format, which will be held at Edgbaston, boosting the total number of medal events for women at Birmingham 2022 to 135, two more events than those for men in a first for a major multisport event.
The International Cricket Council said in a statement the sport’s return to the Commonwealth Games was “a truly historic moment for women’s cricket and for the global cricket community.”
The 2022 Commonwealth Games will involve 4,500 athletes competing across 19 sports.
Tiger Woods arrived at the BMW Championship on Tuesday and announced “I feel good” after withdrawing from last week’s event due to injury.
“Feel a lot better than I felt last week,” Woods said via Golfweek. com. “Felt good this morning, so I thought I’d give it a go.”
Woods withdrew before the second round of the Northern Trust Friday, citing a “mild oblique strain that led to pain and stiffness.”
He struggled a day earlier, shooting an opening-round 4-over 75 in the first of three events of the season-ending Fedex Cup playoffs.
Woods, 43, dropped to 38th from 28th in the standings. The top 70 advanced to this week’s no-cut tournament at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago, but he has work to do to make the 30-man field for next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta.
Woods needs a solo 11th-place finish to advance.
Five-time PGA Tour champion Jonathan Byrd has turned to social media hoping to find a kidney donor for his mother.
“Her best possible option is to find a living donor with O -positive or O-negative blood type,” Byrd said in a video posted Monday on Twitter. “Up to this point, she’s had 12 friends and family come forward to donate their kidney, but unfortunately no one has been approved a match yet. This would greatly improve her quality of life.”
Byrd, 41, said his mother Jo is battling kidney disease. He lost his father Jim to brain cancer in 2009. His former caddie Chuck Hoersch died in 2012 from pancreatic cancer.