Fernandez loses opening match, Raonic withdraws with injury
ROUGH WEEKEND FOR CANADIAN PLAYERS AT CALIFORNIA TENNIS TOURNAMENT
It was a tough Saturday for Canadian tennis players at the BNP Paribas Open.
Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., lost 7-5, 5-7, 6-2 in her women’s singles opener to 21-year-old underdog Diane Parry of France, while Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., withdrew from his men’s single match with ninth-seeded Holger Rune due to injury.
Fernandez, seeded 29th in the WTA 1000 tourney, battled against Parry, but could never catch up with her rival’s serve or aggressive return game.
Fernandez had six aces compared to Parry’s two in the two hour, 57-minute match. Parry had 10 double faults but did well with limiting her unforced errors.
Fernandez was the lone Canadian woman competing at Indian Wells, Calif., in singles.
Raonic benefited in the first round when Rafael Nadal withdrew with an injury and instead played Sumit Nagal, which Raonic won easily.
All three tournaments that the 33-year-old Raonic has played in this year have ended with injuries.
He retired in the first round of the Australian Open and in the quarterfinals of Rotterdam.
In women’s doubles action, Gabriela Dabrowski of Ottawa and her partner Erin Routliffe of New Zealand only needed 57 minutes to beat Alexandra Panova of Russia and Cristina Bucsa of Moldova 6-0, 6-3.
Max Verstappen stayed firmly on course for another season of dominance in Formula One on Saturday by winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Even after just two races, and despite turmoil at Red Bull, Verstappen seems in near-total control on the track as he aims for a fourth consecutive title this year. Still, he had to share the attention with 18-year-old Oliver Bearman, who was a surprise seventh in his first F1 race as a Ferrari stand-in.
“A fantastic weekend for the whole team and also for myself. I felt really good with the car,” Verstappen said.
The Dutch driver won easily ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez by 8.6 seconds on the road, 13.6 once a time penalty for Perez was factored in. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was third.
“It was a bit of a boring race because Red Bull were a bit too quick and behind we had a bit of a gap, but we took the maximum points we could today,” Leclerc said.
The only interruption came when Montreal’s Lance Stroll’s crash brought out the safety car.
Verstappen has won nine races in a row going back to last season, and 19 of the last 20 races in total. The next race in Australia on March 24 offers him the chance to match his own record of 10 consecutive wins, set last year.
Oscar Piastri took fourth for Mclaren, with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso fifth and George Russell sixth for Mercedes.
Canada’s Melissa Humana-paredes and Brandie Wilkerson are taking home the silver medal at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour.
The pair fell in the final of their first Elite 16 tournament of the year after losing 0-2 (18-21,18-21) to Brazil’s
Barbara Seixas and Carol Salgado.
Humana-paredes and Wilkerson beat Brazil’s Eduarda Santos Lisboa and Ana Patricia Ramos in the quarterfinals before overcoming Anastasija Samoilova and Tina Graudina of Latvia 2-1 to advance past the semifinals.
The American team of Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes took home the bronze medal. Humana-paredes and Wilkerson, both of Toronto, are in a comfortable spot to qualify for the 2024 Olympics.
Mikaela Shiffrin made a triumphant return to the alpine skiing World Cup after a six-week injury layoff Sunday, dominating the season’s penultimate slalom for career win 96 and locking up her record-equalling eighth season title in the discipline.
Racing for the first time since hurting her left knee in a downhill crash in Italy, the American star posted the fastest times in both runs to beat Croatian prodigy Zrinka Ljutic by a massive 1.24 seconds and third-placed Michelle Gisin of Switzerland
by 1.34.
“It was so nice to race again today and some nerves and all the emotions that I hoped to feel,” Shiffrin said. “Really proud of my team, and for sure proud of myself to get back here and show the skiing. The second run was some of my best skiing. I am just so happy to be able to do that again this season.”
Shiffrin had been out since she sprained the MCL and tibiofibular ligament in her knee in January, while also still recovering from a bone bruise she had sustained at the start of the season.
With her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova out for the season after knee surgery, the American’s only remaining challenger for the slalom season title was Lena Duerr.
The German skier had to win both Sunday’s race and the season-ending slalom at the World Cup finals in Austria next weekend to stay in contention, but finished fourth, 1.35 behind Shiffrin.
It’s Shiffrin’s eighth season title in slalom, making her the fourth skier to win eight crystal globes — the traditional prize in alpine skiing — in a single classification.