Rahm, Morikawa into Match Play’s final 16
Jon Rahm lost his match and still made it to the weekend. Scottie Scheffler needed only 14 holes to win his match against Matt Fitzpatrick, and then six more to beat him in a playoff.
The third full day in the Dell Technologies Match Play finally ended Friday in Austin, Texas, when Cal alum Collin Morikawa drove the green on a par-4, this one not nearly dramatic as his shot that won the PGA Championship but still effective in getting him through group play.
Sixteen players remain for the knockout stage that begins Saturday morning.
“Now it’s real,” Abraham Ancer said after beating Webb Simpson. “Now you’re for sure not advancing if you don’t win.”
Scheffler had to beat Fitzpatrick to have any chance, and that was the easy part in a 5-and-4 victory. They had to wait more than two hours for all the matches to go off before their playoff began. They matched birdies on No. 1, pars on the next three holes and birdies on the fifth. Scheffler finally won on the par-5 sixth when he holed a 6-foot putt after Fitzpatrick missed from about 15 feet.
Dustin Johnson, Kevin Kisner and Tyrrell Hatton were among five players who won all their matches.
⏩ Ben Martin shot 6-under-par 66 for the second day in a row for a two-stroke lead in the PGA Tour’s Puntacana (Dominican Republic) Championship.
Martin had four birdies in a late five-hole stretch, finishing his round on the front nine.
PGA Tour rookie Alex Smalley (65) was second at 10-under.
⏩ Nanna Koerstz Madsen shot 5-under 67 to improve to 11-under, good for a two-shot lead over Hye-Jin Choi and Lydia Ko in the LPGA Tour’s JTPC Classic in Carlsbad (San Diego County). Tennis: Iga Swiatek beat Viktorija Golubic 6-2, 6-0 in the second round of the Miami Open, with the win assuring Swiatek that she will succeed recently retired Ash Barty atop the rankings. Swiatek will be the first Polish player to be No. 1.
On the men’s side, two seeded American men were ousted as No. 16 Reilly Opelka retired from his match against Francisco Cerundolo with a shoulder injur, and Hugo Gaston knocked out No. 20 John Isner 7-6 (5), 6-4.
Sports: Utah lawmakers voted to override Gov. Spencer Cox’s veto of legislation banning transgender youth athletes from playing on girls teams.
Before the veto, the ban received support from a majority of Utah lawmakers, but fell short of the two-thirds needed to override it. Its sponsors flipped 10 Republicans in the House and five in the Senate who had previously voted against the proposal.
Figure skating: Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto won the gold medal at the world championships in Montpelier, France, finishing the women’s free skate with 236.09 points. Belgium’s Loena Hendrickx (217.70) was second and Richmond native Alysa Liu (211.19) vaulted over American teammate Mariah Bell to take bronze.
Soccer: Mohamed Salah’s goal gave Egypt a 1-0 victory over Senegal in the first leg of their World Cup playoff . ... In other World Cup first-leg matches in Africa, Algeria beat Cameroon 1-0, Tunisia topped Mali 1-0 and the Ghana-Nigeria and Congo-Morocco matches ended in 0-0 and 1-1 ties, respectively.