Pagenaud uses caution to advantage
Wins IndyCar race in Phoenix after others caught on pit road
Simon Pagenaud took advantage of a caution flag that caught the other leaders on pit road to win the Verizon IndyCar race Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway.
The defending series champion grabbed the lead when Team Penske teammate Will Power pitted on the 137th lap, and the caution came out seconds later when Takuma Sato hit the wall in the fourth turn.
Pagenaud not only ended up with the lead, but had a number of lapped cars between himself and the other four lead-lap cars. Power cut Pagenaud’s 13-second lead to 3 with 40 laps to go before the Frenchman pulled away to win by over 9 seconds. Pagenaud raced to his 10th career victory and the first on an oval, and gave Team Penske its record-extending 189th series victory.
Kyle Larson took the lead with only a handful of laps to go when race leader Ty Dillon jumped a restart and won the NASCAR Xfinity race in overtime at Richmond International Raceway.
Tennis
Maria Sharapova’s first tournament since her controversial return to tennis is over after losing to Kristina Mladenovic of France in the Porsche Grand Prix semifinals in Germany. Mladenovic beat former topranked Sharapova 3-6, 7-5, 6-4. Mladenovic next plays the winner of the other semifinal between fourthseeded Simona Halep and last year’s runner-up, Laura Siegemund.
Dominic Thiem upset top-ranked Andy Murray 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 to advance to the final against defending champion Rafael Nadal at the Barcelona Open. Nadal beat Horacio Zeballos of Argentina 6-3, 6-4 after the fourth-seeded Thiem dispatched with Murray.
Boxing
Anthony Joshua survived the first knockdown of his young career, coming back to drop Wladimir Klitschko twice before stopping him in the 11th round to retain his heavyweight titles in London.
Beach volleyball
The AVP said it has reached an agreement with “practically all the players” on a contract that will carry it through the 2020 Summer Games, even as a holdout by five-time Olympian an Santa Clara product Kerri Walsh Jennings threatens to deprive the domestic beach volleyball tour of its biggest name.
Golf
Swede Jonas Blixt and Australian Cameron Smith prolonged their bogey-free run to three rounds in the new team format at the Zurich Classic, deftly adjusting to gusting winds and posting a 4-under 68 to widen their lead to four strokes. The Blixt-Cameron partnership posted four birdies to improve to 19-under.
Haru Nomura of Japan shot a 1-over 72 on another windy day on the LPGA Tour in North Texas to extend her lead through three rounds despite a late double bogey. Nomura was at 8-under 205 at the end of play. She was two strokes ahead of 17year-old amateur Eun Jeong Seong (69), Cristie Kerr (70) and two-time Texas winner Inbee Park (71).
Soccer
Joe Bendik only had to make one save to earn his third shutout as Orlando City beat the Colorado Rapids 2-0 . ... Cristian Techera scored in the 80th minute and the Vancouver Whitecaps beat the Montreal Impact 2-1 . ... Tim Melia posted his fifth shutout as Sporting Kansas City beat Real Salt Lake 2-0 . ... Tesho Akindele scored his first goal in the 80th minute and FC Dallas rallied twice to tie the Portland Timbers 22 in a battle of the top two Western Conference teams. ... Osvaldo Alonso scored Seattle’s third goal in a 13minute stretch to help the Sounders for a 3-3 draw with New England . ... Brian Rowe had two saves and the Los Angeles Galaxy played Philadelphia to a 0-0 draw.